20VC: How to Raise a Venture Fund from Deck to First Meetings to Final Close, Why Venture is a Young Person's Game and Why Multi-Stage Funds Have Not Ruined Seed with Rob Go, Co-Founder @ Nextview

22:14How did you get in touch with them? What was that entry point for that relationship? Thankfully, we had been in venture for a few years and so we had relationships with GPs and our firms and other firms were willing to make introductions to us. What I found actually very useful though was not necessarily our closest relationships as much as other funds that were sort of like us that had raised recently. And it was just amazing Harry how generous people were in sharing their insights in the process, their lead lifts, giving us background intel on everybody who they spoke to. I remember one person always sticks in my mind.

22:48There were a few, but Bryce Roberts, who was doing OA TV at the time, I barely really knew him. I remember him sharing his entire spreadsheet and talking me through every single LP and saying, like, here's how they think. And I didn't understand half the words he was saying. And he just was so gracious and was able to explain to me what the situation was, how we should be thinking about it in our process and can't think of enough for that generosity early on. And so I've made many LP intrusive for Bryce. It's funny, you said that. And the reason I do and I do and actively for other early stage managers is because when you find a great manager, They're going to raise with or without your help.

23:24You get brownie points for helping them, and then you get brownie points from the LP for providing great leads. It's like in that win -win to do it. At the time, I thought that folks would be very protective about LP relationships. You don't realize that a lot of the market has this win -win perception. I got to tell you though, some firms don't. I think it's a little bit of a scarcity mindset, and I would argue that this is a little bit of the function of the time. Part of why the Boston venture market at the time was not thriving the way the West Coast market was, is there's a little bit of a scarcity mindset here, a little bit more of a protected attitude towards everything, which frankly was part of why we started wanting to start a fun, right?

24:02We wanted to buck that trend and I actually think that many of the funds that exist today don't behave that way. There's certain ecosystems where I think that that is definitely the case. When we think about those LPN shows that we have, did you send them the deck, the trend record before and there's often a question of why the descend before or after. You can go either way. I actually don't think it's a bad thing to send the deck. It's like people want the information, just give it to them. Sometimes we'll send like a pretty detailed blurb so that there is some enticing information, but we don't have everything.

24:31I actually don't mind that because I think part of your job is to qualify and to try to manage your time well. And so having an obvious next step that is out there is kind of helpful for that qualification process. But I don't know. For the most part, I think sending a deck is not the worst thing. I agree with you. I prefer the more detailed blur by finding that people find a reason to say no in the deck quite often ahead of time But you mentioned qualification there I do want to touch on that because I think there's questions that managers can ask to qualify LPs early in the cool or the meeting What questions do you think managers can and should ask to better do LP qualification?

25:04Yeah, this is something that I didn't realize when we started the first fund the number one factor in whether and LPs is yes or no is just timing Are they expanding their program? Are they looking for whatever box or category they put you in? Do they have the bandwidth to be able to do it within the time frame? They're trying to raise a fund. Like those are the main factors. And so you want to try to figure out what the answer is to those questions. So LPs usually will share like what percentage of their portfolio is private equity or venture? You want to get a sense for like is that growing or shrinking?

25:32You want to get a sense of has this LP invested in something that looks like you. And what is their general strategy around that category of product? Because with adventure, presumably if you're raising a first fund, you fit into some small bucket, right? So when we started, it was an institutional seatbunds not in the Bay Area. A few years ago it would be crypto. Most LP is hopefully have some strategy of like we want to have X number of managers that look like you. We've invested in two or three of them and so we have another four or five to go, right? Like whatever the numbers are. Trying to get that feel, I think, is really, really valuable and whatever questions it takes to answer that I think is what you're looking for.

26:07I always ask about geography. I find if you're the first in the new geography, it's probably very unlikely. I always ask like on check size, like you said there about the ones that are massive checks. They're about 25 million dollar checks and you're raising a 30 -40 million fund. Pretty much qualified out straight away. And you check size geography existing portfolio for them. What was the best ever LP meeting you had? I'll tell you, the LP meetings I most enjoy are ones that focus a lot on the human beings, the nature of the team dynamic, the why behind what we do, the touchy -feely meetings.

