Michael Mignano: How I Founded Anchor; Why TikTok could be a $2 TRILLION Company | 20VC #923
11Mike Mignano is a Partner @ Lightspeed, one of the most successful venture firms of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Snap, Affirm, Epic Games, Mulesoft and more. As for Mike, prior to venture, he was Head of Talk for Spotify where he led the podcast, live, and video businesses for the world’s leading audio streaming platform. Michael came to Spotify through their acquisition of Anchor, a company he co-founded and is credited for democratizing podcasting globally. Mike has also been a prolific angel investor with a portfolio including Cameo, Pipe, Sandbox VR and Stir.
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YouTube Timestamps
00:00 Intro
00:37 Big announcement
01:10 Why Lightspeed?
03:15 What are you nervous about?
4:32 What can be done better in venture?
7:99 How to tell a founder you don’t believe in them
10:32 What matters more, markets or founders?
11:32 Advice on what it takes to be a VC
14:29 How many checks do you want to write a year?
15:50 What was it like at the height of Anchor?
18:50 Will we see another next gen consumer social company?
20:30 Copy cat approach from incumbents
23:21 Why did Clubhouse not work out?
28:08 Why are incumbents moving away from the social graphs?
30:48 How should content be moderated?
32:05 Will TikTok be a $2 Trillion company?
34:00 Do the best social platforms start with creator tools?
35:48 Are you bullish on the creator economy?
40:52 Adobe’s future
41:48 Twitter’s super follow fiasco
43:15 Did Spotify miss out on social?
45:50 Biggest takeaways from Angel Investing
48:20 Biggest investment mistake
50:25 How to determine mission oriented founders
51:26 Biggest miss
52:30 NFT social graphs
55:50 Opensea’s future
58:05 Favorite book and why
58:52 Secret to a successful marriage
59:53 Most underrated angel
1:00:33 Biggest strength and weakness
1:01:19 What would you most like to change about startups
1:01:55 Most recent angel investment
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In Today’s Episode with Mike Mignano We Discuss:
1.) Exclusive News:
What exclusive news does Mike have to share today?
What would Mike most like to change about the way founders experience the product of venture capital? How can VCs be better?
What is Mike most nervous about in the new role?
2.) The World of Social is Changing Forever:
Why does Mike believe there has never been a better time for the next social media giant to be born?
Why are the largest social giants leaving behind the social graph?
What is recommendation media? Why is it a better business model?
How does the shift from social graph to recommendation media change the way large social giants operate and interact today?
3.) Startups: Risers, Fallers and Is There Room For Another Giant?
What does Mike believe Clubhouse did well? What was their undoing?
Does Mike believe BeReal is defensible? What features make it both sticky and defensible?
Will TikTok be a $2 trillion dollar company? Will Meta catch TikTok or have they gone too far ahead?
Will OpenSea be able to sustain and make the market for NFTs, despite crypto crashing?
Should startups be concerned about large social giants “copying” their features?
What does true defensibility look like in consumer social today?
4.) Angel Investing: Hits, Misses and Lessons:
From writing over 50 angel checks, what are the single biggest lessons Mike has learned?
What has been his biggest hit? How did that change the way he thinks about investing?
What has been his biggest miss? In what way did that change how he invests?
What advice does Mike give to all angel investors looking to invest today?
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