The Peel with Turner Novak
By Turner Novak
Get a behind the scenes look into the founding stories of your favorite companies. Learn how the industries they operate in actually work, and learn playbooks and tactics you can use to launch and scale your own business.
The Peel with Turner NovakJul 05, 2023
Aaron Levie | The $1 Trillion AI Opportunity, Stories From Early Days of Box
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Aaron Levie is a co-founder and the CEO of Box. This conversation covers the ways AI is affecting businesses, the early days of Box, and strategies Aaron has learned on his 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
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.
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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
Celine'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/
How to Build a Biotech with Celine Halioua at Loyal
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
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
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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
(05:54) The history of non-alcoholic beer
(10:41) Why an outsider had to create this new category
(15:34) Health benefits of avoiding alcohol
(17:51) Turner tries the beer
(22:49) Bill’s wife pushing him to start Athletic Brewing
(26:38) Writing a 96 page white paper on non-alcoholic beer
(28:42) Quitting his job to start six months of research and networking
(30:21) Meeting the perfect co-founder after 100’s of meetings
(32:34) Putting his life savings into a warehouse and brewing equipment
(33:04) The importance of setting company values early on
(34:23) Brewing the first beer in Gatorade jugs
(36:16) Selling the first bottles to retailers
(37:42) Explosive growth in 2019
(39:39) Why new products and D2C helped them scale so fast
(40:39) Using TikTok to sell-out new product launches in 30 seconds
(42:00) The value of doing early customer service himself
(44:45) Getting to 61% market share in non-alcoholic beer
(46:10) Struggling to raise the first angel round
(48:34) Using consistent investor updates to easily raise the Seed, Series A, and Series B
(50:47) Transitioning to institutional capital for its Series C
(52:33) Betting on a new category to expand market size
(55:44) Information access is enabling healthier consumer behavior
(58:11) Bill’s early strategy for marketing the product
(1:01:43) The importance of over communicating with your investors
(1:03:44) Why retailers like Athletic Brewing’s unique omni channel approach
(1:06:16) How building its own breweries and supply chain enabled its unique strategy and better margins at scale
(1:09:04) Getting into Whole Foods before launching
(1:11:31) Doing unscaleable things over and over again
(1:13:50) Why entrepreneurship is a long game
(1:14:22) Most of Athletic’s new products come from the team
Check out Athletic Brewing: https://athleticbrewing.com/
Where to find Bill:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-shufelt-650059138
Where to find Turner:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/
Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/
SMB Masterclass: Zero to $150M Revenue in Two Years with Dane Atkinson, Founder and CEO of Odeko
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: odeko.com/
Where to find Dane:
Twitter: twitter.com/daneatkinson
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/daneatkinson
Where to find Turner:
Twitter: twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/
Newsletter: www.thespl.it/
Josh Miller on How The Browser Company Started, How to Hire, Arc Search, and Building in Public
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
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
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.
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Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(02:52) Inside Twitter’s acquisition of Laskie
(05:38) Why Twitter / X works so well for recruiting
(08:11) A sneak peek at upcoming Premium features
(13:58) How the X algorithm works
(20:48) Why “dwell time” is the most important metric
(24:07) What it’s like reporting to Elon
(27:40) Elon’s crazy ability to context-switch
(29:16) Why you should consider selling your company for $25-100 million
(35:39) The reasons large M&A deals are so rare
(42:07) Surviving inside Big Tech as a founder
(46:23) Chris's philosophy on company building
(51:23) Why “Time in Market” is so underrated
(53:44) YC’s “sandwich incident”
(55:44) How to use memes for marketing
(58:55) Chris’ 100+ page Google Slide meme library
(1:01:46) His top three favorite meme templates
(1:03:48) His favorite proprietary trade secret at X
(1:05:03) Turning down jobs at Coinbase and WhatsApp
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Twitter jobs: https://twitter.com/jobs
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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
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”: www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXW6zY9x-gk1oPyjZ_qBCDEYKTbPpGa8S
Mike’s blog posts:
mignano.substack.com/p/the-standards-innovation-paradox
mignano.substack.com/p/the-power-of-supergoals
mignano.substack.com/p/startups-vs-incumbents-the-battle
mignano.substack.com/p/all-podcast-roads-lead-to-video
Where to find Mike:
Twitter: twitter.com/mignano
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/mignano
Where to find Turner:
Twitter: twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/
Newsletter: www.thespl.it/
Eric Newcomer on Scaling to 80,000 Newsletter Subs, How to Pitch Reporters
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.
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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
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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
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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
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.