26:41There is a class of LPs, I think a lot of folks who have this approach have a heritage at Yale. So I really enjoy those meetings. Another meeting I remember was with Horsley Bridge. They're not LPs in our fund. But I remember actually a follow -up where we were talking about portfolio construction. And one of the folks that said, the best portfolio construction in the world is to invest in one company and put all your money into the first round and be right. And every derivative from that basically is allowing for uncertainty and risk. And I always kind of remembered that. I kind of enjoyed there like probing, taking ideas to an extreme, just a stretcher thinking because I felt like I learned something from that.

27:20And obviously that's not anybody does, but I kind of appreciated that point of view and it changed the way that I sometimes think about pro -cola construction myself. What was the worst LP meeting you've had? We're cell p -means are just when it's clear the person doesn't want to be there. We actually very rarely have those meetings now and for the most part it's because we don't fight that heart to get a meeting. Like in the beginning I was like, oh, I just need to get in the room and if we can get in the room we can convince the people that they want us. If somebody doesn't want you, they don't want you.

27:48I'm not that great of a salesperson so it does me no good to walk in to somebody who's already leaning way back. Like, like, too short, there's other opportunities out there and so I would almost say like, You want to scrape and fight really hard to get great introductions, but if somebody doesn't want to take a meeting, like there's not that much value in forcing it. If we think about that post -meeting process, so we have that meeting, we have that cool. What's the right sub -screen follow -up? What do we send them? When do we send it? What do you advise there? Mark's sister had a post years ago, and one of the takeaways was to paraphrase, like, always leave something more.

28:24Always leave something out so that there's some reason never follow. That's sort of why a blurb is kind of nice because then it gives you an opportunity to follow up with the deck So it would one of our fund raises we had a data room for the first time we actually had a data room And we were so liberal about saying like well, here's the data room have a look We have since changed that we do have a data room But the data room is a preliminary data room and it is intentionally incomplete and the reason is intentionally complete is if we offered the data room I want to know they looked at it which you can like a lot of times was tracking for these things But then if they actually like prosecuted it, it'll be obvious.

28:57There's some other stuff that they would want to see. And so we have like a subsequent data room that we offer for folks who actually dig in and cared to look at it. So I like having these kind of gates that are out there to just assess whether or not LPs are serious and it's sort of like a video game, right? Like let them go in quests and you know, pass the level and move on to the next one. I totally agree with you. So let's talk about the nightest level. You send them the deck, you send them the follow -up, something, the data room. they don't respond. What do you do then? I have a basic belief that it never hurts to ask twice, but I never ask three times.

29:29Right? So if there's an email that doesn't get responded to, I don't feel bad about asking again. After I'm ignored twice, that's okay. I just move on. That doesn't necessarily mean they're dead, by the way. It's just that I'm not going out of my way to proactively seek them out. But fundraising processes are long. You never know, right? You might see them at a conference in three months from now, and they'll be like, oh yeah, you know, The times have changed, like let's have a follow up and like that's fine. I they're not dead to me. I'm just not gonna to proactively reach out anymore. So that's my general rule.

29:58I remember that was one with my first fund and it was I fuck it. I know Alpies and mine are the insurance provider and they didn't respond after a great first meeting every single Monday for 50 weeks. I emailed them. We show they took a year to raise a fucking fund and then on the 51st week, they responded, sorry, bin slammed, love to engage. And you were like, really? And what'd you do with that? And so we followed up and we were like, we would love to engage too, yes, please. You know, we only sent 50 fucking emails to get this one. But so I totally agree with you. But I think, yeah, there is a certain time when you publish and stop.

