Fred Destin @fdestin Twitter profile

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Fred Destin

1 year

🔥 There are now 100 signatories from the VC industry inc. all key players now in support of SVB and the 1K+ British startups it powers . 💪 Keep pushing and sharing. NOW is the time. Content + full list of signatories in the link.

VCs in Support of SVB-UK | Notion

Full list of signatories below.

stridevc.notion.site

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

2 years

Genius marketing.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

5 years

Founders are beasts 🦸‍♂️ In the morning they sell 🕺🏼 In the afternoon they recruit and manage 👩‍🍳 In the night they do payroll and tax returns 👩‍🏫 At the weekend they work on strategy and the 500 emails they didn’t get to 👩‍🚒 All that when they’re not fundraising of course 🤦🏽‍♂️

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

6 months after you stop working, unless you’re Steve Fucking Jobs, no one will remember your name. Worth keeping in mind 😎 Do shit you love.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

1/ Your startup valuation, explained simply 👇

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

Stark reminder today that you can't fire your investor. And that building a startup takes a long time. Soooo ... don't raise money from assholes. Life's too short.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

When VCs say "no" to funding you... they are saying "no" RELATIVE TO other opportunities they are chasing. It does NOT mean your startup is crap.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

1/ A little thread on how one venture capitalist thinks about the pandemic from a fund standpoint

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

2 years

VCs be like: “Hey we want underrepresented X to join our team but we’ll also insist on an MBA, experience in banking and consulting, or a venture firm or Google”

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

2 years

I’m waaaay more disciplined as a VC than I am as an angel. As a VC I feel deeply responsible and make tight investment decisions. My own cash? Eh. Friendship, passion projects, over-indexing on mission. I’m OK to lose it. So much for all that jazz about $$ alignment :-)

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

1/ Visited a startup yesterday that uses Kaizen / Lean aggressively; every wall of its office was covered in visuals mapping priorities and progress - I found it incredibly refreshing and invigorating 👇

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

Saw another startup with a completely shot cap table, which happens regularly in the UK and France. Management sub 10% for a business that just broke $1M ARR. We'd never, ever fund this without founders and team owning *at the very least* 30-50%. --> Clean up pre-funding.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

1/ How VC economics work explained very simply 👇

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

VC X: Amazon memo! Decks are soulless 🙄 VC Y: Nothing beats a good video, writing is so dry 🤗 VC Z: I HATE VIDEOS, decks only! Here are the twelve slides you must use IN CORRECT ORDER.😡 Founders:🤦🤦🏻🤦🏾

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

5 years

Founders! If you take a seed round from a large VC firm, you’re an option and not a commitment. Even if you ignore “signalling risk”, there’s limited alignment here - their real commitment is yet to come. They’re putting neither $ nor their brand on the line 🤫.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

6 years

Very early stage investing really shouldn’t be about “selling numbers to investors” which you then need to hit. It should be about embarking on a long journey where chaos, setbacks and unforeseen challenges are expected and need to be overcome, together.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

The hottest deals don’t have decks.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

1. Big news out of Stride today everyone! In 2021, Harry and I will be blazing new trails, but we will be hiking to different coordinates 👀

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

5 years

Final close of Stride Fund I is 👻👻👻 D-O-N-E 🥳🥳🥳 Also: Greetings from Luxembourg 🙄.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

Q: “What encouraging words do you have for someone who wants to do a startup?” A: “If you need encouraging words, don’t do a startup” - @elonmusk

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

Clubhouse has surfaced all the charlatans who pray on startups. The leeches, sycophants, parasites and passengers of the innovation economy. Folks who used to lurk in shady business groups on LinkedIn 🪤 Let’s collectively call out bad advice when we see it. cc @mpawlo

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

5 years

VC is a hard business to make 💲 in. Invested in 17 companies (pre @stride_vc & ex sub $1M checks). 9 successful exits, 4 fails (1 sub 1X exit, 3 bust), 2 planning IPOs, 2 raised large follow on. 4 🦄. “Only” 4.8X book multiple, though going up. Hard. Don’t do it for💲

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

6 years

1/ some advice on making decisions as a venture capitalist based on what I learned and observed over the years.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

My cleaning lady says I'm her ONLY client continuing to pay her. Nanny friend tells me her clients will only pay IF SHE WORKS. WTAF 🤬 -- if you can, keep paying the people who work for you through this. They have it way harder than you.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

1/ Meet @stride_vc Fund II. Same size, same strategy as its older sibling. Fund I 📸 💰 £100M (well £103M) 💸 29 investments (of which 7 First Checks) 🦄 1 breakaway ( @CazooUK ) 🧗 11 of first 13 raised significant follow-ons 💀 no one left behind 🧮 5X gross MTM cash multiple

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

Barbarians at the Gate - Venture Edition. I've asked two leading startup lawyers to help me put together a detailed review of the arsenal of aggressive legal terms that VC's may want to use in a crisis, so founders know what to look out for.

