20VC: Why YC Is The Exact Opposite of Proprietary Deal Flow, Why Having No Follow On Dramatically Aligns Incentives & Why Founders Do Not Have To Be Passionate About Their Idea From The Start with Michael Ma, Founding Partner @ Liquid 2 Ventures

Michael Ma is a Founding Partner @ Liquid 2 Ventures, one of San Francisco's younger and more exciting seed funds, also unique in having Hall of Fame quarter back, Joe Montana as another Founding Partner. Their portfolio includes the likes of previous guest, WorkRamp, NerdWallet, FanDuel and many more very exciting young companies. Prior to Liquid 2, Michael was the co-founder of TalkBin, a YC alum that later sold to Google and was an Investment Team Partner @ First Round's Dorm Room Fund. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How from Michael's parents arriving in the US with $300 Michael made his way into tech ended up in YC, selling his company to Google and ultimately being a VC with Liquid 2? 2.) Does Michael agree with the common suggestion that too much money is chasing too few deals at seed? How does Michael think raising now is different to when raising for Liquid 2? How did having Joe Montana as a founder affect the fundraise? 3.) How does Michael view the optimal decision making process? Does Michael believe in unanimity or conviction driven processes when investing with a partnership? How does this change for follow on? Why is it so important to have silver bullet deals in partnerships? 4.) Does Michael agree with the commonly stated assessment that with the scaling of YC the quality has reduced? How does Michael use his own YC experience to argue against this? How should investors be approaching YC today, in this structure? 5.) How does Michael view fund cycles when investing in such deep tech as he has? Are they too short? How does Michael look to scale the learning curve on new industries and transformational technology? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Michael’s Fave Book: Count of Monte Cristo Michael’s Fave Blog: TermSheet Michael’s Most Recent Investment: Vivid Vision As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Michael on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. WePay helps online platforms increase revenue through integrated payments processing, helping platforms offer ROI-positive integrated payments to their users – within their UX and without taking on fraud & regulatory exposure. WePay also offers award-winning support and can even work with your team thru Slack or Zendesk. Get the payments revenue you want, without getting bogged down every time a user has a payments question. Simply visitwepay.com/harry PipeDrive is the Sales CRM and pipeline management software to use, with the primary view being the pipeline a clear visual interface that prompts you to take action, remain organized and stay in control of a complex sales process. This is why sales pros and deal makers love it (my words, not Pipedrive’s). Plus it easily lets you find the stats you need and is fully customizable. Even better, you can signup for free on here it really is a must.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Harry Stebbings?

  This is the 20 Minute VC with your host Harry Stebbings at H Stebbings with two Bs on Snapchat and I'd love for you to join me there. Where if you add me today, you might even see a holiday snap or two. It'd be great to see you there, but to the show today. And as you know, we have guests that range from billion dollar growth funds to benchmarks of the world to the youngest and most exciting seed funds. And today's guest sits in the latter camp. So I'm thrilled to welcome Michael Marr, founding partner at Liquid 2 Ventures, to the hot seat today. Liquid 2 is one of San Francisco's younger and most exciting seed funds. Not sure if I'm allowed to say that, but let's go with it. Also unique in having Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana as another founding partner. Their portfolio includes the likes of previous guest WorkRamp, NerdWallet and FanDuel, just to name a few.

• 0:41Harry Stebbings?

  Prior to Liquid 2, Michael was the co-founder of TalkBin, a YC alum that later sold to Google. And he was also an investment team partner at First Round Storm Room Fund. I do also want to say a huge thank you to previous guest, MZ at Kleiner Perkins, for the intro to Michael's day, without which this episode would not have been possible. But before we dive into the show today, I want to tell you about WePay. WePay helps online platforms increase revenue through integrated payments processing. Constant Contact, Equid and GoFundMe use WePay. Why? Because WePay uniquely helps platforms offer ROI positive, integrated payments to their users within their UX and without taking on fraud and regulatory exposure. Others make you trade off between UX friction or fraud, not WePay. WePay also offers award winning support and can even work with your team through Slack or Zendesk.

• 1:26Harry Stebbings?

