20VC: Why Warm Intros Are Mostly Dumb, Why Ownership is Built On First Check and 4 Crucial Elements To Make Cold Inbound Attractive with Leo Polovets, General Partner @ Susa Ventures

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The Twenty Minute VC

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

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2018

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Leo Polovets is a General Partner @ Susa Ventures, one of the valley's leading early-stage seed funds with a portfolio including the likes of Flexport, Robinhood, Lendup, Qadium, Rigetti, the list goes on. As for Leo, prior to joining the world of VC, he started his career as the second non-founding engineer at LinkedIn. After two years at LinkedIn, Leo spent 3 years at Google, largely working on real-time payment fraud detection. Finally, his last stop pre-Susa involved spending 4 years at Factual, a location data platform.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Leo made his way into the world of VC from being the 2nd non-founding engineer at LinkedIn?

2.) Why does Leo believe that the hailed "warm intro" is actually dumb? What are the biggest drawbacks to this being commonplace in our ecosystem? What does Leo believe the mindset of investors should be instead? How does Leo filter through cold inbound? What are the 4 elements Leo looks for in all inbound? What can founders do to really make them stand out?

3.) Leo has previously heavily emphasised the importance of moats, how does Leo define moats and defensibility? When do founders have to think about moat building? Pre-product? Pre-launch? Pre-scaling? What questions suggest that a founders mindset is heavily oriented to moat building? With the majority of incumbents being usurped by platform shifts, does that not render moats significantly futile in the long term?

4.) What does Leo believe is the right way for investors to pass on an opportunity and communicate that to founders? What is wrong with the current way many do it? How does Leo present his opinion without getting into an argument with the founder on reasoning? What feedback has Leo been given from founders that has changed the way he thinks about being an investor?

5.) Controversial capitals Round:

Ownerships is built on first check? Agree or disagree and why?
Whether it is a $6m, $8m or $12m, if it is at seed, it is so early that price really does not matter so much? Agree or disagree and why?
There is no point VCs spending their time with struggling companies in the portfolio. At best they return cents on the dollar. Only work with the outperformers to drive returns. Agree or disagree and why?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Leo’s Fave Book: Elad Gil's High Growth Handbook

Leo’s Most Recent Investment: Interviewing.io

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Leo 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. You are listening to The 20-minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings. I would love to see you behind
0:04.4	the scenes on Instagram at H. Stebbing's 1996 with two Bs. And there you can submit both questions and
0:10.2	guest suggestions for future episodes. However, to the show stay. And hopefully in everyone's career,
0:15.2	there'll be people that go out of their way to help you. Well, this is very much the case with today's guest and his partner, Chad.
0:21.1	They've done so much for me and I actually just feel very grateful for all their support.
0:24.8	My word, I'm getting soppy in my old age. But time for the big reveal, and I'm thrilled to
0:28.9	welcome Leo Polovets, general partner at Sousa Ventures to the Hot Seat.
0:32.6	Sousa, I really should not say this, but are one of my favourite seed funds in the Valley, with a portfolio including the lights of check this out. Flexport, Robin Hood, lend up cadium regetti. The list really
0:42.7	does go on. And as for Leo, prior to joining the world of VC, he started his career as the second
0:47.4	non-founding engineer at LinkedIn, and after two years at LinkedIn, Leo spent three years at Google,
0:52.3	largely working on real-time payment fraud detection.
0:55.0	Finally, his last stop presusa involves spending four years at Fatchel, a location data platform.
1:00.3	But before we dive into the show today, I want to talk a little bit about Hymns, a new wellness
1:04.4	brand for men. So although I look positively young enough to be Harry Potter in disguise,
1:09.0	doing three episodes a week is stressful. And did you know
1:11.7	66% of men lose their hair by aged 35? Ouch. And so you do not want a bald spot to pop up. Or do you
1:18.8	want to do something about it first and be proactive? In that case, head to 4hims.com, the one-stop shop
1:24.7	for hair loss, skincare and sexual wellness for men.
1:28.3	Why do I love it?
1:30.7	Well, there is no waiting room, awkward doctor visits.
1:33.9	It literally saves hours by going to forehems.com.
1:36.9	Plus, I'm busy and I don't really want to go to a store either.
	...

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