Explore every episode of the podcast The Peel with Turner Novak
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recruiting From Zero to One with Nakul Mandan, Co-founder of Audacious Ventures | 14 Nov 2024 | 01:46:21 | |
Nakul Mandan is the founder of Audacious Ventures. Prior to Audacious, he was a partner at Lightspeed, joining from Battery, which he joined in ‘09 in the middle of the financial crisis while living in India. This conversation explores his journey immigrating to Silicon Valley and building an early stage venture firm from the ground up. We get into why most VCs aren’t helpful with recruiting at the zero to one stage, his thesis on starting an early stage venture firm to help founders hire A+ teams, a crash course on early stage recruiting and building a sales team, and how COVID hit right after he left Lightspeed to raise Audacious Fund 1. Timestamps:
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| Inside Rent the Runway’s Early Days and the Future of Commerce with Co-founder Jenny Fleiss | 07 Nov 2024 | 01:04:45 | |
Jenny Fleiss is the Co-founder of Rent the Runway, and more recently started Roll Rider with her three kids.
For full show notes, visit: https://highlightai.com/share/9bc59c07-05ab-41aa-b37e-f35a7c92092d Timestamps: | |||
| Inside the beehiiv Playbook with Tyler Denk, Co-founder and CEO | 05 Sep 2024 | 01:46:36 | |
Tyler Denk is the Co-founder and CEO of beehiiv, the newsletter platform built for growth. We go inside beehiiv’s early days, including joining MorningBrew as the second employee, lessons scaling to 3.5 million subscribers, the $75 million sale to Business Insider, and why I didn’t invest in beehiiv despite being an early customer. Tyler takes us inside the playbook that grew to $1.5m in monthly revenue in less than three years, including how they first positioned the product in a crowded market, how beehiiv ships so fast, when a co-founder passing away less than one year into building the business, and the day GoDaddy took the entire beehiiv platform offline for 8 hours. Timestamps Referenced Where to find Tyler Where to find Turner | |||
| The Future of Software, AI, and Tax, Lessons Scaling Zero to One | Michelle Valentine, CEO of Anrok | 29 Aug 2024 | 01:10:49 | |
Michelle Valentine is the Co-founder and CEO of Anrok, the sales tax platform for software companies. We talked trends in software consolidation, lessons working with Anrok’s first customers, advice on fundraising, scaling a sales team, and early tricks for founders to avoid future tax-related headaches. Timestamps (00:00) Intro (02:19) The trend of software consolidation (03:00) Why billings and payments isn’t consolidating (06:09) Early tricks for avoiding future tax headaches (08:42) Founder lessons from first being a VC (09:28) The two catalysts that led to Anrok (17:15) How software companies used to figure out sales tax (22:51) Raising Anrok’s Seed round in 48 hours (25:42) How to join a VC's scout program (28:24) Fundraising lessons from being an investor (34:24) Surprising results from the very first “easy file” product (38:30) Lessons getting the first customers from outbound (40:19) Why you should make your first two sales hires at the same time (41:50) Sales advice when scaling into enterprise customers (46:19) How your Seed round helps raise your A and B (47:24) The reason AI and LLMs are so hard to predict (50:58) Michelle’s favorite Claude use cases (53:51) Predicting market sizes, and why Figma’s seemed small (57:39) How to invest in AI right now (1:01:01) Advice on changing your opinion (1:04:10) Getting outside your comfort zone (1:05:04) Michelle’s go-to interview question (1:34:50) The most ridiculous SPACs (1:07:23) Lessons from Scott Cook, the founder of Intuit Referenced Check out Anrok: https://bit.ly/3YTb0ED Anrok’s Journal Entries Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3AxrtUV Anrok Mid-year SaaS Sales Tax Review: https://www.anrok.com/resources/mid-year-saas-sales-tax-review-2024 Michelle’s Article on AI, Part 1: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fog-ai-what-investors-missing-part-one-michelle-valentine Part 2: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fog-ai-what-investors-missing-part-two-michelle-valentine Part 3: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fog-ai-what-investors-missing-part-three-michelle-valentine Superintelligence: https://www.amazon.com/Superintelligence-Dangers-Strategies-Nick-Bostrom/dp/1501227742 Where to find Michelle: Twitter: https://twitter.com/_vltn LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellevalentinehk/ Where to find Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/ Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/ | |||
| ShipHero’s Journey to $12B | Aaron Rubin, Founder and CEO | 22 Aug 2024 | 01:16:52 | |
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Aaron Rubin is the Founder and CEO of ShipHero, a warehouse management system for brands and 3PL providers.
We talk through Aaron’s journey building ShipHero, starting with what is now the largest Jiu Jitsu apparel brand in the US, which he almost went bankrupt running during the financial crisis. He shares how that business led to ShipHero, takes us inside the early days, explains why warehouse robotics and 4PL’s are overhyped, and discuss the rapid rise of TikTok Shop, Temu, and Shein.
Timestamps
(00:00) Intro
(02:01) The USPS shipping label scam
(07:10) Starting the largest Jiu-Jitsu apparel brand
(09:46) Narrowly avoiding bankruptcy in 2008
(17:08) Why ecommerce is so hard
(21:16) Starting ShipHero to manage their own warehouse
(28:00) Powering Shopify’s early fulfillment network
(30:59) How 3PL’s are still solving basic problems
(34:02) Why warehouse robotics is overhyped
(41:48) Where drones fit into logistics
(44:55) Aaron argues why the 4PL model doesn’t work
(55:40) TikTok Shop is the fastest growing US ecommerce channel ever
(58:42) How Temu and Shein leverage the 321 program to avoid tariffs
(1:02:49) Why Temu and Shein are slowing US ecom growth
(1:04:17) Topgrading: The most boring, most valuable hiring strategy
(1:11:29) Business lessons from playing poker
Referenced
ShipHero: https://shiphero.com/
Topgrading: https://www.amazon.com/Topgrading-Hire-Coach-Keep-Players/dp/094400234X
Where to find Aaron
Twitter: https://x.com/AaronandML
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronandml
Where to find Turner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak
Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it
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| Inside the Logan Bartlett Show, Investing Through Market Cycles + Bubbles, Dissecting VC Frameworks | 15 Aug 2024 | 01:32:06 | |
Logan Bartlett is a Managing Director at Redpoint. If you like startups and you listen to podcasts, you’re probably familiar with his podcast, the Logan Bartlett Show. We talk about how it first got started, plus all his tricks for growing the podcast, including his canonical episodes in 2022 that helped pop the web3 bubble. We also talk market cycles and bubbles, and what Logan’s seeing in the data today, especially in AI, plus Logan’s philosophy’s on venture capital as an asset class, his favorite under the radar investors, and advice for his younger self. Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (01:33) Not getting invited to Michael Rubin’s white party (04:29) Meeting on Twitter during COVID (11:09) How Logan and I benefited from Twitter (16:55) Early days of the Logan Bartlett Show (22:10) Why podcasts are so hard to grow, and how Logan did it (24:50) Learning YouTube’s the best for podcast growth (29:51) Inside Logan’s web3 episodes with Zach Weinberg (32:07) Lessons from studying history and market cycles (33:15) Producer Ben fact checking Logan's historical railroad statistics (39:42) How to invest in and around bubbles (51:00) Market data from Redpoint’s 2024 AGM update (55:12) Differences between companies valued at 100x and 5x ARR (1:00:04) The Barbell Theory of asset management and why Logan disagrees it will happen in VC (1:09:40) Ways VCs can actually add value (1:12:27) Redpoint’s founding story + greatest hits (1:18:14) The most underrated investors and founders (1:21:35) Advice for young people: pick a niche, go deep, stay focused If you enjoy this conversation and you’re not already, make sure to like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my newsletter in the show notes to get future episodes in your inbox every week. Referenced: Clearspace https://www.getclearspace.com/ Acquired’s TikTok episode https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/tiktok Gorilla Game https://www.amazon.com/Gorilla-Game-Picking-Winners-Technology/dp/0887309577 Redpoint’s AGM Update https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1T3kGf-n4cmd6_UqOQNb79ZXFL723b9HdZyTnk9sLOlM/edit Where to find Logan: Twitter: https://x.com/loganbartlett LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loganbartlett/ Where to find Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/ Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/ | |||
| Lessons From Two Exits + Building Electric to Automate IT Management | Ryan Denehy | 09 Aug 2024 | 01:33:53 | |
Ryan Denehy is the founder and CEO of Electric, software that helps businesses manage their IT and IT support. We talk through his first two startups from founding to exit, the early days of getting Electric off the ground, and Ryan’s frameworks for fundraising, recruiting, and sales. Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (03:05) Building an ad network for extreme sports websites (11:07) Why a better pipeline solves all problems (13:24) Ryan’s trick for hiring executives (17:00) Selling the ad network to USA Today (18:11) Moving to SF to start a software company (21:33) Getting rid of his car to extend runway (24:23) Paying rent with credit cards (29:17) Struggling to raise a Series A (31:55) Using channel sales to grow the business (37:05) Almost running out of money before selling to Groupon (43:37) How cloud created the perfect timing to build Electric (48:33) Leveraging software and AI to automate manual human tasks (51:45) Why you should avoid buzzwords in marketing (53:57) Pros and cons of being a solo founder (56:14) Why Electric built a large initial board (01:02:41) Advice for picking lead investors (01:06:35) How VC fund dynamics have inflated Seed rounds (01:09:16) The downsides of high valuations (01:12:45) Almost wiring back the Seed round (01:16:37) Why every fundraise is a Pipeline problem (01:21:04) The reasons VCs actually pass on founders (01:26:42) Cutting the burn rate in 2022 Electric.ai: https://www.electric.ai/ Where to find Ryan: Twitter: https://twitter.com/DenehyXXL LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryandenehy/ Where to find Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/ Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/ | |||
| Frank Rotman | Building Capital One ($58B) and QED Investors ($4B AUM) | 01 Aug 2024 | 01:48:55 | |
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Warp: Don’t let payroll and compliance hold your startup back: visit https://joinwarp.com/peel to get started and receive a $1,000 gift card when you first run payroll.
