Sarah Tavel

This Week in Startups is brought to you by… Squarespace. Turn your idea into a new website! Go to http://www.Squarespace.com/TWIST for a free trial. When you’re ready to launch, use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. LinkedIn Jobs. A business is only as strong as its people, and every hire matters. Go to https://www.linkedin.com/twist to post your first job for free. Terms and conditions apply. OpenPhone. Create business phone numbers for you and your team that work through an app on your smartphone or desktop. TWiST listeners can get an extra 20% off any plan for your first 6 months at https://www.openphone.com/twist * Todays show: Benchmark’s Sarah Tavel joins Jason to discuss strategies for competing in a changing venture landscape (9:12), the critical role of governance and accountability in startups (19:39), the relationship between hype, investment decisions, and startup promotion (55:20). and more! * Timestamps: (0:00) Sarah Tavel joins Jason. (1:38) Sarah Tavel, Benchmark Partner, on disciplined fund size and efficiency (5:06) Benchmark's commitment to founders and investment strategy (9:12) Strategies for competing in a changing venture landscape (10:00) Squarespace - Use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at http://www.Squarespace.com/TWIST (15:50) Valuations, ownership, and building deep relationships with founders (18:30) LinkedIn Jobs - Post your first job for free at https://www.linkedin.com/twist (19:39) The critical role of governance and accountability in startups (28:36) OpenPhone - Get 20% off your first six months at https://www.openphone.com/twist (30:16) The power of incremental improvements and executive limitations (34:32) Vanity metrics vs. building enduring value in startups (43:12) The consequences of choosing status over results in startup success (46:22) Building trust in leadership and the pressures of maintaining success (49:03) The importance of non-consensus bets and independent thinking (55:20) The relationship between hype, investment decisions, and startup promotion (58:19) In-person work vs. remote work: Impact on startup productivity (1:02:58) SaaS market challenges: Pricing, AI impact, and future models (1:07:33) Exciting AI investments and the transformative potential of new technologies (1:13:01) AI advancements, new use cases, and the competitive landscape (1:17:16) How incumbents and consumers are benefiting from AI advancements (1:19:15) Embracing AI in daily tasks and business operations * Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com/ Check out the TWIST500: twist500.com * Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp * Check out Benchmark: https://www.benchmark.com/ * Follow Sarah: X: https://x.com/sarahtavel LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahtavel/ Sarah’s Substack: https://www.sarahtavel.com/ * Follow Jason: X: https://twitter.com/Jason LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis * Thank you to our partners: (10:00) Squarespace - Use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at http://www.Squarespace.com/TWIST (18:30) LinkedIn Jobs - Post your first job for free at https://www.linkedin.com/twist (28:36) OpenPhone - Get 20% off your first six months at https://www.openphone.com/twist * Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland * Check out Jason’s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis * Follow TWiST: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com * Subscribe to the Founder University Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@founderuniversity1916

Sarah Tavel

General Partner

BenchmarkGreylock PartnersBenchmark Capital

Sarah Tavel is a General Partner @ Benchmark, one of the most successful and renowned venture firms in the world. At Benchmark, Sarah has led rounds in Chainalysis, Hipcamp, Medely, Rekki, Glide, Cambly and more. Prior to Benchmark, Sarah was a Partner at Greylock Partners. Before Greylock, Sarah was the first 30 employees at Pinterest. Sarah joined Pinterest in 2012 after co-leading the Series A investment while at Bessemer Venture Partners. In Today's Episode with Sarah Tavel We Discuss: 1. Becoming a GP at The Most Renowned Firm in Venture: How did the process of Sarah joining Benchmark start? How did it progress? What was it that convinced her to leave Greylock and join Benchmark? What does Sarah believe makes Peter Fenton the world-class investor that he is? What does Sarah know now that she wishes she had known when she started in venture? 2. Foundation Models: Is it All Going to Zero: Will foundation models be commoditised? Will 99% of the funding going to foundation models go to 0? How does Sarah view the future of open vs closed source? Why does Sarah believe that all frontier models of the future will be closed-source? Why does the business model of foundation models remind Sarah of the food delivery business? 3. Application Layer: Where $BN Companies Will Be Built: Why does Sarah believe that sustainable value-creating companies will be in the application layer? How does Sarah determine between a wrapper on top of ChatGPT and true product value? Are enterprises opening real budgets for AI today or are we still in experimental budgets? How does Sarah think about how AI companies differentiate when there are so many in the same space of customer service, sales team support etc etc? Why does Sarah believe that it is rational to pay more for these companies when investing in them? What does Sarah mean when she says the future is "selling the work and not the tools"? 4. Inside Benchmark: How the Best Do Venture: What is the one rule that Benchmark is willing to break when doing a deal? Why do Benchmark aim to be the best recruitment firm in the world? Why do Benchmark not agree with the concept of reserves? In a case where Benchmark have lost, why did they lose? How did they change their approach?

