Pod Insights The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch 20VC: How To Build Credibility with Investors, Employees and Customers, How To Determine When A Stretch VP is A Stretch Too Far and The Right Way For Founders To Think About Dilution with Amol Deshpande, Founder & CEO @ Farmers Business Network About this episode Amol Deshpande is the Co-Founder and CEO at Farmers Business Network, the farmer-to-farmer agronomic information network improving the livelihood of farmers by making data useful and accessible. To date, they have raised a whopping $193m in funding from the likes of Kleiner Perkins, T Rowe, GV, Temasek and more. As for Amol, prior to FBN, he was a Partner @ Kleiner Perkins where he invested in the likes of Harvest Power and Agilyx and before Kleiner, Amol was a Director @ Black River Asset Management. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Amol made his way into the world of startups, came to be a Partner @ Kleiner Perkins and then came to change the world of farming with Farmers Business Network? 2.) What were Amol's biggest takeaways from his time with Kleiner? Although important to think really big, how does Amol think about the Peter Thiel School of Thought, starting in a very small niche and expanding? Where does Amol see many founders go wrong when it comes to market size and assessment? 3.) How does Amol believe the very best CEOs hire the very best talent? What core characteristics does Amol look for when adding to his exec team? What are the leading questions and indicators that would excite/concern Amol? Why does Amol believe the smartest people do not always make the best hires? What are the core signs that a stretch VP is a stretch too far? 4.) What is the key to success for founders in building credibility with customers, investors and their board? What is the most challenging element of credibility building? Where does Amol see many founders go wrong and lose credibility today? How does your approach have to alter according to which class of individual you are looking to build with? 5.) How does Amol fundamentally approach the topic of capital efficiency? What does Amol believe is the right way for founders to think about dilution when raising? How does Amol determine when is the right time to raise big and pour fuel on the fire? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Amol’s Fave Book: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Amol on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Harry Stebbings? Welcome back to the 20 Minute VC with your host Harry Stebbings. It would be awesome to welcome you behind the scenes here at the 20 Minute VC, which mostly includes gym sessions and book recommendations, but you can do that on Instagram at H Stebbings 1996. But to the show today, and what many don't know is I have a super nerdy passion for businesses that, as I call it, submarine their way to success. Maybe they're not as well-known as the big brands, but they absolutely kill it in their space. And that's the case with our episode today, as I welcome Amol Deshpande to the hot seat. Now, Amol is the founder and CEO at Farmers Business Network, the farmer-to-farmer agronomic information network, improving the livelihood of farmers by making data useful and accessible. To date, they've raised a whopping $193 million in funding from the likes of Kleiner Perkins, T. Rowe, GV, Temasek, and more.
0:44 Harry Stebbings? As for Amol, prior to Farmers Business Network, he was a partner at Kleiner Perkins, where he invested in the likes of Harvest Power and Agilix. And before Kleiner, Amol was a director at Black River Asset Management. And I do also want to say a huge thank you to my friend Andrew Dudham at Hims for the intro today. I really do so appreciate that, Andrew. But before we dive in with Amol, thanks to my friends at WePay, let me introduce you to another very cool player in the space, FuseBill. FuseBill is a subscription billing management platform designed for rapid-growth businesses. Why do hundreds of companies use it to bill more than 10 million customers a year? Well, FuseBill's flexible ledger-based product simplifies all aspects of recurring billing and invoicing, meaning users can efficiently and confidently maximize their revenue at all stages of growth. And you can learn more at fusebill.com.
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2:55 Harry Stebbings? And Lattice is the only solution that combines performance management and employee engagement. So operators can make sure top performers are happy. Lattice is giving away three months of Lattice free to twenty VC listeners. Just go to lattice.com forward slash two zero VC to receive that offer. That's L A T T I C E dot com forward slash two zero VC. Build an award winning culture with Lattice, the number one people management solution. However, that's quite enough of my terrible voice. And so now I'm thrilled to welcome Amol Deshpande, founder and CEO at Farmers Business Network.
3:30 Speaker 01 You have now arrived at your destination.
3:33 Harry Stebbings? Amol, it's such a pleasure to have you on the show today. Huge thank you to Andrew Dudham for the intro, but thank you so much for taking the time out to join me, Amol.
3:40 Speaker 02 No problem. Glad to do it.