Frank Rotman is the Co-Founder and CIO of QED Investors, and before that helped start Capital One. Frank and I go deep on their founding stories, as well as one of QEDs first big winners, Nubank.
Frank also gives us a crash course on fintech, lending businesses, and crypto use cases; his hot takes on the venture asset class as a whole, with lots of advice for emerging managers; plus a case study on how high valuations too early on are bad for a startup.
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(04:22) Starting Capital One in 1988
(07:04) Spinning out as an IPO
(10:42) Starting QED in 2008 before Fintech was a category
(20:51) Raising their first outside fund
(22:03) Investing early in Nubank
(25:11) Fintech opportunities in India
(27:45) De-risk investing in new markets
(29:55) How financial services have changed over the past 30 years
(31:33) Inside a new Capital One credit card in the 90’s
(36:31) How most companies launched new cards in the 90’s
(39:46) The most profitable types of credit card customers
(42:00) Mistakes founders make building credit businesses
(48:33) Frank’s “Three Body Framework” for VC
(54:48) Losing strategies in VC
(01:03:39) Unpacking why high valuations are bad for startups
(01:16:20) Frank’s journey in and out of crypto
(01:24:23) Actual use cases for stable coins and NFTs
(01:34:09) Unpacking the lending supply chain
(01:41:44) The difference between Fundamentalist and Revolutionary investors
Referenced:
VCs Three Body Framework: https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/605db59b78445cf5ae548e49/628b9d826f9af3217c9807a2_Three-Body%20Problem_%20Finding%20the%20New%20Stable%20Points%20in%20Venture%20Capital.pdf
The House Money Effect: https://x.com/fintechjunkie/status/1466217991532650496
Fundamentalist vs Revolutionary Investors: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/frank-rotman_there-has-been-and-always-will-be-two-competing-activity-7128137991654445057-NuXf/
Where to find Frank:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/fintechjunkie
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frank-rotman/
Where to find Turner:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/
Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/
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| Car Dealership Guy: From Anonymous VC-Backed CEO to B2B Media with Yossi Levi | 25 Jul 2024 | 01:31:35 | |
Warp: Don’t let payroll and compliance hold your startup back: visit https://www.joinwarp.com/peel to get started and receive a $1,000 gift card when you first run payroll. Get first-party targeting with Brave's private ad platform: cookieless and future proof ad formats for all your business needs. Performance meets privacy. Head to brave.com/brave-ads/ and mention “Turpentine” when signing up for a 25% discount on your first campaign. Yossi Levi shares his incredible story: transforming a small family car lot into a $28 million dollar powerhouse, founding venture-backed Gettacar and growing it to $90 million in revenue, before returning the capital to investors and growing his anonymous Twitter account into Car Dealership Guy, a B2B automotive media empire. Yossi takes us inside his early marketing strategies, the hard earned lessons from chasing product-market fit, and the playbook to building a lean, scalable B2B media machine. Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (07:26) Helping at his dad’s used car lot (11:22) How car dealerships make money (14:32) $28m revenue with Facebook ads (17:48) Putting gifts in customer trunks and filming it (22:58) Starting Gettacar to sell cars online (25:04) When a VC pulled his first term sheet (31:08) Recruiting full-time hires with part-time consulting gigs (34:45) Personally guaranteeing the debt used to finance vehicles (36:50) Helping subprime consumers buy cars online (39:24) How 2021 tricked them into thinking they had a sustainable business (41:57) Why you can’t rush Product Market Fit (42:23) Pivoting Gettacar to a profitable, PE-backed business before winding it down (47:22) Starting an anonymous Twitter to share insights from his day-to-day (50:08) Turning Car Dealership Guy into a media business (53:38) Doxing himself with a 13-minute documentary (58:29) Why you have to consume to be a good creator (1:00:04) Screensharing CDGs content schedule (1:02:59) Why every employee needs to generate content or revenue (1:09:27) Creating a car / auto influencer agency (1:11:34) Building a B2B automotive ad network (1:14:50) Evolving into a holding company (1:20:27) Importance of moving fast (1:23:34) Why people actually like sponsored content (1:28:08) Wishing he pivoted to B2B faster More on Car Dealership Guy: https://www.dealershipguy.com/ Referenced Who the F*ck is Car Dealership Guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wTsAez_nMs Russ Flips Whips: https://russ.dealershipguy.com/ Freight Waves’ Craig Fuller on The Peel: https://youtu.be/oPPqO8eBq2M Epic Gardening’s Kevin Espiritu on The Peel: https://youtu.be/FefGL-qPzDo Where to find Yossi: Twitter: https://twitter.com/GuyDealership YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CarDealershipGuy Where to find Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/ Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/ | |||
| The 26-Year Old Exposing $10B Public Companies | Edwin Dorsey, The Bear Cave | 18 Jul 2024 | 01:53:27 | |
Warp: Don’t let payroll and compliance hold your startup back: visit https://joinwarp.com/peel to get started and receive a $1,000 gift card when you first run payroll. Get first-party targeting with Brave's private ad platform: cookieless and future proof ad formats for all your business needs. Performance meets privacy. Head to https://brave.com/ads/ and mention “Turpentine” when signing up for a 25% discount on your first campaign. Edwin Dorsey is the author of The Bear Cave, a weekly newsletter exposing publicly traded companies that are misleading investors and harming customers. I’ve enjoyed Edwin’s writing since he launched his newsletter the Bear Cave in 2020, and he shares his best kept secret for doing customer research: FOIA requests. We also get into short selling more broadly, common corporate red flags, the economics of his media business, almost getting kicked out of Stanford for raising issues at Care.com his sophomore year, Planet Fitness’s illegal billing operation, Hershey’s Mr. Beast problem, and the creator economy more broadly. (00:00) Intro (05:11) How shorting works (07:20) How short sellers exposed Enron (10:51) Edwin’s process for finding bad companies (15:52) Root Insurance and aggressive pricing (20:14) FOIA: the best kept secret for company research (24:30) Biggest corporate red flags (28:17) Most common industries for bad actors (29:32) Why scammers target minorities and low income consumers (31:46) Edwin’s $1B to $10B market cap sweet spot (34:03) The challenges of mainstream media (38:15) Exposing Care.com as a student at Stanford (45:25) Why immediate board resignations are a red flag (49:45) Launching The Bear Cave in Feb 2020 (49:37) Using podcast appearances to grow (56:06) The newsletter's business model (1:00:00) Experimenting with side-newsletters, job boards, and consumer surveys (1:10:04) Planet Fitness: gym or illegal billing operation? (1:18:45) Herbalife the pyramid scheme (1:21:05) Hershey’s MrBeast problem (1:28:15) Marketing and social signaling in CPG products (1:30:47) AgEagle Aerial Systems: $4B market cap, zero revenue (1:34:50) The most ridiculous SPACs (1:41:06) How Edwin differentiates his research (1:47:07) Favorite short sellers (1:47:59) Companies that will lose to AI (01:49:29) Why creator-led business will steal share from incumbents Referenced The Bear Cave: https://thebearcave.substack.com/ FOIA Request Template (#13 here): https://www.readideabrunch.com/p/our-2023-hedge-fund-analyst-christmas SEC Full Text Search: https://www.sec.gov/edgar/search/ WSJ’s Care.com Story: https://www.wsj.com/articles/care-com-puts-onus-on-families-to-check-caregivers-backgroundswith-sometimes-tragic-outcomes-11552088138 Planet Fitness CEO resignation letter: https://x.com/StockJabber/status/1762220603715596460 Aurelius Value: https://x.com/AureliusValue Big River Capital: https://x.com/BigRiverCapita1 Marc Cahodes: https://x.com/AlderLaneEggs David Orr: https://x.com/orrdavid Citron Research: https://x.com/CitronResearch Where to find Edwin: Twitter: https://twitter.com/StockJabber LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwin-dorsey-a9195273/ Where to find Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/ Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/ | |||
| Building Non-Addictive Apps for Kids | Melissa Cash, Pok Pok | 27 Jun 2024 | 01:35:37 | |
Get Attio, the next generation of CRM: https://bit.ly/AttioThePeel
Warp: Don’t let payroll and compliance hold your startup back: visit https://joinwarp.com/peel to get started and receive a $1,000 gift card when you first run payroll.
Melissa Cash is the Co-founder and CEO of Pok Pok, a montessori-inspired collection of digital toys that spark creativity and learning through open-ended play. Prior to Pok Pok, Melissa spent a decade working in marketing and design roles, helping Snowman drive 9-digits of downloads across its game portfolio and designing physical products at Disney.
