Mark Goldberg
@Mark_Goldberg_
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Partner @Indexventures - fintech, SaaS, AI. @Dropbox before. Plaid, Lithic, Pilot, Persona, Built, Pave, Intercom, Motive. I talk shop on fintech, VC, dad life.
San Francisco, CA
Joined November 2017
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1/ My 2023 fintech predictions 👇
Doom & gloom is the current mood, but exciting things are around the corner – get ready for generative AI to upend financial advisors 🤖; the rise of the expense Super App🦸♀️; and Twitter to make 🌊s as a fintech powerhouse.
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It's finally time for HBO to reboot Silicon Valley, and make it all about crypto.
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🚨 A cautionary tale for today's market 🚨
Shortly after I joined Dropbox in 2013, the company closed its Series C at a $10B valuation.
Today, Dropbox does billions in revenue (1,000% growth since then) and is worth...$9.5B 🤯
Many recent 🦄s will face similar dynamics.
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I just successfully disputed a charge on my credit card and am now wondering if a centralized financial system is really all that bad.
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@ramit
Somebody parked this Porsche in my building’s garage a year ago and never came back for it.
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Is there a disconnect between public & private market valuations in fintech right now? ⚖️
Klarna (2021 round) = combined market cap of...
Robinhood +
Opendoor +
Marqeta +
Affirm +
Toast +
Blend +
Sofi
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1/ Using the end of year to look ahead -- here are 5 predictions around where fintech is heading in the next decade 👇🧵
Prediction
#1
: By the end of Biden’s first term, at least one of the neobanks will be worth more than Goldman Sachs.
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5/ VIP Investors were even given test drives @ Chelsea dealership. When 1 canceled, I got a ride in a prototype Model S (!!!) In 3 years at MS, I’d never seen investors with ear-to-ear grins on their faces before. It was pure genius. Grown men & women giggling like kids.
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Holiday plans were Omicron-ed so first ever California Christmas! Exploring the hills behind our house 🌲🎅
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10/ But Elon knew, what the bankers did not, that Tesla would change the car industry. And he knew he’d be leaving money on the table by pricing too low, creating a massive pop on day 1.
@bgurley
would have been proud.
Elon said $17 or no deal.
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6/
@elonmusk
wore jeans 👖
It’s a weird detail to remember, but all I ever saw was suits - from my colleagues, clients, I mean everyone. Different times 🤷♂️ It felt like such a rock star/iconoclast move.
Clearly an extension of the brand + a stick in the eye to ol’ Wall Street
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11/ In the end, bankers give in. Deal prices @ $17, trades up to $24 at close.
Investors believed.
I think Elon was thrilled to get out of NYC and away from the suits. Myself included.
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4/ Elon wanted to do things differently.
First -- he needed people to see/touch/feel the cars. The staid & dry PPT pres would not do.
I remember weeks of convos about removing glass doors to bring cars into our lobby in Time Square. Bosses were pissed; Elon insisted.
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1/25: Looking ahead -- here are 5 predictions for where fintech goes in 2022.
From Fintech in the Metaverse, to GenZ traders fighting climate change and some transformative M&A, next year will be a watershed moment for the industry. 🧵👇
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7/ Finally, pricing. Post Roadshow, bankers put on typical dog & pony show about how great it'd gone and recommend a starting price: $15.
Elon says, “no, higher.”
Air sucked out of room.
I’d never seen/heard of someone pushing back here. We were the experts, right?
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Searching for a startup idea?🤔
Find a legacy business whose product is universally disliked, but still widely used.
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What founders are also surfers? 🏄♀️🏄♂️ We're organizing an Index event in 2022 at the Surf Ranch, and have a few slots left.
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A founder just told me her recruiting strategy is to target talent from companies that are forcing people back to the office five days a week.💡
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Tiger is becoming the private index fund that every other VC manager should have to benchmark against to define their own alpha.
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2/ A little background first -- at 22, I had no business getting a job at Morgan Stanley (liberal arts major/knew NOTHING about finance) but was desperate to work in renewable energy and hustled my way onto their clean tech banking team.