Sarah Tavel

General Partner

BenchmarkGreylock PartnersBenchmark Capital

Sarah Tavel is a General Partner at Benchmark and sits on the boards of Chainalysis, Hipcamp, Rekki, Cambly, and Medely. She is a founding member of All Raise, the nonprofit organization working to accelerate the success of women in the venture-capital and VC-backed startup ecosystem. Before Benchmark, Sarah was a partner at Greylock Partners. She joined Pinterest in 2012 as their first PM and launched their first search and recommendations features. She also led three acquisitions as she helped the company scale through a period of hypergrowth. In this episode, we discuss: Sarah’s Hierarchy of Engagement framework for growing a consumer startup • The three levels of the Hierarchy of Engagement: core action, retention, and self-perpetuation • The importance of measuring cohorts and maintaining focus on the core action • Examples of core user actions from Pinterest and YouTube Sarah’s Hierarchy of Marketplaces framework for building a marketplace startup • The three vectors of growth for dominating a marketplace • Advice on “tipping the marketplace” and ultimately dominating the market • The value of focusing on a constrained market • How to avoid disruption — This entire episode is brought to you by Gelt—Redefine your approach to taxes. — Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-hierarchy-of-engagement-sarah — Where to find Sarah Tavel: • X: https://twitter.com/sarahtavel • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahtavel/ • Substack: https://www.sarahtavel.com/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Sarah’s background (03:33) Framework 1: The Hierarchy of Engagement (06:03) Level 1: Core action (10:33) Level 2: Retention (14:00) Level 3: Self-perpetuation (19:32) The importance of focus (23:54) The challenge of anonymity (26:04) Advice for founders who want to increase retention (29:34) What founders often get wrong (31:43) Examples of core actions (37:37) Finding your North Star Metric (38:12) Who should use the Hierarchy of Engagement framework (38:54) The Hierarchy of Marketplaces framework (46:09) Level 1: Focus on a constrained opportunity (50:19) Sarah’s “happy GMV” and “minimum viable happiness” concepts (54:47) Thumbtack: a counterexample to this approach (56:36) Signs you’re ready to move to level 2 (58:06) Level 2: Tipping the marketplace (01:04:15) Tipping loops (01:10:53) Not all markets are susceptible to tipping (01:15:55) The challenge of homogeneity in B2B marketplaces (01:20:29) Signs you’re tipping successfully (01:21:43) Level 3: Dominating the market (01:28:29) The opportunity in underestimated markets (01:30:11) The challenges of chasing GMV and losing focus (01:36:36) Recognizing currents and momentum in the market (01:39:20) You can never rest on your laurels (01:41:03) How to apply these frameworks outside of marketplaces (01:42:57) Three ways to find marketplace opportunity (01:45:10 ) Lightning round — Referenced: • Hierarchy of Engagement, Expanded: https://sarahtavel.medium.com/the-hierarchy-of-engagement-expanded-648329d60804 • Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/ • Evernote: https://evernote.com/ • Notion: https://www.notion.so/ • Houseparty app: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houseparty_(app) • Clubhouse: https://www.clubhouse.com/ • How to price your product | Naomi Ionita (Menlo