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(05:46) Creating a Montessori inspired game
(12:18) Why it's impossible to avoid screen time
(15:35) Designing a non-addictive product
(17:38) Monetizing a non-addictive game
(21:47) How to price a subscription game
(24:18) Using new features to drive retention
(26:04) Marketing a kids game to parents
(30:59) Why Pok Pok waited to launch Android
(34:12) How getting pickpocketed in Germany led to a job designing products at Disney
(39:23) How great products can define a childhood
(43:21) Lessons from having a great idea while working at Disney
(46:03) First coming up with the idea for Pok Pok
(49:00) Advice for starting your first company
(50:10) Fundraising tactics from Pre-Seed to Series A
(54:08) How to build your network from zero
(57:08) Getting the most out of Slack groups
(59:07) Melissa’s hack for in-person events
(01:01:33) Tactics for meeting people at events
(01:03:39) Winning multiple Apple design awards
(01:07:07) How to get press for your startup
(01:13:17) Prioritizing getting women on Pok Pok’s cap table
(01:18:38) Strategies for staying creative
(01:21:58) Melissa’s influencer marketing hacks
(01:24:24) Lessons from failed influencer campaigns
(01:28:19) Growing 5x YoY, adding STEM content
(01:30:28) What surprised her about starting a company
Referenced:
Try Pok Pok for 50% off an annual subscription with code POKPOK50: https://apple.co/3XAGSwT
Snowman Studios: https://www.builtbysnowman.com/
Hampton Private Founder Group: https://joinhampton.com/
VC Backed Mom’s: https://www.vcbackedmoms.com/
The Peel Podcast episode with Eric Newcomer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXH_peQWtnc
More on Pok Pok’s Series A: https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/18/now-a-series-a-startup-kids-app-and-digital-toy-pok-pok-is-coming-to-android/
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| Startup Marketing Masterclass: How OpenPhone Grew to 100k Customers | Daryna Kulya | 31 Oct 2024 | 01:36:58 | |
Daryna Kulya is the Co-founder of OpenPhone, the world’s best business phone This episode is a masterclass on startup marketing, chronicling the first six years of OpenPhone, how they acquired their first customers, and inside all the different channels they used to scale the business to over 100k customers, including FB Groups, Reddit, SEO, and cold outbound. For full show notes, visit: https://highlightai.com/share/28b95226-9936-4ae9-882d-6c68a1b578d5 Timestamps: OpenPhone: https://openphone.com/ Ahrefs: https://ahrefs.com/ Follow Daryna: Twitter: https://twitter.com/darynakulya LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darynakulya Follow Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/ | |||
| Building boldstart ventures from $1M to $850M with Ed Sim | 20 Jun 2024 | 01:45:15 | |
Get Attio, the next generation of CRM: https://bit.ly/AttioThePeel Ed Sim is the Founder of boldstart ventures, which partners with bold founders reinventing the enterprise stack at the inception stage. Ed takes us inside the journey building boldstart, from its first $1m fund in 2010 up to $850m in AUM today. Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (03:48) Evolution of early stage investing(05:11) Inception stage investing (10:32) Backing bold founders reinventing the enterprise stack(11:20) Repeatable ways to build enterprise businesses (12:04) The 5 P’s of early stage investing (14:12) Backing Guy Podjarny and Snyk (18:18) Knowing when to follow-on (19:18) The 3 Ch's of a good board member (22:01) How Ed’s board role changes over time (24:20) Balancing founder friendly with returns (27:20) How to build customer relationships (30:24) Advice for closing customers (33:47) Creating the Seed category in 2009/10 (37:31) boldstart’s $1m Fund 1 (39:00) Why Ed didn’t join a large firm in 2012 (39:55) boldstart’s $16.5m Fund 2 (40:26) Why LPs passed on the first funds (43:11) Leading rounds in Kustomer, Snyk, BigID, and Blockdaemon in Fund 3 (47:09) Why $112m Fund 4 was the hardest to raise(50:52) Ed’s approach to LP fundraising (55:12) Inside Meta’s acquisition of Kustomer and sale back to the founders (59:52) Backing Rahul from Superhuman a 2nd time (01:00:52) The different GTM playbooks (01:02:20) Importance of contract size and time to close (01:05:07) Why AI makes security more important (01:06:11) When to switch from founder-led sales(01:07:46) Backing ProtectAI after a conference (01:08:28) Balancing between inbound and outbound sales (01:09:55) Winners and losers in AI (01:15:26) Building the boldstart team (01:25:19) Lessons being an interim CEO (01:27:15) How ZIRP pulled revenue forward (01:29:08) The death of high growth software (01:32:58) Identifying startup opportunities incumbents won’t crush (01:35:00) Second order effects of AI (01:36:46) Using "Intuitive TAM" to size new markets (01:38:04) Investing before there’s a market map (01:38:57) Balancing family, fitness, and career Referenced: https://boldstart.vc/ Turning Down HBS: https://x.com/edsim/status/1315644287007240193 Ed’s tweet on raising Fund 4: https://x.com/edsim/status/1315644287007240193 Second Order Effects of AI: https://www.whatshotit.vc/p/whats-in-enterprise-itvc-379 Death of Hyper Growth: https://x.com/edsim/status/1797613384994623808 Where to find Ed: Twitter: https://twitter.com/edsim LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edsim/ Newsletter: https://www.whatshotit.vc/ Where to find Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/ Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/ | |||
| Scaling Instacart to $10+ Billion | Nilam Ganenthiran, Co-founder of Beacon Software | 14 Jun 2024 | 01:16:41 | |
Get Attio, the next generation of CRM: https://bit.ly/AttioThePeel Nilam Ganenthiran is the founder and CEO of Beacon Software. Previously, he was the 12th employee and President at Instacart. We talk tactics for customer research, building customer relationships, balancing strategy and execution, how to serve on and manage a board, what happened when Amazon bought Instacart’s biggest customer Whole Foods, inside its COVID response, surviving eight months of runway in 2015, his new company Beacon Software, and more. Timestamps: (00:00) Intro(04:23) Inside Amazon acquiring Instacart’s biggest customer, Whole Foods(12:13) Lessons from quickly signing 8 of the top 10 grocers(13:06) Why grocers were slow to adopt ecommerce(15:29) Building “Shopify for grocers”(16:22) Sales = building relationships(19:05) Why Wegman’s is one of the best grocers in the world(20:43) Cold calling Wegman’s and signing them two years later(24:33) How to do customer research(26:59) Catching an Uber in suits on the highway(28:50) Why Instacart was possible back in 2013(30:36) Launching Instacart’s advertising network(38:46) Growing 5x in 5 weeks during COVID(45:20) How Nilam started angel investing(47:56) Advice for sitting on boards(50:00) The roles and incentives of a board member(54:03) Deciding when to keep going and when to give up(56:02) Nilam’s framework around optionality(59:17) Seven years of weekly redeye flights(1:00:30) Almost running out of money 8 months after Instacart’s Series C(1:07:54) Why time is your scarcest resource & startups are default dead(1:10:00) Nilam’s new company, Beacon Software(1:11:28) Why he’s excited about AI(1:13:25) How AI makes human relationships more important(1:14:41) Turner’s investing lessons from family members Beacon Software: https://beaconsoftware.ca/ Where to find Nilam: Twitter: https://twitter.com/nilamg LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nilamganenthiran/ Where to find Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/ Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/ | |||
| How the Smartest Companies Use AI | Ankur Goyal, Braintrust | 07 Jun 2024 | 01:27:03 | |
Get Attio, the next generation of CRM: https://bit.ly/AttioThePeel Ankur Goyal is the Founder and CEO of Braintrust, the end to end developer platform for building the world's best AI products. Their customers include companies like Instacart, Zapier, Notion, Airtable, Replit, and more. We hit on the importance of LLM evals, advice for building AI products, why the best companies have two AI product roadmaps, and his non-conventional advice for founders. Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (04:04) Why everyone’s now an AI company (06:03) Reasons LLM evals are so important (08:10) Typescript becoming the language of AI (09:19) Replacing vibe checks with Braintrust (10:37) Making OpenAI’s protocols the standard (11:27) Why the best companies have two AI roadmaps (13:06) Building your product so each LLM release makes it better (14:54) Predicting AGI is impossible (15:54) Why people who work with LLMs aren’t worried about AI safety (16:52) The best developers are all-in on co-pilots (18:11) How AI is changing software development (21:09) Combining IDE, CIDC, and observability in one product (27:18) Are models more like CPU’s or relational databases? (30:14) How to pick an LLM (33:00) Advice for staying on top of new AI developments (34:30) Why tool calling is so important (38:02) Advice for young software engineers (40:25) Learning to code doing linear algebra homework (42:36) Lack of purpose interning in big tech (44:07) Working at MemSQL learning to be a founder (47:52) How to get a job at a startup (50:43) Building his first startups product on an international flight (52:39) Three lessons from his first failed startup (54:46) Don’t delegate what you’re good at (55:46) Why you should be careful listening to VCs advice (57:34) Tactics for successful delegation (59:36) Why Ankur doesn’t do any meetings (01:02:42) The importance of self-service in unlocking certain customer segments (01:05:14) How Braintrust got started (01:07:45) Advice on picking your target customers (01:10:35) How Braintrust hires with work trials (01:15:21) Balancing security with a modern UI (01:17:49) Why it’s hard to sell non-AI products right now (01:19:21) Advice for selling to large enterprises (01:23:10) Ankur’s favorite AI products Referenced: https://www.braintrustdata.com/ SICP Book PDF: https://web.mit.edu/6.001/6.037/sicp.pdf Hardcopy: https://www.amazon.com/Structure-Interpretation-Computer-Programs-Engineering/dp/0262510871 Linear’s guide to work trials: https://linear.app/blog/why-and-how-we-do-work-trials-at-linear Where to find Ankur: Twitter: https://twitter.com/ankrgyl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankrgyl/ Where to find Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/ Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/ | |||
| Lessons From 21 Years of VC Fund Investing | Alan Feld, Vintage Investment Partners | 31 May 2024 | 01:03:44 | |
