The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

20VC: Ashton Kutcher on Early Lessons From Investing in Airbnb and Spotify, Why VC Ownership Requirements Are Becoming More and More Egregious & What Being Good At Product Truly Means

Feb 17, 2020

Ashton Kutcher, Founder and General Partner at Sound Ventures, shares his journey from acting to successful angel investing in tech giants like Spotify and Airbnb. He discusses the evolving nature of his investment strategies, emphasizing a youthful perspective on innovation. Kutcher reveals how his experiences as a parent shape his approach to venture capital, and highlights the importance of understanding founders' narratives. He also dives into building strong product intuition and the critical role of resilience in the entrepreneurial landscape.

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INSIGHT

Youth and Perspective

Ashton Kutcher believes the future of the internet is driven by young people.
Having children broadens his perspective and understanding of different consumer groups.

INSIGHT

Culturally Driven Investing

Sound Ventures' investment strategy is informed by cultural trends, not solely technical expertise.
Their value-add lies in crafting narratives and sales pitches for portfolio companies.

ANECDOTE

Sourcing Deals

Ashton Kutcher discovered Spotify by observing the cultural trend of illegal music downloading.
He uses unconventional methods like analyzing people's phone home screens for sourcing deals.

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Ashton Kutcher is a Founder & General Partner @ Sound Ventures. Over the last 5 years, Ashton and his partner, Guy Oseary, have built Sound into one of the West Coast's leading new entrants with a portfolio including Lambda School, Calm, Gitlab, Affirm, Bird and many more incredible companies. As for Ashton, he started his investing career as an angel with early home runs including Spotify, Alibaba, Skype, Airbnb and Optimizely. Due to his immense success both in media and technology, Ashton has been named one of TIME magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World".

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Ashton made his way into the world of startups with his foray into angel investing in Skype, Spotify etc? How did that lead to his founding Sound Ventures most recently?

2.) How does Ashton's background in the world of media impact Sound's investment strategy and the type of deals they get excited by? Question from Daniel Ek @ Spotify: How did your deal sourcing look lin the early days? How has that changed over time and with the institutionalisation of Sound?

3.) Why does Ashton believe people creating the future are perpetually young? What question does Ashton always like to ask founders? What does he look for in their answer? How does Ashton ensure founders feel comfortable with him? What does he do to allow them to open up? What is the hardest thing Ashton feels he has persevered through?

4.) How does Ashton build strong product intuition about products in areas he is not familiar with? In terms of great product, Ashton backed Spotify with Daniel Ek and Shak Khan, what did Ashton see in Spotify way back then? How did Shak and Daniel innovate on distribution and customer acquisition with him and Spotify?

5.) What have been Ashton's learnings in what it takes to truly win the best and most competitive deals? Before as an angel, Ashton's check size was friendly, now with Sound it is competitive with VCs, how does Ashton approach the element of now competing with many VCs he once co-operated with? What does Ashton make of the rise of many celebrity investors today?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

Ashton's Fave Book: The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed the World, Scale: The Universal Laws of Life and Death in Organisms, Cities and Companies

Ashton's Most Recent Investment: Community

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Ashton on Twitter here!

Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.