20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures
Martin Mignot is a Partner at Index Ventures, the best-performing fund in the world right now. In the last three months, they have sold Wiz for $ 32 billion, sold Scale for $14.9 billion, and IPO'd Figma as the largest investor. In addition to this, they are the largest or second-largest shareholders in Roblox, Revolut, Adyen and Datadog.
Agenda for Today:
00:00 – Why Gross Margin is the Biggest Sin in the Early Days
04:50 – Why Most People Shouldn't Become VCs
07:40 – Why it is BS to Suggest the Future of VC is Boutique vs Mega Fund
09:10 – Do Multi-Stage Funds Really Give a S*** About Seed
13:50 – The Founder Trait That Trumps Market Size Every Time
18:45 – How Spotify Still Haunts Index Ventures & What They Learn From It?
28:50 – The Brutal Truth About European vs. U.S. Founders
34:20 – The Case for a European AI Giant (and Who Might Build It)
40:50 – The Return of the 7-Day Founder Work Week
52:10 – Biggest Lessons from Leading Revolut's Series A
56:40 – Betting Against Nick Storonsky? Don't.
1:03:10 – The One Competitor Index Ventures Admires
Index's Martin Mignot on Sourcing Rocketship Companies, Evaluating Founders and His Attitude Towards Risk At The Early Stage
Martin Mignot is an early stage investor at Index Ventures where he specialises in SaaS, marketplaces and mobile. He is actively looking after Index's investments in Algolia, Blablacar, Capitaine Train, Deliveroo, Drivy, Rad, Swiftkey and TheFamily. He worked on 50+ transactions to date, including Assistly, Auxmoney, BaseCRM, Cloud.com, Codecademy, DimDim, Factual, Farfetch, Flipboard, Funding Circle, Gluster, HouseTrip, Just-Eat, Lookout, Nastygal, Notonthehighstreet, Onefinestay, PeoplePerHour, TrustPilot, Soluto and SoundCloud. Prior to joining Index, Martin was in the TMT team at UBS Investment Bank and co-founded the beauty subscription business Boudoir Prive (acquired by Joliebox/Birchbox) and a student web radio service (www.rsp.fm). A special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data displayed in today's show and you can find out more about Mattermark here! Click To Play In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) Where did it all start for Martin? What is the Martin Mignot story?
2.) How does Martin view venture as a career vs coming into it later on? Why does Martin think venture is now a viable career from the offset?
3.) Does Martin agree with Sheryl Sandberg’s statement, it doesn’t matter where you sit, as long as you have a seat on the rocketship? How important is valuation for Martin when making the decision?
4.) How Martin goes about sourcing the latest and greatest startups from the European ecosystem?
5.) How does Martin evaluate founders and consider their ability to execute on their plan, prior to making the investment?
6.) Talking of difficulty for startups attaining funding, what are your thoughts on VC founder alignment? You have said to focus before on the business and not the team, unless exceptional cases prevail, this is very strange for me to hear. Why is it you have adopted this stance and why do you feel it is best?
Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Martin's Fave Book:
I Have America Surrounded by Tim Leary
Martin's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Ben Evans Newsletter
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