2. Dave McClureโจ
Founding Partner, 500 Startups
00โs & 10โs:
โข VC: Founders Fund, Facebook fbFund, 500 Startups
โข Angel: Mashery, Mint.com, SlideShare, Twilio, Wildfire, SendGrid
โข Marketing: PayPal, Simply Hired, Mint.com, OโReilly
80โs & 90โs:
โข Entrepreneur: Aslan Computing (acqโd by Servinet/Panurgy)
โข Developer: Windows / SQL DB consultant (Intel, MSFT)
โข Engineer: Johns Hopkinsโ88, BS Eng / Applied Math
3. โข What is 500?
โ $250M global seed fund + startup accelerator
โ 130 people / 25 languages / 20 countries
โ 1700+ Companies / 3500+ Founders / 250+ Mentors
โ Investment, Accelerator, Distro, Marketing, Events, Education
โ Community + Content + Conferences
โข 1700+ Coโs / 60+ Countries
โ Twilio (NYSE: TWLO)
โ Credit Karma
โ Grab (aka GrabTaxi)
โ Wildfire (acq GOOG, $350M)
โ MakerBot (acq SSYS, $400M)
โ Viki (acq Rakuten, $200M)
โ Behance (acq Adobe, $150M)
โ Simple (acq BBVA, $117M)
โ Sunrise (acq MSFT, $100M)
โ Udemy
โ Ipsy
โ TalkDesk
โ Intercom
500 Startupsโจ
Global Seed Fund & Startup Accelerator
4. 500 Strategy: Lots of Little Bets*
1) make lots of little
bets on early-stage
startups when theyโre
just getting started
3) wait 5-10 years for returns:
-10-20% small exits @1-5X ($5-25M+)
-5-10% larger exits @5-20X ($25-250M+)
-1-2% unicorns @20-50X+ ($250M-1B+)
*See Peter Sims book: โLittle Betsโ
2) over the next five years,
double-down on top 20-30%
~500 coโs @ $100K 1st checks
100+ coโs @ $200-500K
2nd/3rd checks
(hope for a few big exits @
$100M-$1B+)
(assume high failure rate ~50-80%)
5. Old Startups vs. New Startupsโจ
LEAN Startup: Simpler, Faster, Cheaper, Smarter
1996
โBig, Fat Startupโ
โข Sun Servers
โข Oracle DB
โข Exodus Hosting
โข 12-24mo dev cycle
โข 6-18mo sales cycle
โข <100M people online
โข $1-2M seed round
โข $3-5M Series A
โข Sand Hill Road crawl
2016
โLean, Little Startupโ
โข AWS, Google, PayPal, FB, TW
โข Cloud + Open Source SW
โข Lean Startup / Startup Wknd
โข 3-90d dev cycle
โข SaaS / online sales
โข >3B people online
โข <$100K incub + <$1M seed
โข $1-3M Series A
โข Angel List global visibility
7. The Lean Investor
Make lots of little bets:
โข Start with many small โexperimentsโ
โข Filter out failures + small wins
โข Double-down on stuff that looks like itโs working
โข Incubation: $0-100K (โBuild & Validate Productโ)
โข Seed: $100K-$1M (โTest & Grow Marketing Channelsโโ)
โข Venture: $1M-$10M (โMaximize Growth & Revenueโ)
22. The โSeries B Snipeโ
(aka Stealing Baby Unicorns)
Seed Series A
Series B/
C
Late Stage /
Unicorn
Driver Team Product Customers Business
Cost 1X 10X 100X 1000X
Risk
Very
High
High Medium Low
Size /
Ppl
1-10 10-50 50-200 500-1000