20VC: Craft Ventures' David Sacks on How To Assess Founder Psychology, How To Accurately Evaluate CAC, Burn and Churn & What Makes The Very Best Startup Boards

**Harry Stebbings** (0:00)
Welcome back to The Twenty Minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings. And if you'd like to see more behind the scenes from me here, as we get back into the studio post-quarantine, you can on Instagram at hstebbings1996 with two Bs. But to the show today, and I've wanted to have this guest on the show for such a long time, he is one of Silicon Valley's leading operators, turned investors, with Navarrava counted Angelist, calling him one of the world's best product strategists. So I'm thrilled to welcome David Sacks, co-founder at Craft Ventures to the hot seat. Now, Craft is one of Silicon Valley's leading early stage funds, with David's portfolio including the likes of, check this out, Facebook, Tesla, SpaceX, Palantir, Affirm, Airbnb, Slack and Bird, to name a few. David started his career in tech as the first product leader and COO at Paypal, growing payment volume from nought to $500 million per month, leading to their $1.5 billion acquisition by eBay. David then founded genie.com, creating a family tree for the whole world. The company was acquired three years later by MyHeritage. David then founded Yammer, the secure solution for internal corporate communication and collaboration, which was acquired by Microsoft for $1.2 billion. Finally, David then became COO and interim CEO at Zenefits before starting Craft. But before we move into the show today, I wanted to take a moment to mention HelloSign, a great example of a company that found success in building a product focused on user experience. HelloSign is an effortless e-signature solution used by millions to securely send and request legally valid digital signatures and agreements. And they've raised a total of $16 million in funding and then recently got acquired by Dropbox for an impressive $230 million. Check out hellosign.com forward slash 20VC to join the thousands of companies and founders who value fast, secure and simple e-signatures. And speaking of signatures and getting deals done there, you really need to build that relationship and there's nothing like meeting face to face and there's nothing like Zoom to make that happen. Zoom lets you connect and do business across town or around the world. Zoom ties together all of your communication needs into one easy platform for video conferencing, phone calls, group chat, webinars and your conference rooms. And connect from anywhere easily with your mobile phone, your laptop or conference room. Zoom is how business gets done. Get your free account at zoom.com today, meet happy with Zoom. And finally, I've always been a big history man and so I do wanna talk about Cooley, the global law firm built around startups and venture capital. Since forming the very first venture fund in Silicon Valley, Cooley's formed more venture capital funds than any other law firm in the world. With 50 plus years working with VCs, they help VCs form and manage funds, make investments and handle the myriad of issues that arise throughout a fund's lifetime. So to learn more about the number one most active law firm representing VC backed companies going public, head over to cooleego.com and check out coolee.com also. But that is quite enough from me, so now I'm very excited to welcome David Sacks, co-founder and general partner at Craft Ventures.
You have now arrived at your destination.
David, it is such a pleasure to have you on the show today. As I just said, I've heard so many great things, both from Harriet Pipe and Daniel at Viable Fit. So thank you so much for joining me today, David.

**David Sacks** (3:11)
Great to be with you. Thanks for having me.

**Harry Stebbings** (3:13)
I would love to kick off with a little context on you. So for those that maybe haven't heard, tell me, how did you make your way into what I call the wonderful world of venture? And how did you come to Found Craft?

**David Sacks** (3:22)
Well, I was on the founder side for about 20 years, starting with PayPal in 1999 I was the original COO of PayPal during the so-called PayPal Mafia period. After that, I founded Genie, which then pivoted into becoming Yammer, which we sold to Microsoft, and also did a stint as a CEO at Zenefits. So I spent about 20 years operating and founding companies and being on the founder side of the table, and got to a point where I wasn't really interested in running companies anymore, but I still love startups and working with founders. And so we decided to move to more of a player coach role.

**Harry Stebbings** (3:58)
Totally get you in terms of that transition. Can I ask a bit of a personal question, David? But just with the incredible operating success that you had, you could have angel invested continuously and kept all of the economics. I guess, why did you choose to start a fund? And what do you ultimately want to achieve with Craft?