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The Twenty Minute VC · December 17, 2024 · 28m

10 Lessons from 4,000 Interviews

Stebbings distills 10 lessons from interviewing 4,000+ founders, VCs, and operators over 9 years. Themes: speed beats perfection, relationships matter more than deals, and the best investors are perpetual students.

Canon

Stebbings argues that the best VCs he's interviewed don't start with deal flow — they start with relationships. The deals follow the relationships, not the other way around. The quality of your professional relationships predicts your career trajectory more than your analytical skill.

Highlights

The best founders share one trait: they make decisions faster than everyone else
Stebbings identifies decision speed as the single most common trait among successful founders across 4,000 interviews. Not decision quality — decision speed. The best founders make imperfect decisions quickly and correct course, rather than waiting for perfect information.