  Get the payments revenue you want without getting bogged down every time a user has a payments question. But don't trust me. Visit wepay.com/harry. Oh yes, I have my own URL for a video case study on how Equid creates revenue while better serving customers with WePay. That's wepay.com/harry. You'll also be made eligible for a year of free premium support on wepay.com/harry. And how could we forget Pipe Drive, something we use here every day at the 20 Minute VC to manage the pipeline for guests? Pipe Drive is the sales CRM and pipeline management software to use with the primary view being the pipeline, a clear visual interface that prompts you to take action, remain organized and stay in control of a complex sales process. This is why sales pros and deal makers love it. My words, not Pipe Drive's.

• 2:10Harry Stebbings?

  It easily lets you find the stats you need and even better, it's fully customizable. And if you're like me and don't like paying for products upfront without knowing how good they are, this is for you as you can sign up for free on pipedrive.com. It really is a must. But enough from me and I'm now thrilled to hand over the mic to Michael Ma, founding partner at Liquid Two Ventures.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  You have now arrived at your destination.

• 2:38Harry Stebbings?

  Michael, such a pleasure to have you on the show today. Huge thanks to MZ at Kleiner for the intro, but thank you so much for joining me today, Michael.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me. I mean, the quality of your guests are insanely impressive. So I'm honoured that you would put me in the same category.

• 2:50Harry Stebbings?

  Well, I think it's the terrible nerdy British accent that does it. But I'd love to get started today by discussing your start in the world of tech and how with parents starting as immigrants with $300 to you selling your company to Google as a YC alum, how did you make your way in?

• 3:05Speaker 02

  So I always like to start a little bit earlier than most people when I talk about my career because I just owe my parents so much. It's just even beyond the story of my dad and mom coming to the US with only $300. When growing up, they wanted the best educational opportunities. They're very Asian parents. They wanted my sister and I to get educational opportunities. Couldn't afford private school. So my parents actually rented a small apartment in Beverly Hills. Dad worked in Hong Kong because his English wasn't great just to support the family. And my mom slept on a soft, padded sofa bed for four years. And things ended up working out. I ended up going to Yale and then Harvard Business School. My sister went to Duke and Harvard Law. So that's really where I got my start.

• 3:40Harry Stebbings?

  What made your way into tech though? Harvard Business School often leads to Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. You seem to see the light.

• 3:46Speaker 02

  The great thing is that, you know, I actually owe it to the financial crisis in 2009. So I was economics at Yale, couldn't get a job in finance. I remember being devastated when, you know, Goldman turned me down, all those companies, you know, the big investment banking firms turned me down. But I actually ended up, turned out better for me because I ended up going down the startup route because my first job out of college wasn't in finance. It was in retail strategy during the turnaround situation at Sears Holding Company. And that's where I met my co-founder, Castor Eunice, Sonny Dillon. And then both of those guys basically started talking with me and that's what really led to the success I've had at the time. And Toclem was the fastest exit Y C had ever had.

• 4:22Harry Stebbings?

  Unbelievable. Um. But I do wanna start today, and before we dive into all things Liquid Two, I wanna start today on the micro VC market, more broadly speaking. So many are suggesting, and many have told me on the show, that there's simply too much cash chasing too few deals. I'm intrigued. To what extent do you believe and agree with this? So having really operated in the market for a while now.

• 4:42Speaker 02

  I agree in general, like Silicon Valley Bank keeps sending out this list of micro VCs and I just keep seeing it growing more and more. And the truth is, the amount of companies, it's growing, but it's not growing to the extent where the funds are growing at. It's still a great asset class, micro VCs in particular, venture, but there's just a lot, a lot of people chasing the same deals, especially out here. So I do think that that is the case. Whenever I talk to LPs, I'm like, look, this is what I enjoy doing, I'm passionate about it. I'm gonna keep doing it. It's up to you to decide how much allocation you really want in micro VC. And I'm upfront about that might be an issue.

• 5:16Harry Stebbings?

  No, I I'm interested though, because we've seen specialization emerge as a differentiator amongst the plethora of micro VC funds. To what extent do you agree with specialization being a key differentiator?

