20VC: Investing Lessons from Fred Wilson and Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds | Why the Secret to Winning in Venture is Splitting Deals |Learnings From the Biggest Hits and Biggest Losses | Why Anyone That Always Does Their Pro-Rata is Wrong with

**Harry Stebbings** (0:00)
This is 20VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and I'm very excited for the show's status. This guest does not do many podcasts. They do not speak in public much. I know what you're thinking, how incredibly rare for a VC these days, but it made this discussion even more special. And so with that, I'm thrilled to welcome Mo Koyfman, founder and general partner at Shine Capital, who announced earlier this year, Shine II, a $200 million early stage fund, and Shine Opportunities I, a $100 million vehicle. Prior to founding Shine, Mo was the managing member at Moko Brands, where he made angel investments in Coinbase, Polychain, Harry's to name a few. And before Moko, Mo spent over seven years as a general partner at Spark Capital, where he made investments in Plaid, Warby Parker and Hivemapper. Finally, prior to Spark, Mo spent over five years at IAC, where he oversaw a group of companies that included Connected Ventures, Parent of Vimeo, CollegeHumor and BustedTees. But before we move into the episode today, if you are a venture capitalist or corporate strategist, I want to tell you about Tegas. Tegas is the only company in the world that aggregates qualitative information on private companies from seed stage to pre-IPO. With Tegas, you can access other VCs and founders' expert call transcripts from previous rounds to help source fast growing companies, create compelling emails to get a founder's response and diligence companies when a round is moving fast. I use it personally and I think it's insanely brilliant. Tegas is also providing the most flexible and highest quality way to run your own expert calls with no upfront fees or call minimums. The ability to do 30 minute calls and simply paying the expert's rate at an average cost of $300. Tegas makes expert calls easy. Find out why a majority of the top venture funds are using Tegas on a daily basis. Head over to tegas.co forward slash growth for your free trial. And speaking of insanely great products, are you and your team still using your personal phone numbers for work? Well, OpenPhone makes it incredibly easy to get dedicated business phone numbers and keep all your work conversations separate and organized. And there's a couple of things in particular that I love about OpenPhone. Each phone number comes with its own inbox for managing calls, texts and voicemails, making it easy to keep track of every conversation. Numbers can be shared with your teammates too. Make outgoing calls, answer incoming and even respond to text threads together, all from the same phone number. And even better on work-life balance, set your business hours and mute numbers so that customers and clients can only reach you when you're working. My word, I wish I had the same. I might have a happier girlfriend then. And then you can sign up and start using your new business phone in minutes. Visit openphone.com forward slash 20VC, that's openphone.com forward slash 20VC, to save 20% on your first six months. And finally, I love history. And you know what happens when you look at the history books of Silicon Valley? Cooley is all over it. They are the global law firm built around startups and venture capital. Since forming the first venture fund in Silicon Valley, Cooley has formed more venture 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, 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 cooley.com and also check out cooleygo.com. But that's enough from me. So now I'm so excited to hand over to the one and only Mo Koyfman at Shine Capital.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:22)
You have now arrived at your destination.

**Harry Stebbings** (3:25)
Mo, this is such a joy to do. I've been looking forward to this for a long time. I've wanted to have you on the show for a long time. So thank you so much for joining me today.

**Mo Koyfman** (3:32)
Absolutely my pleasure. And as I was just saying to you, I haven't really done much press since I started Shine. And when you reached out, I thought this would be a great opportunity to share some of my current thinking. So thank you again for doing it.

**Harry Stebbings** (3:45)
Not at all, but it is a fantastic opportunity. I want to start with a little bit of context. Talk to me, how did you make your way into the world of venture that I clearly love so much, having done 3000 episodes? And then how did you come to found Shine most recently?