Ventures): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-price-your-product-naomi-ionita-menlo-ventures/ • TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/ • Lessons on building a viral consumer app: The story of Saturn: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-on-building-a-viral-consumer • Saturn: https://www.joinsaturn.com/ • What happened to Secret?: https://www.failory.com/cemetery/secret • How to determine your activation metric: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-determine-your-activation • Shishir Mehrotra on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shishirmehrotra/ • The rituals of great teams | Shishir Mehrotra of Coda, YouTube, Microsoft: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-rituals-of-great-teams-shishir-mehrotra-coda-youtube-microsoft/ • Engagement Hierarchy: Core Actions: https://sarahtavel.medium.com/engagement-hierarchy-core-actions-dd4f72042100 • Choosing Your North Star Metric: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/choosing-your-north-star-metric • Hierarchy of Marketplaces: https://sarahtavel.medium.com/the-hierarchy-of-marketplaces-introduction-and-level-1-983995aa218e • Mike Williams on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yoroomie/ • Everything Marketplaces: https://www.everythingmarketplaces.com/ • Fabrice Grinda on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fabricegrinda/ • OLX: https://www.olx.com/ • DoorDash Loves the ’Burbs as Much as You Do: https://www.wsj.com/articles/doordash-loves-the-burbs-as-much-as-you-do-11605618001 • Thumbtack: https://www.thumbtack.com/ • NPS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_promoter_score • Sean Ellis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanellis/ • Rekki: https://rekki.com/ • Ronen Givon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronen-givon-535b2514 • Hipcamp: https://www.hipcamp.com/ • Demand driving supply: The little-understood growth loop behind a surprising number of iconic billion-dollar companies: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/demand-driving-supply-marketplaces • Inside the Revolution at Etsy: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/25/business/etsy-josh-silverman.html • Faire: https://www.faire.com/ • Bill Gurley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billgurley/ • Mechanical Turk: https://www.mturk.com/ • Parker Conrad on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/parkerconrad/ • Rippling: https://www.rippling.com/ • “White Space” for Building a Marketplace: How to Find Your Competition’s Vulnerabilities—and Capitalize: https://sarahtavel.medium.com/white-space-for-building-a-marketplace-how-to-find-your-competitions-vulnerabilities-and-79674aa4d399 • Pachinko: https://www.amazon.com/Pachinko-National-Book-Award-Finalist/dp/1455563935 • The Five Temptations of a CEO: https://www.amazon.com/Five-Temptations-CEO-Anniversary-Leadership/dp/0470267585 • The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable: https://www.amazon.com/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership-Fable/dp/0787960756 • Tesla: https://www.tesla.com/ • Reid Hoffman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reidhoffman/ • What Is A Good Activation Rate: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/what-is-a-good-activation-rate — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Sarah Tavel