• 5:27Speaker 02

  I do think it's a differentiator, and keep in mind, we're generalist fund. I'm gonna feel like I contradict myself sometimes. I do, I do think it's one way that micro VCs are used to solve that. I have a mess of respect for, like, there's a whole bunch of Seth Bannon's fifty years. Um. It's a presence capital who are just done a great job of that. But I usually push back against people, especially LPs when they ask about it. It's like, look, what are the best funds of all time? Benchmark, lowercase, they're all generalist funds. And I say, look, no matter what somebody pitches you about being a specialist fund, if it comes down to it, and let's say there's a great founder that they've known for a while, are, is that fund gonna back that founder or not? Even if it's outside of their sort of sweet spot. If they do, I'm like, well, that just means your generalist fund is just what percentage of a generalist fund, right?

• 6:10Speaker 02

  So I say, why, we might as well be upfront and just like, let's just be a generalist fund.

• 6:13Harry Stebbings?

  No, listen, I completely agree with you. I think a strategy drift is so common and they hide it so well. But but you you mentioned your generalist status there with Liquid Two. So I wanna start then with that. And you said before that it was very different raising Liquid Two versus micro VC raising today. What are the key differences, do you think?

• 6:31Speaker 02

  I think there's a couple, you know, I would start off by saying that everybody has to say that. So keep in mind, I have to say, nobody's gonna come in and say, I would just like every other micro VC. I do think when I work, and I think it becomes obvious when you see us all working together. We are unique fund. I mean, a lot of credit goes to Joe Montana, our managing partner. He really could have done this himself, and he's seen a lot of celebrity types should do that themselves. And he said, no, let's put together a team that is differentiated. So we have a PhD in physics who worked at CERN, started one of the first databases and service companies. Talking about my other partner, Mike Miller, Harvard MBA, myself, who started a company Google, and a Super Bowl champion, all one fund. And that to me is unique because we can offer value in very differentiated ways.

• 7:13Speaker 02

  Because most of the times, people tend to work together because they all are very similar, which I think is great. Because it just makes sometimes decision making easier because they all have the same views on things. With us, it's very different. And honestly, I think it made it easier for us to fundraise to have a GP quality team that's really high in very differentiated.

• 7:30Harry Stebbings?

  You said about decision making that. How do you guys make decisions at Liquid too? And what have you found to be the optimal decision making structure? Is it the unanimous? Is it the conviction driven? And how does this change with follow on funding?

• 7:41Speaker 02

  So it's a majority vote plus everybody gets a silver bullet. So internally, nobody, like I think one issue you often find in VCs is everybody feels like they have to sell the deal. There's not that in this case. And like, we've said that before, it's like, hey, if you feel strong about this, just use your silver bullet. There's no need to feel like you have to sell, you have to convince others. And I think that's good. Like, we really do have a discussion about these things internally.

• 8:04Harry Stebbings?

  So, sorry, what's your silver bullet?

• 8:06Speaker 02

  Silver bullet is any, at any point in time, individual partners says, I just want to do this deal. They get one per year and they don't need anybody else to vote on it. Otherwise, usually it's a majority vote.

• 8:15Harry Stebbings?

  Love it. And then for follow on funding?

• 8:17Speaker 02

  For follow on funding is one of the things that I think we're one of the weakest at. Because when we started fund, we didn't think we could get a lot of follow on funding. We're like, ah, let's not leave a huge amount of allocation. Like typically from micro VCs, I'd say in industry, it's like fifty fifty, fifty percent on the front, fifty percent on the back end. I'd say the best funds are doing like something like three to one with three being the follow on. I'd say first round polies doing that. Like some of the best funds. Doing that. We didn't think we could win these deals. We're like, you know, the A is gonna own everything. So we didn't have a compelling strategy. Nowadays is very similar where we try to do majority vote. Generally, we say we stay out of seed extensions and during the A, we think the lead is gonna be the signal anyway. So that's when we'll come back in.

• 8:58Harry Stebbings?

  Yeah, no, absolutely. I'm intrigued. You said you stay out of seed extensions there. I had Mike Maples on the show recently and he said that all bridges lead to nowhere and they're more like peers. Is that something that you would agree with in general, having observed so many companies come out of Y C, having started your own company and now investing with Liquid too?