30:35It seems like you've had maybe a different experience where, because if you've sent 50 emails, that means for somebody else who sent 10 emails and it did work. So do you actually think that the two email rule is not correct? Oh, yeah, 100%. No, you're technically right, but the cost of it is so little. Like, just checking in, one of our portfolio companies just raised a huge up around by Sequoia. It's very low. Actually, the cost is low and the benefit is high. So, fuck it, keep going. And I'm always more and more humorous with everyone. So, I'm like, Rob, you probably think I'm as persistent as your, you know, wife or husband.

31:08And I am. I'm worse. If you want to get rid of me, it's much easier than divorce. Just let me know. And then they're like, ha, ha, ha, great. Actually, I really like that approach, right? The thing not to do is the, do you want to take a next step? Do you want to take a meeting? Ask me for something without offering something? I think that is really hopeless. All the entitlement elements. I think it's really bad that you haven't responded, blah, blah, blah. It's not bad they haven't responded. They just don't like you in a lot of cases. I think that, and then the other thing I think is, is that invest in lines not dots.

31:37So I meet two new LPs every single week when I'm not fundraising. at the end of each meeting I asked for two new L .P. intros. They make them, so I have a flywheel of four new L .P.'s per week. I'm not fundraising, and then every quarter, when I send out my quarterly update, I send it to them, Rob, I hope you're in the family well, I hope Boston's great this time of year, personal copy, like personal bit at the beginning, and then copy and place with it. They love it. The line's not dots going to your sister -comman, and building that relationship over time works so well. I agree with that. So I would say when I say don't ask twice, I would not be shy about hearing good news But I certainly wouldn't ask without offering something over and over again You're not gonna share bad news.

32:20I my partner left and I hate him No, that would be too funny Tell me that the hard thing is like just creating a sense of urgency even in ones that do respond So how do you advise managers on getting people over the line and what works and what doesn't? tricky thing about this business is you know where most LPs have the incentive to be the second to last yes because it's not like you have that much benefit in being or any benefit in being the first yes to fund. So I have a couple of thoughts here. I think for a first fund, there is no shame in closing a very small amount as long as your strategy can support it.

32:53I always remind people like Lieris first fund was a $7 million fund and they're pretty well -known folks in the industry. So I think there's something about like just do a close and then that allows you to have a very concrete timeline of what a final close looks like. Once you're done and you're in business, just do what you need to do and then you can create more urgency in your next fund when you have more demand and more points on the board. I also think that there's some LPs that pride themselves in being in a first close. Some fund of funds, some endowments, it's meaningful to them that they're known for being the first yes and so you can basically use a closed date as a forcing function.

33:28If clearly that's not going to work then at least you know they're not really serious within that time frame. But I don't know, like, what have you done, Harry? I think it's really important on the timeline basis to set a timeline that's not too short right forces them to a note, but where it's short enough, where actually they need to do the work fast, but they actually have time. So I always say 14 to 21 days. Actually, if someone's going to do it, 14 to 21 days gives you time to shit or get off the can as we say in the UK. I don't think that's arrogant. It's not unreasonable. A couple of weeks to internalize.

33:57They can say, subsequently, hey, that's our decision and then we need to approve of IC. Fine, but actually, we need to have some form of declarative decision within 14 days because we do have allocations to the filling up. I think it also shows confidence and progression by doing that. Yeah, I think that's right. I think that as you get further along in the fun, it's easier to be able to say, hey, you know, our last one is X size. New fund is this size. Most of our LPs want to do, you know, want to increase their allocation. We probably have room for one or two more LPs and we're trying to be very selective about who that looks like.

34:28We think that we'd love to work with you, but here's our timeline and try to figure out if they can meet that. They should never be surprised by your timeline on subsequent funds. Like I've built a relationship with many LPs that I want in subsequent funds ahead of time. They know exactly when they're coming. So they're pre -sold to plan for that internally. I think that's really important. You've got to think about their planning cycles and their deployment cycles. Because otherwise, if you're like, hey Rob, I'm raising. Oh shit, I kind of did like you, but now we're a little bit up. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point.

