Behind The Scenes: I Met with a Top VC Firm (Lightspeed Venture Partners)

This is a live, behind-the-scenes of my Board Meeting with Tier 1 VC Fund, Lightspeed Venture Partners.
This video shows you the exact steps that I use to prep for an investor meeting, and then I put those steps into practice in a real life scenario with two of the wonderful folks from Lightspeed.
There's some major unlocks in this one, so be sure to watch to the end to hear all of the great conversations we had!
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In this series. I will be documenting the full process of what it's like running a startup, and you'll get to watch live as I figure out how to get us from $25 Million to $1 Billion.
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Specifically in this episode, we talk about:
- Why I'm even having this meeting
- How to prep for VC meetings
- What Attributes VC's look for in your Startup
- The live recording of our meeting
- Tier 1 VC's best advice for entrepreneurs
Want to start monetizing your content? Check out my company, Stan Store:
stan.store/
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Follow me on social media!
Connect with me on LinkedIn:
/ johnghu
Need advice or have a question? DM me anytime on Instagram!
/ jayhoovy
For my funnier videos:
/ jayhoovy

[@Oderah]

Hats off for posting these - this is unique content allowing viewers to listen in on conversations that typically aren’t accessible.

[@jayhoovy]

Thanks Oderah!! That’s my goal! Trying to demystify the process🙏

[@shivasuresh5957]

You are an incredibly bright guy. I think most people don't realize the amount of work that is required to build an investable startup, scale it, become profitable, etc. You are killing it. Wishing you all the best...

[@jayhoovy]

Awww - thank you so much for the kind words Shiva! Definitely been a really hard journey on me... but I'm still standing and we're gonna make sure this thing helps a lot of people! Thanks for the well wishes and for tuning into the journey

[@SuperKillaki]

Behind the sweet smile and happy-go-lucky aura is an absolute killer that understands basic human psychology. You handled that extremely well.

[@jayhoovy]

;) I respect that you can see this. A couple of my core values you highlighted here: kindness/compassion, first principles thinking, and relentless competitiveness. Cheers Killaki!

[@Hillmanwinning]

Great content man, kudos - running a fast growing start up and documenting the story! love it!

[@Blashmack]

Thank you so much for letting us see this. There are always some angles and edges in the real thing that you can learn to prepare for only when you go through the real thing (maybe a few stumbles were edited out...). Great stuff!

[@heynineteentwenty]

Needed this so bad have definitely been missing something’s while pitching! Thanks so much!

[@vitorpaes9563]

Amazing! Watched every episode at once

[@apostolis_23]

Jay, thank you for your educational/entertaining videos. Seeing "behind the curtains" on whats been said on VC pitch is super helpful. I also noticed the low energy especially in the "founders market fit" section. Super happy seeing your videos and waiting for the next one. Thank you once more and greetings from Greece!

[@user-gw6jb9yz6r]

Amazing & invaluable content! Learning so much as a new founder!!

[@fabiojonathanarifin1]

Awesome!!! More Client Acquisition video would be awesome!

[@bhill3259]

Very dope content. Thanks for the transparency of your journey!

[@km7889]

As an Asian-American immigrant, your story is inspirational! Amazing content. Keep on going.

[@stevenphung]

This was awesome. Love seeing what it's really like in the startup scene

[@jayhoovy]

Thank you Steven!! Trying to demystify the process as much as I can!

[@user-sx3pu3pv6q]

love you jay, wishing you more greatness

[@mbands]

Love seeing frequent updates about the business, keep the content coming!

[@jayhoovy]

Thank you Max!! More content to come! Anything in particular you want me to make videos about?

[@wafflepiffle]

literally first time I see behind the curtains VC content. keep it up!

[@jayhoovy]

Thank you Daniel! More videos from behind the curtain coming soon :)

[@AustinHankwitz]

Loving these vlogs John!

[@Rodrigo_Martins2020]

Your videos are unique. Keep pushing, John! You’re doing an excellent job 💪🏻

[@jayhoovy]

Thank you Rodrigo!! Really appreciate the support🙏

[@021sena021]

You have a really good energy to you. Something about The way you articulate and talk just sounds very captivating and intelligent! I'm excited and am rooting for the success of your business!!

[@jayhoovy]

Wow, thank you Sena! Hoping you can learn a ton from my journey too!

[@shivzz.s]

Love to see such videos. Keep up the good work John!!

