Skip to content
The Twenty Minute VCThe Twenty Minute VC

Wesley Chan: How I Created Google Analytics; The Founding Story of Gmail & Canva | 20VC #919

Wes Chan is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at FPV Ventures, a $450M early-stage fund. launched earlier this year. Wes is an investor in five $10B+ “decacorns,” his most notable being Canva where he is a member of the board of directors and led the Series A and C rounds. Wes also wrote the first or very early check into Plaid, Flexport, Gusto, Lucid, and RobinHood. Before FPV Wes was a Managing Director at Felicis Ventures and before Felicis Wes founded GV’s seed investing program. If that was not enough, as an operator, Wes co-founded Google Analytics and Google Voice and holds 18 US patents for his work in creating Google AdWords. -------------------------------------- Timestamps: 00:20 How did you get into venture? 04:12 Product insights from time at Google? 09:18 Do you worry about missing out on smaller deals? 11:29 How far out should founders plan? 15:08 Three types of markets 19:25 Outcome scenario planning 22:19 Capital concentration limits 26:40 Do board seats add value? 29:08 Should founders fundraise in this market? 31:00 Is now the best time to be investing? 33:58 Biggest misses 37:58 How to determine if a founder is a product visionary? 39:17 What is the product of FPV Ventures? 41:52 What type of founders do you invest in? 43:05 Advice to first time fund managers 45:29 What’s your learning process? 47:38 The art of venture 49:15 Favorite book and why 49:33 Biggest strength and weakness 49:53 How to navigate hypergrowth 49:38 Most contrarian opinion 52:34 The next 5 years for Wesley and FPV -------------------------------------- In Today’s Episode with Wes Chan 1.) From Founding Google Analytics to Venture: How did Wes make his way from founding Google Voice and Google Analytics to starting GV’s seed investing program? What are 1-2 of the single biggest product takeaways from working closely with Larry and Sergey @ Google? How did Wes make his way from Google to Felicis and scaling the firm with Aydin Senkut? 2.) Market vs Founder: Why Market Sizing is BS: Why does Wes believe that the market always wins over the founder? That said, what does Wes mean when he says “the best founders have 100 year plans?” How does Wes question and analyse 100 year plans? What makes the best? What makes the worst? Why does Wes not do market sizing? Why does Wes not do outcome scenario planning? What does Wes believe is the biggest fallacy of outcome scenario planning? 3.) The Venture Landscape: Does Wes believe that now is really the best time to be investing? Why does Wes believe there are some treacherous deals being done now? What are the signs that these deals are challenging? What advice does Wes give founders fundraising in these markets? What does Wes believe are elements that traditional VCs decide to do, which prevents founders from choosing to work with them? Does Wes believe VCs on board truly provide value? If so, which ones and why them? 4.) FPV: Firm Building and Portfolio Construction: With the new $450M fund, what is the portfolio construction that Wes chose? Why does Wes prefer to have more lines in the portfolio than a concentrated portfolio? Does Wes believe you can increase your ownership in your best companies over time? How does Wes think about capital concentration on a per company basis? What have been Wes’ biggest lessons from his biggest hits and misses? -------------------------------------- #WesleyChan #VentureCapital #VentureCapitalist #HarryStebbings #20VC #Founderadvice #FPVventures #Gmail #Canva

Harry StebbingshostWesley Changuest
Aug 21, 202253mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Wesley Chan on backing two‑gigabyte founders and timeless companies

  1. Wesley Chan recounts his journey from building iconic Google products like Analytics, Voice, and early Android to founding FPV Ventures, a small, fast-moving fund focused on “Navy SEAL–size” teams. He shares formative product lessons from Larry and Sergey—especially the insistence on world-changing ambition and Gmail’s famous jump from 200MB to 2GB—as the basis for his investing lens. Chan emphasizes backing founders with 100‑year product visions in markets that are created or massively expanded, rather than optimizing for rigid ownership targets or conventional market-sizing slides. He also discusses navigating today’s tougher funding environment, his aversion to faddish areas like crypto, and his belief that his edge lies in spotting true product visionaries and being a founder’s first phone call.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Aim for ‘two‑gigabyte moments,’ not incremental features.

Chan looks for founders offering an order‑of‑magnitude leap—like Gmail’s jump from 200MB to 2GB or Canva’s radically simpler design UX—rather than small improvements that feel like features, not products.

Ask if the idea is truly big enough to change the world.

A core lesson from Larry and Sergey is to reject projects that aren’t ‘big enough for the world’; Chan now asks founders if their mission is genuinely worthy of a decades‑long effort and can plausibly be a fund-returning company.

Focus on 100‑year visions, but stay flexible on early wedges.

The best founders, in his view, have a clear long‑term picture of the world and their role in it, even if they start with a narrow wedge; he backs those who can articulate how today’s product evolves over many decades.

Treat market reports skeptically; understand whether a new market is being created.

He largely ignores TAM slides and Gartner/McKinsey estimates, preferring to see whether a founder has a non-obvious insight about expanding or inventing a market that existing reports don’t capture.

Avoid dogma on ownership, geography, and board seats.

Chan’s Canva investment broke nearly every traditional VC rule (no board seat, less than 20% ownership, remote geography, romantically involved founders); he optimizes for getting into exceptional companies over rigid checklists.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

I ask founders, ‘What’s your two‑gigabyte moment?’

— Wesley Chan

The market always wins, but the truly visionary founders know how to create it.

— Wesley Chan

Are you building a feature or are you building a product? If it’s a feature, it’s not worth our time.

— Wesley Chan (recalling advice from Bill Campbell and his own filter)

I want the founder who can tell me what this company looks like in 100 years.

— Wesley Chan

It’s the best time to have a fund. It’s not the best time to be investing.

— Wesley Chan

Wesley Chan’s path: Google, Google Ventures, Felicis, and founding FPV VenturesProduct philosophy from Google: ambition, “two‑gigabyte moments,” and building products vs. featuresHow he evaluates founders, markets, and 100‑year company visionsFund construction: ownership, capital concentration, and scenario thinkingCurrent venture environment, fundraising advice, and “wait and stay put”Mistakes and anti‑portfolio (e.g., passing on Twilio) and lessons learnedLearning, mastery, and Wesley’s personal ‘edge’ as an investor

High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.

Get more out of YouTube videos.

High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.

Add to Chrome