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9/ And -- it was a risk. Tesla’s financials were a mess at that time.
They’d only sold ~1,000 sports 🚗 to date
Desperately in need of 💸
Huge debt load.
Model S wouldn’t debut for 2 more years.
This could be a dumpster fire. Reputations at stake.
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3/ My final year there, I worked on
@Tesla
IPO. A dream come true. 9 months of financial modeling, S-1 drafting, very late nights, yadi yada and we began the Road Show where Musk (accompanied by a gaggle of bankers) would pitch investors to buy shares in the IPO.
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We did a look-back recently on some great companies we missed at early rounds. The key learning?
We underestimated market size. In early stage investing, TAM is a huge red herring.
The best companies create their own markets.
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8/ Bankers go on mute and start swearing. I listen, not fully comprehending, just aware of insane stress level in room.
Can someone convince him otherwise?
Who does he think he is?
What if IPO fails?
Do we pull out?
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The killer benefit nobody seems to offer -- an employer match for student loan repayment, similar to 401k contributions.
Is anybody building this?
New legislation finally opens the door here...
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1/ Cash App is wildly underestimated by the market, and is disrupting the $1T banking industry.
The big disconnect: what is the brand value of a company that has turned a bank into a pop star?
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The big question of 2020:
Does this company have product/market fit or just covid-market fit?
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Fintech x Bagels 🥯💵
My local bagel shop just raised $644,700.00 from the community -- not a bank.
What it tells us about small business lending, web2 vs. web3 solutions, and fintech in 2022 👇
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1/ Nearly 10 years ago, I got laid off from my job on Wall Street. I was blindsided, pissed, and ultimately — free.
It was the best thing that ever happened to my career.
Here’s how I crash-landed from finance -> tech & why setbacks are often the wake up calls we need. 🧵
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Welcome to the family, Noah! Over the 🌔 with the healthy arrival of this little guy!
Any parents with multiple kids have advice as we get ready to take him home from the hospital to meet his older brother??
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You can tell a lot about someone by their preferred peloton instructor.
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Thrilled to be partnering with
@NotionHQ
!!!
@nytimes
says it was a "36 hour" process, but it was actually 2+ years in the making -- and 100s of hours with
@SarahRCannon
. She treated them like they were already part of the family, and now they are.
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If I was going to disrupt the Tiger strategy from the top, I'd do it with a massive debt fund.
What's better than cheap equity? No equity.
If you don't need support with company-building (classic VC model) there's another 👞 to drop in terms of new financial products to come.
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Series B in 2022 should be rebranded as "the reality round"
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Just getting started. 👀
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At Dropbox, we A/B tested hundreds of subject lines for cold outbound emails and the standout winner was:
“Quick Question”
If you're trying to get someone's attention, give it a shot.
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Exciting news to share today --
@Plaid
is staying independent:
Why?🤔
As fintech explodes, the infrastructure underpinning it has become increasingly important.
@zachperret
and team are just getting started.
The opportunity here is $50B+, not $5B. 🚀
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The most important founder quality is the ability to hire great people.
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I'm really fired up about an idea at the intersection of fintech & climate change that I'd like to incubate @ Index. 🔥
I'm looking for the right person to lead it.
If you or someone you know is interested please shoot me a DM!
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Team offsite 45 minutes from downtown SF - still the best place to work/live in tech 🌲
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1/ Congrats to
@Plaid
,
@zachperret
and
@williamhockey
on merging forces with
@Visa
! So proud to have been part of the journey along with
@arampell
, Mary Meeker,
@rickyang
,
@santopoliti
.
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!!!🍏Index ❤️ NYC🍏!!!
So excited that we're opening our first new office in 10 years in New York!
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Exciting day here 🤩 10 years since opening our US office, we're announcing our largest funds ever to back great founders from inception to IPO.
I spoke to Techcrunch about where we're heading 👇
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Berkeley is the only place I’ve ever lived where pizza places give bonus slivers on top of full pie. Does anywhere else do this??
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1/ In just a few months, Fintech has gone from the Business Section to the Style Section.
How did we go from p2p loans and neobanks to hiphop culture and Miley Cyrus stock giveaways??