[@jayhoovy]

Thank you Shiva! Always appreciate your support🙏

[@FlutterPythoncombo]

Founders, just a quick heads-up: Nice VCs and friendly investors are like unicorns in this game. Most of the time, you'll be stuck waiting for hours in their fancy lobbies, dealing with investors who love to tease, act all high and mighty, and basically make your life difficult. It's probably the most frustrating part of building a startup, and many founders can't stand it. But hey, if you do manage to pull through and succeed, you'll be ahead of the game compared to other founders. Just something to chew on. 😉🚀

[@FlutterPythoncombo]

@@davidc4408 That's correct; I always put myself in the investor's shoes. What I'm saying is a bit different. Decency, and treating others well, is what I'm trying to emphasize. As an investor, if you don't like the idea or the individual, you can still reject them respectfully. I'm sure you'll be surprised if I share some of my experiences with investor meetings For starting point ,Google : Investor's Naked Selfies. or mental torture fundrasing

[@CarlossWorld]

IMO build yourself into the position where VCs need you, and you don’t need VCs. If you have a small team that can build and market you have all the tools you need to create the world where VCs chase you.

[@monkeyycoollay32]

This shit is incredible, please keep posting more. Amazing content and big fan of you and your company!

[@jayhoovy]

will do Monkey! any specific kinds of content / other startup events you'd want me to live record?

[@AdeMolajo]

Funniest thing is hearing this dude that was high energy in the entitre meeting, lament that his energy was low (it was only low in the debrief). Good video and insight.

[@jamesdeng5395]

Great value in this video

[@ChristianMillionaire]

You care... That's why you Rock John! Thanks for living your example, - james

[@jayhoovy]

You rock James!!! Always appreciate your support🙏

[@MeetKevon]

Never seen a content angle like this. Amazing!!

[@jayhoovy]

Thanks for the kind words Kevon! What else would you be interested in seeing?

[@junahsmyth5061]

this was a great video Jay!

[@miketee21boss]

truly appreciate the quality content you post!

[@jayhoovy]

truly appreciate you following and supporting Mike! Hope it can be helpful in your own journey!

[@joseph-jg2ie]

This is the most unique content I’ve seen on KZbin in a while, this channel might do better than the company if y’all keep it up!

[@jayhoovy]

Thank you so much Joseph for the kind words!

[@somecallmemomo]

amazing content! would love to understand how you structure and prioritize your "warm-ups" with investors. How you keep them engaged after such a meeting :)

[@gda7777777]

thank you for the content, amazing.

[@jayhoovy]

Thanks for supporting😊

[@BransTiong]

You really inspire me as an entreprenuer keep it up man!

[@jayhoovy]

Thank you Branson!! You keep it up too!

[@rithviksunku6298]

Ur absolutely killing it with these videos

[@jayhoovy]

not without all of your support! I appreciate the kind words Rithvik!

[@Galbra1th]

Crushed it! The team at Lightspeed seems great!

[@jayhoovy]

dude Cameron - appreciate you as always!!

[@noahhkim505]

Really liked the video - just curious, what do you use for creating your slide deck? Yours looks a lot nicer than powerpoint

[@marcv4495]

Love these updates, excited to see more!

[@jayhoovy]

More to come! Thanks for the support Marc!

[@user-zq8ji4cn3t]

Hey man - been following your journey, and these videos are excellent. Only questions I have with Stan (worked in VC before) is really as it pertains to the market and competitive dynamics. To note, these are thoughts, not trying to be mean or anything, so would love to get your take 1. Lead gen funnel seems more concentrated towards a specific market channel, in this case Social media marketing, specifically TikTok? Think one video you posted said ~80% is TikTok? If so, could see some concentration risk if there is any sort of trouble with TikTok. Also, I assume many of these creators find new customers through TikTok, so even demand side is concentrated. Creators are at the mercy of that platforms algorithms - so if things change & they can't generate traffic or go viral, means less customers for them, so less revenue over time. If I was VC, would be curious to see a regression analysis of creator earnings by each cohort over time vs. retention (e.g., if creators see earnings dip over time, do you see an uptick in cancellations?). It's kind of the story that played out with SEO - it was huge in the early days of Google and everyone wanted to do SEO marketing. Now, it's completely saturated, and if a business is skewed towards SEO, it's a bad business. 2. I could see retention potentially compress (and even new user sign-ups), particularly as consumer spending decreases. Creators effectively operate in getting money from consumers. However, consumer budgets are tight, and the portion of the consumer budget curve that creators target is extremley elastic and also the most competitive (its effectively money they spend on leisure activities which competes with people doing things like going out, paying for Netflix/Spotfiy, shopping etc,). So in good times, like COVID, it's great - people were flushed with cash. In recessionary times, consumers immediately stop leisure spending (would presume spending on creators is the first thing to go, unless its very niche areas like adult material), so creators make less money, so they stop paying for services themselves that help them make money (meaning less sign-ups or more cancellations). 3. The market is highly competitive with players who have raised a ton of money. Many link-in-bio tools have now added eCommerce features including beacons, linktree, Koji - and I think their price point is lower, so curious how you would take market share for them. And the biggest players in the creator space, like Patroen or Kajabi, have been around for over a decade - and none have gone public or been acquired. Which makes you wonder whether these businesses are not as defensible, operating in a highly elastic market that is at the mercy of social media algorithms and macro economic conditions effecting consumer spending, etc - so the actual market size / pie is much smaller than people think. 4. AI (this is more of a long-term trend). Many creators make money trying to sell high-value items (courses, ebooks, coaching, etc.). As AI agents become more prevalent and free, people would just AI agents how to do something vs. paying a creator (e.g., cost of digital products effectively becomes 0 as people can just ask a ChatGPT system to simply tell them to create a course on x). Now this would be counter-balanced by the fact that some people just want to support their favorite creators - which is fine but at most people support 1 (maybe 2 creators). So this puts pressure for creators to find new audiences vs. upselling to existing ones - which leads to the problem highlighted above in that how do they find distribution channels outside of social.

