Wesley Chan on Google, Canva and Building a Venture Firm Around Product Vision

Wesley Chan traces his move into venture investing to his time at Google, where he says he worked on Analytics, the advertising system, Voice and acquisitions. As the company grew, he missed building products in very small teams and considered leaving to start a company.

Chan recalls telling Larry Page he wanted to found a startup. He says Page suggested investing instead, citing Chan’s work on acquisitions including Urchin and GrandCentral. Chan helped build Google Ventures, spent about five years there and later joined Felicis Ventures.

After Felicis grew, Chan says he again wanted a small, nimble team. He and his partner Pegah founded FPV Ventures; at the time of the interview, he describes a five-person team capable of reaching an investment decision in hours when there is a strong fit. This is his account of the firm’s process.

Chan says Google’s founders pushed him to ask whether an idea was large enough to change the world. Although criticism of his proposals stung, he came to use the same question when evaluating founders. He cites companies including Canva, Plaid and Gusto, in which he invested, as examples of ambitious visions.

He recounts a Gmail product meeting in which, according to his recollection, the team proposed far more storage than rivals and Page pushed for two gigabytes rather than 200 megabytes. Chan says the exercise changed how he thought about a step-change in user experience. These figures are his recollection of the discussion, not an independently verified account of the launch offer.

In Chan’s telling, Page argued that most users would not fill the full allowance quickly and that storage costs would fall over time. Chan now asks founders for their equivalent of that dramatic improvement. He offers Canva and Plaid as examples of companies he believes changed how people use existing services; he has investment interests in those businesses.

Stebbings asks whether a demand for large ideas risks overlooking small initial wedges. Chan distinguishes the first product from the founder’s longer-term vision: a limited initial rollout can still be part of a much larger plan. He invokes Tesla’s early high-priced car and a later mass-market ambition as an illustration.

Chan looks for founders with what he calls a hundred-year plan, even if the eventual path differs from the original vision. Stebbings questions whether planning so far ahead can be limiting in a changing world. Chan answers that great founders retain a long-term direction while adapting.

He says the market can defeat a talented founder if a product arrives before people are ready, but founders matter too: the best recognize an unmet need or adapt to it. He credits Canva’s founders with seeing demand for simpler design tools beyond the professional designers served by established software.

Chan also points to Google’s focus on getting users to answers rather than keeping them on a portal. Stebbings distinguishes market creation, expansion and taking share from incumbents. Chan says he has had his strongest outlier outcomes in new markets, but has also invested in companies improving existing services.

Chan says he does not rely on conventional market-sizing slides when a company is creating a new market. Instead he asks whether the founder has an unusual insight. He warns against taking the size of a broad market, such as cars, and assuming a supplier of one component can capture a percentage of it without a credible path.

On outcome planning, Chan says FPV uses rough calculations rather than a precise forecast. He reports a roughly $450 million fund and says many limited partners are charities and foundations. For each investment, he asks whether there is a plausible path for the stake to return the fund; that is an investment hurdle, not evidence that a return will occur.

He describes an approximately 30% historical hit rate for early investments in companies that reached a valuation above $1 billion. He then uses that as an illustration of what a 20-company portfolio might produce. Reaching a company valuation is not the same as realized fund proceeds, and his projection does not establish future returns.

Chan says some sectors do not pass his rough return test: he uses a restaurant as an example of a business that may be worthwhile yet unlikely to return a venture fund. Even with apparently promising companies, he acknowledges that his predictions of what they could become can be far off.

For the fund, he describes up to around 20 core positions and checks often in the $10 million to $20 million range. He prefers more opportunities to find an exceptional company rather than concentrating immediately in only a few. He says additional vehicles can sometimes allow more capital to be invested later.

Stebbings asks why not write smaller checks and own more companies. Chan says check size depends on what the founder needs and the round permits, and he does not insist on a fixed ownership rule. His preference is to get into strong companies on mutually acceptable terms.

He recalls leading Canva’s Series A without a board seat or 20% ownership, conditions he says other investors wanted. He later joined the board when participating in its Series C. He presents Canva as a major success for Felicis and says his new fund also invested; those claims and his enthusiasm come with a clear financial interest.

Chan says a board seat should be useful to the founder rather than a requirement driven by investor ego. In his view Canva’s small board supports productive discussions, while very large boards can consume time without adding equivalent value. The assessment is his, and he suggests asking the founders for theirs.

