20VC: Why Venture Fund Life Cycles Do Not Align To Companies Today, Actionable Strategies To Separate Good From Great When Assessing and Hiring Multiple Candidates & Why We Need More Adventure in Venture Capital with Blake Scholl, Founder & CEO @ Boom Sup
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 10 April 2020
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Blake Scholl is the Founder & CEO @ Boom Supersonic, the world's fastest commercial aeroplane, aspiring to bring back supersonic passenger flight at an affordable price. To date, Blake has raised over $166M in funding with Boom from the likes of Paul Graham, Sam Altman, Ray Tonsing @ Caffeinated Capital, Homebrew and 8VC to name a few who have featured on the show in the past. Prior to changing the world of commercial flight, Blake started his career with a 5-year stint at Amazon as a Manager of Social Networks and Automated Advertising. Blake then went on to found his own company, Kima Labs, acquired by Groupon in 2012 where he then spent 2 further years before founding Boom.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Blake made the move from Groupon to changing the way we think about commercial travel today with Boom Supersonic?
2.) How was the fundraising process for Blake given he was raising for supersonic jets? What is his most memorable fundraising moment? Where does Balek believe investors provide outsized value? Where could the investing class improve? How should the fund structures today change?
3.) What deliberate choices and decisions has Blake made to find and acquire the best talent? What is Blake's favourite interview question? What works? What does not work? What specific elements has Blake built into the culture at Boom to build operational excellence?
4.) How has Blake seen himself evolve and develop as a leader over the last few years? What have been the most challenging elements to develop and scale? How does Blake feel on whether founders should have experience on the industry they are entering or if there are benefits of not having so?
5.) What would Blake really like to change about the world of tech and Silicon Valley today? How does Blake feel about the current level of both innovation and founder ambitions? What can be further done to foster this in the coming years?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Blake’s Fave Book: Atlas Shrugged
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Blake and on Twitter here!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We are back. This is the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and I'd love to hear your feedback on the show, |
| 0:04.3 | and you can reach me directly on Instagram at H. Stebbings, 1996 with 2Bs, and I really do love to see you there. |
| 0:10.0 | However, to the show today, and I've wanted to do this episode for a long time, particularly because |
| 0:13.9 | this company is just so cool, and I've heard so many good things about their incredible founder and I'm delighted to welcome him to the hot seat today. And so with that, thrilled to welcome Blake Scholl, found and CEO at Boom Supersonic, the world's |
| 0:25.3 | fastest commercial airplane aspiring to bring back Supersonic Passenger Flight at an affordable |
| 0:30.4 | price. To date, Blake has raised over $166 million in funding with Boom from the lights of |
| 0:35.7 | Paul Graham, Sam Altman, Ray Tonting at Caffinated Capital, homebrew and a dear friend of mine in Josh Buckley, to name |
| 0:41.6 | a few, who featured on the show in the past as well. Prior to changing the world of commercial |
| 0:45.4 | flight, Blake started his career with a five-year stint at Amazon as a manager of social |
| 0:49.5 | networks and automated advertising. Blake then went on to found his own company, Kema Labs, acquired by Groupon in 2012, |
| 0:56.0 | where he then spent two further years before founding Boom. |
| 0:58.7 | I'd also have to say huge thank you to Josh Buckley and to Ray at Caffanated for some |
| 1:02.5 | amazing questions suggestions today. |
| 1:04.2 | I really do so appreciate that, Chaps. |
| 1:06.2 | But before we move into the show today, I'm sure you've heard about it, but my word, |
| 1:09.6 | this is a product I love, |
| 1:11.0 | Carter. Carter simplifies how startups and investors manage equity, track cap tables and get |
| 1:16.2 | valuations. Go to carter.com forward slash two zero VC to get 10% off. More than 800,000 employees |
| 1:23.3 | and shareholders use Carter to manage hundreds of billions of dollars in equity, and Carter now |
| 1:27.9 | offers fund administration. So you can see real-time data in the Carter platform and work with Carter's |
| 1:33.0 | team of experienced fund accountants. Simply go to carter.com forward slash 20VC to get 10% off. |
| 1:39.5 | And speaking of managing the admin of those employee equity packages, well, do you already have a job? On Wanted, |
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