34:56So typically, if I think about our timing, if we're looking to do a first close in, say, Q1 of a given year, we are probably giving pretty clear indication of where our timeframe is, at least, like 18, if not 24 months before that. And then we remind people, hey, like this is what we said, you probably don't remember, here it is again. Some LPs are very good at keeping track of this kind of thing. Some folks tend to forget, and so we just remind folks. And like you said, it's an obvious surprise when the time comes that you're looking to close at a certain time. And I think LPs actually kind of, even those who pay attention, they appreciate the consistency of how you operate it, right?

35:33So knowing that you're a fund that is delivering on exactly what they said, they're hitting the timeline that they projected to earlier is like very reassuring, because a lot of the existing managers don't do that, right? So, you know, when the markets were hot, when LPs always said, it was like, oh my god, so and so fun has come back like a year or two years ahead of expected, and it's throwing off our entire planning strategy. Like, there's actually something comforting in knowing that they're operating as predictably, if not more predictably than they're existing portfolio, and you're great to work with from that standpoint.

36:03I think also going to a point now of an of calendars, it's really important to know that there are strategically better times of year to raise for certain institutions. A lot of endowment funds get fresh buckets of allocation in the start of any year, and so Q1 is actually optimal. Q3 is probably the worst and actually end of Q4 when they might have like a spare little stipend left. Can actually be the best as well. But I think knowing that there's like strategic moments of best capital availability is important. Yeah, I wonder if that's gonna change that, because I feel like what you've described, I feel like maybe everybody has figured out.

36:36And so I notice that everybody basically starts their fundraise at the latter half of the year so that they can target a beginning of the year clothes unless they catch somebody who has an interview allocation. That is a most logical timing to capture the large part of the market, but then I hear everybody's doing that. So I don't know if there's a way to zig when others are sagging, probably not, but yeah, that's something I've been thinking about actually. I just have a problem with that, they too, because it just shows this like strategic manipulation of relationships aligned to fund raises.

37:05And it's like, I've been speaking to 30 LPs who are not in my fund. Honestly, Rob, because they're also really fricking smart. And I learn from them on the phone. So there's no like, oh, I'm gonna engage with them again with Q1 in mind. I'm kind of shining some on a weekly quarterly basis on WhatsApp anyway, and I think that's what manages me more of which is just the natural relationships. Whereas, oh, meet my friend Rob, he's raising now and he's great. I'm not raising. I think there's some GPs though, they don't have the constitution of always fundraising. I feel like this is true for founders too.

37:38There's some founders who are just so great at always having investor conversations and other founders that are just not good at that, right? And they're better off like running a concentrated process, simultaneous process in BigBursts. And so I think in some degree, like that's sort of the same for cheapies too, some folks are very, very good at keeping a lot of LP relationships and LP cultivation going. And I think some are just not as good at that. How much in terms of like LP check size, a lot of people I meet have minimums, and it really pisses me off, because I think that that very dangerous, some of my best LP instructions, sound instructions have come from 25K chats from heads of products.

38:13How do you advise on minimum LP chat sizes? I would say for individuals, I'm usually pretty loose. For institutions, we try to enforce some sort of a minimum, but the minimum's typically pretty low. Because like you said, sometimes you get great introductions from LPs. Sometimes, it's our model to start really small, but they can actually up size quite considerably. Like we've certainly seen that in our portfolio. I try not to be too snooty about that. I generally am a believer in building an anti -fragile LP base. Even though I said earlier, I don't mind concentration. I also don't mind a lot of small checks.

38:46If you can handle it from a timing standpoint. A bunch of small checks is very, very anti -fragile. I'm not too snooty about that sort of thing. As long as folks are good to deal with and they're not a huge time -sync, I'm happy to engage. Can I ask you on different types of LP knowledge there? Did you find that one type of LP converted better for the others in terms of corporate, fund -a -fund, the C -daybit? But different types of LPs convert better at different times near your life cycle. So funda funds are in the business of one of two things. They're either in the business of access, get whatever institution into these fancy names, and so they're very focused on brand.

