Semil Shah is the Founder of Haystack, one of the leading pre-seed and seed firms of the last decade. Among Semil's portfolio include the likes of DoorDash ($DASH), Instacart, Hashicorp ($HCP), Opendoor ($OPEN), Figma (acquired by Adobe), Carta and many more exceptional companies. Semil's first fund is marked between a 30 and 40x fund, astonishing. In Today's Episode with Semil Shah We Discuss: 1.) The Makings of Semil Shah: What is Semil running away from? What is he running towards? What does Semil know now that he wishes he had known when entering venture? What is Semil's biggest advice to managers raising their first funds now? 2.) Fund Sizing: Growing vs Staying Disciplined: Question from Hunter Walk: How does Semil determine the right size fund to raise with each fund Question from Satya Patel: Why have you resisted increasing AUM? In the last episode Semil mentioned a three-year deployment cycle for the fund, did he stick to it? What are the benefits and drawbacks? What investing mistakes did Semil make over the last 3 years that he wishes he had not made?   3.) The Secret to Fundraising for a Fund: What is Semil's biggest advice to emerging managers on finding new LPs? What works? What materials do managers need to have in place for a new fundraise? Deck? Dataroom? What are the most common mistakes VCs make when pitching LPs their funds? How does Semil follow-up with potential LPs post-call? What works? What does not? How does Semil suggest creating a sense of urgency for LPs to commit to a fund? How does Semil feel about giving preferential terms to convince LPs to commit to the first close? 4.) The Current Landscape: For VCs: How will the current landscape impact emerging managers' ability to raise? What advice would Semil give to them? Raise smaller? Kyle Harrison said on the show recently, “differentiation will kill 80% of venture firms, especially the so-so ones”. Does Semil agree? Who is set to struggle? Who is set to thrive in this environment? For LPs: What does Semil think are the biggest mistakes LPs made over the last 2-3 years? How will they respond in this market cycle? If Semil were handed an endowment fund, how would he allocate today? Does Semil agree, we will see a denigration of venture returns to those of PE like multiples? Why? For Founders: How does Semil advise founders on raising today when everyone says they are investing but very few really are? How does Semil advise founders on how to think about valuation inflection points with respect to raising capital? Items Mentioned in Today's Episode: Semil's Favourite Article: Master of Play Semil's Most Recent Investment: Impart Security

Oliver Jay (OJ) is one of the most successful sales leaders of the last decade. Most recently, OJ spent 6 years as CRO @ Asana and grew the team from 20 to over 450, becoming a master in sales onboarding in the process. Before Asana, OJ spent 4 years at Dropbox, where OJ was Head of APAC & LATAM. Jordan Van Horn is a Revenue Leader @ Monte Carlo. Prior to this role, Jordan spent 4 years at Segment as VP of Sales, leading a sales team of 50+ Account Executives. Before Segment, Jordan was at Dropbox for 4 years leading enterprise sales for Dropbox Business. Dannie Herzberg is a Partner @ Sequoia Capital and before Sequoia, Dannie spent 4 years at Slack as their Head of Enterprise Sales, growing the business from $100M – $1B in revenue. Before Slack, Dannie spent over 5 years at Hubspot building sales teams. Zhenya Loginov is the CRO @ Miro. At Miro, Zhenya runs the go-to-market team of 700+ people across. Prior to Miro, Zhenya was the COO @ Segment where he built and ran the global go-to-market team of 200+ people. Pre-Segment, Zhenya led a 100-person team at Dropbox across different functional areas. Lauren Schwartz is VP of Enterprise Sales at Fivetran, where she has scaled the team to nearly 100, while more than tripling enterprise revenues. Previously, Lauren spent close to 4 years at Segment where she started as the first female AE and ultimately built and led sales teams in enterprise and growth. Kyle Parrish is VP Sales @ Figma, where he built the sales engine from scratch to today, with over 100 in sales. Before Figma, Kyle spent over 5 years at Dropbox in numerous different roles including Head of Sales, and Global Partnerships lead, responsible for growing Dropbox’s partner ecosystem. In Todays Episode on Sales Onboarding We Discuss: 1.) How should the onboarding process for all new sales reps be structured? 2.) How should the onboarding process for a new sales leader be structured? 3.) What specific things can leaders do to set both reps and leaders best up for success? 4.) What are the single biggest red flags in the first 30 days that a rep is not going to work out? 5.) What tools and software can be used to improve this process of ramping new reps?