3:42 Harry Stebbings? I'd love to kick off, say, with a little about you. So tell me, how did you make your way into the world of startups and come to found Farmers Business Network? What's that founding story?
3:51 Speaker 02 Well, my history is a long dated in agriculture. I got into agriculture really through my father when I was in graduate school, fifteen or sixteen years ago. He introduced me to an entrepreneur who had actually invested in a fish farm, an indoor fish farm at Cornell University in New York. And I went to work at that startup. So I kind of fell in love with that. I'm in agriculture and farming. Went on and started a plant breeding business and vegetable seed. Went and worked at Cargill, the large agribusiness. And then about eleven years ago. Was recruited to Kleiner Perkins, a venture capital firm out here on the West Coast. And that was sort of my foray into the world of Silicon Valley venture capital, I would say. Learned a lot there. And then about three and a half, four years ago, really wanted to do something big in ag
4:35 Speaker 02 and specifically related to working with farmers. And that was the genesis of FBN. Myself, Charles, a bunch of other people actually were researching topics that could change the game in this industry. Came up with this concept of information transparency because it's so lacking right now in the ag market. Discovered that farmers would actually share information if they could believe that it would benefit them in return. So this concept of networked anonymized information to create transparency, to create leverage in their business. That was a concept. That was the genesis of FBN. That's how we started four years ago.
5:08 Harry Stebbings? Before we dive into that incredible scaling that you've experienced, I do have to ask, you mentioned Kleiner, that one of the most famous venture institutions in the world, the home of John Doerr, the home of Mary Meeker. So talk to me, what were the biggest learnings for you from that experience that you may be taking with you to FBN today?
5:23 Speaker 02 Yeah, good question. Well, remember, I was hired there in the 2007, 2008 timeframe. So it was a different era. So the most beneficial lessons were from really the first few years when I initially joined. When a lot of the old partners of Kleiner were there, I was hired by a fellow named Ray Lane and then Joe Lacob, who eventually went out of the Warriors. And I got an opportunity to work with all those people. And the number one thing that I took away is don't spend your time on small ideas. If you're gonna take risk, then take real risk. Try to do something big, try to do something differentiated that'll change the world and go for it. There's not good reason to invest in or to spend your time on as an entrepreneur, a smaller incremental ideas. Life's too short, your career's too short. So if there was one central lesson, it was that.
6:06 Speaker 02 The second was that there's a big gap between the best company in a sector and the best entrepreneur and the best team. And really the next five and any big business and any big idea is gonna have a multiple entrance, multiple people in and around it. But you really need to bet on, if you're an investor or as an entrepreneur, you need to distinguish yourself as being that best company in the sector you're in. Because you'll attract the most capital, you attract the most attention. And ultimately, your odds of winning are going to be the highest. So those are some of the things that the final thing I would say is that the people side of it, all of these things, thinking big, building a differentiated team or platform. Really, it boils down to the entrepreneur and is the person you're investing in or partnering with in the same frame of mind, are they willing to think as big as you are?
6:49 Speaker 02 Because if they're not, they'll stop short, they'll go halfway, or they won't succeed at all. And so those were some of the things I learned. But the biggest takeaway I would say is you have to think big. Big ideas are worth funding, and that's what you should spend your time on.
7:00 Harry Stebbings? I mean, so many takeaways that I want to unpack, and I can't not actually. The interesting one, kind of starting on the central one being the thinking big, often we hear kind of the peace teal school of thought that you start in tiny markets, your Facebooks of the world, and you need to have that iterative approach to the huge vision. How do you think about the contrast between starting small and expanding to the big market? And then also kind of presenting an exciting and realistic vision to VCs to attract that capital?
7:26 Speaker 02 Well, starting small and iterating to a big vision is a strategy. And the question is whether the, and it's a very viable strategy. I actually like that idea. But first and foremost, what is the prize that you're focused on? What are you trying to build as an entrepreneur? Are you trying to build a company that can be bought? You know, whenever I hear talking to other entrepreneurs, oh, I might sell the business, or there'll be acquirers interested. I'm like, okay, well, you've largely given up before you start. If your vision is, I want to build a gigantic independent business in the sector I'm in. I want to change the world for the consumers that I serve, the customers that I serve. Then there's multiple strategies to getting there, including starting in niche markets and expanding to bigger ones. But the question is, how determined are you, how certain are you of the end vision? And how willing are you to stay on that track?