39:22The other job of funda funds sometimes is to execute a particular strategy and get folks into something new. And so if you fit the category of like the new thing in a new category, some funda funds are really, really great at converting. Weirdly, when you're in the middle, you're neither new, nor you so well known that you have like a great brand, fund of funds are not as good. What I found is that like funds two to three, it's actually harder to get a new fund of funds engaged because you're neither of the two. There are some groups that are very, very large LPs and they just want stability. They will never invest in a fund one or a fund two, but they love the idea of investing a fund three, four, five, a plus or more with a team that's been together for a long time that has executed the same strategy for a long time that, you know, just has shown that great level of stability and like, that's what they want, right?

40:10I think pension funds tend to like that. I think some endowments like that. And I think they tend to convert great towards the middle and later stages of the fun cycle. Where would you say you are? You're fun five, but we're not so quiet of 40 years. We paid you. Where are you in terms of that fun life cycle, would you say? I would say that we are not the new product, but we have a lot of stability. We don't have the biggest brand but our track record is pretty strong. LPs that don't care so much about the brand that like smaller managers and believe in early stage and kind of like a no frills less flash but great performance kind of partner that they can trust for a long period of time tend to like next week.

40:50Who is the new thing? Well it was crypto. That's not the case anymore. Probably if you're an AI specific fund that can very credibly tell a differentiated story that could be a new thing, although it's so crowded perhaps not. Can I ask you in terms of like management of the process, how tightly should it be managed? I didn't find emerging managers manage some monotubes on me. How tightly should it be managed? I think you want to be organized, especially the first couple of times you do. I think you want to be very organized, but don't try to manage it too tightly, because you actually don't know enough to be able to manage it like a fine oiled machine, and you have to allow for some serendipity.

41:26I'm like a little zen about this kind of thing, like I try to stick to my time lines I try to be very transparent with our LPs. I always say that if you're not first this time, maybe next time, and who knows? When I started, I had so much urgency around like, we need to hit this date, we need to close this amount by this amount of time, like trying to jam people into a framework, and now I'm just much more laissez faire about it. We had one experience with one of our funds where we closed most of it, frankly, right before the lockdown happened with COVID. And we're like, we've hit our target. Should we just like stop fundraising and just like focus on investing.

42:00I was like, yes, but you never know what might happen. Nine months later, one LP that frankly is a relationship I cultivated since fun one decided to come in at the very, very end. It was 100 % about their own timing. Were they ready to say yes to us early on? No, like literally with like, I said in the email and I think that either ignored me or they said no, like just just by the email. And then nine months later, they were ready. Because I chatted with them in fun one, like they had the sense that they tracked us for a long, long time and they were ready to say yes to us and so I was like, okay, great, this is gonna work.

42:31So I'm much more relaxed. What was the easiest fund to raise and what was the hardest fund to raise? The last fund was the easiest to raise, so it was the fifth fund. And that was the DPI and cash bag. Yeah, it was a DPI story. Yeah, DPI story. And then the hardest? The hardest was the first fund because we didn't know what we were doing. Other than the first, which was the hardest? Probably the third fund. Why do you think that is? Because we lost an LP. Can I ask, a final one, we just did touch on the market? Is there anything you know out fundraising now that you wish you'd known at the start?

43:01I'm sure there's many things, but like once you wish most like I said I've become so much more zen about this in the first fund every time someone said no I took it personally and I thought like it was a waste of time now looking back It is amazing like this one LP that I mentioned. It's actually our biggest LP now This is the one that I talked to them in fund one they didn't actually engage very much But they always took a meeting or two and then passed and then I think fund three or fund four or they didn't even take a meeting. And then fun five they came in. And I was like, how much of a waste of time was that?

43:30Not much, right? It was like a handful of meetings over the course of however many years, some email updates, and there are great partners with us. And there are pretty large LPE for us. And if that has kind of changed my thinking, we're like, you just don't know. People are in the business of meeting managers, you're in the business of meeting LPEs, and you just don't know how relationships are gonna evolve. People are gonna go to different platforms and at a new platform, maybe you become a really great fit for them when they weren't before. So just like allows their identity to happen and do your job and I feel like things will work out.