Get Attio, the next generation of CRM: https://bit.ly/AttioThePeelAlan Feld is the Founder and Managing Partner of Vintage Investment Partners. Vintage is one of the largest fund of funds in the world, managing over $4 billion across what is mostly investments into other venture funds, plus some secondary and direct startup investments at the growth stage. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 03:53 What is Vintage 05:40 Why VCs adding value can waste a founder’s time 09:01 VC, where the asset chooses the investor 10:14 Fund size is the enemy of returns in VC 14:57 What people get wrong about FoFs 16:01 The value FoFs bring to LPs 17:11 Why entrepreneurs drive VC returns 17:55 Vintage’s unique FoF model 19:05 Does replacing the founders with an outside CEO work? 21:39 Starting Vintage after the Dot Com Crash in 2002 23:41 Buying secondaries at 70-80% discounts 25:13 Biggest mistakes when buying secondaries 26:18 Research around what makes the best entrepreneurs 31:09 Lessons from six downturns 34:41 Comparisons between 2002 and 2022 37:07 Advice for raising your first VC fund 41:16 The importance of differentiation 45:57 Sustainable ways to differentiate 49:05 What Vintage looks for in new fund investments 49:57 Advice for scaling a VC firm 53:47 Succession planning 57:50 What Alan’s doing post-Vintage Vintage Investment Partners: https://www.vintage-ip.com/ Where to find Alan: Twitter: https://twitter.com/alanf_feld LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-feld-1744389/ Where to find Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/ Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/ | |||
| Fixing The Maternal Health Crisis with Anu Sharma at Millie | 23 May 2024 | 00:58:37 | |
Get Attio, the next generation of CRM: https://bit.ly/AttioThePeel Anu Sharma is the Co-founder and CEO of Millie, building a better care system from the inside out. Our conversation covers the existing maternal health system, how Millie is reinventing it, and how to succeed building a healthcare company. Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (03:16) Problems in US maternity care (13:21) Why insurance reimbursement drives healthcare (16:11) How bundled care unlocks personalization (18:48) From fiction writer to 20 years in healthcare (24:22) Why consumers don’t act like consumers in healthcare (26:09) The reason scale matters (27:43) Bundled payments and new care design (32:16) What make Millie unique (35:58) Importance of picking regional markets in healthcare (37:08) The two paths for insurance reimbursement (41:08) Why distribution is the product in healthcare (44:25) Opportunities in cash pay care (48:28) How Anu fundraised without a product (51:06) The future of in-person, hybrid, and virtual healthcare (52:56) Building maternity clinics for $150k Check out Millie: https://www.millieclinic.com/ Where to find Anu: Twitter: https://twitter.com/anu_anusharma1 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anu-sharma-b169b12 Where to find Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/ Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/ | |||
| Aaron Levie | The $1 Trillion AI Opportunity, Stories From Early Days of Box | 16 May 2024 | 00:58:59 | |
Get Attio, the next generation of CRM: https://bit.ly/AttioThePeel Aaron Levie is a co-founder and the CEO of Box. This conversation covers opportunities in AI, the early days of Box, and lessons Aaron's learned on his founder journey. Timestamps (00:00) Intro (03:11) Why ChatGPT was an iPhone moment (04:37) Advice for large companies incorporating AI (11:16) Why AI will add jobs, not steal them (16:13) How AI is supercharging Box’s products (19:03) AI agents: the $1 trillion opportunity (25:27)Estimating size of new markets(29:58) Starting Box with high school friends (33:18) Living out of their first office (34:52) Why early investors passed on Box (37:24) Pivoting from consumer to B2B (39:53) How Box got its first customers (41:57) Should founders talk to Associates at VC firms? (43:26) How Mamoon at Kleiner saved Box at its Series B (46:25) Turning down an acquisition before IPO (50:51) Why Box’s IPO was so hard (54:11) Fending off an activist investor during COVID Check out Box: https://www.box.com/ Where to find Aaron: Twitter: https://twitter.com/levie LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/boxaaron/ Where to find Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/ Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/ | |||
| Elad Gil on Conviction, AI, Biotech, Ambition, Speed of Execution, and Non-Obvious Startup Advice | 09 May 2024 | 01:17:15 | |
Warp: Don’t let payroll and compliance hold your startup back: visit https://joinwarp.com/peel to get started and receive a $1,000 gift card when you first run payroll.
Get Attio, the next generation of CRM: https://bit.ly/AttioThePeel
Elad Gil is the founder of Color Genomics and Mixer Labs, which he sold to Twitter, and an early investor in iconic companies like Airbnb and Stripe, plus upstarts like Perplexity and Anduril.
This is a wide ranging conversation that covers education, AI, and advice for building a startup.
Timestamps
(00:00) Intro
(03:46) Building cool monuments
(09:12) Fixing education
(16:38) Why AI is underhyped
(19:02) Four trends to watch in AI
(19:55) Why there aren’t large biotech companies
(23:21) The current state of Elad Gill
(24:32) How he incubates companies
(26:32) Contemplating AI-driven buyouts
(27:29) His investing strategy, from early to late stage
(36:57) Why he remained solo for so long
(40:19) How to get conviction in unpopular investments
(42:53) What made Steve Jobs a good communicator
(44:00) The importance of ambition and leadership
(46:28) Why Elad puts so much weight in the market
(47:45) The evolution of Google’s business model
(49:17) How to monetize consumer products
(50:06) Analyzing a potential startup market
(51:23) How successful products eventually become distribution companies
(56:30) Non-obvious startup advice
(59:54) When its OK to give up
(01:02:20) Advice on raising your first round
(01:03:21) Picking board members
(01:04:45) How to hire your first three employees
(01:06:48) Avoiding bad hires
(01:08:39) The importance of speed of execution
(01:12:36) Why he’s adding to his team
(01:14:31) Gardening
Referenced:
Elad’s Blog: https://blog.eladgil.com/
Elad’s Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@NoPriorsPodcast/
Elad’s Book: https://growth.eladgil.com/
Where to find Elad:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/eladgil
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eladgil
Elad’s Website: https://eladgil.com/
Where to find Turner:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/
Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/
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| How to Build a Biotech with Celine Halioua at Loyal | 02 May 2024 | 01:06:25 | |
This episode is brought to you by Warp. Don’t let payroll and compliance hold your startup back: visit https://joinwarp.com/peel to get started and receive a $1000 gift card when you first run payroll. Celine Halioua is the founder and CEO of Loyal, a biotech company developing medicine to help dogs live longer and healthier lives. And dogs are just the start - Celine thinks Loyal could one day do the same for humans. She takes us inside what it’s like to build a biotech company from scratch. We talk through how Loyal’s longevity drugs work, the process of getting FDA approval, her biggest mistakes as a founder, how to approach building in a new market, lessons learned failing to raise her Series B, why rate of growth is all that matters in hiring, and almost not starting the company in the first place. Timestamps: (00:00) Preview (03:30) How a longevity drug works (06:08) Predictions around longevity (08:26) Why Celine cares so much about not failing (12:05) Differences between biotech and software startups (14:15) Sizing a new market (16:53) Why biotech startups are more dilutive early on (20:22) Getting FDA approval (22:57) Why its hard to prove longevity drugs actually work (24:48) The reason Loyal started with dogs (25:27) How Loyal’s drug slows aging (33:42) Working on longevity to increase free will (34:25) Culture shock at Oxford and dropping out of her PhD (37:22) What makes Josh Koppelman a good VC (39:44) Celine’s two biggest mistakes as a founder (42:39) Why rate of growth is the best indicator of success but the hardest to predict (45:33) Self awareness & how being a CEO is both fun and miserable (48:11) How Laura Deming convinced her to start Loyal (50:18) Finding the science behind Loyal (54:21) Deciding it was the right path to start a company (56:30) Lessons from failing to raise a Series B initially (1:02:18) Why Silicon Valley can build 10x more deep tech startups (1:04:05) Doing big things that improve the world (1:04:50) What Celine looks for in startups Where to find Celine: Twitter: https://twitter.com/celinehalioua LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/celinehh/ Celine's Website: https://www.celinehh.com/ Where to find Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/ Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/ | |||
| Giving an AI a Computer with Rahul Sonwalkar, Founder and CEO of Julius AI | 25 Apr 2024 | 01:36:53 | |
Get Attio, the next generation of CRM: https://bit.ly/AttioThePeel Rahul Sonwalkar is the founder and CEO of Julius, an AI data scientist. He takes us inside his epic “Ligma Johnson” prank where he pretended to be fired from Twitter the day Elon acquired the company. He then goes inside his journey of building Julius, sharing lessons learned along the way and his vision for the product. Timestamps: (00:00) Preview (04:16) The "Ligma Johnson" prank (09:02) Meeting Elon (13:10) Doing hackathons in college (14:30) Scraping emails from Hacker News to get internships (16:25) Using Twitter to learn and meet people (22:26) Lessons from his first failed startup (26:19) Taking too long to quit Big Tech & his failed startup idea in trucking (32:12) Convincing Guillermo Rauch to invest with speed of execution (34:48) How to avoid analysis paralysis (36:15) Building Julius, the AI data scientist (39:25) How COO of a hot tub company uses Julius (40:40) Professor embracing AI, using Julius to teach his class (42:47) Iterating on early versions of the product (44:42) PMF is as much about the market as the product (45:08) Building dozens of ChatGPT plugins to acquire Julius’ first users (45:41) Using dev API keys and missing the first paying customers (49:22) Talking to hundreds of early customers (50:10) Why customers love when you ship new features every week (52:14) The power of Julius’ small team (54:38) Why Rahul gives his number to customers (57:47) How to avoid idea backlogs (59:27) Why Julius tests so many models (01:01:44) Why it feels great when people love your product (01:03:43) AI will write more code than humans (01:06:33) Giving an AI a computer (01:11:05) What happens to all the AI startups? (01:12:36) Why you have to Ride the Tiger (01:16:43) How NVIDIA beat 89 other graphics card startups (01:20:14) Building a moat as a startup (01:22:50) Rahul’s favorite AI companies (01:25:11) Why Julius’ changes UI components based on the use case (01:27:42) Benefits of lifting (01:29:54) Why Rahul loves SF (01:31:38) The early days of Microsoft Referenced: https://julius.ai/ Guillermo’s tweet: https://x.com/rauchg/status/1773168477957919055 Where to find Rahul: Twitter: https://twitter.com/0interestrates LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulsonwalkar23 Where to find Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/ Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/ | |||
| Zero to $90M Revenue in Five Years, How Athletic Brewing Created the Non-Alcoholic Beer Category with CEO Bill Shufelt | 18 Apr 2024 | 01:18:14 | |
Brought to you by Attio, the next generation of CRM: https://bit.ly/AttioThePeel
Bill Shufelt is the Founder and CEO of Athletic Brewing, the craft brewer that created the non-alcohol beer market in the US.