• 9:16Speaker 02

  I think Mike Maples is a legend, so I have a hard time disagreeing with him. I would say it's tough to generalize, but I say he's right overall. One thing I'd say for all V C stuff is all V C advice tends to be generally right, except when they're wrong, except that in one or two cases, like that we've been hard, not where we were the first money in, but where we've heard about a bridge and it ended up being actually a great round. But in general, I think you should stay away from it from the V C standpoint. They just tend to go nowhere, like Maple said.

• 9:45Harry Stebbings?

  You said about kind of the special partnership that you have there and the different backgrounds. I'm intrigued. What impact did having Joe on the team do for your fundraise and communication with L P's?

• 9:56Speaker 02

  So it was very helpful. I can't tell you. Joe sometimes would come back as like, oh yeah, I was sitting next, it was a very well known U S billionaire and Joe was like, I'll see you next time at an event. He agreed to invest in a fund. I was like, Joe, you didn't have the deck with you. What did you tell him? And it's like, yeah, turns out people like him. So we've gotten multiple L P's that way. So Joe continues to surprise me.

• 10:17Harry Stebbings?

  Well, that's a fantastic thing. How do you think about sustainability within an L P class like that then?

• 10:22Speaker 02

  I think, you know, in this case, without name, name is a pretty well known billionaire and our fund's pretty small. So I can imagine them coming in fund after fund. If anything, when they see the returns we've gotten, I think they'd be even more impressed. I mean, maybe they did that out of personal respect for Joe. I don't know. I wasn't involved in that conversation, obviously. But I think once the numbers come in, if anything, I think L P's are gonna be even more impressed with what we've accomplished.

• 10:44Harry Stebbings?

  You mentioned there about kind of the desire to increase allocation on the L P behalf. I'm intrigued. Do you have the desire to increase? The size of the fund and really scale this up as the next enduring fund? Or do you want to be the micro VC fund?

• 10:56Speaker 02

  You know, I think it's a continual discussion. Definitely, I personally really like micro VC. I think that's when you can help the founder most. So in that sense, I think we wanna stick around around the size. I think we'll get slightly bigger just because we're surprised at the amount of founder trust we've gotten. And their ability to say, hey, yes, we want you in follow on finance. You'd be thinking that enough value. And so we're happy to be part of that. And I think that just means raising a little bit more money. But fundamentally, I think you make a choice of like, what do you think you're good at? And I think we're very good at seed and we wanna stick with that. The more capital just has to do with supporting founders more, not fundamentally changing strategy.

• 11:35Harry Stebbings?

  I often hear from VCs that one of the hard elements of value provision, it comes whether you provide it pre-investment or post-investment and leaving enough post after you've given so much pre to get the deal done. How do you think about pre-investment value and post-investment value? And kind of getting enough, but also retaining enough to be a worthy candidate following on?

• 11:54Speaker 02

  I think in a perfect world, you wouldn't have to oversell. I think that happens a lot. They promise a lot of things because it's a very competitive deal a lot of times. And other VCs are promising things too. A lot of times we're like, look, we're a small fund, don't have huge expectations. And we like to blow past those expectations. It's optimal. That doesn't always happen, in which case we think we do about the same both odds. You know, we do some of the upfront and then we do some of the backend. It's not like we do way more fun. I just don't think as a fund, we have enough capital, enough resources to do all that fun. So I think we still continue to do a lot on the backend.

• 12:30Harry Stebbings?

  Incredibly modest of you there in terms of don't expect much from us. Because I've spoken to many of your entrepreneurs who say you are exceptional. But I'm intrigued to ask then, what's your thesis on board seats? And taking board seats at seed and when's the right time to construct the board?

• 12:43Speaker 02

  We don't take board seats on seed. I like to think of us as advisors in a lot of ways. We'll get involved, especially when I think about follow on fundraising. We're very incentivized along with entrepreneurial. We've had entrepreneurs who have been taken from really good seed funds, who have a lot of capital deployed to follow. They actually go to us first because we we have very little to vote to follow. So like, look, our incentives are aligned with you dramatically. And so that's been very helpful. I do think in the end of day, there's some expectation that when they graduate to series A, those guys will take the bulk of it when they take a board seat. We haven't taken board seats ever. But we're not opposed to it. Like, if if the right founder came to us, like, we really need you, we're happy to do it, I think. The key is that, look, you guys are still figuring things out. You're still getting lost. Don't feel the pressure to have us on your board.