8:10 Speaker 02 Whatever meandering path or paths that it needs to take, depending on market conditions or competitive environments or whatever the cases. So I would say that the strategy that you described is totally viable. My thought on it is only that is the end vision or the end goal the same, which is to build a gigantic business.
8:27 Harry Stebbings? No, I absolutely agree with you that. The other element you mentioned was kind of the centrality of the entrepreneur, but also kind of the importance of the market. We had Andy Ratcliffe on the show, and he said, Ratcliffe's law, there's a law for it. And he said that great team. Poor market, market wins. And then, poor market, great team, team wins. So in terms of kind of the market being central to success, and that even the best entrepreneurs in a poor market can't make it work. How do you think about that, given the centrality of entrepreneurship?
8:55 Speaker 02 You know, the definitions of those things, it's a nice rule. I, I think the definitions of those are vague. I don't know what constitutes a bad market. Is it a market where there's a lot of competition? Is it a market that's small? I would say a good team who's working towards something in a small market will never create something big, because it's going to be limited by the size of the market, right? But I'm not sure there's a big market out there that's a bad one. Different markets take different levels of sophistication, capital, technology approaches. But if the market's big and the team is good, then there's a chance that you could do something great from a investment shareholder perspective. So I, I would say that, I think as, as a broad rule, I, I'm not sure it, it would apply across the board,
9:36 Speaker 02 but I think I understand the spirit of it, which is that if you pick a small or, or a not growing type market that doesn't have any scale to it, then no matter how good your team is, they're not going to be able to grow the business into something huge. I will say though, if you, if you asked me, if I ever went back to investing again, and I do angel investing and other things from time to time, I would most definitely bet first on the team. I would absolutely focus all of my energy on who am I investing in? And do I believe that they can figure this out? Because there's no way to know exactly the path it's going to take. But again, if it's a, the right idea, the right mission, and I've got the right team, then I've got a really good shot.
10:14 Harry Stebbings? I couldn't agree with you more there on the team. You've built a truly exceptional team with FBN. So tell me, how do you find the very best CEOs hire the very best execs? And are there commonalities from your kind of observing this and doing it firsthand?
10:27 Speaker 02 Yes, there are. And the very first thing is the personal character of the people that you hire. I know we exchanged some emails beforehand, talking about is, is IQ, having a high IQ. I, I mean, I, I don't buy that. I think that you're going into a path that's unknown, there's ambiguity, there's constant change in a startup environment. You have to have people who have the mental Make up the wherewithal to go through that battle with you and who want to. You know, the highest IQ people sometimes, I would almost say outsmart themselves or outthink themselves. They think in terms of arbitrage or hedging their bets or this or that, or they've got 10 things going on. They're not focused on the task at hand. I think that the first thing I look for is the mental makeup of the person.
11:10 Speaker 02 Are they ready for how tough it is in a startup environment? Are they ready for when it gets hard? Not for when it's good and you're scaling and things are great. And you can raise money and the market's fine and all that stuff, which kind of is how it has been for the last few years. Are they prepared for when things get hard?
11:25 Harry Stebbings? How do you stress test that pre-hire? What are the signs that maybe they are or they aren't ready? What questions unveil maybe the truth about the candidate?
11:34 Speaker 02 Well, the thing I like to look for in, say, well, it depends on the stage of company, Harry. I mean, I would say that in the stage, say, where FBN is or in where we are headed in terms of what we're trying to accomplish as a company with our investors and everything. What I actually look for in the management team is some degree of success in their background. Because a lot of times, the reason that people, management or others will panic when something bad happens or not be able to deal with the tough environment that a startup may go through or face is because they're worried about the financial side. Or they're worried about how will I pay my mortgage? Or how will I pay my kids' college tuition and all that stuff? When you, when you get management people on your team who have had enough success, they can weather those storms and they're more prepared. So that's one thing I look for, someone who's had some success before,
12:19 Speaker 02 because I know that they have that to fall back on when times are tough. The second is, you definitely have to pay attention to the questions the candidate asks you. Meaning, are they asking questions that are frivolous, surface level, or only related to, say, their own compensation or what matters for them? Or are they asking questions that are related to the people they're going to manage? The balance of the team, scenarios. What happens if we raise another round? What happens if we don't? What happens if we can't make this work? Those are the kinds of things I look for where you see somebody being planful, sort of thinking ahead and trying to envision, can they get the resources? Do they have the resources to be successful in the role? Because then they know what they're signing. And they're looking to deliver that.