General Partner

BenchmarkGreylock PartnersBenchmark Capital

This Week in Startups is brought to you by… Miro. Working remotely doesn't mean you need to feel disconnected from your team. Miro is an online whiteboard that brings teams together - anytime, anywhere. Go to https://miro.com/startups to sign up for a FREE account with unlimited team members. Vanta. Compliance and security shouldn't be a deal-breaker for startups to win new business. Vanta makes it easy for companies to get a SOC 2 report fast. TWiST listeners can get $1,000 off for a limited time at https://vanta.com/twist Mercury. 90% of startups fail. Just 10 out of every 100 make it. Mercury exists to close that gap — helping companies succeed with banking and credit cards engineered for the startup journey. Join over 100,000 companies banking with Mercury at http://mercury.com Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC. * Today's show: Benchmark's Sarah Tavel joins Jason to discuss the state of VC (1:57), her time at Benchmark (13:33), her recent Substack blogs (31:51), AI's impact on startups (44:31), and much more! * Time stamps: (0:00) Benchmark's Sarah Tavel joins Jason (1:57) The state of VC and the biggest things founders have had to contend with (12:08) Miro - Sign up for a free account at https://miro.com/startups (13:33) Benchmark's culture (21:35) Evolving trends in VC (24:37) Vanta - Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://vanta.com/twist (25:45) Tradeoffs and common VC mistakes (31:51) Sarah's Substack blogs and the inspiration behind her writing (35:42) Mercury - Join 100K+ startups banking with Mercury at http://mercury.com (36:54) Entrepreneurship in 2023 and the importance of a founder's long-term vision (44:31) Technology catalysts and how AI is impacting startups (58:36) Business models, the amount of developers needed, and navigating funding rounds (1:04:42) The complexities of strategic partnerships and corporate VC (1:14:54) M&A in the era of Lina Kahn and looking at the macro picture as an investor * Follow Sarah: https://twitter.com/sarahtavel Check out Sarah's Substack: https://www.sarahtavel.com * Read LAUNCH Fund 4 Deal Memo: https://www.launch.co/four Apply for Funding: https://www.launch.co/apply Buy ANGEL: https://www.angelthebook.com Great recent interviews: Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland, PrayingForExits, Jenny Lefcourt Check out Jason's suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis * Follow Jason: Twitter: https://twitter.com/jason Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jason LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis * Follow TWiST: Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin * Subscribe to the Founder University Podcast: https://www.founder.university/podcast

Sarah Tavel

General Partner

BenchmarkGreylock PartnersBenchmark Capital

Sarah Tavel is a General Partner @ Benchmark, one of the most successful funds of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Uber, Twitter, Dropbox, WeWork, Snapchat, StitchFix, eBay and many more. As for Sarah, prior to joining Benchmark, she was a General Partner at another globally renowned firm, Greylock, where she led deals in Sonder and Gixo. Pre-Greylock, Sarah was the first PM @ Pinterest where she led three acquisitions, launched Pinterest internationally, and was responsible for closing their $100m Series C financing. 20VC: Benchmark's Sarah Tavel on Why Chasing GMV Will Lead To The Wrong Direction, The 2 Crucial Tipping Points For Marketplace Adoption, Why UGC Plays Are Like Marketplaces & How To Determine Between Existential and Non-Existential Risk In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Sarah made her way from being the first PM at Pinterest to being a General Partner at one of the world's leading venture firms, Benchmark? 2.) What does Sarah mean when she says, "the small things are not the big things"? How does Sarah determine between existential vs non-existential risk? How does this impact the type of board member Sarah is? How has Sarah seen the best board members engage? Who are they? 3.) Why does Sarah believe that in marketplaces, chasing GMV will lead you in the wrong direction? How does Sarah think about good vs great when it comes to 1.) Average order values? 2.) Repeat purchase rates. 3.) NPS? 4.) Net revenue retention? How should they change with time? 4.) In marketplaces, what is a tipping point? What are the 2 crucial tipping points to be aware of? How can marketplaces ensure demand brings further demand? What can they determine from how demand engages with different suppliers? How does Sarah feel about feedback systems? 5.) Why does Sarah believe that UGC plays are like marketplaces? What lessons can be drawn from TikTok to suggest this? How does Sarah think about her biggest lessons when analysing the growth of DoorDash? What do many not see that is important to recognise? Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode Sarah's Favourite Book: Pachinko: The New York Times Bestseller As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

Sarah Tavel

General Partner

BenchmarkGreylock PartnersBenchmark Capital

Benchmark General Partner Sarah Tavel joins us for a master class on consumer investing. We start with why invest in consumer at all (given the inherent risks of its "hit-driven nature"), then deep dive on marketplace investing and wrap up with social, gaming and consumer transactional businesses. Big thank you to Sarah for sharing her immense knowledge on this topic, and to her partner (and fellow Acquired "master class lecturer" on enterprise investing) Chetan Puttagunta for introducing us and for making it happen! Sponsors: Sierra: https://bit.ly/acquiredsierra   Links to Sarah's consumer investing blog posts: "Hierarchy of Marketplaces" posts:  https://medium.com/@sarahtavel/the-hierarchy-of-marketplaces-introduction-and-level-1-983995aa218e "Hierarchy of Engagement" post:  https://medium.com/@sarahtavel/the-hierarchy-of-engagement-expanded-648329d60804 Rocks, Sand, and Water Framework for Consumer Attention:  https://medium.com/@sarahtavel/the-opportunity-and-risks-for-consumer-startups-in-a-social-distancing-world-a-framework-for-15f65e2fbdff