• 13:28Speaker 02

  Because a lot of founders actually don't want that.

• 13:30Harry Stebbings?

  You said that about being the advisor. I'm always stuck in the dichotomy of can a founder be your friend as well as your portfolio company?

• 13:37Speaker 02

  You know, like, one of our portfolio companies, I went to business school with them, known them for years. Yes, I think it's helpful. I would say the short of it, it's it's actually really helpful during the process of valuing company if you've known a founder for a long time. Because you actually know what they're like. When they're portfolio company, I don't think we treat them any differently. It's not like, oh, it's your friend. So I'm going to take a set of actions that are different because you end up being friends with people that you end up meeting through the fund. You invest in them, you end up being friends with them. And so you're very upfront about that. And it's a good thing. It's a good thing. I really enjoy working with a lot of founders. But we just don't try to do anything different because of that. You know, you always got to take yourself away from the personal relationship.

• 14:14Harry Stebbings?

  But we spoke about differentiation earlier in the show. One area where you seem to be a specialist is in terms of selecting Y C companies. Let's start with this. Assess the landscape.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  So Y C in a lot of ways, exact opposite of proprietary deal flow. Everybody talks about proprietary deal flow, like having something unique. And Y C is a public demo day where everybody in the valley is invited. And so in a lot of ways, it's the antithesis to a lot of what V C's pitch. But they continue to create a lot of quality investments. And I think, end of day, markets are very efficient. People will go where there's high quality companies.

• 14:47Harry Stebbings?

  You're saying about high quality companies and not projecting my own views. I hear from a lot of people that with the scaling of Y C, the quality of the companies has reduced significantly. I'm intrigued to hear your thoughts on this.

• 14:59Speaker 02

  So I was in Y C when there was forty some companies. So I definitely, when I see Y C, to go to dumb days, I'm shocked at how big it's gotten. And especially, like, you just look at it, it comes like, wow, I'm losing. Track of what was the first pitch. People have said Y C, you know, has been inclined for a while now and then they keep producing wins. And people are saying this right around that the time Cruz exiting like, well, there's Cruz now. They're like, well, I'll give it a little bit of time. I think what we have seen is there's a certain number of good deals per batch, regardless of batch size. What has gone up is Y C has done more international deals. So from a lot of V C's perspective, those deals are just not doable. And so the batch size has, let's say, another 20 or 30 Africa Indian deals. I don't think those are bad companies and some of them are some of the most impressive companies I've seen.

• 15:43Speaker 02

  But for a lot of V C funds, they're just not within thesis and just can't be invested. So for their perspective, it's like, oh, the percentage has gone down. I don't think the percentage of quality companies have gone down. It's just like there's certain things that fit the traditional V C mode or what is doable for V C companies. That has increased in Y C and I think I give Y C a lot of respect for doing that. But it might not be a good fit for every fund that comes there.

• 16:04Harry Stebbings?

  And speaking of kind of good fits for funds, I'm intrigued. And the team at Iris Automation asked, how do you think about deep tech investing? Especially with the kind of traditionally longer exit environments, given the kind of high tech proprietary development cycles that are required for the exits to take place and kind of for applications to take place. How do you think about that within the traditional 10 year venture fund cycle?

• 16:26Speaker 02

  Personally, I think if you back great companies, you will get your payout at the very end of the day. And it might take a little bit longer and that's okay. I mean, the same thing has happened even in traditional software companies. Because the Googles, what used to be the Googles that went I P O very early on are just staying private for longer. So it's going to happen either way. And I think you just got to be okay with that. You got to be okay with things being slightly different in venture over time. And I think the best firms are flexible to that.

• 16:56Harry Stebbings?

  How do you look to scale the learning curve on kind of radically new industries so quickly when making such kind of fast decision made deep tech investments?