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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
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Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(02:00) Sponsor: Attio
(02:59) How Siqi goes viral
(06:13) Why conversion doesn’t always matter
(11:23) How to make B2B software more fun
(14:31) Working on the Curiosity and Spirit rovers at NASA
(16:50) Re-designing at the entire codebase and product at his first startup job
(21:13) Earning the nickname “FB Millz” making a million dollars building Facebook games
(25:11) Selling to Zynga and building the fastest growing product before ChatGPT
(28:36) Building a game with 90% Day 1 retention
(30:09) Being played by Kim Kardashian, Jack Dorsey, and shut down by Tim Cook
(32:10) Almost getting fired building a growth team at Postmates
(35:04) Building Sandbox VR: “escape rooms in VR”
(40:35) Meeting Kanye
(44:38) Getting the idea for Runway when COVID hit
(47:32) Why spreadsheets run every business
(54:40) Disrupting the $80 trillion business industry
(57:55) Making formulas 50x easier than Excel
(01:02:32) Why Runway’s building a painkiller
(01:06:32) How to fundraise
(01:08:32) Why the first question from an investor is the reason they won’t invest
(01:11:28) How to tell a company’s story
(01:15:23) The three layers of a story
(01:17:28) The importance of positioning in storytelling
(01:18:56) Runway’s flexible remote work strategy
(01:21:34) Why their hiring strategy changed over time
(01:22:39) Siqi’s single interview question & the three traits he looks for when hiring
(01:26:10) Unlearning consumer to learn B2B
(01:30:26) Navigating the first three years of no customers
(01:31:45) What surprised Dylan Field the most about building Figma
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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)
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
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.
— — — —
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— — — —
Timestamps:
- (00:00) Intro
- (04:03) Sponsor: Attio
- (05:09) A deep dive on the history of YouTube
- (12:04) The YouTube algorithm and meta game
- (40:17) Using Reddit to drive initial blog traffic
- (46:56) How creator-led businesses have negative CAC
- (47:12) Why creator businesses must be very small or very large
- (49:38) How YouTube is changing today
- (50:00) Acquiring a gardening blog for $1k from an Indian VC
- (52:43) His process for doing acquisitions
- (53:38) Launching his first product
- (57:54) His biggest mistakes launching new products
- (58:30) Buying his own warehouse
- (59:04) Non-intuitive ways a product can influence your cost structure
- (1:03:00) Kevin’s approach to hiring
- (1:04:40) Why he raised a Series A as a YouTube creator
- (1:05:27) How to approach investing in AI
- (1:19:53) Why Kevin wrote three books
- (1:23:26) Why more people will grow food at home
- (1:25:20) How he approaches celebrity partnerships
— — — —
Referenced:
- Epic Homesteading: Your Guide to Self-Sufficiency on a Modern, High-Tech, Backyard Homestead https://www.amazon.com/Epic-Homesteading-Self-Sufficiency-High-Tech-Homestead/dp/0760383766
- MrBeast https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast
- MrBeast's Feastables https://feastables.com/
- Logan Paul x KSI PRIME https://drinkprime.com/
- MatPat of @GameTheory https://www.youtube.com/channelUCo_IB5145EVNcf8hw1Kku7w
- Michelle Phan https://www.youtube.com/user/michellephan
- Ipsy: https://www.ipsy.com/ by Michelle Phan
- Matthew Beem https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR_J_SntqJh5eXw66d5hJxA
- The Chernin Group https://tcg.co/
— — — —
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
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: twitter.com/kirstenagreen
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kirstengreen
Where to find Turner:
Twitter: twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak
Newsletter: www.thespl.it/
The Great Media Arbitrage: How Craig Fuller Built FreightWaves
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.
Topics discussed include:
- (00:00) Intro
- (02:39) Why logistics is the most important industry no one talks about
- (04:23) The rise of deglobalization
- (11:07) How Colombia benefits from US manufacturing
- (14:52) Why Craig’s watching US onshoring and Mexican nearshoring
- (18:18) How the supply chain function is changing
- (28:59) The US labor availability problem
- (32:40) Why AI will never fully replace humans in media
- (34:56) The early days of FreightWaves
- (41:04) Predicting recessions months before it shows up in data
- (48:51) Why logistics is the best barometer of the global economy
- (52:44) Taking 12+ months to raise FreightWaves first venture round
- (59:24) Surviving COVID with only two months of runway
- (01:05:20) How FreightWaves accidentally became a media business
- (01:08:15) Why the best startups make low risk, high upside decisions
- (01:13:27) Why media business are the arbitrage opportunity this decade
- (01:15:55) Getting 200%+ IRR’s buying print magazines, starting with flying
- (01:17:50) Building his own airport and flying community
- (01:30:16) Almost failing to turnaround his first magazine acquisition
- (01:39:06) His non-intuitive lessons from building media businesses
- (01:43:39) Craig’s favorite media businesses
- (01:48:50) How to build a brand in media
Referenced:
Where to find Craig:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/FreightAlley
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/incab
Where to find Turner:
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
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.
