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

20VC: Why VCs Are Wrong About Bootstrapped Founders, How Content Can Be Used As A Key Customer Acquisition Tool & How To Use Humour When "S*** Hits The Fan" with Jesse Genet, Founder & CEO @ Lumi

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

4.4637 Ratings

🗓️ 4 May 2018

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Jesse Genet is the Founder & CEO @ Lumi, the startup that is used by thousands of e-commerce companies to get world-class packaging at unbeatable prices. To date, Jesse has raised close to $10m in VC funding from some of the best in the business and old friends of the show including Satya @Homebrew, Kirsten @ Forerunner, Spark Capital, Lowercase, Ludlow and more incredible names. Prior to Lumi, Jesse founded Inkodye, a bootstrapped business that Jesse scaled to 7 figures in revenue and was sold in retail stores around the world.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Jesse made her way into the world of startups and VC having bootstrapped her prior business to 7 figures in revenue and being sold in 1,500 stores?

2.) Given that Lumi is Jesse's first VC backed business, does this make Jesse a first-time founder? How did the bootstrapping to 7 figures in revenue with her last business, influence her philosophy and mindset with Lumi? What has Jesse done differently as a result? What are the dangers that Jesse was aware of and looks out for?

3.) What types of companies does an active content strategy make significant sense for? What are the core benefits of a well-executed content strategy? What have been the core pillars to Jesse's success with content? Where does Jesse see many firms going wrong with their content strategy? How does Jesse look to measure the ROI from content?

4.) How was the fundraising experience for Jesse, given the "non-sexy" sector of packaging and supply chains? How did Jesse determine whether an investor was engaged or not? What does Jesse think she did well in the fundraising process? What would she like to improve for the next round? What is the common stereotype that VCs attribute to founders with bootstrapping experience?

5.) How does Jesse think about the benefits of her team being small vs her 10,000+ incumbent challenger teams? Why does this mean she has the advantage? How does Jesse manage the expectations of her employees when no one could do 1/10 of what Jesse does?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Jesse's Fave Book: Gone with the Wind

As always you can follow HarryThe Twenty Minute VC and Jesse on Twitter here!

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

We also speak about Movidiam - as brands turn to smarter ways of creating video and digital content, the Movidiam platform offers faster turnarounds whilst maintaining or improving quality. They’re already working with some of the biggest, most innovative companies to help compare teams and freelancers across the global curated network of creative talent. Producers and marketers looking for the best creatives can get a shortlist from Movidiam’s account managers in hours - tailored to their project’s needs. Submit a brief or check out the platform at Movidiam.com.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

You are listening to The 20 Minute VC with your host Harry Stebbings, and I would love to see you on

0:04.0

Instagram at H. Stebbing's 1996 with 2Bs, where you can see all things behind the scenes here at the

0:09.6

20 minute VC, which currently is mostly gym sessions and studio sessions. It would be very fun to see you

0:14.6

there. But speaking of fun, Rettley do I have as much fun on the show as I did with our guest today. Prior to the show, one of her investors

0:20.9

told me she had more energy than a nuclear reactor. So with that, I'm thrilled to welcome

0:25.4

Jesse Jenner, founder and CEO at Loomie, the startup that is used by thousands of e-commerce

0:30.3

companies to get world-class packaging at unbeatable prices. To date, Jesse's raised close to $10 million

0:36.3

in VC funding from some of the very best in the

0:38.9

business and old friends of the show, including Satya at Homebrew, Kirsten at Four Runner, the team at

0:43.9

Spark Capital, Lowercase, and Ludlow, just to name a few. And prior to Loomie, Jesse founded

0:49.0

Incadai, a bootstrap business that Jesse scaled to seven figures in revenue and was sold in retail stores around the world. I'd also have to say a huge thank you to Satya at Homebrew for the

0:58.3

intro to Jesse's day. It really does mean so much and I so appreciate that. But before our

1:03.1

episode today, brands are now turning to smarter ways of creating video and digital content to

1:07.9

fit new distribution channels, looking for faster turnarounds while

1:11.2

maintaining or improving the quality.

1:13.2

The Mavidium platform addresses that directly.

1:15.7

It's now simple for brands and agencies to connect with the very best creatives for their

1:20.0

projects.

1:20.7

Mavidium is already working with some of the biggest forward-thinking companies to save time

1:24.6

and cost by allowing comparison of the global network of curated creative

1:28.4

talent with a global network. They're well placed to continue to expand to take on the world's

1:32.8

content demand. Producers and marketers looking for the best creatives can get a shortlist from

...

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