43:57I think mine is just be human. You know, we started this pool with me asking you advice on, you know, children and relationships and managing life. When you get on an alpical, you put on a shirt and tie and get the deck up ready. That's just the same as you. Why didn't you ask them those questions and actually build a real relationship? Totally. That's what you bring back packs. That's what you bring back packs. Maybe a couple of final ones before we do a quick fire. Now, I have this theory, we're not theory, but many people have said all the truth before that multi -stage funds have destroyed seed, they've turned the blood bath with 5 million or 25 million seed rounds.

44:31Do you agree in his seed harder than ever now? I think the degree of difficulty is relatively high. I don't think that it will persist, because at some point the multi -stage funds will say, hey, it's not really worth our time and effort to invest at this stage, and they'll turn their attention to later stage rounds where you're right bigger checks again. But for now, it's pretty difficult. But there have been other times where it has been difficult as well. And when we started seed was a cottage industry, it wasn't that it was a lot easier today It's harder, but we didn't get into this to do something using.

44:59Do you not think seed pricing is immune to macro cycles? When you look at it, I think it will just continuously stay at actually at very high levels because of all the multi -stage funds moving earlier. I think it's a bifurcated market. Prices are very high for certain types of companies, but if you're a contrarian, there are a lot of companies that don't get any love as well. I also think that part of the complaint is that seed funds are looking for what effectively used to be a Series A investment. And I say, like, why don't you do a pre -seed? Because pre -seeds are still pretty cheap, especially if it's not a super proven founder.

45:27By the way, like, when we started, we were doing seed rounds, and there were cases where it was a very, very proven founder, and they would skip the seed seed job together and raise a Series A. I feel like that's kind of the same thing that's happening today. It's just the labels are different. If you come out of a Figma, a Stripe, a notion, you don't raise the 500K to a million pre -seed round. Yeah, you never know. I don't know if that's necessarily true. Do you see them? Yeah, we see them. I spoke to a founder yesterday who had been part of a company had a very successful exit, then joined a unicorn company before it was unicorn lead growth.

45:55And he did a pre -seed and it was pretty reasonably priced, like the seed will probably be pretty expensive, but the pre -seed wasn't bad. What do you see today in the seed market that you think not enough people are talking about or spending enough time on? Related to your last question, I think there's actually a lot of opportunity out there for none consensus thinking. I think there are a lot of companies that aren't getting very much love because they're not AI, the teams aren't fancy founders that came from well -known companies that are just having a really tough time raising and I think that there's going to be many dimes in the rock that come out of that.

46:28I think there's a lot of like doom and gloom and like disgruntled chatter amongst seed investors right now and I'm like there are a lot of companies out there go ahead and do it and by the way if the founders are really that great like just go ahead and pay a higher price like that's okay too. I've just been down in town sheet for Series 8 to lead it and I think the price was half what it would be last year, but I just think the capital supply is not there for an enterprise software company in London. Right. No, I saw that tweet, right? It's like a good old fashioned enterprise software series A with good metrics that isn't doing AI or not pretending to do AI.

46:58That's great. And everyone's like, AI is going to kill it. You're like, really? It's not. This is so ugly. Trust me, it's not that easy, guys. Listen, I want to do a quick fire round, Rob. So I say, sure, statement. Yeah. Okay. So if you do invest in one seed firm other than Naxe for you, what would it be in He would be in DVC. So this is Bryce's fund. They have a completely different model focused on a completely underserved different segment of the early stage market with a unique investment product. That's like different on four or five dimensions with a great guy and I can't wait to invest in this one.

47:30He just is such a good person. I'm totally with you. If you would invest in a series A firm, who would it be and why? It would be benchmark persistent success over time, successful generational transition, and quite disciplined, amazing brand, great people, hard to be. If you were investing a growth firm, which would it be? I would probably say Summit Partners. They're the OG of the classic growth cold calling machine. Like they invented that model. They executed like nobody else. If I could, I would specifically invest in their smaller fund. They have a bunch of different funds. I think they have a small $400 or $500 million classic growth fund.