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Topics include:
- A crash course on the $160 billion beauty, health, and wellness market
- How the industry's shifting to time-based billing and upfront payments
- Why GlossGenius spends so much time on customer experience
- Surviving a 90% drop in revenue during COVID
- Why she credits talking to and listening to customers to GlossGenius success
- A look inside each funding round, and why Danielle kept them small
- How she learned to delegate as the company scaled
- Why the big picture is often made of little details
- Danielle’s secret for running a capital efficient business
- GlossGenius’ Hiring and Interviewing Manual
- Why most companies aren’t good at hiring
- Danielle’s favorite interview questions
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Where to find Danielle:
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/dcohenshohet
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dcohenshohet
—
Where to find Turner:
- Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
- Banana Capital: https://bananacapital.vc
—
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The Story of Nubank, The World’s Largest Neobank with Co-founder Cristina Junqueira
Cristina Junqueira is the co-founder 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
(02:38) Fintech and the preconditions for disrupting financial services in LatAm
(05:38) Educating investors on the opportunity for fintech in LatAm
(07:35) The scale of unbanked and underbanked populations in Brazil, Mexico, and other countries; and why expanding access to these products increases NuBank's market share
(08:21) Expanding the pie and just how profitable banks can be in LatAm
(15:37) Starting NuBank and the lessons Cristina learned from incumbent banks
(18:11) The biggest hurdle to starting NuBank
(19:33) Navigating Nubank’s first product from inception to successful credit card
(21:08) Spending $0 CAC in an industry with hugely expensive marketing pushes
(22:32) $0 on marketing and scrappy ethics
(26:40) The crazy circumstances around Nubank’s Series A fundraise
(36:54) Cristina’s reflections on the IPO in December 2021
(39:31) How Nubank navigates a changing macro environment
(40:40) The importance of Nubank’s distinctive brand
(42:57) Surviving an existential threat from Brazil’s government
(46:28) Scaling from a small scrappy team to a multinational global publicly traded company
(49:02) Personal growth and maintaining strong co-founder relationships
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
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.
— — — —
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— — — —
Topics discussed include:
(03:53) Why the creator economy is booming despite negative sentiment
(13:22) Writing a popular tech blog as a teen in the mid 00’s
(23:16) Joining Teachable as the 2nd employee
(40:30) Why Teachable CEO Ankur Nagpal invested 90% of his liquid net worth in Circle’s $1.7m Pre-seed round
(48:44) Sid’s inside view at the creator economy before, during, and after COVID
(52:50) The magic of Lenny Rachitsky’s creator flywheel
(56:10) The reason Sid raised a Seed from lots of investors instead of one large check
(01:14:30) Inside raising a Series A from Tiger Global in 2021
(01:22:19) Why Sid writes an investor update every month
(01:25:15) Going from Zero to $16m ARR in four years
(01:27:28) How Circle approaches its product roadmap
(01:29:20) Building a community around your product
(01:37:03) Advice for running a remote-first team
(01:46:54) How Sid convinced the founder of Zapier to be his CEO coach
(01:54:20) Why founders need to deal with reality
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:
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/sidyadav
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sidyadav
Where to find Turner:
- Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
- Banana Capital: https://bananacapital.vc
🎮 Growing Medal to 10+ Million Gamers | Pim de Witte (Co-founder and CEO, Medal)
Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts: bit.ly/3OwGdGC
Read the transcript: www.thespl.it/p/growing-medal-to-tens-of-millions
In 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 tech
Where to find Pim:
Twitter: www.twitter.com/PimDeWitte
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/pimdw/
Where to find Turner:
Newsletter: www.thespl.it
Twitter: twitter.com/TurnerNovak
Read the transcript: www.thespl.it/p/growing-medal-to-tens-of-millions
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How Unit Operates with Precision, with Itai Damti (Co-founder and CEO of Unit)
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.
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In this episode, we discuss:
- The first and second wave of fintech innovation
- How the second wave brings financial services inside other software
- How Unit beat the competition and raised $170 million by focusing on product and expanding the market size
- Itai’s framework for leveraging his investors
- His strategy for prioritizing as a founder
- How Unit operates with precision
- And why they haven’t built any crypto products
—
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Where to find Itai:
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/itaidamti
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/itaidamti
—
Where to find Turner:
- Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
- Banana Capital: https://bananacapital.vc
—
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Pricing Lessons from the Fastest Growing Companies with Kevin Liu, Co-founder and CEO of Metronome
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.
—
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In this episode, we discuss:
- The history and evolution of software business models
- A crash course on all things software pricing
- Kevin’s framework for iterating on new startup ideas
- His 2-days on, 1-day off strategy for early customer needfinding
- How he leveraged angels to raise Metronome’s Seed and Series A rounds
- The dangers of over-building a product
- Why Metronome sacrificed its own margins to scale with OpenAI
- How Kevin thinks founders should prioritize their time
- Frameworks for building a pricing model
- The biggest pricing mistakes companies make
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Referenced:
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Where to find Kevin:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinyliu
—
Where to find Turner:
- Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
- Banana Capital: https://bananacapital.vc
—
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—
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Zapier’s Secrets to Product Market Fit with Wade Foster (Co-founder and CEO of Zapier)
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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
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Referenced:
zapier.com
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Where to find Wade:
Twitter: twitter.com/wadefoster
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/wadefoster
—
Where to find Turner:
Newsletter: www.thespl.it
Twitter: twitter.com/TurnerNovak
Banana Capital: bananacapital.vc
—
Production and distribution by: www.supermix.io
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How Solugen is Saving the $5 Trillion Chemical Industry (Co-founders Gaurab Chakrabarti & Sean Hunt)
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.
