20VC: Why You Should Not Invest From Patterns, Why No Good Business Was Built As An Analogy Of Another & Why The Rise Of The 'Celebrity Investor' Is Concerning with Emily Melton, Partner @ DFJ
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 11 January 2017
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Emily Melton is partner at DFJ, where she focuses on consumer and mobile technology, as well as healthcare technologies and marketplaces. Emily has made investments in the likes of BetterUp, Elation Health, Livongo, Redfin, Shift, and Wellframe. Early in Emily's career, she sourced investments in Box (NYSE: BOX), Meebo (Google), Kudo (Google), RichRelevance, and Flux (MTV Networks). She was also an advisor to Pulse Network (LinkedIn), Healthtap, and Poshmark.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Emily made her way into the wonderful world of VC following her meeting with Tim Draper?
2.) How does Emily view the importance of pattern recognition? Why does Emily believe that you should not invest from patterns? What is the difference between a pattern and an investing fad?
3.) Why does Emily hate analogies? Why does she believe it is simplistic thinking? How can this be mitigated for startup founders in describing their company?
4.) How does Emily view the portfolio approach to risk in venture? What questions need to be asked to determine the potential outcome of the business?
5.) Why does Emily get concerned by the rise of the 'celebrity investor'? How can investors build their brand in the proliferated world of early stage startup investing?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Emily’s Fave Book: Mindset by Carol Dweck, A Theory of Justice by John Rawls
Emily’s Most Recent Investment: BetterUp
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome back to the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, at H. Stebbings on the old Snapchat, |
| 0:05.2 | and writing some hopefully wise and intellectual pieces nowadays on the appropriately named MahitoVC.com. |
| 0:10.8 | However, to the show stay, and I'm thrilled to return to our feature of one of the most prestigious |
| 0:14.4 | funds of the last decade, DFJ. |
| 0:16.8 | Following our episode with Josh on Monday, I'm thrilled to welcome Emily Melton to the show |
| 0:20.7 | stay. Following our episode with Josh on Monday, I'm thrilled to welcome Emily Melton to the show today. |
| 0:21.2 | Emily is a partner at DFJ, where she focuses on consumer and mobile technology, as well as healthcare technologies and marketplaces. |
| 0:28.0 | Emily's made investments in the likes of Better Up, Elation Health, Livongo, Redfin, Shift and Wellframe, just to name a few. |
| 0:34.7 | And early in Emily's career, she sourced investments in the likes of Box, Meebo and Kudo acquired by Google, rich relevance, and Flux, acquired by MTV. She was |
| 0:43.1 | also an advisor to Pulse Network, acquired by LinkedIn, HealthTap, and Poshmark, who I'm delighted |
| 0:48.3 | to say will be on the show next Friday. I also want to say a huge thank you to previous guest, Karan Nortment, at Upfront Ventures, for the intro to Emily today, without which the episode would not have been possible. |
| 0:57.4 | However, before we return to the world of DFGA and meet Emily, you heard about my newfound love of writing there on MahitoVC.com. |
| 1:03.7 | Well, I also have a newfound commitment to sleep more this new year, 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 |
| 1:13.6 | pocket springs and responsive memory foam. |
| 1:16.0 | It offers the perfect support for two people, a mattress that responds to you and your partner's |
| 1:20.3 | sleeping patterns, delivered for free with a 100-night sleep trial, free returns, and a 10-year |
| 1:25.0 | guarantee. |
| 1:25.8 | So where's the risk? |
| 1:26.8 | Simply start your free trial at |
| 1:28.3 | SimbaSleep.com. Another target of mine for the new year is productivity, and there's no better for |
| 1:32.7 | that than Sirius Insight. It's the plugin for sales pros who use Gmail and Outlook. It automatically |
| 1:37.5 | updates activities in Salesforce, so you don't have to. And it was named number 41 on the Inc 500 |
... |
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