Sarah Tavel

General Partner

BenchmarkGreylock PartnersBenchmark Capital

My guest this week is Sarah Tavel, a general partner at Benchmark, working alongside past guests Bill Gurley and Chetan Puttagunta. Sarah has a long history as both an investor and as an operator.  She was an early product leader at Pinterest before joining Benchmark. Sarah has become one of my go-to resources for topics like networks, consumer technology, and marketplaces among many other topics. I’ve used her framework for how to think about client engagement, company data, and marketplace liquidity and quality over and over again in my business life. I’m so excited to finally have her on the show.  Please enjoy our conversation. For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag   Show Notes 1:24 – (First question) - Lessons learned from watching the food delivery space 5:44 – Hip camp and how they are thinking about the space rental sector             5:45 - The a16z Marketplace 100 7:47 – Valuing private companies vs public companies 9:37 – Building marketplaces 14:24 – Tipping a market             14:30 – Bill Gurley Podcast Episode 18:09 – How to incorporate reputation scores into a network 19:55 – Search ranking as a tool for marketplaces 21:00 – Size of marketplaces vs their competitors 22:15 – Niching of marketplaces             22:21 - Chetan Puttagunta Podcast Episode 23:26 – State of the consumer social sector 27:50 – The LinkedIn problem and how she would build a social platform 30:42 – Things that are piquing her interest in the consumer space 32:20 – Lessons learned about scaling while working at Pinterest 38:42 – Pricing and the marketplace 41:25 – Identifying and optimizing a Core Action in a digital business 44:18 – Accruing benefits and mounting losses as part of the product design 47:48 – Her investment in Reci 52:18 – How should companies gather the best data from their business 56:03 – Lessons to SaaS investing 56:29 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Sarah 57:45 – Most interesting philosophy lesson             58:09 – Creating a Kingdom of Ends   Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.  Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

Sarah Tavel

General Partner

BenchmarkGreylock PartnersBenchmark Capital

0:50 Jason intros Benchmark's Sarah Tavel 1:20 Aside from Slack, what other companies grew like consumer-facing but charge like enterprise? 3:19 How was Sarah recruited to Benchmark? How is Benchmark different from other major VC firms? 12:04 Limited upside of talking to the press in 2020 17:30 Growing up in NYC and going to Harvard 21:30 Jason on becoming a "Don't touch the thermostat" dad 23:58 How did the offer from Peter Fenton go down? What drew Sarah to Benchmark? 28:36 Sarah's thoughts on disrupting VC as a woman from the inside & from the outside 37:30 How going from operating to investing is trading stress for anxiety 40:51 Jason and Sarah discuss their most personal & significant investments: Calm & Pinterest 47:26 How Pinterest's business model was a mold of Facebook and Google 49:45 Jason tells regulators how to stop Google 58:14 Investing in Chainalysis & Crypto infrastructure 1:12:44 Are the best companies polarizing? 1:16:30 Investing in Hipcamp 1:29:43 Marc Andreessen asks Sarah a question