13:02 Harry Stebbings? I mean, two kind of offshoots from that, which I just have to ask again on schedules, but I'm too interested. You mentioned kind of the financial backing there. The one side is absolutely they could kind of have that as a backing and so not be completely freaking out, so to speak. The alternative could be that they don't spend 24 hours a day trying to fix the solution because they have that backing. How do you think about that as almost a comfort barrier that inhibits them from giving it everything?
13:25 Speaker 02 Well, there's one thing I didn't mention that's probably the most central thing, but I almost take it as a given. Is that the people you hire, they have to be completely and totally bought into the mission of the business. So when they come on board, when I'm hiring somebody, I take a lot of time to educate them on what it is we're trying to do and why we do it. Like FBN, we serve family farms. If that's not something you're passionate about or have an interest in doing, or really want to fight through any hardship that may occur, any issue that may come up in the company, if that's not your goal to serve family farms, if that's not a mission that you can buy into, then you're not going to work 15, 20 hours a day when things are hard or when things are good. You're looking at it as a high-growth company, a rocket ship where I can get some stock options and do pretty well.
14:08 Speaker 02 I would say that that is probably the number one core thing, but I take that as a given. I look at that as like a must-have. If a candidate's not bought into the mission of what we're doing, if they don't prove to me that they're bought into the mission of what we're doing, then no matter how good they are, we wouldn't hire them because they'll be on to the next hot deal as soon as either there's an issue or as soon as a new opportunity comes up. I mean, you really want people to get vested into what it is that the company does and become a part of it, become an institution in their own right within the company, especially senior management.
14:38 Harry Stebbings? So the candidate's bought into the mission, he's signed on to Farmers Business Network and he's ready to go. But it turns out six months later that he's not scaling with the company or as fast as one would like. I'd love to know, what are the signs that a stretched VP or a stretched candidate is a stretch too far?
14:55 Speaker 02 Well, the number one is not being able to build a team of their own or gain credibility internally in a non-capital sort of way. So what I mean by that is a really senior person who's confident, who knows how to manage, is going to attract a lot of other talent. Some really good examples, two people at FBN that I think of are Maria Olade, our CFO, and Ed Rowe, our VP of Engineering. And if you look at the people that that they've now attracted to their team over the last couple of years since joining FBN, it's really remarkable the quality of talent that they've brought in. They're a magnet for talent. People want to work with them. They know how to manage their teams. They care about their teams. And that is the number one sign that somebody can do the job. If somebody can't build a team, if they can't attract talent,
15:37 Speaker 02 that's a clear sign that somebody's probably not capable. The second I would say is is the internal credibility. You can quickly determine how credible a person is internally by watching the interaction with others in the company, right? How do they talk and interact with others in the business? Do people who are both subordinate, both peers, do they respect them? It's very easy to tell when you're in a meeting with someone, whether they have the respect of their peers. And if they don't, it's pretty easy to tell why. So those are probably the one and two things that I look for is can you build a team, attract talent, and can you garner the respect of your peers cross functionally in the company that you have to work with?
16:14 Harry Stebbings? I'm so pleased you said that about the credibility, because we were chatting about it before the show. And you said about kind of building credibility amongst the three different groups being the investors, the employees, and customers. For you personally, how do you fundamentally think about developing that credibility with these three core pillars?
16:31 Speaker 02 I think the key to credibility is consistency. And I'm not talking about, you know, you take a high growth company like ours, things are going to happen. I just tell my board, our investors, they know that sometimes we're going to exceed the expectations people have of us. And sometimes we're going to fall short. We're trying to do something really big, and that stuff will happen. But the question is, is the consistency in terms of the thinking, the mentality, the singular vision of what the company wants to be at the end of the day, has that remained the same? And when you think about investors, whether early or later investors, and then of course, your customers, they want to see the same thing. They want to know that what they got involved with is, and what they choose to sign their career on to as an employee, or their capital on to as
17:11 Speaker 02 an investor, or their dollars on to as a customer, that it is what they thought it was. And that, to me, is the biggest thing in credibility, right? That you're consistent, that you don't change with every whim that's out there, that you don't get whipsawed and moved around by every little thing and that you stay consistent. And again, that isn't just about, here's my plan, I signed up, I hit it. I'd like, you should do that too. But it's also about how you talk about the vision of the company, what it is you're trying to accomplish, the mission. Those are the things that I think have to remain the same for credibility to be built. And credibility is not built in a month. It's not built through anything you say, it's built through what you do. There's nothing you can say frivolously, writing emails, being on all hands meetings, any of that stuff, that's going to substitute for the way you actually are.