Bill takes us inside the early days of starting the company, including realizing there was an opportunity to make non-alcoholic beer, finding a co-founder, struggling to find early investors, building multiple breweries, and getting into Whole Foods before launching. Our conversation is a case study on creating a new market - I hope you enjoy.
Timestamps:
(00:00) Preview
(04:10) Becoming the #1 beer in Whole Foods | |||
| Beating the Market 15 Years in a Row, Lessons from Jeff Bezos | Lisa Rapuano | 24 Oct 2024 | 01:53:06 | |
Lisa Rapuano outperformed the market 15 years in a row in the 90’s and 2000’s. We go deep on how she did it, including early investments in AOL, Dell, and owning 24% of Amazon in 2002. She shares what she learned from Jeff Bezos and Michael Dell, what makes a good investor, plus her experience as a startup CFO and how it influenced how she thinks about investing. For full show notes, visit: https://highlightai.com/share/883f2cc9-9771-4331-9a42-6ae236f50344 Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (03:18) Growing up middle class while dad worked at NASA (12:31) Moving to Baltimore to work for Bill Miller (18:12) What Lisa learned from Bill (19:41) How value investing changed over the last 30 years (26:40) Investing in internet stocks in the 90’s and 00’s (29:50) Thinking a 13x win on AOL in 1996 would be the biggest of her career (37:33) Teaching Barry Diller about the internet (41:30) How Dell reinvented PC manufacturing and created a negative cash conversion cycle (46:46) How Amazon survived the Dot Com Crash (51:53) Buying 24% of Amazon in 2002 (53:15) Why companies get the investors they deserve (57:22) What Lisa learned from Jeff Bezos (1:04:31) Lessons from raising too much money (1:07:57) Running her own fund from 2006-2016 (1:13:32) Why fees in asset management are too high (1:15:20) Joining Facet out of retirement 2017 (1:20:20) What she learned about investing from operating (1:23:47) Why women are better investors than men (1:26:43) How to hire outlier candidates (1:35:06) Why no one can be the next Warren Buffett (1:39:54) When to sell your winners Follow Lisa: Follow Turner: Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/ | |||
| SMB Masterclass: Zero to $150M Revenue in Two Years with Dane Atkinson, Founder and CEO of Odeko | 11 Apr 2024 | 01:23:44 | |
Dane Atkinson is the Founder and CEO of Odeko, the all-in-one operations partner for local businesses.
Dane has spent his entire career helping small businesses. This episode is a masterclass on selling to SMBs. He shares all his lessons learned as a founder, and how Odeko survived zero revenue during COVID and hit $150 million in revenue two years later.
Timestamps
(00:00) Intro
(03:33) The magic formula to sell to SMBs
(04:06) Why every small business starts as a dream
(21:57) The reasons you shouldn’t listen to customers
(25:16) Lessons running Squarespace for four years
(27:12) Why simplicity is better for SMBs
(28:58) How Squarespace ran the very first podcast ads
(35:35) Lessons messing up his second company
(37:46) How to demote an employee
(50:29) Coming up with the idea for Odecco
(52:05) Why VCs screw their portfolio companies
(55:16) How to navigate pivots with your board
(01:04:27) Growing revenue from zero to $100m+ in two years
(01:12:10) Advice for first-time founders
(01:14:18) How Dane would re-design the food system
(01:15:39) Why our food is so bad for our health
(01:16:17) How Odeko empowers local makers
Check out Odeko: https://odeko.com/
Where to find Dane:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/daneatkinson
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daneatkinson
Where to find Turner:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/
Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/
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| Josh Miller on How The Browser Company Started, How to Hire, Arc Search, and Building in Public | 04 Apr 2024 | 01:15:39 | |
Josh Miller is CEO and co-founder of The Browser Company, which is building a new internet browser. He explains why effective hiring requires caring a lot and trusting your taste and why Arc Search, a default mobile browser, could be The Browser Company’s next act. TIMESTAMPS: (00:00:00) Intro (00:02:35) Working for Obama (00:03:55) Giving up 8-figures in Meta stock (00:08:19) Barack Obama’s favorite web browser (00:09:02) Why Arc released a mobile browser (00:10:03) How Josh met Josh Kushner (00:11:26) Becoming an EIR at Thrive Capital (00:12:09) How The Browser Company got started (00:15:51) Why they named it The Browser Company (00:18:49) Pivoting to consumer when COVID hit (00:20:37) Leaving Thrive to join as a Co-founder in February 2020 (00:21:05) Why COVID made browsers relevant (00:22:42) How to hire a great team (00:25:02) Hiring Josh Lee to edit their videos (00:26:52) The biggest difference between Josh as a first-time and second-time founder (00:28:46) Learning to delegate (00:34:03) Why Thrive gave up double-digit equity back to the founders (00:40:18) Launching (00:40:52) Why build a web browser (00:42:17) This history of browsers (00:43:36) Why they’ve gotten worse over time (00:50:26) The reasons people use Arc (00:53:23) How Arc will make money (00:56:45) Why Arc’s existential question is getting people to care about their browser (00:59:47) The story behind Arc Search (01:00:45) Arc’s potential growth flywheel (01:09:17) Why Arc bet big on building in public on YouTube (01:10:16) The publisher backlash to Arc Search (01:11:33) Why praising your team publicly is so important (01:13:39) How Josh hired Nate Parrott More on The Browser Company: www.youtube.com/c/TheBrowserCompany Where to find Josh: Twitter: https://twitter.com/joshm LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-miller-b31259106 Where to find Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/ Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/ | |||
| Market Update: Peter Walker on 2023 VC Valuation Trends, Dry Powder, New Bubbles, Employee Trends | 28 Mar 2024 | 01:26:58 | |
Subscribe to my newsletter The Split for new episodes emailed every week: https://www.thespl.it/ Brought to you by Attio, the next generation of CRM: https://bit.ly/AttioThePeel Peter Walker is Head of Insights at Carta and writes a newsletter called “The Data Minute”, a weekly newsletter highlighting data from over 43,000 private tech companies that use Carta’s platform to manage their cap table. He gives us into a deep dive on VC valuation trends, the fundraising landscape, and startup strategies. Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (04:50) Valuation trends in 2023 (08:10) Why Seed valuations went up over the past two years (12:27) AI startups are getting higher valuations (17:40) Why Biotech might be the next big bubble (19:15) Boston as the 2nd largest VC ecosystem (21:15) How SAFE’s work (24:06) The impending SAFE reckoning (26:13) Why startups don’t pay dividends (28:31) Downrounds were 2x more common in 2023 (32:11) Almost half of all 2023 Series As were extensions (35:34) Is there really a lot of dry powder? (40:43) The emerging manager fundraising landscape (48:19) Exit environment (51:45) Why pre-Series B is the most common acquisition stage (52:47) Liquidation preference & why an acquisition at Seed might make a founder more money than at a Series B (55:59) Compensation market data (56:38) Why the number of total startup employees shrank in 2023 (57:38) Why startup employees aren’t exercising their options (1:00:57) Health of the secondary markets (1:04:51) Most co-founder splits aren’t 50/50 (1:06:47) Why you should always vest co-founder equity (1:09:30) 2023 record year for startup shutdowns (1:17:19) Will other startup ecosystems ever catch Silicon Valley? Links: Carta’s Q4 ‘23 Private Market Report: https://carta.com/blog/state-of-private-markets-q4-2023/ Peter’s Newsletter: https://carta.com/subscribe/data-newsletter-sign-up/ Where to find Peter: Twitter: https://twitter.com/PeterJ_Walker LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterjameswalker/ Where to find Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/ Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/ | |||
| Chris Bakke on Selling to Elon, Small Exits, and Using Memes for Marketing | 21 Mar 2024 | 01:08:55 | |
Subscribe to my newsletter The Split for new episodes emailed every week: https://www.thespl.it/ Chris Bakke has founded and sold three companies for between $25-100 million to Zillow, Indeed, and most recently Twitter / X. He shares how he convinced Elon to buy his company, what it's like working for Elon, exactly how the Twitter algorithm works, and all his meme making secrets. — — — — Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(02:52) Inside Twitter’s acquisition of Laskie — — — — Twitter jobs: https://twitter.com/jobs — — — — Where to find Chris Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChrisJBakke LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bakk3/ Where to find Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/ Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/ | |||
| Inside Anchor’s Journey to Product Market Fit and 9-Figure Sale to Spotify with Mike Mignano | 13 Mar 2024 | 01:19:10 | |
Subscribe to my newsletter The Split for new episodes emailed every week: https://www.thespl.it/ Brought to you by Attio, the next generation of CRM: https://bit.ly/AttioThePeel
Mike is currently a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. Before Lightspeed, he spent five years building Anchor, which he sold to Spotify in 2020, and then led Spotify’s podcast, video, and live products for three years.
