The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Carlos Delatorre is one of the legendary go-to-market leaders of the last 20 years. Today, Carlos is the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at Harness, where he oversees global sales and go-to-market (GTM) operations. Before Harness, Carlos was the CRO @ MongoDB and Navan. Carlos is also an investor with a portfolio including the likes of Modern Treasury and Starburst to name a few.  In Today’s Sales Masterclass We Discuss: 03:48 The Art and Science of Sales 04:42 How to Hire Sales Talent 06:26 How to Build a Sales Team 15:28 Why Every Sales Rep Should do Pipeline Generation  19:45 How the Best Reps to Pipeline Generation 21:34 Biggest challenges of Pipeline Generation 22:44 Pipeline Generation Success Stories 34:59 Sales Metrics and Conversion Rates 35:32 Customer Acquisition Strategies 37:17 Evaluating Sales Performance 39:14 Effective Sales Training 43:10 Pipeline Generation and Deal Reviews 45:05 Maintaining Sales Team Morale 46:20 Verticalized Sales Playbooks 48:37 Addressing SaaS Churn Rates 49:49 Discounting and Deal Slippage 52:02 Transitioning to CEO Role 54:15 Hiring Mistakes and Sales Rep Evolution 57:03 In-Person vs. Remote Sales Teams 57:55 Account Management Strategies 01:02:47 Creative Sales Tactics 01:04:12 Final Advice for Sales Leaders 01:04:46 Adapting Sales Strategies During Crisis

George Sivulka is the founder and CEO of Hebbia, is one of the fastest-growing gen AI companies and they recently raised a $130M series B. Investors include the company include hailed names such as a16z, Peter Thiel, Index, GV and others.  In Today’s Episode with George Sivulka We Discuss: 04:47 Three Traits The Best Founders All Share? 08:11 How Cold Calling NASA Changed My Life 12:01 From Stealing Food From Stanford to Pitching Peter Thiel 17:22 Lessons working with Peter Thiel 26:39 The Future of AI and Business Applications 33:03 The Future of Employment with AI 33:45 Debunking the Myths of AI Job Displacement 35:09 The Future of Models: Many specialised or few generalised? 35:56 Scaling at Inference: A New Frontier 38:10 The Impact of Scaling Laws on Foundation Models 40:40 The Future of AI and Enterprise Value 43:43 The Geopolitical Influence on AI 45:03 The Commoditization of AI Models 47:47 Why Foundation Models Will Not Follow the Same Path of Cloud 52:53 Why All Companies, Both AI and Non-AI Are Undervalued

Hussein Kanji is the Founder and Managing Partner of Hoxton Ventures, one of Europe’s leading early-stage firms with mega wins in the form of Darktrace and Deliveroo. Hussein cut his teeth in venture at Accel Partners in his early years.  In Today’s Episode with Hussein Kanji We Discuss: 1. How to Raise a Fund:  * What are Hussein’s biggest lessons from his first fund taking 39 months to raise? * Why does Hussein believe you should fundraise for a set amount of time and not to achieve a certain amount of capital? * Does Hussein believe governments should be investing in venture funds? * What are the biggest mistakes Hussein sees emerging managers make when raising? 2. How to 10x a Fund: * What is Hussein’s formula for knowing when to sell an investment? * How did Hussein miss out on making $400M in Darktrace? What did he learn from it?  * How much money did Hoxton make from Deliveroo? How did doing 37x on Deliveroo impact how Hussein invests today? 3. How to Build a Team in Venture: * Why does Hussein believe the incentive mechanism for young VCs is broken? Why do they just want to get cash out the door and not worry about quality? * Why is it hard to hire female partners today? What needs to happen for this to change? * What are the single biggest ways that venture partnerships break down? What went wrong between Hussein and his partner, Rob? 4. Is Europe Totally F*******: * Why does Hussein believe small seed rounds are a massive problem in the UK? * Why does Hussein believe the dire state of the London Stock Exchange is not a problem? * Why does Hussein advise companies that the best way to scale is in the US? * What advice would Hussein give to Keir Starmer on how to stimulate growth in the UK? * Why does AI mean that the UK can now compete with the US?

The story of Monday.com is insane, turned down by most VCs, then scaled from $6M to $120M ARR in just three years. Today the company is public with a market cap of $12BN. Joining us in the hotseat today is Monday's Co-Founder and CEO, Eran Zinman.  In Today's Episode with Eran Zinman We Discuss: 03:03 The Role of Video Games in Founders' Success 04:12 The Fail That Taught a $10BN Founder Everything 09:40 Pivoting to a $12BN Company: How, When and Advice on Pivots 14:15 Why 99% of Investors Turned Monday Down: Fundraising Lessons 17:05 Building a Performance Marketing Engine 21:25 How to Scale ACV and Move Upmarket 28:54 What Have Been the Most Effective Marketing Strategies 29:08 How Have Monday Been So Successful with Youtube Ads?  29:43 Biggest Challenges and Lessons in Channel Spend 30:50 Building a Multi-Product Strategy: The Rise of Monday CRM 34:37 Competing in the SaaS Market: Is Competition Good? 39:30 The IPO Journey: Why Then? Pros and Cons of Being Public? 42:38 How a Co-CEO Structure Works 43:55 How to Manage a Board 45:04 Quick-Fire Q&A

Victor Riparbelli is the CEO and Co-founder of Synthesia, the world’s leading AI video communications platform for enterprises. To date, Victor has raised over $250M from Accel, GV, NEA, and more. More than 1,000,000 users and 55,000 businesses, including 60% of the Fortune 100, use it to communicate efficiently and share knowledge at scale using AI avatars.  In Today’s Episode with Victor Riperbelli: 1. The Future of Models: * Are we seeing the commoditisation of models?  * Will scaling laws continue to prove out?  * How far into the application layer will model providers go? * Will we see a world of few large generalist models or many fragmented smaller models? * X.ai, Anthropic, or OpenAI? Which would Victor most want to invest in and why? 2. The Future of Content:  * What will the future of content look like? In 5 years time will we have more AI or human made content? * What will be the future of distribution for content? Why is TikTok the future for content distribution? * How does Victor think about the future of identity verification? What is the right approach? * What does everyone think will happen in the future with content that will never happen? 3. Startup Rules That are BS: * Why does Victor believe it is total BS to say you have to be the first to a market? * Why does Victor believe the speed of execution religion is BS? * Why does Victor believe that London and Europe is a great place to start a startup? * Does Victor believe Americans work harder than Europeans? Why does Victor believe Europeans are more loyal to their companies?