17:56 Speaker 02 And that to me is how you build credibility, across the board with all those constituents.
18:01 Harry Stebbings? Can I ask, you've been on both sides of the table as an investor, investing in those founders, expressing their mission. You are now one of the founders expressing the mission and the vision. I'm intrigued, where do you see many go wrong in how they approach developing that kind of core credibility and trust within the relationship?
18:18 Speaker 02 Well, I can tell you that I've experienced all sides of it. I would say that one big way to lose credibility is to lose your nerve. So pitch me, sell me on a big idea and then tell me you're going to sell the business. Or tell me you're going to sell short of what the mission or vision could be of the business. That kind of thing, you can lose credibility fast. Because you know, you come in and you say, I'm going to build the world's next great business in this sector. You know, our sector's agriculture and farming, there's obviously many sectors out there. And then, you know, a year or two later, things are not exactly as you hoped they would be. You're losing some patience and you say, well, you know, there's somebody who may want to acquire the company and maybe we should sell. I think you can lose credibility really fast by losing your nerve
19:00 Speaker 02 or changing your mind about what it is you believe about the business and its potential. So that's one, and that's true of if you're a CEO talking to an investor or talking to an employee. It's also true of just talking to your customer. You know, a lot of times your customer is working with you because they're excited about the prospect of what the business is going to be. And if that changes very quickly, then their sentiment could change as well. So I think that's one way. I think another way is not being present and not being accountable. So if you think about great people, they, you see these. Stories about entrepreneurs who are working twenty four hours a day and everything like that. And I don't think that's absolutely the most important thing. But I think what has to be there is you have to be present. You have to be the person that everyone can fall back on.
19:42 Speaker 02 You have to be prepared and ready to communicate on short notice. You have to be responsive. You can lose credibility really fast if you go dark, if you stop communicating, if you lack transparency in the way you're communicating, if you're not giving an honest message and people discover something that is happening that you hadn't disclosed to them. Those are the ways that I think most commonly I've seen entrepreneurs lose credibility.
20:06 Harry Stebbings? I do want to touch on one element there. We've spoken before about kind of your background as an investor. You've fundraised incredibly successfully with Farmers Business Network, raising a hundred and ninety three million dollars, according to the very trusty Crunchbase. I'm interested there. How do you think your time with KP maybe altered how you approached the fundraising game? And maybe is there elements that you would have done differently if you hadn't have had that experience?
20:27 Speaker 02 Yeah, very good question. You know, the thinking big, going back to the topic of thinking big. When I think back to my time at Kleiner, especially early on, as I said, when all the older partners were there, some of whom have moved on and done other things now. If it's a great idea, why shortchange it? So when you think about things like fundraising, I'm not willing to, as an entrepreneur, shortchange the idea of changing the entire agricultural market for farmers. So a hundred and ninety four million dollars we've raised in the last three, four years, that to me is like a drop in the bucket of what it probably will ultimately take to become a huge company. I don't know what the exact amount's going to be or number. Someday, hopefully, we'll go public. All of those things are unknowns, really. But at the end of the day, one thing that I learned and that shaped me from Kleiner
21:12 Speaker 02 is that if you're going to think big, you have to also scale that thinking across other elements of what you do, including things like raising money, the quality of people that you're going to hire. Are you going to settle for the next best candidate? I won't because I know that you're not going to build a great company that way. So I think that that definitely did influence me because before Kleiner, I probably thought of it maybe a little more like a small business person, you know, where equity is obviously very precious and everything, but you're more worried about dilution. And you raise some money and I take some dilution and all this stuff. And here I think about it more like, how am I going to build this enormous business? And what does it take to get there? I'm going to do what's necessary to get that done. And that was definitely something that I saw that I learned at Kleiner.