The VC Barbarians Are Coming

The economic crisis could mean a resurgence of convoluted term sheets that leave founders with nothing

marker.medium.com

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

Debt is not just technical. A 5-7 year old startup accumulates cultural, technical, people debt that slowly compromises its ability to thrive on chaos and scale.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

If you could make the “venture capital product” a better experience for founders - what would you change?

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

Small startups can consistently attract world class, proven talent. Because these uniquely talented people are the first to recognise the greatest opportunities. It’s really that simple. Go get’em.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

5 years

Jargon is completely unnecessary. It’s generally a way for someone to denote competence and keep you out of the loop or put you down. Or it’s used as a smokescreen because the ideas are not clearly expressed or not that compelling. Don’t fall for it.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

2 years

Interesting raw founder feedback for all you young VCs out there: / VC Partners tend to display real interest in understanding the big picture and appreciative you are presenting your life work Vs / Typical VC Associate just nit picking on specific details of the business

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

1/ If you're trying to get a simple macro-view of the current downturn, few people are as articulate as Howard Marks of Oaktree -- I've summarised his key insights below:

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

1/ So I find myself *violently* agreeing with @chamath . Let companies go bust. Let them go through the bankruptcy process and fly with clean balance sheets. Protect the individuals, not the stock or debt holders.

Andrew Lawrence

@ndrew_lawrence

4 years

I have watched the first 12 seconds of this at least 100 times, its better than porn

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

So @IndexVentures has built the most phenomenal piece of (useful) VC content marketing I've seen out of Europe with their guide to the US. No wonder they're #1 . So well executed.

ExpansionPlan | Index Ventures

Only a small proportion of European tech companies that expand into the US grow to the scale of global category winners.

www.indexventures.com

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

Tips for VCs who just started investing in France: "rowee" is ROI 'merrr" is MRR "Link-HUD-in' is actually LinkedIn 👐

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

Why it’s hard to back teams early: 🧐 expert diligence is not worth much given you’re breaking status quo 🔬 the data’s ambiguous or non-predictive 🤡 the rest of the investing market’s often wrong 😈 the founder may not reference well So good luck with that 🤘😂

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

5 years

1/ Let me selectively unpack core findings in this phenomenal series by @ahmadmbutt -

Unpacking Alpha in Venture Capital — Chapter 1: Setting the Context

As a systematic public market investor, venture capital was an asset class that felt opaque to me based on only my limited exposure of…

link.medium.com

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

1/ Talent wars in London seem absolutely brutal these days. Everyone of our startups reports their team members being approached almost continuously by everyone from other startups, FAANGS, corporates. Wage inflation is brutal. Anyone is liable to be poached.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

6 years

LinkedIn is now far from a great product experience. Broken really. Yet we use it all day long. It’s a really testament to how resilient network effects are.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

5 years

Angels or seed VCs taking too much a company at seed is a pan-European problem. It's patently obvious to anyone who knows this business that this is hurting startups and that early investors are shooting themselves in the foot.

Neil S W Murray

@neilswmurray

7 years

I’m talking to way too many promising Nordic startups who are giving away 30-40% to 1st money angels. This has to stop. #cphftw #sthlmtech

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

5 years

Founders. Stop obsessing about what your board wants from you. Start focusing on what your board can do for your business. I mean that 😂.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

I'm looking for world class business podcasts highly relevant to startups and VCs. Strategic, insightful. Current top 4: 1/ @ShaneAParrish Knowledge Project (sorry Harry!) 2/ @HarryStebbings 20VC 3/ @patrick_oshag Invest Like the Best 4/ @gilbert + @djrosen Acquired

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

“You don’t ever rise to the occasion, you sink to the level of your training” — SEAL saying. This is why they train in unstable conditions. The same is true for startups (and life). You embrace the chaos to harness it.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

