20VC: The Memo: Sequoia's Alfred Lin on Why Chasing GMV Leads To Bad Behaviours, How To Approach Competition and Capital Efficiency & The Core Importance of Understanding the Difference Between Input and Output Metrics

**Harry Stebbings** (0:00)
This is The Twenty Minute VC, but this is a new type of show on The Twenty Minute VC. So starting from today, we're launching The Memo, a monthly show where we invite VCs who've led rounds for some of the best and biggest companies in the world. And we focus the show around the investment memo that they wrote at the time of doing the investment and unpack what changed, what worked, what did not work, what was surprising and so much more. And we could not have a better guest for our first episode of The Memo, as we welcome Alfred Lin, discussing his leading series A round for Doordash with Sequoia. As for context, Alfred is a partner at Sequoia and has led deals in the likes of Airbnb, Doordash, Instacart, Reddit and Houzz, to name a few. Prior to the world of venture, Alfred was chairman and COO at Zappos for six years, leading to their acquisition by Amazon. But before we dive into the show's day, Ripling has helped thousands of startups automate their HR and IT, from employee payroll and benefits to devices and apps. Now they're helping startups access better health, coverage and HR with their newest product, the Ripling PEO. So state-by-state compliance is a pain. And if you've hired employees in other states, or your employees have relocated to other states because of COVID, you know what a pain registering with and maintaining each new state unemployment insurance office is. Employees paying too much for HR and benefits, the Ripling PEO can solve these challenges. As soon as you hire someone out of state or an existing employee relocates, Ripling automatically registers your startup with the appropriate unemployment agencies and keeps you compliant with all local regulations from minimum wage to sick leave. My word, that's a ton of complexity off your plate. So you're free to focus on building your startup. Visit ripling.com forward slash 20VC to learn more and schedule a demo with some special discounts. And speaking of incredible products there with Ripling, Exodus is leading the world out of the traditional financial system by building beautiful and user-friendly blockchain products. With its focus on design and user experience, Exodus has become one of the most popular cryptocurrency apps. It's supported on both desktop and mobile, allowing you to sync your wallet across multiple devices so you can really have access to your funds anywhere. You can instantly exchange around 100 different cryptocurrencies straight from your wallet. Interactive charts even let you view an asset's price history and your portfolio's performance over time. And maybe the best part, Exodus is actually integrated with the Trezor hardware wallet, making advanced security easy for everyone. Visit exodus.io for your free download or search Exodus on the App Store or the Play Store. And last but by no means least, do you wish you were early in some of the biggest and best performing IPOs of 2019 and 20? Bit of a silly question there, of course you do. But R-Crowd investors were, and now you can join them in what's next. With R-Crowd accredited investors have access to invest directly, easily and most importantly early. R-Crowd investors have benefited from R-Crowd companies IPO-ing like Beyond Meat or even being bought by companies like Intel, Nike, Microsoft and Oracle to name a few. Today, you can join R-Crowd's investment in NanoLock Security, a company offering IOT cyber protection including billions of low-end devices that other technologies cannot protect. NanoLock is the only device level protection that has near zero power requirements and is agnostic to the operating system. You can get in early on NanoLock and other really unique opportunities at rcrowd.com forward slash 20VC. The R-Crowd account is free. Just go to rcrowd.com/20vc.
But that's enough for me. So now I'm so excited to head into our first ever episode on The Memo with Alfred Lin at Sequoia.
You have now arrived at your destination.
Alfred, this is such a joy to do. I've wanted to do this one for a long time. So thank you so much for joining me today.

**Alfred Lin** (3:38)
Well, thank you for having me on the show. I'm really excited to be with you today.

**Harry Stebbings** (3:41)
Well, that is very kind of you, but we're going to dive straight in today, and we're going to unpack the original Doordash memo you wrote back in 2014 So I want to start with the story and some history and context. So how did you meet the team? Where was the meeting? Paint that picture for me if that's okay.

**Alfred Lin** (3:55)
Yeah, happy to do that. But let me take you back a little bit further than that, because my fascination with food delivery goes back earlier than me meeting the team. I joined Sequoia in 2010, in late 2010, and I was trying to come up with a differentiated investment theme. Early 2011 at the TED Global Conference, I listened to a talk by Jeffrey West about the mass migration to cities. Due partly because cities are just more efficient than other parts of the world. So growing up in New York City, I was always frustrated that services like that I saw in New York weren't available in the Bay areas, whether it was a good public transportation system, reliable taxis or basic delivery surfaces, including restaurant delivery. And I love food. And I've always been like annoyed that food delivery wasn't more available. And actually between 2011 and 2013, we evaluated opportunities to invest in Grubhub, in Caviar, in Postmates, in TaskRabbit, because I was fascinated with this space. We passed on each of those opportunities, not partly because we're somewhat concerned about market size, but more importantly, we felt like we didn't find the right founder market fit for this opportunity. And we wanted to look for founders who are obsessed with the operational details of the business and pursuit operational excellence. And we found that when we met Tony and we realized that there was founder market fit here.