• 17:05Speaker 02

  I think it's super helpful that Mike Miller is one of the general partners. I mean, I have so much respect for him. He's a P H D by training, worked at CERN. Just having that ability to really evaluate some of the deep tech companies. So the one is, look, you can always reach out to your network and I'm not claiming, I think. One of the bad things about being a generalist is I'm not a particular expert in any space. And so I've I've seen some of your previous interviews and I'm just like really surprised and and really happy to hear some some what the V C said. Because I'm like, wow, this person really knows what they're talking about when it comes to esports or marketplaces. And I'm not that type of person. I've done a great job of knowing what founders are good. I think that is one thing you can continuously do. It's like you see enough pattern recognition to know what kind of founders are great. And that takes you someplace in the right. I don't want is reaching out to your extended network.

• 17:50Speaker 02

  I think that's what micro VCs are particularly good at too. Understanding like, look, this is a small partnership. You probably don't have any like analysts or associates. So can you reach out to a stronger network and ask them for help?

• 18:01Harry Stebbings?

  No, I know. I absolutely agree. I'm very also pleased that you said about like commonalities within founder traits. Because I had Sean Rad at Tinder on the show recently. And he said that he always looks for founders to have a sense of a chip on their shoulder when when kind of evaluating opportunities. I'm intrigued. Would you agree with this? And from seeing so many founders pass through the funnel now, what are the common character traits amongst the best founders that you've worked with and invested in?

• 18:24Speaker 02

  I do agree with that. I would also say because founders themselves are such outliers, it's impossible like, oh, that's the one trait you need. The founders will always have a different trait. There'd be some that won't have a chip on their shoulder and they'd be amazing. I do think one common trait is just founders have this will to succeed. And, you know, I think Paul Graham calls it grit. It shows off in a lot of different ways. Maybe they're super passionate about an idea. And that's the worst thing. Maybe they do have a chip on their shoulder. Sometimes they think, hey, nobody else is gonna do this. If I don't do it, so I have to do it. And you just end up just really into a space. That grit, that will to do whatever it takes to be successful, I think is a very common trait. And they all, I would also say founders are very smart. They don't have to be geniuses, but I think they all hit the threshold.

• 19:09Speaker 02

  We talk to me like this person is a smart person.

• 19:12Harry Stebbings?

  No, absolutely. Peter Fanton told me that you have to have a founder that's so smart that he makes you feel uncomfortable. Which I often feel to be honest.

• 19:21Speaker 02

  I feel the same way when talking to these founders. They just, it continues to impress me. I'm like, how did I get to where I am? And these people like to start here.

• 19:29Harry Stebbings?

  But I'd love to finish today with a quick fire round. So I say a short statement and then you give me your immediate thoughts in sixty seconds or less. How does that sound?

• 19:36Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 19:36Harry Stebbings?

  So let's start with your favorite book and why. What should I add to my reading list?

• 19:40Speaker 02

  My favorite book is Counting Monte Cristo. It's just an epic story. I mean, there's personal development, there's revenge, romance. I think it's a great story.

• 19:48Harry Stebbings?

  What advice would you give to young people wanting to enter the world of VC?

• 19:52Speaker 02

  I think I have two advice is one, do the job first. I mean, it's actually possible for you to basically act like an analyst associate at a fund without getting a job. You can meet with founders, you can write market maps, you can basically do the job. You can send over these deals to VCs and you'd be surprised how far that goes. The other one I'd say is win over founders. You know, I was in a position where I was interviewing at firms at one point or another. And a lot of these VCs won't reply to your emails. So like, eh, who cares? This is another person looking for a job. And it just so happened, I was close to a whole bunch of founders. And the moment the founder emailed a VC and said, hey, you need to meet with this guy, the VCs jumped. They're like, oh, hey, I was mean to reply this email and I just heard from X, Y, Z founder. And then day, VCs are in a service business and we answer to founders first.

• 20:36Harry Stebbings?

  What do you believe that most around you disbelieve?

• 20:38Speaker 02

  The one is that everybody talks about how founders have to be passionate about something or an idea or whatever. I actually think founders can grow into it. I only know this because I was a founder before. As a VC side, everybody pitches you and like, I'm super passionate. But as a founder, I've talked to founders before, like, eh, I'm not that passionate about the space. I just, you know, wanted to do a startup. And it's surprising they actually grow into it. Like later on, you talk to a same founder, you're asking them like, actually, I really started enjoying it. I really started working on it. I really got into it. So I don't think you need to be passionate about an idea in the beginning, which is sort of controversial in my opinion. But you actually do see founders grow into something. And they never talk about it because in every interview and everything, like, nobody's gonna be like, I'm not passionate about this. But sometimes they start off not passionate and they actually grow into it, yeah.