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—
Topics discussed:
- How the chemicals industry touches 25% of US GDP
- Why the industry is like real estate: fragmented and focused on asset utilization
- The reason chemicals companies have terrible NPS scores
- How Solugen’s manufacturing process converts plants and C02 into chemicals
- Meeting over a game of poker while getting their PhD’s
- Winning $10k from an MIT pitch competition to capture 10% of the float spa market in Dallas, Texas
- Why the first wave of Cleantech startup fail
- Why logistics and supply chain are the biggest problems in Chemicals
- Their framework for thinking big, but taking little steps to get there
- Running their homemade metal catalyst reactor at YC Demo Day
- Launching, scaling, and selling a CPG wipes company to prove their chemicals worked
- Building their first factory (the BioForge) on the site of an exploded wax distillery
- Their strategy for getting large, multinational companies to try their products
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Referenced:
- YC Application video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tItLPnLIH4o
- Solugen - The First Carbon Negative Molecule Factory: https://jeffburke.substack.com/p/solugen-the-first-carbon-negative
- Solugen - The Century of Biology: https://centuryofbio.com/p/solugen
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Where to find Gaurab:
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/gaurabc
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaurabchakrabarti
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Where to find Sean:
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/TungstenSeanide
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/huntsean
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Where to find Turner:
- Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
—
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Secrets of the $131 Billion Parking Industry with Jonathon Barkl (Co-founder and CEO of AirGarage)
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.
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Topics discussed:
- A crash course on the business model of parking
- Why parking lots make most of their money from tickets and towing
- The reason American cities dedicate up to 30% of space to parking
- How the $131 Billion parking industry evolved to be so complicated and outdated
- Why dynamic pricing in parking is harder than hotels and airlines
- The three primary business models for a parking lot
- Why Air Garage can increase a parking lots profitability by 4-5x
- How part of its business was inspired by scooter companies like Bird and Lime
- Starting “Airbnb for Driveways” in 2016 to solve their own problem as college students
- The sales lessons Jonathon learned doing door-to-door sales in the Arizona heat
- How getting scammed out of $6,000 led to pivoting their business model
- Moving to San Francisco with no connections and raising a Seed round
- How they closed a Series A in a week
- The importance of investor brand when hiring early employees
- Why Jonathon cares so much about branding as a parking company
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Referenced:
https://www.airgarage.com/
https://parkingreform.org/resources/parking-lot-map/- Mac vs PC ads: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eEG5LVXdKo
- Never Split the Difference: https://www.amazon.com/Never-Split-Difference-Negotiating-Depended/dp/0062407805
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States
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Where to find Jonathon:
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/jonathonbarkl
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathonbarkl
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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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Raising $61 Million to Fortify Open Source Software with Dan Lorenc, Co-founder & CEO of Chainguard
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. — 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
— 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
— Where to find Dan:
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/lorenc_dan
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danlorenc
— 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
From Food Stamps to a $20 Million Fund with Nichole Wischoff
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.
—
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—
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
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Referenced:
•Taylor Swift (Acquired’s Version): https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/taylor-swift-acquireds-version
• 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
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Where to find Nichole:
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/NWischoff
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholewischoff
• Wischoff Ventures: https://www.wischoff.com/
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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
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Lessons From Scaling Pilot to a $1.2 Billion Valuation with Co-founder and CEO Waseem Daher
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.
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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:
• Why Waseem’s building a startup that does your accounting
• The reason he first started doing his own bookkeeping, and why he doesn’t recommend it to other founders
• When startups should build something themselves and when to outsource
• All the mistakes Waseem made building and selling his first two startups to Oracle and Dropbox
• How to avoid “fake work”
• How to get ROI from conferences
• His disastrous first ever meeting with a VC
• Why the best fundraising advice is to build a business that doesn’t need to raise money
• “Companies are bought, not sold” and his framework for startup M&A
• Why it’s a mistake to build your startup just to be acquired
• Why consensus startup ideas rarely work, and the best startups need some secret or structural change that no one else has noticed yet
• Why tech-enabled service businesses are so hard to scale
• How Pilot got its first customers
• Pilot’s unique approach to raising its Seed round
• The initial scare when raising their Series A
• Why its Series B was half of what they could have raised
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Where to find Waseem:
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/waseem
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wdaher
• Newsletter: https://waseem.substack.com/
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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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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)
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/
Where to find Vlad:
• 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
Want to sponsor the show? https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform
What is OpenStore? How Keith Rabois is Acquiring Shopify Brands
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: twitter.com/rabois
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/keith
Where to find Turner:
• Newsletter: www.thespl.it
• Twitter: twitter.com/TurnerNovak
Production and distribution by: www.supermix.io
Want to sponsor the show? docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform
The $4 Trillion Business of Financial Crime with Natasha Vernier, Co-founder and CEO of Cable
Natasha Vernier is the Co-founder and CEO of Cable, the all-in-one effectiveness testing platform for financial services. Prior to Cable, Natasha joined UK neobank Monzo when it had less than 100 customers. She built and led their financial crime team for five years, and is one of the most knowledgeable individuals in the world on financial crime, which amounts to over $4 trillion per year, or 4% of global GDP.