21:54 Speaker 02 Because that's the way that I think a lot of the people there, the old school people there used to think.
21:59 Harry Stebbings? Can I ask, we've seen a record number of hundred million plus rounds over the last year. I'm really interested, when do you think about kind of the right time to pour fuel on the fire? What's the framework for deciding that that is the right time? And how do you think about that moving forward?
22:13 Speaker 02 Yeah, well, a lot of people want to ascribe financial metrics to that moment in time. They want to say, when I get to a certain amount of revenue or a certain number of clients. Or it's really a, tends to be a financial analysis. Because a lot of the investors who write those kinds of checks are typically financially oriented. I think that's a little bit short sighted. I actually think the time to pour the fuel on the fire is when there's unanimity or certainty into what it is you're trying to become and that you feel you're on the path to get there. And that may be when you have two million dollars of revenue and an amazing technology built, but it's not fully commercial yet. Or maybe when you have two hundred million of revenue and you're scaling. It depends on the industry, the technology, the market, all of those things factor in to the right time.
22:56 Speaker 02 But I think that it's important not to just ascribe a financial metric to it. Like, okay, once I get to twenty million dollars of revenue, that's when I go raise a bunch of money. I don't think that's the right way to think about it. You have to be more strategic than that, have to be more thoughtful, think about all the other aspects of the business. There's plenty of companies that are pre-revenue for many years, who can and should raise hundreds of millions of dollars because they're building a phenomenal new technology and it's going to be a long time before they generate revenue. On the other hand, there's businesses that can be really quick to revenue and maybe there, those metrics matter more. So I think the fuel on the fire really has to do with more of the, when is the solid foundation in place to scale? And that includes, not just the financial, includes the team,
23:38 Speaker 02 it includes the progress on the technology development, includes the customer and market sentiment, either research or proof that you've gotten.
23:45 Harry Stebbings? No, absolutely, I agree with you on the nuanced perspective there. But I do want to take a turn and dive in. My favorite element of any interview being the quickfire round. So essentially, I say a short statement and then you give me your immediate thoughts. How does that sound?
23:57 Speaker 02 Yeah, sure. Sounds good.
23:58 Harry Stebbings? So tell me, Amol, what's the favorite book and why should I read it?
24:02 Speaker 02 The book that I read a couple of years ago that I really liked was Team of Rivals. This book about Abraham Lincoln and, you know, how he was able to work with people who are political adversaries of his and others for the betterment of the country in a time of war. And so it's an extremely long book. But in terms of leadership and thinking about, you know, how would you navigate through things that are hard? And how do you value and utilize the talents of other people appropriately, treat them properly, all that stuff? I kind of remember a lot of things from that book. So I would say it's probably that from six out of my head.
24:34 Harry Stebbings? What do you believe that most around you maybe disbelieve?
24:37 Speaker 02 Well, I believe that you don't have to be flashy or talk a lot or be in the news media a lot to be successful. I think that you can break the mold. I think I mentioned to you, I'm a middle aged guy with two kids. One of my kids has autism. I'm an entrepreneur, just like anybody in their twenties. I don't think you have to fit the mold of what, say, some people will say is the appropriate mold for an entrepreneur. I think you can be who you are and still do what you want to do from a career standpoint. And I'm not sure, especially in Silicon Valley, I'm not sure everybody believes that. I think they probably believe that there's a certain mold and that's the mold that they have to invest in. And I don't think that's true.
25:12 Harry Stebbings? No, I agree with you. I do absolutely agree with you. I had Fuad El-Negar from Safel on the show and he said that there's, and I'm by no means saying you're old. He was, he's forty one and said he was old. So just to caveat this question. But he said there's great benefits to being old as a founder. Would you agree with that? And just changing old for more seasoned?
25:32 Speaker 02 Yeah, I started FBN. I was thirty five. I'm forty now. And I would tell you that I think back to when I first started a business in my early twenties. And then again, shortly thereafter, and it's kind of comical to me how inept I was. I mean, I didn't even know the most basic things and I was flying blind. And of course, there are people who are brilliant enough or lucky enough to maybe make that work. And especially in Silicon Valley, which is a magnet for talent, you'll find those people. But by and large. You're better off having the benefit of experience. I mean, if I think about where I was in terms of the experience I've had when I started FBN versus going back twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years to when I was first started a business.