🧵: The collision of finance and pop culture is re-writing the playbook for fintechs 👇👇👇
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Best cold email I've ever gotten? Pitch deck with an attached caricature of me saying "Yes, why not." 🎨
If you send a🧊 email, make it stand out.
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Dropbox mafia now running finance teams at:
---
Figma
Plaid
Open AI
Retool
Pilot
Gem
etc.
---
Choose "team" over "business" every time.
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There's going to be a crazy tsunami 🌊 of M&A coming this year in fintech...we'll see more deals in 2022 than the last 5 years combined.
No sidelines for fintechs this year: you're either a hunter or a target🎯
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I plan on using the "HNY" greeting into February this year like an absolute psycho because third year of the pandemic and all bets are off anyway.
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If you're reaching out to a company, don't misspell the name!
Nothing used to piss me off more than what somebody wrote Drop Box (vs. Dropbox) 🤯😠
I'm shocked at how often I hear this happening.
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1/ Data privacy has never been so important, and yet it’s shockingly difficult for businesses to be good data stewards.
@Transcend_io
makes it easy.
Couldn’t be more excited to introduce my latest investment -- $25m Series A in
@transcend_io
👇
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1/ Major milestone for
@BuiltTechnology
(welcome Lee Fixel!) and a fun one for me - my first Series A at Index.
Built is what the future of fintech is all about -- software meets payments in a $10T industry untouched by tech.
Here's why we invested 👇
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Last morning in the woods 🌲-Covid’s silver lining has been the change of scenery and more time with family. Next stop: NYC for October!
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1 year ago today, I was running red lights in downtown SF in an all-out 2am sprint to the hospital after my wife's shockingly short labor.
Me (a wreck), my wife (brave, calm) made it; an hour later, our healthy son arrived.
Filled with gratitude for this past year ❤️
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I had a blast talking to the incredible
@HarryStebbings
on
@twentyminutevc
- we covered a lot of ground, from the dark side of angel investing to winter surfing🏄♂️, and a lot of things in between (
@IndexVentures
,
@Dropbox
,
@Plaid
, etc.) So much fun!
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The biggest surprise in fintech right now is how it's begun to dominate our CULTURE, not just our financial lives.
* Robinhood goes to Congress 💎🌔
* Crypto / NBA Top Shot / NFTs explode 🏀🎨
* Jay-Z joins the board at Square 🎼💲
We're not even 100 days into the new decade.
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Looking at a VC fund's returns are like looking at a 🌟 -- you think you're seeing the present, but you're actually getting a window into the distant past.
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New startup idea: a modern airline that people don't hate.
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Analyzing
@IndexVentures
portfolio company performance from previous cycles (~30 years of data) -- my biggest takeaway:
A big pitfall in a bear market is UNDER-investing. Cutting muscle can weaken a great company for years.
Winners take market share in hard times.
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9/ Cash App’s product velocity is head-spinning (see below)
In a world where features can be copied by competitors, the slope of product growth in fintech is more important than the intercept. 📈
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I get more questions about
@RobinhoodApp
than any other
@IndexVentures
co -- what drives our excitement?
✅Delightful products
✅Best-in-breed 📈 & engagement (vs. top consumer cos)
✅Visionary founders
🌞 50th largest bank today is worth $50B. Neobank winners will be bigger.
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One generation (my twin bro and me) to the next (each of our sons) 👨👨👦👦
How it started: How it's going:
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Announcing our new funds to support the next generation of entrepreneurs. We have no doubt that startups will be critical to the world’s social and economic recovery in the months and years to come. More thoughts below 👇
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As the world reopens, one of the big surprises is realizing that nobody on Zoom is the actual height you imagined.
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7 years ago, I took my first-ever meeting in VC...with
@zoink
. It set a high bar. These are the questions I asked my designer friends as I prepped 🤷♂️
Thanks to
@dannyrimer
, we've been on
@figma
's remarkable journey from the start. WELCOME,
@Adobe
for the next chapter!!
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After re-watching two Harry Potter movies over the weekend, I accidentally let slip a "Well, you know, the wand chooses the wizard" response to a question this morning with a founder 🧙♂️😬
It landed shockingly well! Founder/investor fit achieved.