[@paulohero]

You nailed it. Great points, specially the #3.

[@ansonrocks7273]

Awesome questions!

[@StarskyHugh]

I think these are all great points. Their business model is really contingent on retaining users in an already saturated market. This channel and the whole sharing of the business I think is to attract more followers and from that, hopefully "blow up" or go viral enough that it attracts more potential users and consumers (re: Your point #4). I respect the grind and transparency but I agree. People only really want to use the best services (that have been around for awhile) and I would posit that new technologies are becoming harder to come by due to techno-saturation. Snapchat, IG, YT, Facebook and even TikTok etc. were all novelties when they were at their peak, and now are the norm for an increasingly tech-savvy market. Unsure if STAN is unique enough to tackle this evolving consumer base. I'm really wishing nothing but the best, but in my honest opinion I feel like building a following on YT/across social media is the main goal. If the company fails to become a billion dollar company, it doesn't really matter because of the following/potential consumer base it would have obtained. I also see that as STAN moves into profitability and if scaling is managed appropriately, sharing the journey would reap more benefits than eventually scaling to profitability. So really, it is a win/win for Jay. Eager to see a response!

[@UNKNOWN-1589]

The goat , love the vids !

[@jayhoovy]

You're the goat!🙏 Thanks for the support :)

[@bigoof21]

Keep the content coming! Spot on, the case studies would've helped but what about your roadmap? Instead of mentioning that you wouldn't know what to do with capital, if you instead gave general directions and asked for advice I think you could've continued the momentum you had from the great metrics. Especially if their suggestions reasonate with your story. Apologies if I misunderstood and/or you probably didn't post everything for conf. reasons. There's probably a data story around being a creator management platform/coach, particularly around using your customers' analytics to give advice to up-and-coming content creators. Particularly if you can filter it by subcategory (location, form of content, etc.) of content creators. Although, I'm sure you're already doing this.

[@evrardfoekeng5743]

I've watched most of your videos and they're very useful for me as a future entrepreneur (hopefully). Thank you for this content because we don't have any here in France (at least as far as I can see)! I don't know if it's possible to make a video where you show how to get a first meeting with a VC (the research and all that)??

[@jayhoovy]

Video next week coming out is a step-by-step of how to get your first VC meeting and then raise money! :) stay tuned and à bientôt!

[@jordan5253]

Buddies mullet is insane 🔥

[@jayhoovy]

truly awesome

[@tiagojoaoollo5703]

You're such a charismatic person, perfect founder-market fit, business hitting all the right metrics, everything looks effortlessly (although I'm sure there's a lot of work bts). Wish I could invest, J! Props to you really, great inspiration 👏

[@jayhoovy]

Ahhhh!! Thank you so much for the kind words Tiago! Putting my heart and soul into these videos for you guys in hopes you learn a lil and your journey is easier than mine

[@parkerrex]

Faraz' hair on point. Mountain valley water ftw.

[@jayhoovy]

Couldn't agree more about both of these🙌

[@felipesouza8055]

love u man love your videos

[@jayhoovy]

love u too Felipe - really appreciate your support

[@moose1158]

i want to be just like you one day jay

[@phunxamphongthuy5534]

So nice!

[@jayhoovy]

Thank you!! :)

[@Bunny-mx1fm]

Been waiting for this!!