26:12 Speaker 02 I is night and day in terms of my capabilities and my experience and my ability to deal with issues. So I think it's a huge benefit. And I think it's also misguided thinking to believe that people who are, say, in their thirties or forties or whatever, can't start a business. Or that people who have kids or whatever is going to be harder to be an entrepreneur. You've just got to manage yourself. You've got to manage your day and you've got to be committed to your trade. You can be committed to your family and your kids and everything else. And also be committed to being a great entrepreneur. It's very possible. You don't have to be a twenty-something, single person to be an entrepreneur. You can be a mom, you can be a dad, be whatever, and be very successful. It's really about the commitment and are you willing to do what it takes?
26:52 Harry Stebbings? Really interesting one that I'm always super intrigued by. What are the secrets to successful board management?
26:57 Speaker 02 Without a shadow of a doubt, it's communication. I think boards don't like or want to be surprised. I know when I was on a board, that was my pet peeve. Showing up at a board meeting and it was like rude surprise after rude surprise. I try to do my best and in startup companies, things are going to happen. You're going to have ups and downs. That is just natural. I think everybody knows that. And growth companies, that's going to happen. Even in public companies, that's going to happen. But as best you can to prepare people for what you're doing, what you think the outcomes are going to be, so that you're not lurching from disaster to disaster versus setting up expectations with the board and making sure that they understand what's going well in the business, what's a challenge, what am I trying to accomplish this quarter, this year, whatever? That, I think, is the biggest thing. The second is, you know, having some experience at the board.
27:42 Speaker 02 I have a phenomenal board at FBN, like an incredibly experienced board. And a good board member is someone who adds tremendous value, but isn't in the weeds of everything you're doing or being interfering with the operation of the business. My board is amazing at adding value and they know exactly what their role is and what it is that the management's supposed to be doing. So those lines aren't blurred. So I think that's the key, is making sure that build in some experience in that board and then also communicate. Almost over communicate if you can so that there's no rude surprises.
28:14 Harry Stebbings? And then I want to finish today with the next five years for you and for FBN. What's the exciting roadmap ahead, Amol?
28:20 Speaker 02 Well, we want to be the biggest company in the entire agriculture industry. And in order to do that, that's hundreds of billions of dollars of market cap that we have to build, either as a private or a public company. So I think in the next five years, I would expect that FBN makes progress towards those goals. I don't set any specific timeframe on when we achieve that goal, but that's where we're headed. I would like us in the next five years to have made the progress towards that, being the biggest and most impactful company in the agriculture sector.
28:46 Harry Stebbings? I love that non-specific answer. I can tell you're a very experienced founder when it comes to media. But it's been such a pleasure to have you on the show, Amol. Seriously, I had so many great things. So thank you so much for joining me today.
28:57 Speaker 02 Yeah, thank you, Harry. I really appreciate you letting us come on. I appreciate it. Thanks.
29:04 Harry Stebbings? Well, I think you'll agree with me when I say what a special guest it was to have Amol on the show and I cannot wait to see the exciting years ahead with FBN. And if you'd like to see more from us behind the scenes on Instagram, you can. We're at H Stebbings 1996 with two Bs. It'd be fantastic to see you there. But before we leave you today, thanks to my friends at WePay, let me introduce you to another very cool player in the space. Fusebill. Fusebill is a subscription billing management platform designed for rapid growth businesses. Why do hundreds of companies use it to bill more than 10 million customers a year? Well, Fusebill's flexible ledger-based products simplifies all aspects of recurring billing and invoicing, meaning users can efficiently and confidently maximize their revenue at all stages of growth. And you can learn more at fusebill.com. And to learn how you can grow your revenue with integrated payments like Fusebill did,
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Previous 20VC: Lessons Learned Scaling PillPack from Seed to Amazon Acquisition, Why Investors Should Spend More Time Assessing Human Capital Risk Taken by Founders & The Right Way To Think About Capital Efficiency in Scaling with David Frankel, Managing Partner @ Next 20VC: Benchmark's Sarah Tavel on Why Investing Success Lies In Small Markets Adjacent To Very Large Ones, Why You Have To Be Judicious On When To Pay Up vs Be More Price Sensitive & Why Crypto Investing Is Like The Early Days of AdTech Investing Page updated October 26, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
