20VC: Using Valuation As A Litmus Test, Why Valuation Does Not Matter At Seed Stage & How Seed Funds Can Serve Founders Better with Kent Goldman, Founder @ Upside Partnership

Kent Goldman is the Founder of Upside Partnership, one of the leading seed-stage investment firms in SF with investments in the likes of Laurel and Wolf, Digit and Lily. In 2015, he was named to the Midas Brink List. Prior to forming Upside Partnership in 2014, Kent was a Partner at seed investment pioneer First Round Capital. While there he led investments in companies including Airware, Hotel Tonight, and MemSQL. He also served on the board of Mashery (acquired by Intel). Earlier in his career, Kent was a member of Yahoo!’s corporate development team and also led business strategy for Yahoo! products generating $1 billion in annual revenue.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Kent made his way into the world of early stage investing and came to found Upside?

2.) What were the big takeaways from First Round for Kent? How has he applied those learnings to his formation of Upside?

3.) What does Kent look for in the LPs that invest in his fund? Why should founders look to learn which LPs are invested in the fund investing in them?

4.) How has Kent seen his investment decision-making process alter with time? What have been the big changes?

5.) Why does Kent believe valuation does not matter so much at the seed stage? What does really matter to him at the seed stage? How does this progress with rounds?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Kent’s Fave Blog: Howards Marks: Oaktree Capital

Kent’s Fave Book: A River Runs Through It And Other Stories

Kent’s Most Recent Investment: Live Neighborly

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Kent on Twitter here!