[@jayhoovy]

Always appreciate your support Bunny! Hope you enjoyed :)

[@Bunny-mx1fm]

@@jayhoovyyeah wish you posted more! But understandable seeing how busy you must be, super unique content and really gives people like myself and opportunity to see what it’s like!

[@7h643]

solid content man, love watching your journey. if you were a stock i’d buy you!

[@jayhoovy]

Thank you 7H!! That's super kind :)

[@dotpenji]

Great job in your meeting with Lightspeed Venture Partners! How do you plan to balance your near-profitability with the potential need for additional capital in the future, given your desire to avoid raising funds unnecessarily?

[@CyrineZee]

This is a very interesting and informative video!

[@motivatedbeastph]

I commend you for sharing this valuable content, providing viewers with an opportunity to eavesdrop on typically inaccessible conversations.

[@plaumarbusiness6244]

love it

[@jayhoovy]

Thank you!!🙌

[@seymenozdes]

As a young person in the economic crisis in Turkey, what you did is my dream. I hope one day I will have the opportunity to show you my projects.

[@jayhoovy]

Keep believing and working hard and I promise you'll get there, REGARDLESS of country borders! The internet will allow you to scale outside of your current economic situation - rooting for you!!!

[@Littlestephy29]

Think you did a fantastic job, especially with Faraz. You maintained great composure and were an eloquent speaker even when nervous, which is not easy. Plus you had the added pressure of filming this meeting for your channel. Don't beat yourself up - you did really well! Thanks for sharing this content with everyone!!

[@jayhoovy]

Ahhh thanks so much for the kind words SDP! Definitely a learning experience and glad you enjoyed!

[@robertdevries]

I’m always wondering how do you get your first client. If it’s about taking a subscription, buying a product or hiring yourself? I’m working in IT myself and always have the aspiration to at some time start my own business. But stop working and building something sounds like a major risk. So what advice would you give to build something on the side? At least to the first 1-5 clients/customers?

[@jayhoovy]

Always walk before you run!!! Start it as a side hustle before you go all in - in terms of how to get your first customers, Alex Hormozi has a solid video on this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rWjKYWuai7mql6c&themeRefresh=1

[@srisaisushangumadavalli4049]

banger vid

[@jayhoovy]

banger subscriber

[@allanwang-zd8qc]

why is it a net negative for founders to graduate from stanford MBA?

[@galenamadi]

can you turn on the subtitles please because I prefer to watch it with it

[@jayhoovy]

turned em on for ya!!

[@DaveNash]

you'e a beast

[@jayhoovy]

YOU'RE a beast Dave!

[@fayazmaihandost]

I need them to invest on me and my idea

[@AbrarAhmed-fi5sm]

Thats a big ass camera under the TV

[@karend.5582]

Say hi to Barry for me ;) (if he's not in Hawaii)

[@jeromeibanez6069]

I wonder what the full meeting was like? Lightspeed didn't seem to ask/probe any of the metrics that you brought up. They just repeated what you said or stated the obvious (i.e. the comment about the super users is pretty self explanatory). I've never been to a Tier 1 VC meeting where my metrics were not probed. I always tell people that if investors don't ask questions or clarifications about your metrics, either they're not interested or they don't know enough about the space. As an early stage founder, the latter should always be a red flag. When you're profitable or nearing IPO, the less expertise on the VC side matters because by that point, you and your team are most probably the experts in the domain anyway. If you're just starting out, the more expertise is important. A lot of new associates/principals/partners in old VCs bank on the firm's brand without really knowing anything. So, for founders that are reading this just be wary of this :)

[@AlkaPwnige]

How does a vc firm have 30 year old partners that seems kinda crazy lol

[@InternetRevolution368]

Jay, study your intro. The first clip isn't it. The second clip is. The guy in the first shot is playing a character. They guy is the second is the character.

[@jayhoovy]

Thank you so much for the feedback! Appreciate it! I want to make sure these videos are as awesome as possible for you!

[@InternetRevolution368]

@@jayhoovy Don't do it for me do it for yourself. I wanna throw something at you.. I think what you need is someone to show you where the best content is in your start up. I've been filming my life since 2014. I've done the Silicon Valley thing and I am working on bringing some really cool things to the creator economy/eco system. I say that because I can help you. Don't get me wrong, your content is good but I feel its braggy and I believe to be ego based. This is rooting from fear/insecurity. I spot it because I too have been that guy. You don't need to uphold the image that you've created, you can transform at any point and at anytime. Its all in your head. There is no reason why you shouldn't have 500k plus on these videos. You have all the makings to do something great. If you have an email, I can send over some items.

[@allanwang-zd8qc]

why is it a net negative for founders to graduate from stanford MBA?