20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp

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

🗓️ 27 January 2017

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ted Blosser is the founder and CEO of WorkRamp, the startup that is transforming how the best companies like PayPal, Twilio, and Optimizely train and develop their employees. They are backed by top investors like Initialized Capital, Susa Ventures, Liquid2, and Slack, in addition to prominent angels like Elad Gil, Adrian Aoun, Semil Shah, and Charlie Songhurst. As for Ted, he is a Y Combinator Alumni and was an early employee at the enterprise powerhouse, Box.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Ted made the move from early employee at Box to founding WorkRamp?

2.) What were the big takeaways for Ted from seeing the rocketship growth of Box? How has he applied them to starting WorkRamp?

3.) Ted has previously said, 'you should build your investor team like a sports team'. What does Ted mean by this? How did this affect what he looked for in his investors? What does Ted advise other founders when it comes to VC selection?

4.) How does Ted view the short term and the long term value add of investors? How does Ted look to leverage their abilities and connections and get the most out of having them on board?

5.) Taking a step back, many VCs want product market fit, how does Ted assess product market fit? What have been his learnings from YC that shape his attitude to PMF?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Ted’s Fave Book: The Last Lecture

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC, Ted 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	This is the 20 minute VC with your host, Harry Stebbings, and you can add me on Snapchat
0:03.7	at H. Stebbings with 2Bs. All ads do get a personal response from me, and I so love to see you there.
0:09.1	And you can also find me writing some more academic thoughts on the appropriately named MahitoVC.com.
0:14.1	However, to the very special Founders Friday that we have in store for you today.
0:17.5	You might remember we had Alexis O'Hanian and Gary Tan at Initialized Capital
0:21.4	on the show a couple of weeks ago, and Alexis mentioned their most recent investment in a company
0:25.7	called WorkRamp. Well, today I'm delighted to be joined by Charlie Blosser, the founder and
0:29.9	CEO of WorkRamp, the startup that's transforming how the best companies like PayPal, Twilio,
0:35.1	and optimisely train and develop their employees. They're backed by
0:38.4	top investors like initialised capital, our friends at Souza Ventures, Liquid 2 and Slack, in addition to
0:44.6	prominent angels like Elad Gill, Adrian Aoun, Semmel Shah and Charlie Songhurst. As for Ted, he's also
0:51.0	a Y Combinator alumni and was an early employee at the Enterprise Powerhouse
0:55.1	that is Box. I do also have to say a huge thank you to Alexis and Gary for the intro to Ted,
0:59.6	without which the episode would not have been possible. But before we dive into the show's day,
1:03.2	it is January, so it's not too late for a New Year's resolution, and one of mine is sleeping more,
1:07.8	and that's where the Simba Hybrid comes in. It's the most advanced mattress in the world, with a unique combination of 2,500 conical pocket springs and responsive
1:16.1	memory foam. It offers the perfect support for two people, a mattress that responds to you
1:20.3	and your partner's sleeping patterns, delivered for free with a 100-night sleep trial, free
1:24.9	returns and a 10-year guarantee, there's nothing to lose.
1:27.7	So start your free trial at cimbarsleep.com.
1:30.4	Another target of mine for the new year is productivity, and there's no better for that than
1:33.8	Serious Insight, the plugin for sales pros who use Gmail and Outlook.
	...

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