Invest Like The Best
Episode 200 Wild Hearts and Wild Ideas
Invest Like The Best

Episode 200: Wild Hearts and Wild Ideas

Invest Like The Best

Episode 200

Wild Hearts and Wild Ideas

Niki is the co-founder and partner at Blackbird Ventures. We cover investing in people with wild ambitions and even wilder ideas, the venture landscape in Australia and New Zealand, building a startup city, and what makes Canva such a special company.

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[00:02:39] – (First question) – Defining a wild heart

[00:03:38] – How you identify someone doing their life’s work

[00:04:30] – Defining a wild idea

[00:06:13] – Origin of Blackbird and importance of small teams

[00:07:05] – Investing in companies and not rounds 

[00:09:57] – Signs of a good story and storyteller

[00:11:37] – Any places he disagrees with the majority of thinkers in the tech investing space

[00:13:11] – The sleepy firms backing high growth companies

[00:16:02] – The products of an investment firm

[00:18:17] – What he likes to see in a startup after their initial investment and gets him worried

[00:20:21] – Unique characteristics of the New Zealand and Australian markets 

[00:23:36] – Trends he’s seeing in companies he’s backed recently 

[00:24:46] – Everything he knows about gross margins

[00:25:36] – Range of gross margins in software companies and the quality of the business

[00:27:00] – Lessons on customer acquisition

[00:28:23] – Unique way a company acquired customers early on

[00:29:23] – Customer retention

[00:31:12] – Finding the best product thinkers

[00:32:30] – Question he is trying to answer

[00:34:01] – Lessons from his investing career

[00:35:40] – Business breakdown of Canva 

[00:38:36] – How Canva gets to its customers

[00:41:25] – Figuring out the monetization model

[00:44:42] – Canva’s moat

[00:46:08] – Most delightful feature

[00:46:41] – Positive portable lesson from Canva

[00:49:13] – Best way to learn more about the company

[00:49:41] – Kindest thing anyone has done for him

Wild Hearts and Wild Ideas

Introduction

Patrick
My guest today is Niki Scevak, co-founder and partner at Blackbird Ventures. Blackbird is a leading VC firm in Australia and New Zealand and has invested in companies like graphic design platform Canva and autonomous vehicle company Zoox. Our conversation covers the types of wild ideas that Blackbird invests in, the landscape of venture and startups in Australia and New Zealand, and everything Niki Scevak knows about gross margins and customer acquisition. We also introduce a new concept on the show I'm calling Breakdowns, where we dive into a single business, what it does, how it operates, and what makes it tick. I hope you enjoy this great conversation.

Wild Hearts and Wild Ideas

Patrick
So, Niki, I love the idea right at the top of your website that says, "Invest in wild hearts with the wildest ideas, right at the beginning." This is your mission statement, and I'd love to pick it apart piece by piece. So first, welcome. What is a wild heart?

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