Sheel Mohnot: $445M Robot Pizza Company FAIL; The Story of Warren Buffett & Rose Blumkin | E1035
15Sheel Mohnot is a Co-Founder and General Partner @ Better Tomorrow Ventures, a $225M fund that leads rounds in pre-seed and seed-stage fintech companies globally. Sheel and Jake (his co-founder) invested for many years together before founding BTV and wrote checks into Mercury, Flexport, Ramp, and Hippo Insurance to name a few. As for Sheel, before BTV he ran 500 Fintech for close to 7 years, and before that was a founder, founding two companies, both of which were acquired.
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Timestamps:
(0:00) Intro
(2:07) Advice for Young VCs
(4:07) Why Fund Sizes Are Too Big
(11:09) Investing in Emerging Markets
(15:46) Investing in Europe
(16:54) Investing in Fintech
(19:44) Which VC firms will win over the next 10 years?
(24:50) The Biggest Misconceptions About Venture
(25:52) How Sheel Raised His First VC Fund
(37:16) Why Sheel Launched an Accelerator
(41:49) When You Should Take Money Off the Table
(44:53) The Biggest Mistake VCs Made in the Past 2 Years
(46:13) Founder vs Product vs Market
(48:30) The Story of Warren Buffett and Mrs. B
(51:32) The Biggest Reason Why Great Founders Fail
(53:59) Will multi-stage VC firms quit investing in seed stage startups?
(57:40) The Biggest Source of Tension Between VCs and Founders
(1:00:23) The Biggest Source of Tension Between GPs and LPs
(1:03:44) Thoughts on Founders Who Run VC Funds on the Side
(1:06:00) How Sheel Got Married in the Metaverse
(1:10:01) Quick-Fire Round
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In Today’s Episode with Sheel Mohnot We Discuss:
1. VC Needs to Change:
Why does Sheel believe that VCs should have smaller funds?
What are the biggest misalignments between founders and VCs today?
What are the biggest points of friction between VCs and their LPs today?
2. VC in 10 Years Time:
Who are going to be the winners in venture in 10 years time?
Who are going to be the losers?
Will micro-funds be bigger or smaller as a segment of the ecosystem?
Will solo-GPs be bigger or smaller? Were they a zero-interest rate phenomenon?
3. The Errors of a Bull Market:
What does Sheel believe are the single biggest mistakes made by VCs between 2020-2022?
Did Sheel take liquidity off the table in the last few years? What have been some of his biggest lessons on when to sell?
How does Sheel evaluate the flood of capital into emerging markets in the bull market? What happens now?
Fintech is also experiencing the same challenging time, how does Sheel assess what is happening in the fintech financing market today?
4. Building a Fund: Lessons, Mistakes and Advice Scaling to $225M:
What are the single biggest mistakes Sheel and Jake have made in the fun scaling? How has it impacted their mindset?
What does Sheel know now about fund management that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
What advice does Sheel give to emerging managers today, raising their first and second funds?
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