20VC: Why Valley Investors Are Really Gamblers, Why The Business Model of Selling To The Biggest Sucker Is Wrong & Why The Best Potential Hires Don't Care Who Your VC is with David Barrett, Founder & CEO @ Expensify

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The Twenty Minute VC

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

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2017

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

David Barrett is the Founder & CEO @ Expensify, the startup relieving the world’s frustrations, one expense report at a time. With 35,000 companies and more than 5 million users, David has raised close to $30m from the likes of Redpoint, OpenView, Travis Kalanick, Baseline and SV Angel. However, David certainly does not have traditional views on funding, something we very much touch on in the interview today! Prior to Expensify, David built a peer-to-peer file transfer technology called Red Swoosh with Uber's Travis Kalanick, which was acquired by Akamai in 2007.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How David went from founding Red Swoosh with Travis Kalanick to changing the sexy world of expense reporting with Expensify?

2.) Why does David want to change the cult of the second time entrepreneur? Why does David believe that Silicon Valley fundamentally changes exits in the wrong way? How does David define true operational success?

3.) Why does David believe that Silicon Valley investors are not investors but gamblers? Why does David believe that the business model VCs have created is not only not optimal for founders but poor business practice with "profit" being a dirty word?

4.) What does David believe are the fundamental benefits of capital constraints? How does having financial independence influence your stance when speaking with investors? When does the decision of financially lean or VC backed need to be taken?

5.) Why does David believe the more hiring you do, the more problems you have? What are the core issues of revenue being tied to headcount growth? Why does David believe Silicon Valley is poor for hiring and you must look further afield?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

David’s Fave Book: Guns, Germs, and Steel, Enders Game

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

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

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Transcript

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0:00.0	We are back on the 20 minute VC with one of my favourite ever founders Fridays today. For me,
0:04.8	the best guess are always the contrarians, those that think and say differently to the conventional
0:09.3	commonly espoused wisdom. And that's certainly the case with our guest today. And so I'm
0:13.3	beyond excited to welcome David Barrett to the hot seat today. So David is the founder and CEO at
0:18.3	Expensify. The startup relieving the world's frustrations,
0:21.6	one expense report at a time. With 35,000 companies and more than 5 million users, David has
0:26.8	raised close to $30 million in funding from the likes of Red Point, Openview, Uber's Travis
0:31.8	Kalanick, Baseline and SV Angel. However, David certainly does not have traditional views on funding,
0:37.3	something that we really do dive into today in the interview. Prior to Expensify, However, David certainly does not have traditional views on funding, something that we
0:37.7	really do dive into today in the interview. Prior to Expensify, though, David built a peer-to-peer
0:42.4	file transfer technology called Red Swoosh with Uber's Travis Kalanick, which was acquired by
0:47.0	Akamai in 2007. I'd also want to say a huge thank you to Blake at Open View for the intro to
0:51.8	David's day, without which this episode would not have
0:54.3	been possible. But before we dive into the show today, in this profession, we all do a lot of
0:58.6	travel, and it was always a nightmare for me. My phone would die, I'd worry about lost cases,
1:03.1	the list goes on. And then I had Josh Udashkin from Raiden on the show. I bought one in the
1:07.4	cases after the episode, and it's genuinely changed the game for me. With a removable battery in two external USB ports, I never have to worry about a dead battery when travelling now.
1:16.3	It's also location aware with built-in Bluetooth, meaning you have this incredible digital passport from your Raiden.
1:21.8	It even has this self-wearing ability, so you ensure you never go over your allowance. So awesome and I'm absolutely in love with mine.
1:28.2	And if you're in the US, you can get yours on raiden.com. And if you use the promo code 20VC,
1:33.2	2.0 VC, you'll get a year of tablet plus membership from tablet hotels for free. And if you're in the UK,
1:38.9	you can head over to selfridges.com or farfetch.com. I really can't recommend it enough. And speaking of super high recommendations,
	...

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