Will Quist: Why 95% of Venture Capital is Not Really “Venture Capital” | 20VC #924

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

September 12, 2022

Duration

1h 8m

Channel

The Twenty Minute VC

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Will Quist is a Partner @ Slow Ventures. Over the last decade, the team at Slow Ventures have invested in the earliest rounds of over 500 companies including Robinhood, NextDoor, Airtable, Solana and many more. As for Will, prior to Slow he spent over 8 years at Industry Ventures and before industry, cut his teeth in the world of finance at Banc of America. ----------------------------------------- Timestamps: 0:00 Will's Background 6:48 WTF is Venture Capital? 9:18 Venture is Simple but Hard 10:20 The Lack of Rebels in Venture 11:20 All Capital Games End Up Looking the Same 13:17 Does "New Venture" denigrate the returns of "Old Venture"? 16:00 How can seed managers compete with multi-stage firms? 17:12 A Click Further Out from Consensus 18:30 Five Levers that Determine the Value an Enterprise 25:22 Market vs. Founder 28:46 How do you think about the Risk Matrix? 29:56 Does having one novel idea increase likelihood of having a second? 31:34 Does being one clic away from consensus mean a higher loss rate? 32:32 How to Price Companies when there's Less Consensus 33:40 What will Venture look like in 3-5 years? 36:05 The Problem with LP Incentives 37:42 Most Disturbing Trend in Venture 39:29 Is Venture more or less collaborative than ever? 40:56 Price Sensitivity 42:45 Will's Biggest Hit 44:40 Venture Investors the Laziest 45:50 Will's Biggest Miss 46:47 Internal Mindsets over Goal Orientation 50:16 When to Sell in the Secondary Markets 52:55 How do you think about reserves? 55:57 Is success in Venture cyclical? 58:15 What does the future hold for Slow Ventures? 1:00:15 Will's Favourite Book 1:00:31 Most Underrated Angel Investor 1:01:10 What will happen to Tiger Global? 1:02:00 What would you most like to change about the world of startups? 1:02:43 What have you most recently changed your mind on? 1:04:31 Do VCs do branding well today? 1:04:58 Will's most recent publicly announced investment ----------------------------------------- In Todays Episode with Will Quist We Discuss: 1.) Entry into Venture: How Will made his way from 6th generation San Francisco to Partner @ Slow? What are 1-2 of the biggest takeaways from his early 1-1s with Don Valentine? What does Will know now that he wishes he had known when he started in venture with Industry? 2.) WTF Really is Venture Capital? Why does Will believe that 95% of venture capital today is not really venture capital? What is true venture capital in Will’s mind? How does Will divide the world of VC into two with; venture classic and new venture? How are they different? How are their return profiles different? 3.) The Questions: Discovering Greatness: Why does Will believe “for the most part, investors across asset classes are just asking the same questions”? What are those questions? What different answers are each looking for? What are the 5 core questions that will needs to understand to determine conviction and accurately price an asset? How does Will think through and analyze the question when meeting founders of; “what needs to come true for this business to become a great business”? 4.) The Future of Venture Capital: How does Will predict the venture capital ecosystem will look in 5 and then 10 years? What are the most concerning traits of the venture ecosystem for Will today? Who will be the winners of the next decade? Who will be the losers? What happens to the crossover funds? What will happen to Tiger? ----------------------------------------- Subscribe to the Podcast: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/will-quist/ Follow Harry Stebbings on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings Follow Will Quist on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wquist ----------------------------------------- #WillQuist #SlowVentures #20VC #HarryStebbings #venturecapital #spotify #startups #facebook #tiktok #socialnetworks

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Harry Stebbings

  host

• Will Quist

  guest

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of The Twenty Minute VC, featuring Harry Stebbings and Will Quist, Will Quist: Why 95% of Venture Capital is Not Really “Venture Capital” | 20VC #924 explores will Quist Explains Why Real Venture Capital Is Rare And Misunderstood Will Quist (Slow Ventures, ex-Industry Ventures) argues that only about 5% of capital labeled as “venture” is actually doing classic venture: funding novel, testable hypotheses with high equity efficiency. The rest is effectively growth or private equity-style capital chasing modelable, de-risked opportunities at scale. He lays out a simple-but-hard framework for underwriting startups around five levers—arc of history, product value prop, market, defensibility, and business model—and contrasts “venture classic” (non-consensus, experiment financing) with “new venture” (consensus, zero-sum, multi-stage platforms).

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