It's probably safe to assume every podcast you listen to uses Mike’s product, and we go way back to the very beginning and talk through how the team at Anchor pulled it all off.Mike also shares his frameworks of “Doing the Dumb Thing” and "Super Goals," which are high-stakes, focusing goals with a clear and urgent time frame, open-ended method of achievement, and a single measure of success.
Chapters:
(00:00) Intro
(4:22) Why AI makes consumer investing interesting again
(8:05) Podcasting in the early 2010’s
(14:03) The benefits and drawbacks of RSS
(21:50) Building v1 “Instagram for audio”
(25:53) Advice for building a close-knit community
(29:28) Raising their first small round
(31:38) Inside their splashy launch at SXSW
(39:17) Why the first product failed, but allowed them to raise money to build Anchor
(45:26) What makes a good product founder
(47:39) Re-launching v2 a year later
(53:51) What is a Super Goal
(56:32) Finding Product Market Fit with months of runway left
(59:02) Getting to a million podcast creators
(01:02:09) Launching the first podcast ad network
(01:04:10) Why anchor started sponsoring its own ad network
(01:08:13) Spotify’s acquisition of Anchor
(01:14:22) How Spotify won in podcast market share
(01:16:34) Why the future of podcasts is video
Referenced:
Mike’s Podcast “Generative Now”: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXW6zY9x-gk1oPyjZ_qBCDEYKTbPpGa8S
Mike’s blog posts:
https://mignano.substack.com/p/the-standards-innovation-paradox
https://mignano.substack.com/p/the-power-of-supergoals
https://mignano.substack.com/p/startups-vs-incumbents-the-battle
https://mignano.substack.com/p/all-podcast-roads-lead-to-video
Where to find Mike:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mignano
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mignano
Where to find Turner:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/
Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/
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| Eric Newcomer on Scaling to 80,000 Newsletter Subs, How to Pitch Reporters | 07 Mar 2024 | 01:21:25 | |
Eric Newcomer is the founder of Newcomer, a publication he launched in October of 2020 to cover the business of startups and venture capital. He had just left Bloomberg after nearly six years, and was previously the first employee at The Information. — — — — Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (02:46) The current state of media (05:59) Anchoring his 4th grade newscast (07:21) Becoming the 1st employee at The Information (09:34) How reporters get stories (21:12) The moment he quit Bloomberg to start Newcomer (26:02) Why he writes for VC insiders (32:19) The VC top fund survey (34:01) The Founders Choice VC leaderboard (35:51) Why leaked documents grow his newsletter the fastest (39:45) When Eric knew Newcomer was going to work (43:31) How events become Newcomers most profitable business (51:56) Why Eric invested in Substack (57:42) Why its harder to cover tech’s downturn than boom times (59:10) How to pitch a story to a reporter (01:02:59) Why the internet incentivizes negative media coverage (01:06:06) Advice for starting a media company (01:10:33) Why media works so well to sell adjacent products (01:12:55) Newcomer Banking Summit (01:14:27) The $1.3B acquisition that happened at his first conference (01:20:05) New products Eric’s thinking about — — — — Referenced: Newcomer Passes $1m in Revenue: https://www.axios.com/2024/01/04/substack-writer-eric-newcomer-says-his-revenue-surpassed-1m-in-2023 Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/ Lenny’s Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/ Mike Solana’s Pirate Wires: https://www.piratewires.com/ Mentioned Newcomer Articles: VC Survey: https://www.newcomer.co/p/sequoia-founders-fund-usv-elad-gil Founder's Choice: https://www.newcomer.co/p/founders-choice-vc-rankings-revealed Paywalled Bill Gurley Interview: https://www.newcomer.co/p/above-the-crowd SBF’s Leaked FTX Email: https://www.newcomer.co/p/exclusive-read-sam-bankman-frieds Eric’s first article on Sequoia: https://www.newcomer.co/p/sequoias-political-paradox — — — — Where to find Eric: Twitter: https://twitter.com/EricNewcomer LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericpnewcomer/ Newsletter: https://www.twitter.com/newcomer Email: newcomer@newcomer.co Where to find Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/ Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/ | |||
| Siqi Chen on How To Go Viral, Secrets to Storytelling, and Forgetting Best Practices | 29 Feb 2024 | 01:34:17 | |
Siqi Chen is the Co-Founder and CEO of Runway, the modern and intuitive way to model, plan, and align your business for everyone on your team. Or, in Siqi’s words, “revolutionizing the $80 trillion business industry”. A few months ago, Runway’s new website went viral across the internet. Siqi takes us inside how that happened. He’s no stranger to going viral, having previously built multiple companies that went from zero to millions of users within weeks, including the fastest growing product ever before ChatGPT took the crown in late 2022. — — — — Brought to you by Attio, the next generation of CRM. It’s powerful, flexible and easily configures to the unique way your startup runs, whatever your go-to-market motion. The next era deserves a better CRM. Join OpenAI, Replicate, ElevenLabs and more at https://bit.ly/AttioThePeel — — — — Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro — — — — Referenced: Runway’s website: https://runway.com/ Reform Collective Design Agency: https://www.reformcollective.com/ Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/ SandboxVR: https://sandboxvr.com/ Lulu Cheng’s Android Playbook: https://www.piratewires.com/p/anduril-comms-strategy-early-days — — — — Where to find Siqi: Twitter: https://twitter.com/blader LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siqic/ Where to find Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/ Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/ | |||
| Automating the $80 Billion SOC 2 Market with Shrav Mehta (Secureframe) | 23 Feb 2024 | 01:18:21 | |
Shrav Mehta is the Founder and CEO of Secureframe, which empowers businesses to build trust with customers by automating information security and compliance. Shrav started the company in 2019 after being an early employee at Scale, Pilot, Lob, and Hired, and has since raised from investors like Kleiner Perkins, Backend Capital, Soma Capital, and Banana Capital. Shrav takes us inside how Secureframe’s automating the compliance market, lessons learned on recruiting and scaling teams, and his contrarian take on finding product market fit. — — — — Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (2:10) Automating the $80 billion compliance market (15:49) Learning to program building Android apps (22:50) Joining Lob, Hired, and Scale early (27:25) Joining Pilot to learn marketing and growth (33:31) Shrav’s secret discount furniture supplier (35:04) Finishing three years of college in one year (39:06) Getting 30-40 customers before starting Secureframe (44:24) Non-intuitive fundraising advice from pre-product to IPO (50:08) Why the IPO isn't the ultimate goal (54:40) How Shrav approaches hiring (58:04) Tactics for effective reference checks (1:01:01) Why warm intros are so helpful (1:02:32) How to send good cold emails (1:05:31) Why you should not use LinkedIn “open to work” (1:06:54) Lessons learned scaling teams (1:13:45) Why finding PMF is a 24/7 job and never ends — — — — Referenced: Secureframe: https://secureframe.com/ Lob: https://www.lob.com/ Hired: https://hired.com/ Scale: https://scale.com/ Zapier’s Secrets to PMF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJMjuYt9jEc What it took to raise a Series A in 2023: https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/seed-to-series-a-funding-2023-jones-kruze — — — — Where to find Shrav: Twitter: https://twitter.com/shravvmehtaa/ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/shravmehta/ Where to find Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/turnernovak/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/ Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/ | |||
| Epic Gardening's $100+ Million YouTube Playbook with Kevin Espiritu, Founder and CEO | 15 Feb 2024 | 01:36:04 | |
Kevin Espiritu is the founder and CEO of Epic Gardening, which is, by multiple measures, one of the largest brands in gardening on the planet.What started in 2013 as a blog has since evolved into a gardening empire spanning YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, 4,500 gardening stores, and three gardening books. Epic raised a $17.5m Series A from The Chernin Group in 2021, and according to external sources did $27 million in revenue in 2022. — — — — Brought to you by Attio, the next generation of CRM. It’s powerful, flexible and easily configures to the unique way your startup runs, whatever your go-to-market motion. The next era deserves a better CRM. Join OpenAI, Replicate, ElevenLabs and more at https://bit.ly/AttioThePeel — — — — Timestamps:
— — — — Referenced:
— — — — Where to find Kevin / Epic Gardening Twitter: https://twitter.com/KevinEspiritu YouTube 1: https://www.youtube.com/user/kevinmespiritu YouTube 2: https://www.youtube.com/@epicgardening Where to find Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/ | |||
| How Kirsten Green Built Forerunner Ventures | 08 Feb 2024 | 01:18:27 | |
Kirsten Green is the founder of Forerunner Ventures, a venture capital firm that focuses on understanding the mindset of the modern consumer. Kirsten started Forerunner in 2010, and was an early investor in companies like Faire, Chime, Warby Parker, Dollar Shave Club, Hims, Glossier, Jet, Bonobos, HotelTonight, and The Farmer’s Dog.
This episode takes us behind the scenes of Kirsten’s two decade journey building Forerunner from scratch. She talks about her biggest mistakes, wins, and lessons learned along the way.
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(02:50) Doing market research at the mall
(08:00) Her journey from public markets to venture
(18:30) Lessons from her first investment going to $0
(28:51) How she raised her first $5m angel fund
(31:11) Transitioning to a $41.7m institutional fund
(43:20) Why she almost didn’t invest in Dollar Shave Club (sold for $1.1 billion)
(51:05) How Forerunner thinks about fund size
(57:05) How she led Faire’s Series A with a small fund
(58:46) How Kirsten builds relationships with LPs
(01:02:10) Is consumer investing dead?