Sarah Tavel

General Partner

BenchmarkGreylock PartnersBenchmark Capital

On this episode I'm visiting Benchmark Capital, one of the world's most renowned venture capital firms, at their offices in the heart of the Tenderloin in San Francisco to chat with two of its general partners, Sarah Tavel and Eric Vishria. Sarah Tavel has a unique background as an investor, then operator, and back to investor. In the mid-2000s she joined Silicon Valley-based Bessemer where she led an investment in Pinterest and others. She went on to join Pinterest back when they were only a few dozen people before returning to venture three and a half years later. She's now a GP at Benchmark and on the board of Hipcamp and Chainalysis. Eric Vishria started his career as an operator, working at Opsware and HP before founding Rockmelt, a social take on the web browser, back in 2008. Later the company was acquired by Yahoo where Eric joined as a VP before making a leap into venture at Benchmark. Over the past four-plus years he's lead investments in Confluent, Contentful, Amplitude, and others. In this episode we talk about: What it's like to go from operating to investing and the different skillsets involved in those jobs, and why Benchmark has bucked the trend of venture firms expanding both in headcount and fund size. What Sarah and Eric are looking for in an investment, which spaces they're most excited about (hint: they say that contrary to reports of its death, consumer is very much alive), and why each partner at the firm only does on average one or two investments in a year. The importance of starting a company in Silicon Valley (or not) and why we're seeing more startups build outside the Valley. We also discuss some of her favorite products, including a couple apps that are enabling new forms of communication on mobile, an “Airbnb for campsites,” and why Sarah has been playing Fortnite for “research purposes.” 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. Also, big thanks to AngelList and FreshBooks for their support. 😸 Quotes From This Episode “When I meet with a company that's outside the Valley, I would get on a soapbox and talk about how they have to be here if they want to scale and I always kind of thought that from zero to a couple hundred million market cap, you can build that anywhere, but to be that multibillion-dollar company, you have to be here. I still believe that but not as a strongly as I used to and it's because you do see so many examples of companies that are getting started and are getting to some scale outside of the Valley.” — Sarah “As soon as you think it’s over, it’ll probably come from an unexpected place. It won’t be a direct competitor to Facebook, it won’t be Facebook reborn. That isn’t the way it’s going to happen, it will be something unexpected, orthogonal, that comes out of nowhere but that meets this need for people to connect. I think that it’ll happen — I don’t know where, I don’t know how.” — Eric “It's incredible to see how big many of the other venture firms are getting, and not just from a fund perspective, but from a people perspective. It's almost like they're vertically integrating. They've got seed investing, early stage investing, growth investing, some even have you know, public equity investing, debt, you know, as part of their platform. They've got talent teams and marketing teams and customer development teams and we've just decided to stay very very focused on what we do, which is being a close partner.” — Sarah “It's really about looking at a lot of stuff, falling in love with an opportunity and an entrepreneur and deeply engaging, whereas operating is mostly figuring out how to get stuff done and very little of figuring out what to do, in a lot of ways venture is like 90% or 95% figuring out what to do and like 5% getting it done.” — Eric Companies and Products Mentioned in This Episode AutoSleep — Automatically track your sleep from your Apple Watch. Bitmoji — Turns your avatar into stickers and emoji. Breaker — The social podcast app. Chainalysis — Building trust in blockchains. Discord — Find people who share your interests. Hipcamp — Airbnb for campsites. Marco Polo — Keep in touch on the go. Nextdoor — Connect to your neighbors.