Natasha started Cable in 2020 with her co-founder Katie Savitz, and has since raised over $16 million supported by investors like LocalGlobe, CRV, Stage 2, and Jump Capital.
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Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts: https://bit.ly/3ZyBhWM
—
Topics discussed:
• How crime is a $4 trillion market
• Why 80% of crime is carried out for financial gains
• Why the UN estimates we only catch 0.2% of financial crime
• The reason banks are incentivized to stop fraud, but not crime
• Why it's so hard to stop financial crimes
• How $20B in financial crime was committed on crypto rails in 2022
• What “Synthetic ID Fraud” is, and why it's the fastest growing type of fraud in the US
• What Natasha thinks are the new frontiers of fraud
• Joining Monzo as one of the first employees and staying through a $4B valuation
• What it’s like to be fully invested in a startup when you’re not a founder
• Building Cable to enable regulatory and financial crime teams
• Raising a Pre-Seed round and signing the first customer without a product built
• Why compliance officers want to buy complicated products
• How Natasha diversified her cap table, raising a Seed round from CRV and a group of angels with broad skill sets, ethnicity, race, and sexuality
• How she got two funds to pre-empt her Series A
• Why founding a startup means getting punched in the face every day, and her biggest mistake is not enjoying the little things sooner
• The two founders she most looks up to
• The one interview question she asks every candidate at Cable
Referenced:
• Cable’s site: https://cable.tech
• Cable’s Seed round: https://community.cable.tech/weve-raised-5-3m-from-crv-localglobe-and-a-diverse-group-of-exceptional-angels/
• How They Built the Hoover Dam (Part 1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXFjLaUxpaw
• How Vegas Became VEGAS (Part 2): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QNuYHEzS2o
Where to find Natasha:
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/natashavernier
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natashavernier
Where to find Turner:
• Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io
Want to sponsor the show? https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform
Growing Deel to $300M+ ARR in Four Years with Co-founder and CEO Alex Bouaziz
Alex Bouaziz is the Co-founder and CEO of Deel, a full stack global HR and payroll platform. But the company didn’t start that way, and we’ll talk through Alex and his co-founder Shuo’s journey from zero to one, starting with a product that helped startups hire international employees.
Alex and Shuo launched the company one week before YC Demo day in 2019, and have since scaled to 20,000+ customers and raised over $685 million. They’re supported by investors like YC, a16z, Spark Capital, Weekend Fund, Coatue, SV Angel, Soma Capital, Quiet Capital, and angels like Lachy Groom, Nat Friedman, Ryan Petersen, Alexis Ohanian, John Zimmer, Dara Khosrowshahi, Rex Salisbury, Justin Mateen, and more.
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In this episode, we discuss:
• The initial insight around remote work that started Deel in 2019
• How they initially built the wrong solution
• Pivoting one week before YC demo day
• Listening to customers to build a better product
• Growing 20% every month for a year
• Being a default optimist
• Dealing with the emotional ups and downs of building a startup
• Moving at “Deel Speed”, and how the team operates so fast
• Deel’s remote-first approach and its “WeWork Squads”
• His advice to other leaders building remote teams
• Why founders shouldn’t share too much information with early investors
• How Alex’s approach to fundraising changed through his Seed to Series D rounds
• Why founders should always be selling their product
• How picking board members is a form of marriage, and what founders should prioritize when picking them
• Why Deel raised a Series A and B in a three month span despite only burning $300k since closing its Seed round
• How deep pocketed investors unlock optionality as a company scales
• The benefits to taking on lots of angel investors
• How Deel prioritized international expansion as it grew
• Deel’s new Visa / immigration and HR AI products
• Two things Alex would do differently if he could start over
• The founders he most looks up to
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Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/growing-deel-to-300m-arr-in-four
Where to find Alex:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Bouazizalex
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexbouaziz/
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
How Semil Shah Built Haystack
Semil Shah is the Founder of Haystack, an institutional venture capital firm that backs outlier founders at the earliest stages. Semil started Haystack in 2013, and has since invested in X unicorns like DoorDash, Instacart, Figma, HashiCorp, Ironclad, Carta, Applied Intuition, and Opendoor.
This episode takes us behind the scenes of Semil’s two decade journey building Haystack from scratch. We’ll dive into how he raised and deployed each of the first six Haystack funds, including all the mistakes made along the way, plus the details around Haystack’s new $75 million and $25 million funds announced the date this episode was published.
