How Does This Venture Capital Firm Pick Startups?
Leeor Mushin, Principal at Floodgate Fund
The Firm
Floodgate is one of the original pre-seed/seed early-stage VC firms in Silicon Valley. It is still devoted entirely to investing in very early-stage startups. Floodgate has been an early investor in such iconic companies as Lyft, Twitter, Okta, Twitch, Task Rabbit, and many others.
Our Guest
Leeor Mushin is a principal at Floodgate. He attended the University of Texas at Austin, and more recently graduated with an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business (the GSB). Leeor previously worked in the energy sector, and also co-founded a digital marketing company. While at Stanford, he co-founded the GSB 2020 Fund, a venture capital fund that invests in startups founded by his classmates, which was the first such fund at the GSB, and which has been repeated by each subsequent class. Since graduating, Leeor has been working at Floodgate Fund, alongside the founding partners Mike Maples and Ann Miura-Ko.
Available on: 🎙️Spotify, 🍎Apple Podcasts, and 🎥YouTube
Follow Leeor: LinkedIn, Twitter, Floodgate Fund Website
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Video Contents:
0:00 Teaser
1:37 Introduction
2:35 Personal career journey
5:46 Unexpected changes in career path
8:24 Starting the 2020 GSB Fund
12:22 How to start a VC fund for your class
14:57 Floodgate Fund
25:04 Having an open mind vs. a critical filter
27:29 What makes a great venture capitalist?
31:02 How to work best with founders
33:06 Can a VC firm really be hands on?
37:43 Additional lessons on how to be a good VC
39:17 What makes a great startup founder?
41:28 Major pitfalls that startup founders can avoid
43:11 Most challenging parts of being a VC
45:28 What do you wish you had known before starting in VC?
49:35 Should a VC firm have investment theses?
53:13 A pitfall that many VCs fall into
56:03 How should a VC reject founders?
1:00:14 How can a VC firm learn from missed investments?
1:03:29 How important is the pitch / pitch deck?
1:06:31 Critical vs. rose-tinted glasses; what can go right?
1:10:07 What does a super founder look like?
1:11:46 The thunder lizard approach to VC investing
1:14:54 What's the best way to reach out to Leeor?
1:17:42 Bonus round