223. Crisis Coverage w/ Byron Deeter - Why This is the Seminal Moment for Cloud and Lessons from 19 Unicorn Investments

Byron Deeter of Bessemer joins Nick on a special Crisis Coverage installment to discuss Why This is the Seminal Moment for Cloud and Lessons from 19 Unicorn Investments. In this episode, we cover: Background and path to venture Stage and focus area at Bessemer? You’ve said that many of the lessons learned from the 08 crisis are applicable today -- what are the top 2 or 3 lessons that founders can directly apply to their business during the current crisis? From a startup standpoint, how is this crisis different from the last? What are your thoughts on the dynamics of the PPP and the role the government is playing amid the crisis? We’ve seen significant volatility in the public markets, but Cloud has remained pretty resilient... what have been your macros observations on SaaS and Cloud businesses over the past couple of months? Why is now “the iPhone moment” for Cloud?  We’ve seen a number of business models gain increasing momentum, such as freemium, low friction and developer centric to name a few -- what have you observed w/respect to evolving business models and which do you think will become more pervasive in the coming years? You’ve talked in the past about the importance of channel scalability for SaaS and cloud companies, define channel scalability for us and what some red flags that may reveal a lack of this? A lot of analysis that goes into these businesses and every situation is different, so I don't want to over simplify... but have you found some general characteristics that separate the winners from the losers? Trust is such an important part of a relationship between founders and investors, what's your approach to building relationships, and do you have a specific example/story? We saw substantial growth in the number of unicorns from the 2000’s to the 2010’s, what do you expect to see this decade? How do you feel about the trend of companies to stay private longer? From the 10 Laws of Cloud Computing... which are the ones most often absent from opportunities you're reviewing? Law 1: In the cloud economy, scale wins Law 2: Growth at optimal cost Law 3: Invest behind the cloud sales and marketing learning curve Law 4: Product as a competitive advantage Law 5: Master the 5 C’s of cloud finance Law 6: Discover your secret KPIs Law 7: Customer success is company success Law 8: Impact through engagement or insights Law 9: Tone starts at the top Law 10: Map your fuel stops In the last State of the Cloud report, you mentioned 5 predictions about the future of Cloud, can you highlight a few you're most excited about?  To listen more, please visit http://fullratchet.net/podcast-episodes/ for all of our other episodes. Also, follow us on twitter @TheFullRatchet for updates and more information.