Read Haystack's announcement here: https://semilshah.com/2023/09/10/announcing-haystack-vii-same-model-fresh-funds-and-new-era/
—
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/3sQRzOw
Listen to my conversation with Immad, the Co-founder and CEO of Mercury:
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/24ujuXZ2uws48bvwOh9NcR
- Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lessons-from-building-mercury-with-immad-akhund-co/id1694440669?i=1000619360042
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:
- Juggling multiple jobs while living paycheck to paycheck his first eight years in Silicon Valley
- Failing to get his first job in venture three times
- Investing in the Seed rounds of unicorns DoorDash, Instacart, Hashicorp, and Envoy within the first six months of starting Haystack
- Why he initially thought Haystack would be a short-term thing
- Turning down multiple lucrative job offers two years in
- How the best LPs evaluate VC funds on the “Entry Ownership to Fund Size” ratio
- Semil’s strategy of “crawl, walk, run” to increase Haystack’s check sizes over time
- The pain he felt failing to hit his target fund size on the first four fundraises and how he handled it
- Why everyone should “pre-market” a fundraise, and how to do it
- The things most founders don’t appreciate about raising a venture fund
- Fighting to invest in Ironclad’s Seed round before he had his next fund raised
- How LPs reference VCs, and how a VC can become referenceable
- Why Haystack Fund IV was the scariest fund to raise
- How Semil builds relationships with LPs
- The hardest questions he faced raising each fund and what other VCs should anticipate while raising their own fund
- How LP investment committees make decisions
- What’s going on behind the scenes at most large venture LPs today
- Why the traditional advice of “finding an anchor LP” makes no sense
- Spilling his secret on the best quarter to fundraise
- Why VCs should fundraise with a hard cap on fund size
- Why every VC should appreciate and remember how LPs supported them through the pandemic
- All the details on Haystack’s new $75 million and $25 million funds
- Semil’s plan for the next 10 years
- Three pieces of advice for emerging fund managers
Where to find Semil:
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/semil
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/semilshah/
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
🧪 The Einstein of Ecommerce: Bootstrapping to 9-Figures in Revenue with Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge Wallet)
Sean Frank is the CEO of Ridge Wallet, a men’s wallet and accessories brand that does over 9-figures in annual revenue. The company started in 2012 and raised $266,000 in a Kickstarter campaign to sell the first 5,200 wallets. Ridge hasn’t raised a single dollar of outside capital since, and has also expanded into new categories like rings, knives, watches, backpacks, and keys, with dozens of more products coming soon. Sean is known in some circles as the “Einstein of Ecommerce”, and he gives us an inside look at running a consumer brand in 2023.
Brought to you by Packsmith, better fulfillment for growing brands: https://bit.ly/PacksmithBanana
In this episode, we discuss:
- Why wallets are a terrible product category
- How Ridge has 80% gross margins
- Why brands should generally not raise venture capital
- When a founder should step down as CEO, and how to hire a new one
- Why Ridge is one of the top 10 advertisers on Twitter
- When and how to hire a marketing agency
- Why Ridge never raised outside capital
- Closing clients in a 1991 Honda Civic
- A crash course on the men’s and women’s fashion markets
- Why Sean thinks women’s fashion will have 50% return rates this holiday season
- Investing in a watch manufacturer and building a factory in Arizona to vertically integrate
- Why every company needs a core competency
- The simple tech stack Ridge uses to run their business
- Why Crocs is a great business
- Sponsoring 5,000+ influencers
- Why Amazon shut down its private label program and every brand should sell on it
- Why influencer marketing performs so well, and how to start and scale an influencer marketing program
- Why more companies should incorporate creators in their content
- How FTX and other crypto companies inflated influencer marketing prices
- Paying $1,000,000 to hire a creator in-house
- How the Ridge Wallet has saved customers from a bullet and a chainsaw
Where to find Sean:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SeanEcom
Substack: http://seanecom.substack.com/
Podcast: https://9operators.com/
Where to find Turner:
Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
Referenced:
https://www.amazon.com/Great-CEO-Within-Tactical-Building-ebook/dp/B07ZLGQZYC
https://www.theloganbartlettshow.com/
https://www.maryruthorganics.com/
Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io
For sponsorship inquiries: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform
Modern Treasury: How to Move Quadrillions of Dollars, with Co-founder and CEO Dimitri Dadiomov
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Read the transcript: www.thespl.it/p/how-to-move-quadrillions-of-dollars
In this episode, we discuss:
How the global banking system moves over $1 quadrillion per year
Why B2B products should be easy to use with broad use cases
What makes a good API business
Why the YC application is a great forcing function for founders
How it took them six months to get their first customer, but never pivoted
Why the first customers of a B2B business should get more credit
How PLG helped build a better product
Finding holes in the market for an initial go-to-market strategy
The depth of Modern Treasury’s product
Why they should have built a sales team sooner
How deep customer relationships across many industries helped them raise a Series A
Why it’s important to go slow to go fast
How Dimitri set an intentional culture around studying other businesses
When distribution can be more important than product
What happened inside Modern Treasury during the collapse of SVB and Signature Bank
Why Dimitri sends Saturday update emails to entire company
The founders Dimitri really admires
Where to find Dimitri:
Twitter: twitter.com/dadiomov
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/dadiomov/
Where to find Turner:
Newsletter: www.thespl.it
Twitter: twitter.com/TurnerNovak
Read the transcript: www.thespl.it/p/how-to-move-quadrillions-of-dollars
Production and distribution by: www.supermix.io
For sponsorship inquiries: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform
The Business of Newsletters with Kendall Baker, “The Sports Newsletter Guy”
Kendall Baker currently leads Yahoo’s sports newsletter business. In 2017 he launched the first daily sports newsletter called Sports Internet, which he sold to Axios in 2019. Before Sports Internet, he convinced the founders of The Hustle to focus their online tech blog on a daily newsletter, which he wrote for a year and a half. And before The Hustle, he produced SportsCenter at ESPN. He’s spent nearly a decade at the intersection of daily news and sports, and this episode is packed with insights on both.
Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts: https://bit.ly/3OwGdGC
Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/the-business-of-newsletters
In this episode, we discuss:
- The history of the newsletter industry
- Why the best writers delete more than they write
- How he got on ESPN SportsCenter
- A crash course on the sports media business
- How to write a daily newsletter
- The importance of experimenting
- How he got his first dollar of revenue
- Why Kendall spent $0 on growth
- Selling his “Sports Internet” newsletter to Axios
- Why Adam Silver, commissioner of the NBA, reads Kendall’s writing
- Why Yahoo’s the next rocketship
- The surging momentum in US soccer
- And the most underrated athletes (current and all-time)
Listen on other platforms:
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-business-of-newsletters-kendall-baker/id1694440669?i=1000624033211
YouTube: https://youtu.be/4es4p7sFMf0
Where to find Kendall:
Twitter https://twitter.com/kendallbaker
Where to find Turner:
Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/the-business-of-newsletters
Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io
For sponsorship inquiries: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform
🏀 How Overtime Grew to 85 Million Fans | Dan Porter (Co-founder and CEO, Overtime)
Dan Porter is the Co-founder and CEO of Overtime, a sports network for the next generation of fans. OT reaches 85 million fans per month and runs a basketball league (Overtime Elite, OTE), a flag football league (OT7), and is launching a boxing league (OTX) the week this episode airs.
Dan started Overtime with his co-founder Zack Weiner in 2016, and has since raised over $215 million. OT is supported by investors like the late ex-NBA Commissioner David Stern, Jeff Bezos, Drake, Carmelo Anthony, Trae Young, over 25 other NBA players, Spark Capital, Redpoint, a16z, Greycroft, Afore Capital, and Banana Capital. [Turner Novak and Banana Capital are investors in Overtime].
Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts: http://bit.ly/3Qk4RNd
In this episode, we discuss:
Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/how-overtime-grew-to-85-million-fans
Where to find Dan: Twitter: https://twitter.com/tfadp LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danporter/
Where to find Turner: Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/TurnerNovak
Where to find The Peel: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThePeelPod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ThePeelPod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ThePeelPodcast
Read the full transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/how-overtime-grew-to-85-million-fans
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🍫 How to Build a $70 Million Chocolate Factory | Nick Saltarelli (Co-founder, Mid-Day Squares)
🍕 The $1.3 Billion Pizza Business: How Ilir Sela (Founder & CEO, Slice) is Arming the Pizza Rebels
🏥 Making Healthcare a Product, Not a Service | Adrian Aoun (Founder and CEO, Forward)
Lessons From Building Mercury with Immad Akhund (Co-founder and CEO, Mercury)
Immad Akhund is the Co-founder and CEO of Mercury, a digitally native bank for startups. Mercury is supported by investors like a16z, Coatue, CRV, Chapter One, Ryan Peterson, Scott Belsky, Serena Williams, Terrence Rohan, Zach Coelius, Todd Goldberg, and more. Before Mercury, Immad was a part-time partner at YC, co-founded Heyzap which sold for $45 million, and co-founded and scaled Clickpass to millions of users.
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Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/the-future-of-banking-remote-work
In this episode, we discuss:
- The future of banking
- Why Mercury’s beautiful onboarding was an accident
- Cultural mistakes most startups make
- Two lessons from selling his first company for $45 million
- How to get free legal advice
- Why it’s better to build a network of entrepreneurs than investors
- How to fundraise
- Why its contrarian to start a non-AI company right now
- How Mercury is thinking about AI
- Why each operational team has its own engineering team
- The embarrassing pitch meeting that raised his Series A from a16z
- How crypto used up all its goodwill
- The hiring advice he gives every founder
Where to find Immad:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/immad
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iakhund
Podcast: https://curiositypodcast.substack.com/
Where to find Turner:
Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
Mentioned in this episode:
Mercury https://www.mercury.com
The Logan Bartlett Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcL_cjZDeFU
Timestamps:
(0:00) Intro
(5:58) Mercury's "accidentally great" onboarding experience
(8:13) The fundamental banking business model
(9:34) The basics of banking regulation
(11:07) How Mercury works with banks
(13:27) The future of banking
(19:34) Immad's previous startups
(22:30) What culture actually means
(27:06) Importance of ideas vs execution
(32:03) Learning banking from scratch
(35:54) Why the first banking partnership failed
(37:56) Why the second banking partnership worked
(39:24) The difference between compliance and risk teams
(42:08) Why compliance is so relevant for better banking
(50:13) The biggest mistake for doing remote work
(51:21) Mercury Raise
(53:33) The game theory of fundraising
(54:54) Playbook for generating fundraising momentum
(60:45) Common fundraising mistakes
(63:12) Hilarious fundraising mishap in front of a16z
(68:16) Companies that aren't like this shouldn't touch AI
(70:57) Who will win big from AI?