(01:15:00) Her unfair advantage as an investor
Where to find Kirsten
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kirstenagreen
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirstengreen
Where to find Turner:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak
Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/
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| Gokul Rajaram | Lessons from Zuck, Jack Dorsey, Sergey Brin + Defining your ICP, Evolution of Seed Investing | 17 Oct 2024 | 00:46:48 | |
Gokul Rajaram is an early stage technology investor. As a product leader, operator and board member, he’s helped build seven generational technology companies, including Alphabet, Block, Coinbase, DoorDash, Meta, Pinterest, and The Trade Desk. Timestamps: | |||
| The Great Media Arbitrage: How Craig Fuller Built FreightWaves | 01 Feb 2024 | 01:56:49 | |
Craig Fuller is the Founder and CEO of FreightWaves, a media company and data provider for the global supply chain. He’s also the CEO of Flying Media Group, which he founded in 2021 to acquire Flying Magazine, the largest US-based print magazine for the aviation industry. This conversation is split into three parts: a crash course on logistics and supply chains, how to build and run a media company, and finally all things print magazines.
Referenced: Where to find Craig: Twitter: https://twitter.com/FreightAlley LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/incab
Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak Banana Capital: https://bananacapital.vc
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| Building a $510 Million Personal Care Giant with Danielle Cohen-Shohet, Founder & CEO of GlossGenius | 25 Jan 2024 | 01:05:13 | |
Danielle Cohen-Shohet is the CEO and Founder of GlossGenius, the all-in-one booking, payments and POS solution that helps beauty and wellness professionals drive bookings and grow their business. Danielle started the company in 2016 and has since grown it to a $510 million valuation. This is while taking a disciplined approach to fundraising, raising roughly $70 million throughout the life of the company. — Topics include:
— Where to find Danielle:
— Where to find Turner:
— Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io — | |||
| The Story of Nubank, The World’s Largest Neobank with Co-founder Cristina Junqueira | 18 Jan 2024 | 00:51:12 | |
Cristina Junqueira is the Co-founder and Chief Growth Officer of Nubank, the largest neobank in Latin America – and in the world – with more than 80 million customers. She is also the second self-made female billionaire in Brazil. Cristina and her co-founders David Vélez and Edward Wible launched Nubank in 2013, essentially building the fintech category in a market where it was nonexistent, and went on to release a no-fee credit card, app, and other banking products across Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia. Cristina takes us through the rise of Nubank, from the scrappiest days building in a house in Sao Paulo to being backed by investors like Sequoia, Founders Fund, DST, TCV, Tiger Global, and Warren Buffett, and then on to their IPO in December 2021. We also touch on the impact of Nubank’s distinctive brand choices, how they navigated government regulations that nearly shut them down, and how they were able to spend $0 on marketing throughout most of their history. — — — — TIMESTAMPS: (00:00) Preview Referenced: Nubank: https://nubank.com.br/en/ Nubank's IPO mints Cristina as a billionaire: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2021/12/09/ Where to find Cristina: Twitter: https://twitter.com/junqueira_cris LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/crisjunqueira/ Where to find Turner: Newsletter:https://www.thespl.it Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak Banana Capital: https://bananacapital.vc | |||
| Immigrant to $250M CEO: How Circle Powers the Creator Economy with Co-founder and CEO Sid Yadav | 11 Jan 2024 | 02:02:39 | |
Sid Yadav is the Co-founder and CEO of Circle, the all-in-one community platform trusted by creators like Tiago Forte, David Perell, and Miles Snider. Sid started the tech blog Rev2 when he was a teenager in New Zealand, writing about the launch of YouTube and the iPhone. He was the founding engineer and designer of Teachable, which he helped scale to +25m+ in ARR before it was acquired in 2020. He started Circle in 2019 with co-founders Rudy Santino and Andrew Guttormsen, which they scaled to $16m in ARR by December of 2023. Circle has since raised $31m from Investors like Tiger Global, Notation Capital, Bungalow, Todd Goldberg, Rahul Vohra, Scott Belsky, Josh Buckley, Ankur Nagpal, Wade Foster, and Dharmesh Shah. Sid immigrated with his family from India to New Zealand as a teenager and to the US after college. His story is a perfect encapsulation of the American Dream, and I’m excited to share this conversation. — — — — Brought to you by Deel, the global HR + payroll platform used by 20,000+ teams. Deel’s in-house immigration team gets you and your team worldwide visas without the legwork. Book a Demo: bit.ly/thepeelxdeel — — — — Topics discussed include:
Referenced: “Cost of a meeting” tweet: https://twitter.com/0xgaut/status/1620815168921038850 Tiago Forte Building a Second Brain: https://www.buildingasecondbrain.com/foundation PARA Method: https://fortelabs.com/blog/para/ Lenny’s interview with Brian Chesky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ef0juAMqoE Turner’s interview with Wade Foster, Co-founder and CEO of Zapier: https://youtu.be/NJMjuYt9jEc Myles Snyder: https://mylessnider.com/ Where to find Sid:
Where to find Turner:
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| 🎮 General Intuition Co-founder Pim de Witte on Growing Medal to 10+ Million Gamers | 18 Dec 2023 | 01:10:55 | |
Pim de Witte is the Co-founder and CEO of Medal, which enables millions of gamers to capture and share their favorite gaming moments with friends. Pim started the company in 2015 and has since raised over $72 million, supported by investors like OMERS Ventures, Makers Fund, Dune Ventures, and Horizon Ventures.Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts: https://bit.ly/3OwGdGCRead the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/growing-medal-to-tens-of-millionsIn this episode, we discuss: Why we play video games Why 200 million gamers play Roblox Learning to code at 13 to build a private Runescape server that did $1.5 million in revenue Why paid acquisition is so important in mobile gaming Why consumer platforms need a social inflection point How Medal blew up during COVID Why multiplayer platforms die when network effects unravel Why Medal’s Seed round was so hard to raise Pim’s biggest mistake building Medal His three favorite interview questions Medal’s unique hybrid in-person / remote work environment Why it’s a mistake to focus on competitors instead of customers Why rapid iteration is everything How to acquire another startup Why building product is the ultimate game How Elon’s changes at Twitter caused a great reset in techWhere to find Pim:Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PimDeWitteLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pimdw/Where to find Turner:Newsletter: https://www.thespl.itTwitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovakRead the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/growing-medal-to-tens-of-millionsProduction and distribution by: https://www.supermix.ioFor sponsorship inquiries: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform
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| How Unit Operates with Precision, with Itai Damti (Co-founder and CEO of Unit) | 14 Dec 2023 | 01:21:39 | |
Itai Damti is the Co-founder and CEO of Unit, the platform that helps leading tech companies store, move, and lend money.Unit has raised over $170 million from investors like Better Tomorrow Ventures, Accel, Insight, and dozens of angels. — In this episode, we discuss:
— Brought to you by Artie, the real-time database replication solution that sets up in minutes and requires zero day-to-day maintenance. Sign-up for a demo and get two weeks free: https://bit.ly/3uWTzWJ — Where to find Itai:
— Where to find Turner:
— Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io — | |||
| Pricing Lessons from the Fastest Growing Companies with Kevin Liu, Co-founder and CEO of Metronome | 12 Dec 2023 | 01:12:15 | |
Kevin Liu is the Co-founder and CEO of Metronome, which enables software companies to launch, iterate, and scale their business models with billing infrastructure that works at any size and stage. Prior to Metronome, Kevin and his co-founder Scott Woody both sold their respective separate companies to Dropbox. Kevin and Scott started Metronome in 2019, and have since raised over $30 million from investors like a16z, General Catalyst, Elad Gil, Lachy Groom, and dozens of other angels. — Brought to you by Artie, the real-time database replication solution that sets up in minutes and requires zero day-to-day maintenance. Sign-up for a demo and get two weeks free: https://bit.ly/41gQbSy — In this episode, we discuss:
— Referenced: — Where to find Kevin:
— Where to find Turner:
— Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io — | |||
| Zapier’s Secrets to Product Market Fit with Wade Foster (Co-founder and CEO of Zapier) | 30 Nov 2023 | 01:13:01 | |
Wade Foster is the Co-founder and CEO of Zapier, an automation platform that helps you work faster. Wade and his co-founders Mike and Bryan started the company in 2011, and have always done things a bit differently. From being a startup based in Missouri, working as a remote team since 2011, and raising very little outside capital despite being one of the fastest growing startups in the world.
—
Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts. Get compliant with security and privacy frameworks like SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, GDPR, and more. Sign-up here: https://bit.ly/3QOr2eo
—
Topics discussed include:
The founding story of Zapier
Wade’s contrarian take on Product Market Fit
Why new products are usually built on emerging distribution channels
How Wade deals with imposter syndrome
Never raising more money after a $1.3 million Seed during YC
How Zapier thinks about it’s product roadmap
Shutting the company down for a weeklong AI hackathon
Why Wade thinks LLMs will unlock new types of product interfaces
How he delegates work without losing track of the details
—
Referenced:
https://zapier.com
—
Where to find Wade:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/wadefoster
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wadefoster
—
Where to find Turner:
Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
Banana Capital: https://bananacapital.vc
—
Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io
— Want to sponsor the show? https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform
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| How Solugen is Saving the $5 Trillion Chemical Industry (Co-founders Gaurab Chakrabarti & Sean Hunt) | 15 Nov 2023 | 01:06:58 | |
Gaurab Chakrabarti and Sean Hunt are the Co-founders of Solugen, which replaces petroleum based products with plant-derived substitutes without sacrificing affordability or performance. They met playing poker in college, kickstarted the company with $10k from an MIT pitch competition, and have since scaled the business to over nine-figures in revenue. Solugen has raised over $642 million from investors like Fifty Years, Lowercarbon Capital, Founders Fund, Refactor Capital, and Cantos Ventures. — Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts: https://bit.ly/47sxTQ0 Topics discussed:
— Referenced:
— Where to find Gaurab:
— Where to find Sean:
— Where to find Turner:
— Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io — | |||
| Secrets of the $131 Billion Parking Industry with Jonathon Barkl (Co-founder and CEO of AirGarage) | 08 Nov 2023 | 02:07:32 | |
Jonathon Barkl is the Co-founder and CEO of AirGarage, a full-stack parking management company that helps real estate owners increase their income. Jonathon and his co-founders Chelsea and Scott started the company in 2017. They’ve since raised roughly $15 million from investors including Founders Fund, Floodgate, a16z, Abstract, and prior guest of the show Ryan Delk. — Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts. Get compliant with security and privacy frameworks like SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, GDPR, and more. Sign-up here: https://bit.ly/3QOr2eo — Topics discussed:
— Referenced:
— Where to find Jonathon:
— Where to find Turner:
— Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io — https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform | |||
| How to Build in AI, Lessons From Early Days of Snyk with Founder Guy Podjarny | 10 Oct 2024 | 01:12:51 | |
Guy Podjarny is the founder of Blaze, Snyk, and now Tessl. He’s spent decades building at the center of developers and security. His newest company Tessl is reimagining software development, helping shape a new paradigm he calls AI Native Development. | |||
| Securing Open Source Software with Dan Lorenc, Co-founder & CEO of Chainguard | 02 Nov 2023 | 01:20:25 | |
Dan Lorenc is the Co-founder and CEO of Chainguard, the best way to secure your open source software. Dan and his co-founders Kim, Matt, and Ville started the company in 2021 after spending a decade working together at Google on all things open source and software security.