How to get your hands on pre-seed funding 👇

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

Venture really is the new Hollywood, complete with Major studios (A16Z, Sequoia etc) Celebrities (Chamath, Naval) Mega output deals (Softbank) ... and surprise indie box offices successes, thank god ;-)

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

Productising VC is hard. Founders don’t need how-to-guides. They rarely need operational help, or can get it elsewhere. They need precise, relevant and actionable insights.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

No startup I’ve worked with was a straight line to success. This is why it’s paramount to get investors who keep a cool head and are focused on solutions when the going gets tough. You have to accept / embrace the possibility of failure to be the best you can be in the field.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

5 years

1/ Dear friends, here is a long fiery thread on "shit VC's do that makes founders angry" -- as expressed by founders 😡 Because, you know, look in the mirror.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

6 years

We're now above target, first investment done and are delighted to welcome our operating partner @arjsoysa to the team! Thank you @HarryStebbings for being a wonderful partner. Onward @stride_vc !

TechCrunch

@TechCrunch

6 years

It’s official: London-based raises £50M seed fund by @sohear

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

6 years

If In VC liquidity rules, it’s been a good quarter 👊. - Zoopla $3BN (led Seed, A, B) - Pillpack $1BN (led early A and B) - Integral Ad Science $850M (led A). - More to come (Deliveroo, Secret Escapes, Carwow, CurrencyCloud, Unsplash).

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

“When it comes to education, I believe the woke ideology is even more harmful than old-fashioned communism.” Princeton math professor who grew up under Romanian Communism.

Bari Weiss

@bariweiss

3 years

"Nothing in the history and current practice of mathematics justifies the notion that it is in any way different or dependent on the particular race or ethnic group engaged in it," writes @Princeton Prof. Sergiu Klainerman.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

2 years

The War on the West — After a chill start this @jordanbpeterson conversation with @DouglasKMurray turns into an incredibly passionate and compelling defends of the accomplishments of the West. Long but worth it. Perspective 🙏.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

1/ Quick high level advice for founders on fundraising material. The five elements of data you need for fundraising, and the "Notion alternative": Core: The Everything Deck. Master deck you use for intros, pitching, "leave behind" and everything else. The one and only.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

Want more VC firms with diverse backgrounds? First thing that needs to go is the 2% GP commit required to start a fund. Many LPs still get seduced by high GP commits, which are the purview of rich people. Should be done on a case-by-case basis so that new players can emerge.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

1/ Breaking news. I’m absolutely thrilled to partner with @cleo_sham to build @stride_vc going forward. We’re just getting started and incredibly excited about what’s to come.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

5 years

1/ Always looking to make our stack better and simpler. Collaboration: @NotionHQ killed @mondaydotcom and @telegram groups killed @SlackHQ Sourcing, dealflow, market mapping and LP pipeline: @Affinity all the way Data: @airtable for rich structured data, else @gsheet

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

5 years

Got what it takes to raise a first time fund? Stride institutional only LP pipeline, all lovingly crafted by hand by team @stride_vc Total targets: 405 🔥 Qualified out: 97 🤡 At least one meeting: 250 💪 Closed / committed: 27 🙏 It's a journey 👊

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

5 years

Startup revenue goals are FICTION. A view of the mind, a view of the world. To bash an entrepreneur for “missing their numbers” is wrong. If you think they haven’t spend days worrying about it, you are mistaken. Could be sub-optimal to stick to wrong plan. Onward 👍

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

2 years

One of the best VCs on the planet: “self awareness in founders is a very negative trait. It’s the ones who don’t listen who make all the money” 🧐.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

5 years

Senior VC dude re: his flight *in first class* to SFO: "I can't believe founder X was sitting next to me. Who does he think he is?" Junior VC dude to senior VC dude (who was previously a consultant): "Yeah, at least YOU have a couple of exits under your belt". #winning 👌🤮

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

6 years

Yo! The entrepreneur guide to UK Seed Funds - IN THEIR OWN WORDS 👍 -

The definitive guide to London Seed Venture funds — Sep 2018 edition

You know what: most entrepreneurs still don’t know where to go for seed funding in the UK.

medium.com

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

2 years

1/ Price discovery for Series B type growthy rounds has become a really vexing issue for founders. It’s easy to “burn your round” by overplaying your hand. And it’s difficult to know where rounds price in a fast shifting market. Some thoughts:

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

6 years

Our first investment - led by @HarryStebbings . Go @ForwardHealth_ 😍!