48:03That's probably what I would do. What have you changed your mind on in the last 12 months? I was skeptical of AI. I am like all in on it. What, like what calls the change? I see something happening in AI that's very similar to the early days of the internet. There are teams that I see that are clearly trying to become AI native. And that doesn't necessarily mean that you're like an ML researcher or have a PhD in the space. It's just that you are like approaching building every software product with an expectation that AI and AI -driven tools can massively create efficiencies or to enable new capabilities.

48:36And there are other teams that are just like, This is probably the next new fad, I don't know, I'm going to put it aside. This is very similar to the internet, right, or cloud. There was a time when you would talk to a founder and you just knew, is this person like an internet native? Is this person just native to the types of products and tools that are out there and available to them or not? I kind of see the same dynamic happening, and it's not that every company would invest in an AI company, but every team we invest in, I'd like them to be very, very AI native. What's your biggest miss and how did it change your mindset?

49:04My biggest miss was DraftKings. I was actually Jason Robbins' teaching assistant in college. I knew he was special. He walked into our offices to pitch draft kings along with two other extraordinary co -founders. We passed not because of like regulation but because we misunderstood the market size. And ever since then I've been very careful to not say no to an investment just because of market size without thinking very deeply about whether or not we're misunderstanding the market, mystifying it or just underestimating the growth that's on the other end. What's the biggest hit and how did that change your mindset?

49:40One of our biggest hits is attentive and we invested in an uncapnop and that changed my mind because we never would have done it before. It's not like we're looking to do uncapnopts left and right but it made me realize you just want to get into the best companies. In a power of love business, you just want to get into the best companies. What would you most like to change about the world of venture. I think venture is very one -size -fits -all. Even though there are a lot of different managers, a lot of different funds, there's just like so much similarity in the ways that they approach it. That's why I love what Bryce is doing with Indy.

50:12Like it's completely different as so many vectors. When I got an adventure, I remember there was a very heart and fast rule about like you have to own 20 % as a venture fund. One of Union Square's big innovations was they were willing to own 15%. And I remember people were poo -pooing them for own 15%, like why is that wrong? There's just so much one -size -fits -on venture. I would love that to change around like the types of people get into it The types of companies that can raise venture the type of economics maybe that could allow different types of companies to work I don't I think in a lot of different ways.

50:41We're not taking creatively enough Tell me next five years for you and for next view. What does that look like when we challenge? 2028 my vision and our team's vision is for next view to be I think of benchmark and YPO had a baby and focused on seed That's what I'd love next we'd be from on the benchmark side. It's a very partner -driven model equal partnership a lot of stability best in class best in class investor very concentrated model yp .o an ethos of founder vulnerabilities support communal excellence folks are able to have like lifelong relationships that they think is one of the most important things in their lives like I would love that to be what founders say about being part of the next report for you so if we can marry those two things I would love that Rob, I've so enjoyed this.

51:27This has been such a great discussion. Thank you for putting up with my very vocal interview style this time around, but I've loved it, man. Awesome. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me. So much fun in that episode with Rob, and if you'd like to see more from us behind the scenes, of course you can on YouTube by searching for 20VC, that's 2 -0 -VC, but before we leave each day, over 50 % of your day is filled with tedious tasks. What would you do if you got that half a day back? Now you can with Coda, the all -in -one platform that changes the way your team works together, and Coda just introduced an AI -powered work assistant to take the busy out of work.

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53:57Thousands of startups have moved their camp tables to Angelist in the past year. Angelist also supports large ranch funds and their teams with an automated software first approach and the best customer service in the industry. Fund managers can focus on making great deals while Angelist handles reporting, taxes complines a more. So if you're ready to scale your startup or fund with the platform at the center of the world, visit angellist .com for slash 20VC to get started. As always I so appreciate all your support and I cannot wait to bring an incredible episode on Monday with Akin at Triple Dot.