20VC: Raising $400M for 20VC: Fundraising Lessons | Getting Marc Benioff Through 53 Cold Emails: How to Master Cold Outbound | 7 Lessons from 101 Decacorn Founders with Harry Stebbings (Simon Squibb Edition)

20VC: Raising $400M for 20VC: Fundraising Lessons | Getting Marc Benioff Through 53 Cold Emails: How to Master Cold Outbound | 7 Lessons from 101 Decacorn Founders with Harry Stebbings (Simon Squibb Edition)

Author: Harry Stebbings January 24, 2026 Duration: 42:54

AGENDA:

00:03:00 – Harry's Wild Start: Making £1.75M at 19 in 36 Hours

00:06:00 – How Harry Got Marc Benioff on 20VC with Cold Emailing Alone

00:07:30 – Raising $70M on WhatsApp – Relationship Building Secrets

00:12:00 – Decision Framework: What Would Pat Grady (Sequoia) Do?

00:15:00 – Chase Your First Million – It Unlocks Everything

00:16:30 – Advice for 19-Year-Olds Today: Niche Down, Interview Leaders, Publish

00:18:00 – University Is a Waste for Most | Leverage Youth & Risk

00:22:30 – How Getting Kicked Out of School Changed Everything

00:30:00 – Why Should Everyone Be Creating Content Today and How to Start

00:35:30 – 7 Lessons from Billionaires

  • 00:36:00 – #1: Never Accept No (The $12M Turnaround Story)

  • 00:37:30 – #2: Beat Down the Door (53 Emails to Marc Benioff)

  • 00:39:00 – #3: Just Start – 99% Never Do

  • 00:40:30 – #4: Use a Role Model Framework for Hard Decisions

  • 00:42:00 – #5: Chasing Money Won't Make You Happy – Enjoy the Art

  • 00:44:00 – #6: Break Big Visions into Achievable Milestones

  • 00:45:30 – #7: Win Over the Partner (Power of Pillow Talk)

 


Hosted by Harry Stebbings, The Twenty Minute VC (20VC) pulls back the curtain on the high-stakes worlds of venture capital and startup building. Each episode is a compact, twenty-minute dive into the minds shaping the future of technology. You’ll hear candid conversations with legendary investors, the very individuals who fund and guide the next generation of companies, featuring voices like Sequoia's Doug Leone and Benchmark's Bill Gurley. Beyond the capital, this podcast dedicates time to the founders themselves. Weekly, Stebbings sits down with transformative entrepreneurs such as Spotify's Daniel Ek, LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman, and Snowflake's Frank Slootman, unpacking the real journeys behind their iconic companies. The format is direct and focused, cutting straight to the core insights on funding strategies, pitch dynamics, and the personal philosophies that drive success. Tuning into this podcast means gaining an unfiltered perspective from both sides of the table, all delivered in a concise and accessible style that fits into your day.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Podcast Episodes
20VC: Mercor: From $1M to $500M in 17 Months: The Fastest Growing Company in the World | How to Think About Margins and Revenue Sustainability in AI | Why Evaluation Benchmarks in AI are BS Today with Brendan Foody [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:01:16
Brendan Foody is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Mercor, the fastest growing company in history. The company solves talent allocation in the AI economy and they have scaled from $1M to $500M in revenue in just 17 months. With a…
20VC: Musk's $TRN Pay Package Broken Down | Ramp Hits $1BN ARR and Brex Hits $700M: Who Wins | OpenAI's $10BN Secondary Sale | Atlassian Buys The Browser Company for $610M | ASML Lead Roun into Mistral at $14BN Valuation [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:27:56
AGENDA: [00:05] Musk's $1 Trillion Pay Package: The Breakdown? [00:15] Scale, Windsurf: Are Founders Just Mercenaries Chasing Cash Today? [00:21] Ramp at $1B ARR, Brex at $700M — Is AI Causing All Boats To Rise? [00:26]…
20VC: ElevenLabs Hits $200M ARR: The Untold Story of Europe's Fastest Growing AI Startup | The Real Cost of AI from Talent to Data Centres | How US VCs are in a Different League to Europeans | The Future of Foundation Models with Mati Staniszewski [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:14:06
Mati Staniszewski is the Co-Founder and CEO of ElevenLabs, the world's leading AI voice platform. Since launching in 2022, ElevenLabs has raised over $350M, most recently at a $3.3BN valuation, making it one of Europe's…
20VC: Anthropic Raises $13BN | Why Canva Will Not Direct List | OpenAI Buys Statsig for $1.1BN All Stock | Lovable Raising at $4BN + Vercel at $9BN: Justified or Not | Quarterly Results from SNOW, Mongo, ZOOM and more [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:14:22
Agenda: 04:00 – Anthropic Raises $13BN: The Analysis? 19:00 – Is Zuck's $14BN Scale bet the biggest blunder in AI? 27:00 – Lovable Raising at $4BN and Vercel at $9BN: Justified or Madness? 36:00 – Quarterly Results for S…
20Product: Why Most CPOs are Bad | Why You Do Not Need PMs in a World of AI | Why the Design Stage is Dead and How to Use Vibe Coding to Replace It | The Three Roles All Founders End Up Firing on Repeat with Jason James @ Tezi [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 53:48
Jason James is the Co-Founder of Tezi and one of the leading product minds in the valley. Prior to Tezi, Jason was the VP Product at Instacart and before that was Head of Product and Design at Thumbtack. AGENDA: 00:00 Pr…
20VC: Anthropic's $10BN Round | Klarna's IPO Broken Down | Inside a16z's 72 Deal Seed Investment Machine | Martin Casado: Is Consensus Investing the Only Game | Why Satya is Chatting S*** on SaaS Apps Disappearing featuring Marc Benioff [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:11:40
AGENDA: ​​00:00 – Marc Benioff vs Snowflake, Databricks & Palantir: Who Wins the Data Cloud War? 05:10 – Does Benioff Feel The Need to Buy AI Talent Like Zuck Is? 09:00 – What Salesforce has Learned From Palantir on Forw…

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