Asked whether later investors prevent existing backers from concentrating capital, Chan says it depends on the deal. In Canva’s case, he says his firm invested more alongside Sequoia. He treats each transaction as a negotiation rather than assuming a universal rule.

Discussing the 2022 fundraising market, Chan recalls advising founders with sufficient cash to wait for conditions to reset rather than enter a crowded market. He says companies able to raise quietly from existing supporters on acceptable terms could consider doing so. His advice reflects that period, not current market conditions.

Chan distinguishes having a fund in a downturn from investing indiscriminately. In 2022 he warns that follow-on capital might be scarce: an investor could become the last source of cash for a company and face a choice between providing more and allowing it to close. This is a risk scenario, not a forecast for every company.

FPV was nevertheless active: Chan says the fund had completed at least seven deals in its first two months, mostly involving founders he already knew and companies that did not urgently need capital. He says he would be cautious about a company with only a couple of months of runway.

His prominent miss was Twilio. Chan says that, because of his experience with Google Voice, he assumed companies would eventually build the relevant telecom functions themselves. He underestimated how Twilio’s founder could evolve the product. Stebbings recognizes a similar problem in his own missed software investments.

Chan says deep expertise can create skepticism and a bias toward passing. In areas where he knows too much, he may ask a colleague to assess a company first and then test the argument himself. He contrasts that with investments in fields where he knew enough to follow a founder’s insight without assuming he knew the outcome.

He now pays particular attention to whether a founder can transform the company and product over time. Customer references can reveal current limitations, he says, but negative comments about an early version may not settle what the business can become. His proposed remedy is to evaluate the vision as well as the present product.

Rather than asking a single easily rehearsed question about product plans, Chan says he approaches the subject in different ways and listens for consistency. He sees distinguishing a genuine product visionary from a polished roadmap as an art, informed by years working on products.

Chan describes FPV’s product as a relationship: whether a company succeeds or closes, he wants founders to consider him one of their first calls. At the interview he says the firm can invest across stages and geographies but is not investing in crypto. He wants flexibility to back founders beyond familiar locations.

He recalls that Canva initially puzzled other investors because it was in Australia, its founders were a couple and the company had not launched revenue. Chan says he was willing to accept that uncertainty because he believed in the founders’ product vision. He acknowledges that his approach is personal, not the only valid investment method.

Sales and marketing leaders are not excluded from his definition of a product visionary. Some understand product deeply because they work with customers and see its shortcomings. Chan says his experience at Google helps him recognize the high standards he seeks, though not every commercial leader has that skill.

On raising FPV’s first fund, Chan says he began shortly before Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and closed within a couple of months. He reports demand of roughly two to three times the amount accepted, while holding the fund at $450 million. These are his fundraising figures, not independently verified in the conversation.

He says the firm chose a disciplined size because there are only so many deals it wants to do. His pitch to limited partners emphasized enduring businesses with revenue rather than crypto or web3. He offers authenticity and a strategy grounded in one’s strengths as advice, while recognizing that other managers may choose different approaches.

Chan compares learning to play Chopin with learning venture investing. He says he used YouTube to study mechanics such as fingering, then listened to accomplished pianists to understand timing and expression. Mastery, in his view, requires both technical competence and a distinctive interpretation.

For venture, his chosen edge is identifying product visionaries and imagining what their companies could become. He studies how other investors work and asks whether their techniques can be adapted authentically to his own practice. He says he still has much to learn.

In a quick-fire round, Chan names Michael Lewis’s Liar’s Poker as a favorite and cites empathy for founders as a strength. He says his engineering background can make him appear awkward. For founders navigating rapid growth, he stresses empathy with employees who are facing uncertainty and constant change.

Chan calls skepticism about crypto a contrarian view and alleges that much of the sector was scam-like, citing harm to retail investors during the 2022 downturn. This is his opinion and characterization, not a verified measurement of the sector. He notes that he manages money for institutions including children’s hospitals.

He describes changing his mind on a payments deal after his partner presented a founder’s vision. He recalls Page’s preference for bringing data to a disagreement, and says FPV aims to use evidence in partner discussions rather than simply exchanging strong opinions.

For the next five years, Chan hopes FPV will remain small, be a first call for its founders and keep learning as a team. He says fulfillment for colleagues and founders is a core aim and that money is secondary. These are his 2022 aspirations for the firm, not established outcomes.