20VC: Why Few Firms Are Doing True Early Stage Investing Today, Why Founders Should Spend Time with Analysts When Raising & The Rise of Pre-Empting Rounds and How To Know When To Engage vs Wait with Anna Khan, General Partner @ CRV

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

The Twenty Minute VC

Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 14 August 2020

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Anna Khan is a General Partner @ CRV, one of the pre-eminent firms of Silicon Valley stretching over what is now an incredible 18 funds. In their portfolio, they have the likes of Airtable, Doordash, Postman and PillPack to name a few. As for Anna, prior to joining CRV, she spent an incredible 6 years at Bessemer investing in the likes of Intercom, NewVoiceMedia, RainforestQA and Zylo. If that was not enough, Anna is also the Founder & CEO @ Launch X Ventures, offering female entrepreneurs an immersive opportunity to learn how to raise capital for their businesses.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Anna made her way into venture as an analyst with Bessemer and how that led to her scaling the venture ladder to now being GP @ CRV?

2.) How does Anna feel about the importance of analysts in venture? Should founders spend meaningful time with analysts? How should they determine which to spend time with? What were the biggest lessons Anna learned about venture and people from being an analyst at Bessemer?

3.) With the rise of rounds being pre-empted, how does Anna determine when to lean in and move on a deal vs when to wait? How does Anna determine when to stretch vs be disciplined on valuation? Why does Anna believe very few firms are "doing real early-stage investing" today?

4.) Why does Anna believe that there are so much fewer women in venture? How does Anna respond to the suggestion that it is a "pipeline problem"? How would Anna advise an all-white male partnership looking to truly change how they work? How does carry come into showing commitment?

5.) What advice does Anna give to people on developing your early network? Why does Anna believe VCs spending time with VCs is antithetical? How has Anna's investment decision-making process changed over the last 9 years? How does Bessemer's compare to CRV's?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Anna’s Fave Book: Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams

As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here!

Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back. This is the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and I'm very excited to welcome our guest today.
0:04.3	I've been a big fan of her writing for a while now, always a must-read for me, and so I'm delighted to welcome Anna Khan to the hot seat today.
0:10.5	Now, Anna is a general partner at CRV, one of the pre-eminent firms of Silicon Valley stretching over what is an incredible 18 funds. In their portfolio, they have the likes of air tables, Zendes, postman, DoorDash and
0:22.0	Pilpac, to name a few. As for Anna, prior to joining CRV, she spent an incredible six years at
0:26.7	Bessemer, investing in the likes of Intercom, New Voice Media, TSM and Zilo. If that wasn't enough,
0:32.4	Anna's also the founder and CEO at Launch X Ventures, offering female entrepreneurs an immersive
0:37.2	opportunity to learn how to raise
0:38.8	capital for their businesses. I'd also want to say a huge thank you to AnSaf at Lightspeed and
0:43.1	Murat, Isar and Christian at CRV, a true team effort here for some fantastic questions suggestions today.
0:48.6	I really do so appreciate that. But before we move into the show today, I'm sure you've heard about
0:52.9	it, but my word, there is a product that I love, Carter. Carter simplifies how startups and investors manage their equity,
0:59.2	track camp tables and get valuations. Go to carter.com forward slash 20 VC to get 10% off. More than
1:05.7	800,000 employees and shareholders. Use Carter to manage hundreds of billions of dollars in
1:10.4	equity, and Carter now offers fund of billions of dollars in equity,
1:15.8	and Carter now offers fund administration so you can see real-time data in the Carter platform and work with Carter's team of experienced fund accountants. Again, that's go to carter.com
1:20.3	forward slash 20 VC to get 10% off. And speaking of amazing products, if you've been listening
1:25.2	to 20 VC before, you've probably heard of Brax,
1:27.9	the first corporate card for startups with no personal guarantee or credit check,
1:32.2	up to 20 times higher credit limits than traditional cards, plus rewards like 3x on eligible Apple products,
1:37.7	so helpful for me with the rate I go through AirPods, and 7x points on tools like Zoom and Slack.
1:43.0	And Brax has helped thousands of companies scale faster to reach their full potential as a result.
1:47.7	This month, they're giving our listeners a very special offer.
	...

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