20VC: WTF is Going On in VC? Are VCs Still Investing? How Has What VCs Want in Investments Changed? Are LPs Investing in New Funds? Why VCs That Invest in Public Markets Are Losers? Dec 2023; Will It Be Better Or Worse with Jason Lemkin

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

🗓️ 13 January 2023

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The question is: "are VCs still investing?". Today we are joined by Jason Lemkin; one of the OGs of SaaS of the last decade. As the Founder of SaaStr, he has inspired more SaaS founders than one can imagine building “The World’s Largest Community for Business Software.” Jason also invests out of the $100M SaaStr Fund and in the past Jason has led rounds into TalkDesk, Pipedrive, Algolia, Gorgias, Salesloft, and many more incredible companies. Prior to founding SaaStr, Jason was the Co-Founder of Echosign, an early e-signature business, funded by Emergence Capital and that was acquired by Adobe for $100M.

In Today's Episode on "Are VCs' Still Investing" We Discuss:

1. What Does it Take To Get Funded Today:

Early-Stage:

How has what VCs want in early-stage investments changed in this new environment?
Should startups prioritize growth? Profitability? Capital efficiency?
How long a runway is sufficient enough for founders to feel comfortable?
Why does Jason believe most founders are still deluded that they are fundable?

Growth Stage Companies:

Is the growth stage totally dead?
What will we see happen to all the companies that raised $50M+ at large valuations that have very little revenue?
Why does Jason believe that any operator who joined a $BN company in the past few years will not make any money on their equity? What should they do now?
Will we start to see down rounds and structured rounds at the growth stage? If so, when?

Public Markets:

Why does Jason believe this is a time unlike any he has seen before?
Are we in full recession now in Jason's mind? In Dec 2023, will this be better or worse?
Which are the most under-priced assets in the public markets today?
Why does Jason believe VCs investing in public markets are losers?

2. Micro Funds Will Be Decimated and LP Behaviour in 2023

Why does Jason believe that micro-funds in 2023 will be decimated and unable to raise new funds?
How will the majority of LPs approach new fund investments?
How will LPs approach re-investing in their existing managers? How has what they need to see changed?

3. Marketing and Sales: We Need To Change Budgets and Targets

How should CEOS be changing their marketing budgets in 2023?
What are the single biggest mistakes CEOs are making in this downturn with regard to their marketing budget?
How do sales targets need to be amended in the face of changing buying patterns?
How do the best sales and marketing leaders respond to these changing budgets and targets? How do the worst respond?

Transcript

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0:00.0	There's a lot of advice which is wait till the markets thaw.
0:02.8	It's not that simple, man. They're not coming back. They're not bouncing back to 2021.
0:07.2	They're not bouncing back to good times.
0:08.8	So this episode came about as I was having many discussions with founders and they really asked me a couple of questions.
0:14.5	Are VCs still investing? Should we delay our raise until later in the year of 2024?
0:20.0	How should we amend our sales targets and our
0:22.7	marketing plans in this new world? And I thought that would be no one better to discuss these
0:26.9	really hard questions than there always no BS, SAS OG and a long-time friend in the form of
0:32.1	Jason Lampkin. Now, this is a phenomenal off-the-cuff discussion between two friends. We had no
0:37.2	schedule. There have no schedule.
0:37.9	There is no intro.
0:39.0	There's no how you got into the wonderful world adventure.
0:41.2	I know you will love to hear that for the 3000th time.
0:44.0	And if you like this style of show, do let me know.
0:46.4	I so love your feedback.
0:48.0	You can do that on Twitter at Harry Stebbings.
0:50.4	But before we dive into the show's day, the single most important element of any team is their ability to work together in the best and most efficient way.
0:58.0	And Coda is the dog, where teams can work on entire projects from start to finish with everything they need, all in one place.
1:05.0	Think about the way your team works today.
1:07.0	If all the work is spread across different documents, spreadsheets, and a stack of
1:11.4	workflow tools like they are in all of my teams, it's tougher to focus on getting things done,
1:16.0	let alone getting them done together. And that's why I realized that I had to have Coda and
	...

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