Phin Barnes

Phin Barnes is the Co-founder and Managing Partner of The General Partnership (TheGP), a venture capital firm that's redefining what partnership means for founders. Previously, Phin spent over a decade at First Round Capital, where he was responsible for over 60 investments including Blue Apron, Notion, Clover Health, Gauntlet and Persona. Before First Round, he created an independent video game company and before that was an early employee at AND 1 Basketball where he helped scale the brand from $15 to $225 million in revenue and served as the Creative Director for Footwear. In Today's Episode with Phin Barnes We Discuss: From Creative Director to Venture Capitalist: How did Phin make his way into the world of venture having been a Creative Director at a basketball brand? What does Phin know now that he wishes he could tell himself on his first day in venture? What are 1-2 of Phin's biggest lessons from his 10 years at First Round which shapes how he invests? 2. The Venture Capital Model is Broken: Why does Phin believe the current services model of venture is broken? Do the best founders need your help? What have been some of the biggest lessons in what the best founders want from their VCs? What happens to this generation of firms with massive support teams? Do VCs use these support teams merely to justify massive fund size scaling to LPs? 3. The Venture Landscape Today: How can we compete in a seed landscape of $5M on $25M against large multi-stage firms? What founders types are attracted to big brands? What founder profiles are taken in by large rounds and high prices? Is Phin more or less excited about seed-stage investing now than he has been before? 4. Investing Lessons 101: What is Phin's biggest hit? How did seeing their success impact his mindset? What is Phin's biggest loss? How did the loss impact how he views investing? Traction, team, market; how does Phin rank the three in prioritisation? What should all young people know when entering the venture landscape?

Phin Barnes

Co-Founder & Managing Partner

The General PartnershipFirst Round Capital

Todd Jackson is First Round Capital's newest Partner (announced today) having spent the last 2 years as a Founder-in-Residence working with the FRC portfolio. Prior to his time in venture, Todd spent close to 3 years at Dropbox as VP Product & Design. Before that he was with Twitter as Director of Product Management, following his startup, Cover, being acquired by Twitter in 2014. Before founding Cover, Todd was a Product Manager @ Facebook where he helped lead major redesign of Newsfeed. Finally, Todd started his career at Google as a Product Lead taking Gmail from 0 to 200m users in 4 years. Todd is joined today by his Partner @ First Round, Phin Barnes. Phin also writes the most fantastic blog, sneakerheadVC, that really is a must-read. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) Phin, what is the exclusive news you would like to break on the show today? Todd, taking one step back, how did you make your way to this stage, what was your entry into technology and how did you come to be a Partner @ First Round Capital today? What were Todd's biggest takeaways from working on some of the most transformative social products in Gmail, Twitter, Newsfeed @ Facebook and Dropbox? 2.) What advice does Phin have for Todd when it comes to entering a venture partnership? Where do many people go wrong in their first year in venture? What should Todd be optimising for in the partnership? In terms of measurement, how does one measure success of the first year of work as a Partner? 3.) Todd, making the move from angel to institutional VC is a mindset shift, how does Todd think his investment mentality will be impacted by the shift from angel to institutional VC? Having raised funding as a founder, what type of founder experience and investor does Todd want to be and bring? 4.) Phin, it has been a long time since FRC added a Partner, walk me through the recent changes at the top of FRC? What are the most important qualities for First Round when adding a Partner? What are the biggest tips to doing generational transition well? Where do many firms go wrong in generational transition? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Todd's Fave Book: Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs, Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Handbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell Todd's Most Recent Investment: Papaya Payments, Snackpass As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Todd on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Businesses are always looking for ways to shorten their sales cycles. HelloSign provides secure, effortless eSignatures proven to speed up contract signing by 80%. Most clients go from a multi-week turnaround to a multi-hour one. They're an industry leader and have been voted #1 for Ease of Use two years in a row on G2 Crowd. Don't let pen and paper processes slow you down. Click Here to join the millions of users already using HelloSign to close more deals faster!

Todd Jackson

Partner

First Round Capital

Phin Barnes

Co-Founder & Managing Partner

First Round CapitalThe General Partnership

Phin Barnes is a Partner @ First Round Capital, one of the most prestigious and successful early-stage funds of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Uber, Square, Warby Parker, HotelTonight, GOAT, PatientPing, Atrium and more incredible companies. As for Phin, in his own words, he learned the business of startups helping grow AND1 from $15M to $225M in revenue as Creative Director for Footwear, and started his own fitness video-game company, producing Yourself!Fitness, the first game of its kind for Xbox and PlayStation 2 where he built partnerships with the likes of Procter & Gamble and McDonald's. Phin also writes the most fantastic blog, sneakerheadVC, that really is a must read. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Phin came to be a Partner @ First Round by working for free, with no plans to be a Partner? 2.) What were Phin's biggest lessons from learning from and observing Josh Kopelman? How does Phin define true success as a VC today? Why is the model of determining success according to returns fundamentally flawed? How does Phin approach the need for VCs to be both curious and competitive? What is the nuance there? 3.) Why does Phin believe that the commonly discussed "pattern recognition" is another term for intellectual laziness? What does Phin do to prevent his forming assumptions on the founders he meets? Why does Phin fundamentally disagree with the common VC habit of looking for weaknesses in founders? 4.) Does Phin agree that we have an oversupply of capital in market today? How does Phin determine when a stretch on price is a stretch too far? Why does Phin think that more emphasis should be placed on the business model that VCs have? What does Phin mean when he says that he is on the "sell side"? 5.) What does Phin mean when he says that "VCs should focus on a founders ability to optimise for learning per dollar spent"? Is cash ever a defensible moat in it's own right? What does Phin believe is the right way for founders to use capital as a weapon? 6.) How does Phin and First Round think about the right way to allocate reserves effectively? What does that look like in reality? What does the decision-making process look like on re-investments? Why does Phin believe that the framework of "pro-rata is largely lazy? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Phin's Fave Book: Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War Phin's Most Recent Investment: Ubiquity6 As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Phin on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

Phin Barnes

Co-Founder & Managing Partner

The General PartnershipFirst Round Capital