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The Decacorn Battle Royale is underway 🦄 ⚔️
My prediction -- Deel, Rippling, and even Ramp/Brex product suites will all converge:
🏆 Winner = $100B platform company
2nd place = $10B product company
3rd & 4th place = $1B sale
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In 2015, when Revolut pitched us their vision of a 'global money app' 🌏, the largest neobank at the time was Simple, valued at $117m 😱
TAM is a trap.
Kudos to
@martinmignot
&
@narimer
for seeing past it.
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So excited to announce our latest investment in
@revenuecat
! Thrilled to be leading their $15m Series A.
Can't wait to work more closely with
@jeiting
and
@elwatto
, alongside
@HarryStebbings
@jasonlk
@joshbuckley
@ncsh
@MarkFiorentino
breaks it down👇
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Stripe’s out here playing chess when the ecosystem is playing checkers ♟
Honored to be joining
@patrickc
,
@collision
, and the rest of the Stripe board.
Stripe is one of the great companies of our time, and I’m excited to see them invest more energy into crypto/Web3.
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Imagined conversation btw
@williamhockey
and his financial advisor after Plaid:
Advisor: "Congrats! Now don't go buy something crazy."
William: "What do you mean by crazy?"
Advisor: "An Italian villa, a yacht..."
William: "We bought a bank."
Advisor: "That's a first."
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Just wrapping up a new deal, and working with the founders to fill out the remaining allocation -- trying to add some new people to my 'go to' co-investor list.
Who are the angel investors that you'd tell a founder are must-have in your cap table?
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Not sure who needs to hear this but once you have <6-9 months of cash runway it becomes exponentially harder to sell your company.
Discussing a sale is hard, but missing your window is worse.
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6/ Prediction
#2
: The rise of multiplayer finance.
Finance is inherently social (trips, meals, events) but 💵 has remained stuck in a single-player paradigm.
As the pandemic recedes and social activity explodes, new platforms will put groups, not individuals, at the center.
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Questions I sent to designers in 2016, as I prepped for first meeting with
@zoink
and
@dannyrimer
as a new VC. Clearly, I knew nothing. But, even pre-launch, feedback was clear: "this is the future"
Fun milestone today - welcome
@a16z
& kudos to the entire
@figmadesign
team!
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5/ How big can they get?
🏦 <10% of consumers today consider an online bank to be their primary account.
💵 The 50th largest bank today is worth $50B.
Digital banks are just getting started. We’ll see a neobank eclipse a major incumbent bank in the next few years.
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Fintech in 2021 through acronyms:
Jan - PFOF
Feb: NFT
Mar: BNPL
Apr: COIN
May: BaaS
June: MQ
Jul: HOOD
Aug: HODL
Sep: SBF
Oct: gm
Nov: DAO
Dec: FUD
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The killer KPI that nobody talks about is predictability.
Companies that hit targets quarter after quarter dramatically outperform the ones that don't. Shows that they know their business insanely well, and gives investors enormous trust that they'll deliver in the future.
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Talking shop with my toddler - 1) my favorite company is finally raising! 2) here’s the valuation target
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10/ Looking back, it’s clear I’d become complacent in a job that made me just happy enough to stop me from leaving.
If I hadn’t been forced out, I’m not sure I ever would have left.
Wake up calls come in many forms. Find yours!
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In the coming years, flexibility will become as important compensation in offer letters.
Employers that give workers control over hours and location will win the talent wars without matching top 💵.
This will be the legacy of the pandemic.
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5 companies (FAANG) now make up 40% of the NASDAQ 😳
The power of these platforms is scary.
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What's really wild about the Tiger/crossover fund strategy is that if they continue to be successful, it will show that the best VCs in the world are underestimating how big their own companies will become.
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Card issuance is the next big frontier in fintech, and
@lithic
makes is⚡️fast & easy to use.
Great milestone today just a few months after their Series B with
@BessemerVP
.
Such a blast working with
@bolingj
@CharlieKroll
@cbirn
@TaliaGold
& the team
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