TechCrunch

@TechCrunch

6 years

Forward Health, the healthcare messaging app, scores $3.9M led by by @sohear

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

Investment scorecard 2021 @stride_vc : - c. 300 jobs created ex Cazoo 🚀 - 9 new investments - 7 reinvestments - 8 uprounds, no downrounds, no shutdowns - 1.4X uplift on the fund Not a bad second year @HarryStebbings . Onward!

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

Seed rounds where a company raises c. $1M and dilution is 30% = not good. Think these are a thing of the past? They're not :-( Staring at that cap table right now feeling bad for the founders.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

6 years

VC job description in four words : meet people, write emails.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

1/ Let me distill the Stride investment strategy in fifteen tweets. Yes, fifteen 😘.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

2 years

VC markets are close to frozen right now. I don’t think there’s reason to panic — mostly this is like March 2020 as everyone digests new info and waits for markets to stabilise. Expect a reopening in September. (And yes the crossover fund picture is markedly worse).

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

6 years

@islandjumby @Lebonriregras @EconomyRules @nytimes Divide society - break down the common fabric - undermine the rule of law and separation of powers - blame outsiders - use fear to consolidate - attack free media etc etc

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

6 years

@ReelLiveFilms @abim75 @ShirleyAugust2 @Cycle4 @menshimihas @CharlesMBlow Sorry but by defining them as trump voters you’re locking them into a box. Not smart, or fair. There’s a lot more diversity than you seem to think in the Trump voting pool. They can’t be reduced to that single fact.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

1/ Cazoo has signed a merger agreement with $AJAX for a $7BN NYSE Listing $AJAX is led by legendary investors Dan Och (joining the board) & Glenn Fuhrman; its board consists of Kevin Systrom (Instagram), Anne Wojcicki (23andMe), Jim McKelvey (Square) & Steve Ellis (Chipotle).

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

2 years

We've got news. One of the OG's of the London startup scene is joining Stride. Welcome @GabbiCahane 1/x

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

Three years since we first put pen to paper for @stride_vc and two years since our first close. Fund update: > £100M raised 🥳 12 teams backed 🏃 30% deployed 👩‍🏫 4 uprounds💃 This ain't a fun time so let's celebrate the little wins along the way!

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

5 years

Hey VCs! & Other people who crave personal brands! Here’s two good reasons to not blog, not to tweet, not to start a podcast: - you have nothing unique to say - the shit out there’s already pretty good It’s ok.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

Dumb VC: "Oh! I told you that was a bad investment, and look, it failed!" Smart VC: "Oh, Company X failed? Sorry man! Do you still feel it was the right risk/return tradeoff? Would you make the same investment decision today?"

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

2 years

Figma -> Adobe @ $22BN represents: 🛠️ the highest revenue multiple ever paid for a scaled SaaS company 🚀 The largest sale of a private technology company in history 🌏 The second largest sale of a SaaS company in history

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

5 years

Very few European startups invest enough early enough in product and product management. Perhaps the #1 difference with their US counterparts and still true after all these years :-(

Atomico

@atomico

5 years

"Europe has a Product Manager problem. A major skill shortage of PMs that is crippling our chances of executing towards huge outcomes."- @sirajkhaliq

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

Benefits of running smaller funds: - design everything in your life and work - do meaningful work with founders - see / feel your impact - no internal politics - make money you’ve actually earned 😂 Autonomy + Mastery + Purpose. I never regret starting @stride_vc 🙏

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

6 years

1/ SaaS company raises larger round than anyone expected on punchy plan - everyone’s a bit nervous but play to win, right? What happens next?

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

5 years

Classic vicious circle in young SaaS companies. Company misses number two Q's in a row. Board feels need to take action. VP Sales fired. New VP Sales missing numbers. Board anxious. "We need a new CEO". Founder out. Issue was always P/M fit.. Company still struggling.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

1/ A CEO’s number one job is to define the mission, communicate that mission relentlessly, and keep everyone focused on the mission. That’s how you move the ball down the field everyday.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

One of the key strengths of startups is the ability to make decisions fast. This also means changing course fast. On occasion the best startups CEOs know to tear up the playbook that was agreed with the team and get everyone back to the drawing board. Know when to step in.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

Race to get promoted, race to be successful, race to be recognised, race to be well-off. You're not racing towards anything, except your own death. So pick your life carefully. Don't let it make the picks for you. And live in the present.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

