#206 with Brianne Kimmel - How Venture Capitalists Make Money
In this episode Sam (@theSamParr) and Shaan (@ShaanVP) are joined by solo capitalist Brianne Kimmel (@briannekimmel). They talk about how Bri got started in investing, the pros and cons of her busy schedule, and discuss some of the unicorns she's invested in. They also discuss a cool use of deepfakes, how VCs make money, and whether or not college is worth the price of admission.
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Show notes:
* (1:00) Intro
* (2:25) The Shake Up - a new podcast on the HubSpot Podcast Network
* (6:52) GPT-3 and Anthony Bourdain
* (11:40) A cool use of deepfakes
* (13:31) Meet Brianne Kimmel
* (16:14) Bri's crazy schedule
* (21:39) How VCs make money
* (37:33) Hot spaces Bri sees
* (40:54) Is higher education worth it?
* (50:31) Winners Bri sees in her portfolio
How to launch an operator-led fund with Brianne Kimmel
On this episode Abadesi talks to Brianne Kimmel, founder of Work Life, an early stage venture firm in Silicon Valley that invests in tools and services for the modern workplace. She was formerly head of product and GTM strategy at Zendesk.
In this episode they talk about...
Why she started Work Life and what she learned while fundraising
“There are a lot of non-traditional folks who are breaking into venture, many of which are solo GPs.”
Brianne started angel investing on the side when she was working at Zendesk. She enjoyed working with and meeting new entrepreneurs so decided to start her own fund to “do what she was doing on evenings and weekends full-time.”
She explains the focus of the fund and talks about the fundraising process for it. Initially, she says, she started with a “friends and family'” round before she became comfortable raising from other people. She started pitching to people outside her network and tried to run a “tight process.” She explains her strategy for follow-up and why her personal productivity regime was such a big part of her pitch. She also talks about why she created her own list of questions that were often asked by potential investors and how she continually weaved those back into her pitch deck.
“The list of FAQs kept getting smaller because the pitch was getting incrementally better every time I give it.”
No-code tools, distributed teams, and the future of work
“Only 0.5% of people can code, so for the 99.5% of us code is actually a real barrier.”
Brianne is passionate about no-code tools, especially those that can help employees be more productive in the workplace. She talks about the importance of growing “bottom-up” in the enterprise market and talks about some of the companies she’s investing in that are employing that strategy.
“Increasingly, startups will compete on culture and culture alone and having great tools and creating a very inclusive work environment is one great way to do that.”
She also talks about some of the tools that are enabling remote work and why more and more early-stage teams are going fully distributed. She says that people are traveling more, the world is getting smaller, and people who formerly didn’t have flexibility at work now have the flexibility to work from home or anywhere else in the world.
“The question is not, ‘can you find enough work?’ It’s, ‘can you find the right problems that you want to work on?’”
How she’s building a community around her fund
“People are a little bit tired of networking. They have to be the best version of themselves at all times and come in very confident but you end up leaving with something that doesn’t feel truly authentic.”
Brianne started building communities while at Zendesk. She also runs a program called SaaS School in San Francisco. She talks about how she built a community of fellow product managers who met regularly in an informal setting where they could be open, authentic, and vulnerable with each other. She says that she’s doing the same for her fund and explains why it’s important to build a community when investing. Brianne also gives tips for fellow community-builders.
She also talks about some of the products she’s loving right now.
We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
Companies and Products Mentioned on This Episode
Bunches — The easiest way to start a paid group chat about anything.
Canary — A complete security system in a single device.
Chroma Stories — Create stunning and engaging stories with easy-to-use tools.
Deep Sentinel — A robust, AI-powered home security system.
Muze — Messaging and social media platform.
20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class
Brianne Kimmel is the Founder and Managing Partner @ Work Life Ventures, a very new firm focused on the future of work backed by some of the best in the valley including Marc Andreesen, Chris Dixon, Zoom's Eric Yuan, InVision's Clark Valberg and then dear friends of the show, Alexis Ohanian, Garry Tan and Matt Mazzeo. To date, Brianne has invested in the likes of Webflow, Tandem, Lunchclub and Girlboss to name a few. Prior to starting Work Life, Brianne spent 2 years at Zendesk on their GTM strategy; building Zendesk for startups, ultimately representing 3,000 startups and 250 accelerators. From 2013-2017 Brianne also taught over 5,000 students at General Assembly all things user acquisition and growth marketing.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Brianne made her way into the world of startups and SaaS, how that led to her angel investing and what was that a-ha moment for the founding of Work Life? Why did Brianne choose to structure Work Life as a holding company?
2.) With the fund, how does Brianne think about portfolio construction? What is the right check size for her? Why does Brianne think we are seeing more angel funds than ever today? Why are we seeing so many celebrity names on the cap tables of great companies? How does Brianne think about scout programs? What impact have they had? Why is Brianne against founders actively angel investing?
3.) What does Brianne advise founders on how to structure a high-signal round? What are the two types of angels that exist in the world today? What can founders do to keep their angels actively engaged? How have what founders expect from their angels changed over the last few years? How does one measure the true value of an angel?
4.) Does Brianne agree with Semil Shah, we are seeing "founders vote with their feet and bypass seed funds for multi-stage funds"? How does Brianne advise founders when choosing between a boutique seed firm and a large multi-stage firm? What does Brianne believe are the pros and cons of taking multi-stage money at seed?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Brianne's Most Recent Investment: Pace
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Brianne on Twitter here!
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