Upgrade to Pro
— share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …
Speaker Deck
Features
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up for free
Search
Search
VC Secret Decoder Ring
Search
Calibrate
September 21, 2018
Business
0
70
VC Secret Decoder Ring
Marcy Swenson
Calibrate
September 21, 2018
Tweet
Share
More Decks by Calibrate
See All by Calibrate
(2019 - 1 of 10) Opening Keynote: The Product Triangle
calibrate
0
190
(2019 - 2 of 10) Making the Unknown Manageable
calibrate
0
81
(2019 - 3 of 10) Why Great 1-on-1s Are Like Perfect Formula 1 Pit Stops
calibrate
0
130
(2019 - 4 of 10) How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Grow High-Performance Teams
calibrate
0
110
(2019 - 5 of 10) Reshaping the Leadership Model - How Introverts Are Redefining What it Means to Lead
calibrate
0
170
(2019 - 6 of 10) The Platinum Rule: Manage Others as They Need/Want to be Managed
calibrate
0
170
(2019 - 7 of 10) Building Impact Through Essentialism
calibrate
0
210
(2019 - 8 of 10) Lessons From the Trenches
calibrate
0
88
(2019 - 9 of 10) How to Keep Up Your Technical Skills Without Annoying Your Teams
calibrate
1
87
Other Decks in Business
See All in Business
メドピアグループ紹介資料
medpeer_recruit
10
140k
VISASQ: ABOUT US
eikohashiba
15
520k
【DearOne】Dear Newest Member
hrm
2
11k
Findy社0901イベント資料(note株式会社)
yamane
0
300
RightTouch_mind
righttouch
PRO
0
990
月曜日のトラにおけるデータ分析 × AI の取り組み
nishicat
0
330
株式会社10X - Company Deck
10xinc
89
1.5M
Presentation for New Investors_July-2025
zig_zag
0
140
株式会社 PM Agent 採用資料
kiichitakeda
0
130
(株)HONEサービス説明資料_総合版(2025.08更新)
tsakurai
0
540
「なんとなく使いにくい」を論理的に説明する方法 〜プロダクトエンジニアとしてUXを議論できる第一歩〜
mkitahara01985
0
420
Infcurion Company Deck
infcurion
2
29k
Featured
See All Featured
Done Done
chrislema
185
16k
Into the Great Unknown - MozCon
thekraken
40
2k
The Art of Delivering Value - GDevCon NA Keynote
reverentgeek
15
1.6k
Distributed Sagas: A Protocol for Coordinating Microservices
caitiem20
333
22k
Docker and Python
trallard
45
3.5k
The Language of Interfaces
destraynor
160
25k
Build The Right Thing And Hit Your Dates
maggiecrowley
37
2.8k
CSS Pre-Processors: Stylus, Less & Sass
bermonpainter
358
30k
ReactJS: Keep Simple. Everything can be a component!
pedronauck
667
120k
Building an army of robots
kneath
306
46k
Optimising Largest Contentful Paint
csswizardry
37
3.4k
A designer walks into a library…
pauljervisheath
207
24k
Transcript
VC DECODER RING VC Secret Decoder Ring
GROWING YOUR HAPPINESS
1. VC secret levers drive many decisions 2. what is
required for next fundraise? 3. how will your company exit? 4. insider info is powerful & dangerous VC DECODER RING
1. VC secret levers drive many decisions GROWING YOUR HAPPINESS
GROWING YOUR HAPPINESS VCs Promise *their* investors 12% yearly invested
over 10+ years VC DECODER RING 1.12^10 = 3.10 12% annual return fund length 3x return
GROWING YOUR HAPPINESS $100M 10 year fund must return $300M
(3x) for the VC to raise another fund from LPs VC DECODER RING
GROWING YOUR HAPPINESS Startup Outcomes dead or zombie: 50% acquisition:
45% IPO: 5% VC DECODER RING
GROWING YOUR HAPPINESS given that 50% fail the other 50%
have to return $300M+ VC DECODER RING
GROWING YOUR HAPPINESS VC DECODER RING >3x 5% 2-3x 10%
1-2x 35% < 1x 50% VC Fund Returns
GROWING YOUR HAPPINESS VC job: raise money invest in companies
push CEOs to grow/exit pay investors back at least 3x {repeat} VC DECODER RING
GROWING YOUR HAPPINESS CEO job: vision & strategy great team
enough cash VC DECODER RING
GROWING YOUR HAPPINESS Investment Stages: angel / F&F Seed A
B C, D, … IPO or Acquisition VC DECODER RING
GROWING YOUR HAPPINESS CEO under crazy pressure to grow VC
DECODER RING
2. What is required for next fundraise? GROWING YOUR HAPPINESS
GROWING YOUR HAPPINESS Why is my CEO asking for more
& faster revenue & more users? VC DECODER RING
GROWING YOUR HAPPINESS Why is my CEO asking me to
ignore tech debt & hack together features? VC DECODER RING
GROWING YOUR HAPPINESS Why is my CEO asking me to
cut costs *while* building more features? VC DECODER RING
GROWING YOUR HAPPINESS Why is my CEO asking me to
“make it social”? VC DECODER RING
GROWING YOUR HAPPINESS Why am I spending cycles on an
integration with this lame partner? VC DECODER RING
GROWING YOUR HAPPINESS How do I explain all this to
MY team? VC DECODER RING
3. How will your company exit? GROWING YOUR HAPPINESS
GROWING YOUR HAPPINESS possible exits… dead or zombie: 50% acquisition:
45% IPO: 5% VC DECODER RING
GROWING YOUR HAPPINESS Does partner XYZ have “strategic value”? VC
DECODER RING
GROWING YOUR HAPPINESS Diligence looks like: • meetings w/key staff
• senior people OOO • requests for tech docs • hiring freeze • no decisions VC DECODER RING
4. Insider info is powerful & dangerous GROWING YOUR HAPPINESS
GROWING YOUR HAPPINESS
GROWING YOUR HAPPINESS