20VC: Why Great Companies are Defined by How Many Things They Say No To, Why Being First Does Not Matter & Why Market Over Traction or Team is the Most Important Thing with Guillermo Rauch, Founder & CEO @ Vercel

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

🗓️ 6 October 2023

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Guillermo Rauch is the Founder and CEO @ Vercel, giving developers the frameworks, workflows, and infrastructure to build a faster, more personalized Web. To date, Guillermo has raised $312M from Accel, Bedrock, Greenoaks, GV and more. Prior to founding Vercel, Guillermo co-founded LearnBoost and Cloudup where he served the company as CTO through its acquisition by Automattic in 2013.

In Today's Episode with Guillermo Rauch We Discuss:

1. From Argentina to SF: The Boy Making Money Online:

How did Guillermo first get into computers and start making money online?
Does Guillermo still believe the US and SF offers the same opportunities it did when he came?
Did Guillermo feel the weight of responsibility of providing for his family at a young age?

2. Timing, Markets and Narrative Violations:

Why does Guillermo believe it does not matter being first but being right?
Why does Guillermo believe the most important thing for a company is market selection?
Why does Guillermo believe it is crucial that founders and companies have "narrative violations"?

3. The Future of AI:

What model will win in the future; open or closed?
Where does the value accrue; startups or incumbents?
How will the SaaS business model change in a world of AI?

4. Silicon Valley's Most Successful Angel You Did Not Know:

What are some of Guillermo's biggest lessons from angel investing?
What is his single biggest miss? How has it changed how he thinks?
What have been his biggest hits? How did they impact how he thinks about what it takes to win?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You don't always have to be first. You have to be right. What makes a company good is how much
0:05.4	they reject over time. How many things they say no to. How many seemingly attractive on the
0:10.4	surface ideas they rule out. Ultimately, it's all about the market. It's all about people's
0:16.9	willingness to buy a certain thing that the term is winners and losers. I mean, wow, there are so many bangers in this episode. This is such a certain thing that determines winners and losers.
0:21.6	I mean, wow, there are so many bangers in this episode.
0:24.3	This is such a great show, and I wanted to do this one for a long time, having co-invested
0:27.9	with Guillermo before, and he's being one of the most successful but under the radar
0:31.6	angel investors in the valley.
0:33.3	And so with that, I'm thrilled to welcome Guillermo Rauch, founder and CEO at Vassell.
0:38.0	To date, Guillermo has raised $312 million for Vesel from the likes of Excel, Bedrock, Green Oaks, GVee, and more.
0:45.8	And prior to founding Vesel, Guillermo, and Cloud Up, where he served the company as CTO through its acquisition by Automatic in 2013. But before we dive into
0:56.0	the show today, we have to talk about Canva. Canva is on a mission to empower the world to design.
1:01.7	That is why they've introduced Magic Studio. Magic Studio brings together the best AI-powered
1:07.1	tools for you and your team to help you redefine the way you design. Magic design creates
1:12.8	custom designs for you in seconds. Just provide a text prompt or upload your media and Magic
1:18.7	Design Crafts professional social posts, presentations and even videos. And something that I in particular
1:24.5	really love is Magic Edit. It lets you add to replace or edit your images with a single text prompt.
1:31.5	It's incredible.
1:32.5	Simply select where you want to see the change, write your prompt, and watch as your image transforms.
1:37.9	With Canva, you can realize your ideas with ease.
1:41.1	Start inspired with over 500,000 free templates and a rich content library to help you
1:47.0	and your team achieve their goals, explore Magic Studio at canva.com forward slash magic,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Twenty Minute VC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Twenty Minute VC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.