1/ How much carry should you give your partners? @HarryStebbings and I started 50/50. I'm a big believer in taking economics off the table (who knows who will find the next Spotify?) and partnerships can destroy each other in endless economics discussions.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

5 years

As we know all VCs are clones of each other bred in the dark cellars of capitalism labs in Stanford and Harvard with no capacity for orignal thought and all implementing exactly the same strategy to burn pension fund money at scale 👻

Kristen Anderson

@FintechKristen

5 years

It’s really rich that VCs are talking about how important revenue and unit economics are like they *weren’t* the ones pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into companies with upside down business models and no hope of profitability. Enough outta you all. You did this.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

Podcasts have changed my relationship to a lot of menial tasks. I look forward to folding the laundry - it's podcast time!

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

5 years

Perfect. Applies to doomed startups and just about everything else in your life. 😬

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

5 years

Observation - despite all the progress in recent years, design continues to be undervalued. Design is not UX or front-end development. Design is IP. Design is your best marketing. Invest in it.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

5 years

Anecdotally eyeballing pre-money valuations for early stage startups in London: 👼 pre-seed £1-4M (usually c.2). 👧 seed £5-10M 👷‍♂️ late seed / small A £10-15M 🏃🏼‍♀️... and anything with traction is anyone’s guess... £20-£100M+ on Series A - up to 🤯

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

Love this. How can founders diligence VCs and cut through the marketing BS? Ask for list of actions taken on behalf of portfolio companies in last 12 months that are reference-able with the founders and you feel made a difference.

Sravish Sridhar

@sravish

3 years

Has anyone written the list of items a VC should have in a data room to make it straightforward for entrepreneurs to do diligence on them? #AskingForAFriend

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

First unicorn a little earlier than planned 🧐 Now on to Moolah in Da Coolah.

Cazoo becomes fastest-ever British unicorn

Online used car retailer Cazoo has become a billion-dollar UK business in record-breaking time. How did it manage this feat?

sifted.eu

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

5 years

Please welcome @piadiri as our third investing partner! She joins us from @accel . Paris, here we come!

Stride.VC — one year in.

Harry and I started working on Stride.VC with a view that we would look to build a venture capital firm with a positive view of the world…

medium.com

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

7 years

This.

TechCrunch

@TechCrunch

7 years

Fred Destin leaving Accel to focus on Seed and earlier-stage investing by @sohear

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

2 years

Most dramatic mistakes made by early stage startups (in my experience and in order of impact): 1. Not staying close enough to their users or customers 2. Lack of focus 3. Loss of discipline on hiring A players 4. Not making the hard people decisions fast enough WDYT?

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

1/ Startup founder raising Series A right now: 1. Valuations are being wiped out, across the board it's down 40%+ 2. All fresh investors are demanding existing shareholders pony up cash. This makes it much harder to close as new investors need to see.insider confidence.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

It just struck me that a lot of startup fundraising advice falls in the camp of superstition or even legend. There’s a deep anxiety for many founders when it comes to meeting investors, which investors ritualistically seem content to perpetuate. We need to trash all this.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

5K users, $100M pre, $10M raise, $2M secondary (hum, just like Facebook). Clubhouse is the new gold standard in startup hype, closely followed by @RoamResearch & its grassroots #roamcult A post on why hype is a natural part of many startups' DNA.

Clubhouse, Hype & Startups

Clubhouse blew up within VC circles a few weeks ago. Invite-only and with reportedly only 5,000 users, it is already being hyped as the…

medium.com

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

13/ We are anticipating a deep dive that will last 12 months or more, followed by a tough period of stagnation before a return to growth. As I said, these are planning assumptions not forecasts, and they will be overrun by facts week after week. Hope this tweet ages badly.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

If your existing investor is waiting for you to run out of cash so they can recap you, they are *toxic* and you owe them noting beyond pro-rata / whatever the docs say. So don’t be a sitting duck waiting for things to happen TO you. Make things happen BY you.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

3 years

1/ Beware the tail wagging the dog. Numbers you committed to your board are not your strategy. Numbers you think next round investors want to see are not your strategy.

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Fred Destin

@fdestin

4 years

1/2 I can’t tell you many startups I’ve seen or worked with that showed no obvious markers of success early on but turned out great. This is why you want committed investors who are real believers and can take the long-term view.

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