They’ve since raised $116 million from investors including Spark (led Series B), Sequoia (led Series A), Amplify (led Seed), The Chainsmoker’s Mantis VC, Banana Capital, and dozens of angels in the cyber security and open source communities.
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Topics discussed:
What is the “software supply chain”?
How the SolarWinds breach created the software supply chain security market
The history of open source software
Why open source software makes software supply chains even less secure
The moment Dan and his co-founders decided to start Chainguard
Why they started selling consulting services before even building a product
The reason their first two products solved completely different problems (top-down and bottoms-up), and why the one that didn’t work at first is now their main business
Why Chainguard decided to focus on a broad communications and marketing strategy so early on
How Dan gets quoted in major media publications as an early stage startup founder
Why Chainguard uses memes for marketing
Why Dan thinks startups should “make content optimized for the group chat”
How they raised their Seed round from Amplify a week after leaving Google
Raising a Series A from Sequoia as the market started collapsing in Spring of 2022
Dan’s advice for founders on dealing with investor inbound when not fundraising
Why he wish he hired sales reps sooner
Raising a Series B from Spark Capital to accelerate their enterprise sales process
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Referenced:
https://www.chainguard.dev
https://www.sigstore.dev/
Battling the Trojan Horse in Open Source: https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/dan-lorenc-chainguard-spotlight/
Chainguard Series B Announcement: https://www.chainguard.dev/unchained/series-b-funding
Dan’s favorite open source project: https://github.com/jqlang/jq
Reflections on Trusting Trust: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_ReflectionsonTrustingTrust.pdf
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Where to find Dan:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lorenc_dan
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danlorenc
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Where to find Turner:
Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
Banana Capital: https://bananacapital.vc
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Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io
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| From Food Stamps to a $20 Million Fund with Nichole Wischoff | 25 Oct 2023 | 01:08:20 | |
Nichole Wischoff is the founder of Wischoff Ventures, a Pre-Seed and Seed firm that invests up to $1 million in non sexy industries. Nichole closed her first fund in 2021, and previously was an early employee at Blend (NYSE:BLND), One (acquired by Walmart in 2022), and Built. — Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts. Sign-up here: https://bit.ly/3Sif1PH — Topics discussed include: • Growing up on food stamps in Arkansas • How studying abroad in Belgium changed Nichole’s life • How falling in love with running got her into college and her first job • Why Taylor Swift could be the first female President • Opening a bakery to pay rent while teaching English in Spain • Getting her first job at Citi’s non-profit housing financing team • Leveraging that experience to get a job in fintech • Making her first angel investment in Vesta • How Nichole got One Financial its first 25k users • Helping sell One Financial to Walmart • How Lee Fixel and Chad Byers helped raise her first $5m fund • Lessons learned going from a $5m to $20m fund in 2022 • Nichole’s advice for anyone raising their first fund • Behind the scenes of her viral “Third Tier VC” moment — Referenced: • Nichole’s $20m Fund Announcement https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/16/solo-gp-nichole-wischoff-raises-20m-fund-backed-by-peter-thiel-to-invest-in-unsexy-businesses/ • J Cal’s “3rd or 4th Investor in Uber” Montage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK4Mku_s4H4 — Where to find Nichole: • Twitter: https://twitter.com/NWischoff • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholewischoff • Wischoff Ventures: https://www.wischoff.com/ — Where to find Turner: • Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it • Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak • Banana Capital: https://bananacapital.vc — Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io — | |||
| Lessons From Scaling Pilot to a $1.2 Billion Valuation with Co-founder and CEO Waseem Daher | 17 Oct 2023 | 01:11:19 | |
Waseem Daher is the Co-founder and CEO of Pilot, the bookkeeping, CFO, and tax provider for startups and fast growing businesses. Prior to Pilot, Waseem and his co-founders Jeff and Jessica sold companies to Oracle and Dropbox. — Waseem, Jeff, and Jessica started Pilot in 2017, and have since raised over $160 million from investors like Index Ventures, Stripe, Sequoia, Whale Rock, Jeff Bezos, and over 40+ angel investors. — Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts: https://bit.ly/3FoYm52 — In this episode, we discuss: — • Twitter: https://twitter.com/waseem • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wdaher • Newsletter: https://waseem.substack.com/ — Where to find Turner: • Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it • Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak — Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io — For sponsorship inquiries: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform | |||
| Bootstrapping Webflow to $10M ARR, and scaling to a $4B Valuation with Vlad Magdalin (Co-founder & CEO) | 10 Oct 2023 | 01:21:04 | |
Vlad Magdalin is the Co-founder and CEO of Webflow, software that empowers designers to build websites without code. Vlad started the company with his co-founders Sergie Magdalin and Bryant Chou in 2013, and has since raised roughly $335 million supported by investors like Accel, Khosla Ventures, YCombinator, Capital G, and Eric Bahn. — — — — Brought to you by Mercury, the bank built for startups. Join more than 100,000 startups and venture capital firms on Mercury, the powerful and intuitive way for ambitious companies to bank.Sign-up now: https://bit.ly/46ImCuD Disclaimer: Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided by Choice Financial Group and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC. — — — — Topics discussed include: • The history of web browsers, websites, and web design • Why websites are the ultimate economic enablers • How Webflow empowers anyone to design websites without code • Why website design is a gateway into programming • How the movement to CSS and web standards in the 2000’s and 2010’s created the opportunity for Webflow to build a product around responsive design • Moving to the US with his parents and five siblings as refugees from the USSR at nine years old • How losing half of their luggage and immigration documents in the move enabled his dad to buy the family’s first computer • The first website Vlad ever designed for a Brad Pitt movie • How his experience dropping out of a computer science degree to work in 3D animation at Pixar, then going back to school gave him the idea for Webflow • Failing to build Webflow three times between 2005 and 2008 • Why the spouses and partners of founders are the unsung heroes of startups • The moment he immediately quit his job and attempted Webflow for the fourth time • Burning three months of runway on a Kickstarter that never went live • Liquidating his retirement account, paying rent with credit cards, and selling and leasing back the family car’s to keep the business running • Vlad’s exuberant optimism that kept him going for 10 years • Failing to get into YC, and the crazy story behind getting accepted the second time • The trajectory-altering customer and fundraising advice they got from Paul Graham • The “Investing on Principle” contract they signed with Accel who led Webflow’s Series A • Why Vlad thinks every startup founder should operate with the assumption they’ll never be able to raise money again Referenced: • Inventing on Principle (Video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUv66718DII • Inventing on Principle (Transcript): https://jamesclear.com/great-speeches/inventing-on-principle-by-bret-victor • The Infinite Game: https://simonsinek.com/books/the-infinite-game/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/callmevlad • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vladmagdalin Where to find Turner: • Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it • Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io
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| What is OpenStore? How Keith Rabois is Acquiring Shopify Brands | 03 Oct 2023 | 01:10:01 | |
Keith is the Co-founder and CEO of OpenStore, a portfolio of brands building its own shopping destination. Before starting OpenStore, Keith was an early executive at companies like PayPal, eBay, LinkedIn, and Square, a co-founder of OpenDoor, and an early investor in companies like DoorDash, Faire, Affirm, Webflow, Ramp, and Stripe, and is also currently a General Partner at Founders Fund
Keith started the company in 2021 with co-founders Jack Abraham, Matt Lanter, and Jeremy Wood, and has since raised over $150 million supported by investors like Atomic, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, and Vine Ventures.
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In this episode, we discuss:
• The 3-minute conversation that started OpenStore
• All the problems that still exist in ecommerce
• Why Instagram Shopping failed
• What Keith and team are building at OpenStore
• Why Wish failed
• The margin profile of most consumer brands
• A crash course on contribution margin and profitability for startup founders
• How OpenStore gets 3x higher contribution margin than other consumer brands
• As a VC, the one thing Keith looks for in the founders he backs
• A framework for founders and investors to consider when incubating companies
• Why Keith thinks no great SF-based startups has been founded since March of 2020
• The reasons he moved to Miami
• Why he’s bearish on most AI startups
• His favorite interview questions for candidates
Referenced:
• Email Keith - keith@foundersfund.com
Where to find Keith:
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/rabois
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith
Where to find Turner:
• Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io
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