• 21:22Harry Stebbings?

  Uh, but then towards me, favorite blog or newsletter, what are the must reads when they come in?

• 21:26Speaker 02

  I really like term sheets still.

• 21:27Harry Stebbings?

  Term sheet over Axios?

• 21:31Speaker 02

  I think both. I mean, I think

• 21:33Harry Stebbings?

  Do you subscribe to both?

• 21:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I still maintain their voice. I like Axios too, but you know, term sheet, I still continue to read. I thought when Dan left, I wouldn't read and still has been just as useful for me.

• 21:44Harry Stebbings?

  No, absolutely. I agree with you. What would you most like to change in the world of startups and Silicon Valley?

• 21:50Speaker 02

  You know, I think there should be less hero worship around both startups and founders and VCs. And I think you'd see like less crashes there too. You know, everybody's like, oh, Uber is taking on a cabin sheet and then immediately falls out of favor. I mean, I just don't think that's healthy for the ecosystem. You gotta, if you start off with assumption that founders are humans from the start, you know, a lot of ways I look at them as very similar to like your local restaurant owner. So you shouldn't necessarily like put them in that hero class of like, okay, these are the next big thing. They're trying to build a business, you know, there is a differentiator of having massive scale, but at the end of the day, they're actually not as different than you think from just a local guy who's running a small business.

• 22:27Harry Stebbings?

  And then tell me the most recent publicly announced investment and why you said yes?

• 22:31Speaker 02

  I think this is one of my most recent ones that, because I just forget which one's been announced, but Vivivision, a great company, trying to use VR to solve AI issues. One thing that really spoke to me is James, the founder there, really knew the space, has suffered this personally, and it was something that would help people and had great margins. It's like, it's super rare to have a business that not only is very helpful, sort of is in a quote unquote sexy space in VR, but is actual practical. I mean, it just hit a lot of things for me.

• 22:59Harry Stebbings?

  Absolutely. But Michael, as I said, I heard so many great things from Iris, from MZ, from Captain 401K. So I cannot thank you enough for joining me today. And it was so great to hear more about Liquid 2.

• 23:10Speaker 02

  Thank you again for taking the time.

• 23:14Harry Stebbings?

  And a huge hand to Michael for giving up his time again to be on the show today. Such a pleasure to have him on and hear the exciting journey ahead for Liquid 2. And if you'd like to follow me on Snapchat and see behind the scenes of the 20 minute VC, then you can follow me on at H Stebbings with two Bs. It would be fantastic to see you there. But before we leave you today, I want to tell you about WePay. WePay helps online platforms increase revenue through integrated payments processing, constant Contact Equid and GoFundMe use WePay. Why? Because WePay uniquely helps platforms offer ROI-positive, integrated payments to their users within their UX and without taking on fraud and regulatory exposure. Others make you trade off between UX friction or fraud, not WePay. WePay also offers award-winning support and can even work with your team through Slack or Zendesk.

• 23:57Harry Stebbings?

  Get the payments revenue you want without getting bogged down every time a user has a payments question. But don't trust me. Visit wepay.com/harry. Oh yes, I have my own URL for a video case study on how Equid grew its revenue while better serving customers with WePay. That's wepay.com/harry. You'll also be made eligible for a year of free premium support on wepay.com/harry. And how could we forget PipeDrive, something we use here every day at the 20 Minute VC, to manage the pipeline for guests? PipeDrive is the sales CRM and pipeline management software to use, with the primary view being the pipeline, a clear visual interface that prompts you to take action, remain organised, and stay in control of a complex sales process. This is why sales pros and deal makers love it, my words, not PipeDrives.

• 24:41Harry Stebbings?

  But it easily lets you find the stats you need, and even better, it's fully customisable. And if you're like me and don't like paying for products upfront without knowing how good they are, this is for you, as you can sign up for free on pipedrive.com. It really is a must. As always, I so appreciate all your support and I cannot wait to bring you Friday's episode.