(72:10) Immad's take on crypto
(86:14) Outro
Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/the-future-of-banking-remote-work Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io For sponsorship inquiries: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform
How Primer Turns Teachers Into Superheroes | Ryan Delk (Co-founder and CEO, Primer)
Ryan Delk is the Co-Founder and CEO of Primer, a startup helping ambitious kids unlock their potential by empowering teachers to launch and run their own micro-schools. Primer’s supported by investors like Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Village Global, Susa Ventures, Sam Altman, Naval, Ryan Peterson, Amjad Masad, Julie Zhuo, Tobias Lutke, Lachy Groom, Howie Liu, Dylan Field, Packy McCormick, and many more. Before Primer, Ryan was the COO at peer-to-peer rental marketplace Omni (sold to Coinbase), and prior to that led Growth and Partnerships at Gumroad from $10,000 to $50 million in GMV. Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts: https://secureframe.com/request-demo-4?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=062023-thesplit
Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/turning-techers-into-superheroes In this episode, we discuss: - How the $1 trillion US K-12 education system works - The broken incentive structures in education - Why teachers are superheroes - How to double a teacher’s income - Primer’s origin story - How to open a school - If online school works - Why founders make the best employees - How the US government wastes billions of dollars - Why everyone should care more about local politics Where to find Ryan: Twitter https://twitter.com/delk LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/delk/
Where to find Turner: Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak Timestamps: (3:42) The state of K-12 education in the US (6:35) The structural problem causing a radical misallocation of resources (8:00) The importance of teachers (9:34) The “totally flipped” incentive structure for teachers (12:22) The problem of bureaucracy in education (13:38) Primer’s thesis (14:52) How to start a school (16:00) How Primer helps teachers start their own schools (18:20) Using underutilized real estate to host micro-schools (20:05) Ryan’s take on digital vs in-person learning (21:59) How Primer supports teachers (23:21) Inspirational stories from Primer users (28:00) The underestimated entrepreneurship of teachers (29:12) How Primer stays affordable for all users (30:26) How Primer gets teachers on board (32:04) The role of after-school activities (33:07) How Primer sets its Curriculum (35:14) Ryan’s unique education and how it inspired Primer (38:39) Why someone hadn’t solved this problem yet (40:24) Primer’s initial strategy (41:30) The breakfast that changed everything (42:09) The concept of “Barrels” from Keith Rabois (42:36) Finding and recruiting Ian Bravo (43:31) How Primer recruits ex-founders (44:52) The 3 things Primer screens for in teachers (46:27) What Primer messed up when launching (48:19) Re-thinking school admissions from first principles (51:03) How they convinced the very first teachers to try Primer (51:59) The ineffective usage of education spending (53:28) Policymakers prioritizing “signal over outcomes” (57:21) The worst public schools are worse than you think (59:08) How the Government wastes billions of dollars and Ryan’s idea for solving this (61:31) The importance of increasing engagement with local politics (63:37) The vision for Primer
Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/turning-techers-into-superheroes
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Selling $100 Million in Dog Collars | Ken Ehrman (Co-founder, Halo Collar)
Ken Ehrman is the co-founder and Managing Partner of Halo Collar, a smart dog collar that tracks your dog with GPS. Halo Collar uses patented technology that allows customers to instantly create up to 20 unique virtual dog fences from their phone using GPS.
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Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/the-iphone-for-your-dog-ken-ehrman
In this episode, we discuss: - Working for Mike Markkula, the first investor in Apple - Building hardware and the importance of patents - Listening to customers, solving their problems, and sizing a market - Qualifying enterprise customers and selling with "calm confidence." - Early investors trying to buy 95% of his first company - Getting the US Post Office and Army to fund $15 million in R&D - Taking a company public in 1999 with $3 million in revenue - Using AI to train dog movements and make "the Apple Watch" for dogs - The crazy story of how he met his celebrity co-founder, Cesar Millan the Dog Whisperer - What happened when they met famous TikToker Charli D'Amelio Where to find Ken: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-ehrman
Where to find Turner: Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
Referenced: Buy the Halo Collar: https://www.halocollar.com/ Cesar Millan, 'the Dog Whisperer': https://www.cesarsway.com/ More on RFID tags: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ukfpq71BoMo&ab_channel=ALLABOUTELECTRONICS Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/the-iphone-for-your-dog-ken-ehrman
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