Sarah Tavel

General Partner

BenchmarkGreylock PartnersBenchmark Capital

Eric Vishria

General Partner

BenchmarkBenchmark Capital

Sarah Tavel is a General Partner at Benchmark, one of the world's leading VC funds with a portfolio including the likes of Twitter, Uber, Snapchat, eBay, WeWork, Yelp and many more revolutionary companies of the last decade. As for Sarah, Sarah has led Benchmark's investments in and currently sits on the boards of Chainalysis and Hipcamp. Prior to Benchmark, Sarah was a Partner at Greylock Partners, where she led Greylock's investment in Sonder and another (unannounced) company. Before Greylock, Sarah was one of the first 35 employees at Pinterest where she led the company's international expansion and aided in the closing of the Series C financing. Sarah was also the product lead for search, recommendations, machine vision, and pin quality and led three acquisitions as she helped the company scale through a period of hyper-growth. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Sarah made her first foray into the world of venture with Bessemer over 10 years ago? How that led to Pinterest and how she came to be a GP at Benchmark today? 2.) Speaking of Sarah's operating career with Pinterest, Pat Grady said on the show "never has the rate of decay on operating experience been greater". How does Sarah think about and respond to this? How has operating made Sarah a strong investor? What are the drawbacks that this operating experience can present for investors? 3.) Moving to evaluation, Andy Rachleff, Founder @ Benchmark said on the show, "good team poor market, market wins; good market, poor team, market wins. How does Sarah think about the balance between founder vs market? Why is going after big markets so hard? What should investors look for in a market with that in mind? How does Sarah determine the right time to open up adjacent markets? 4.) There has never been a greater supply of capital in the market than today, does Sarah believe we have an excess supply today? Does Sarah agree with her Partner, Peter Fenton, "no good deal is too expensive in hindsight"? How does Sarah assess her own price sensitivity? How does it depend on the opportunity? How has it changed over time? 5.) Having 2,5000 hours on boards, how has Sarah seen herself develop and change as a board member? What have been some of the biggest learning curves? What are the commonalities in the very best board members Sarah works with? how doe the best entrepreneurs manage and use their boards effectively? 6.) Why does Sarah think that crypto today is very much like the world of adtech in the early days? How does Sarah think about the requirement for specialisation in the space? WIll this be a game for the specialised crypto funds or can generalist VC funds compete? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Sarah's Fave Book: Creating the Kingdom of Ends Sarah's Most Recent Investment: Hipcamp As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Sarah on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

Sarah Tavel

General Partner

BenchmarkGreylock PartnersBenchmark Capital

Benchmark partner Sarah Tavel talks with Recode's Kara Swisher and Teddy Schleifer about her career in tech companies and venture capital. Her resume includes stints at Pinterest, Bessemer Venture Partners and Greylock Partners, but last year she became the first woman partner hired at Benchmark, where one of her focuses is cryptocurrencies. She explains why the field is interesting even though it has been flooded with scammy ICOs since late 2017. Tavel also talks about what she and other female VCs are doing to help women succeed in tech and how she views the influx of money into the ecosystem from SoftBank. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sarah Tavel

General Partner

BenchmarkGreylock PartnersBenchmark Capital

Sarah Tavel is a Partner at Greylock Partners. Prior to Greylock, Sarah was a product lead at Pinterest. As one of the first 35 employees, her first order of business was to launch Pinterest internationally and close the Series C financing. Sarah then moved into product, becoming Pinterest’s founding PM for search and discovery, and launching Pinterest’s first search and recommendations features. She also led three acquisitions as she helped the company scale through a period of hyper-growth. Sarah joined Pinterest in 2012 after co-leading the Series A investment while at Bessemer Venture Partners. She spent six years at Bessemer, investing in a wide range of businesses from Quidsi to Cornerstone OnDemand. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Sarah made her way into the world of VC from selling ads in college? 2.) What is the deal sourcing story behind your sourcing of Pinterest for Bessemer? What made Sarah so excited about the product? At what stage did Sarah realise the huge potential Pinterest did have? 3.) How did Sarah decide Greylock was the right VC to choose over the plethora of other options? 4.) How does Sarah try and appeal to the inner founder? What does she do to make sure she is the first person they call? What forms of communication does Srah like to communicate with? 5.) What is Sarah's attitude to VC's personal brand? How has Sarah seen the personalisation of VC in recent years? Why the shift from blog to Medium? 6.) What is the most important attribute for a consumer product to have? Does it have to be both 10X better and cheaper? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Sarah's's Fave Book: Creating The Kingdom Of Ends Sarah's Fave Blog or Newsletter: A Crowded Space by Josh Breinlinger As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Josh on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Sarah Tavel

General Partner

BenchmarkGreylock PartnersBenchmark Capital

Sarah Tavel is a partner at Greylock, previously ran product at Pinterest, and is one of my favorite investors in the Valley. We talk about her story at Pinterest - why she joined, how it scaled, and how she transitioned from PM to VC. She shares career advice talk about career advice — when to join a company, when to move on, and how to identify a rocket ship. And then we discuss investing and how to get good at it. Edited by @alexkontis Lavish Praise to @sarahtavel Constructive Criticism to @eriktorenberg

Sarah Tavel

General Partner

BenchmarkGreylock PartnersBenchmark Capital