Harry Stebbings loves venture capital. "I fell in love with VC because I watched The Social Network," he says. "Five years later, after obsessively reading and studying the industry, I saw the opportunity for a podcast."
Stebbings called his podcast The Twenty Minute VC. The premise was simple: each week, he would interview a prominent venture capitalist for 20 minutes. But the idea was at best fanciful, at worst downright foolhardy.
Why? Because Stebbings was only 18. When The Social Network inspired him, he was sitting in Vue Fulham Broadway, aged just 13.
Fast forward two years, and Stebbings’ boyhood dream has become a reality. Today, The Twenty Minute VC averages 300,000 downloads an episode and counts the most prominent cheque-writers in the industry among its fans. Techstars co-founder Brad Feld says it's "the only thing I listen to in the morning". Software-as-a-service VC Jason Lemkin calls Stebbings, now 20, "one of the most beloved connectors and promoters in venture". That’s more than $500 million-worth of funds-under-management singing the praises of a 20-year-old university drop-out.
Now WIRED can exclusively reveal that Stebbings is going into investing himself – a move he says will make him "the youngest VC in the world". Which begs the question: how has he come so far, so fast?
WIRED first speaks to Stebbings on a brisk Thursday morning in early October. He’s come from a meeting – “I do back-to-back meetings on Thursday” – and he’s on his way to another one. “Have you met Ed Cooke, founder of Memrise? Incredible guy. I can introduce you if you like.”
This relentless enthusiasm is key to Stebbings’ success. Every 20 Minute VC follows the same format: three minutes on the VC’s background, 15 minutes on business, then a series of personal questions to finish. The interviews are rarely probing, but they can elicit interesting responses all the same. Stebbings’ energy is overpowering. He’s excited to be there, so his guests are too.
Yet Stebbings is far more than a giddy teenager. He works towards his goal with a focus bordering on the obsessive. “All I do every day,” he says, “is think: how can I get more listeners today than I had yesterday?” While his peers sleep off hangovers, he’s up every morning for an 8am breakfast. When someone adds him on Snapchat, where he has 40,000 followers, he makes sure to send back a cheery personalised greeting. “It's completely different world,” he says, sounding, for a brief moment, wistful.
Stebbings released his first podcast – an interview with Silicon Valley VC Guy Kawasaki – on January 10, 2015. The show drew the attention of early adopter website Product Hunt: by November that year, an interview with Mark Suster pulled in over 100,000 listeners. But success posed a dilemma for Stebbings, who was starting a law degree at King's College, London.
On December 6, 2015, Stebbings was sitting in a lecture when he received a call from newly minted VC Arielle Zuckerberg, Mark's youngest sister. "I looked at it and I thought, this is where my abilities lie, and this is what I love," Stebbings recalls. "I came out of the lecture, phoned my parents and said, 'I'm leaving.'"
The gamble paid off. Today, The Twenty Minute VC makes enough money from sponsorship to employ four full-time contractors, including Stebbings' father as head of business development. Stebbings also works as a consultant, helping VCs polish their personal brands on social media. "It's not going to make me a millionaire, but as a 20-year-old, it's nice to have," he says.
It’s also part of a shrewd overall strategy – one that Stebbings hopes will take him to very top. This approach is based on the understanding that, in venture capital, who you know matters a great deal. Think of it as a parable for the content marketing age.
Here’s how it works. Through his podcast, Stebbings builds relationships. That way he’s known – so when he sends an investor an email, he can make sure it’s got that personal touch. What does he send emails about? Deals, of course – which he hears about through his podcast. He interviews entrepreneurs, as well as limited partners, the big funds that provide most of the money for VCs. They get risk-free exposure; he gets content. At least in theory, everyone benefits.
“I realised that the way to win in this industry was to get all the different nodes of the network – startups, VCs and LPs – and if you have the best network between all three, then relatively speaking you should be the best at it,” Stebbings explains.
Success breeds success. In the last year, Stebbings has been able to start doing deals himself – thanks, once again, to the strength of his personal brand. “The best deals are known to be the best,” he says. “It's not a matter of can you tell it's the best, it's a matter of can you simply get into it. If you have a brand... your ability to get into the best deals is massively heightened.”
Now Stebbings is moving onto the next phase of his career. “To be honest,” he says, “the podcast was a plan for me to get into venture capitalism over a long period," he says. So, lately, he's been listening to job offers. "I've had 32. Some of them were really interesting. But the best, definitely, was Atomico."
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WIRED can reveal that the London-based fund set up by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström has hired Stebbings as an investor. And, naturally, the first contact came through the podcast.
“A couple of years ago Harry approached me about being on The Twenty Minute VC,” says Atomico partner Mattias Ljungman. “It wasn’t as huge as it is now, but when I looked into the podcast I was immediately struck by the quality of the people he'd already interviewed. I did the show, really enjoyed it, and have listened religiously since.”
Will Stebbings get to continue with his show, even if it means giving coverage to other VCs? “Anything that strengthens collaboration between VCs and founders, especially in Europe, is a really positive thing,” says Ljungman. Stebbings is blunter. “If I grow the business and continue to to grow the business, my brand gets better and my deal flow gets better,” he says. I've told Atomico very clearly, I'm not changing my mission.”
Ah yes, the mission. For Stebbings, it’s far from over. “In five years' time, in all honesty, the goal is a $50 million (£40m) fund of my own," he says. Five years' time - that is, by age 25. Stebbings laughs. "That does sound rather worrying."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
