In Depth

Latest Episodes:

Winning with open and closed source products | Neha Narkhede (Co-founder at Confluent and Oscilar) Dec 07, 2023

Show notes

Neha Narkhede is a co-founder at Confluent, a data streaming software that raised at a $9.1b valuation in 2021. Neha later co-founded Oscilar, a no-code platform that helps companies detect and manage fraud. Before building these two companies, Neha was a Principal Software Engineer at LinkedIn where she co-created Apache Kafka. Neha is ranked #50 on Forbes’ list of “America’s Richest Self-Made Women 2023” with an estimated net worth of $520m.

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In today’s episode we discuss:

The origins of Confluent, Kafka, and Oscilar
How to become a successful second-time founder
Advice for monetizing open source product
Neha’s unique GTM strategies
How Confluent ran two businesses within one company
Neha’s path to founder market fit

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Referenced:

Apache Kafka: https://kafka.apache.org/
Confluent: https://www.confluent.io/
Confluent Cloud: https://www.confluent.io/confluent-cloud/
Jay Kreps, co-founder at Confluent: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaykreps/
Jun Rao, co-founder at Confluent: https://www.linkedin.com/in/junrao/
MongoDB: https://www.mongodb.com/
Oscilar: https://oscilar.com/

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Where to find Neha:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nehanarkhede/
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/nehanarkhede
Website: https://www.nehanarkhede.com/

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Where to find Brett:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson

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Where to find First Round Capital:

Website: https://firstround.com/
First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/firstround
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast

—

Timestamps:

(00:00) Introduction

(02:14)The origin story of Kafka

(05:24) Co-creating Kafka at LinkedIn

(07:31) Why open sourcing Kafka was a masterstroke

(11:04) The unique nature of Confluent's Zero to One phase

(16:35) Building for a specific customer early on

(18:42) Inside Confluent’s successful launch

(20:12) Establishing Confluent as an enterprise company

(22:00) The role of developer evangelism in Confluent’s success

(23:49) Using developer evangelism in category creation

(26:41) Navigating early co-founder dynamics

(30:06) Leveraging complementary founder skills

(31:56) Advice for future founders

(32:45) Building Confluent with monetization in mind

(34:38) Monetizing open source products

(36:05) GTM for subscription Saas versus consumption SaaS

(39:48) The importance of founder-led GTM sales

(40:58) Neha’s order of operations for GTM sales

(42:33) When to build out outbound sales

(45:28) Adding SaaS to a software business

(49:48) Choosing what to license and what to open source

(53:32) How Confluent’s co-founders decided on SaaS offering

(57:58) Neha’s journey as a second-time founder

(59:48) Building Oscilar differently to Confluent

(64:15) Going from speculation to product realization

(70:00) Solving problems people are willing to pay for

(72:07) Neha’s “proactive research sprint” tactic

(73:48) How Neha has applied this tactic

The Bard blueprint | Creating value, shipping fast, and advancing AI ethically | Jack Krawczyk (Google) Nov 30, 2023

Show notes

Jack Krawczyk is a Senior Director of Product at Google, building Bard. Bard is Google’s collaborative, conversational, and experimental AI tool that’s bridging the gap between humans and bots, while addressing ethical considerations around AI. After joining the project in 2020, Jack helped ship Bard in less than four years. Bard sources information directly from the web, and now enables users to inquire about and summarize YouTube videos.

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In today’s episode, we discuss:

Key lessons from Bard’s development process
Ethics in AI
How Bard shipped fast
What separates Bard from competitors
The future of LLM, Generative AI, and AGI
Advice for aspiring AI developers

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Referenced:

Bard: https://bard.google.com/
ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/
Duet AI: https://cloud.google.com/duet-ai
Free courses on machine learning by Andrew Ng: https://www.andrewng.org/courses/
Google Assistant: https://assistant.google.com/
Introducing Google Assistant to Bard: https://blog.google/products/assistant/google-assistant-bard-generative-ai/
Large Language Model (LLM): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_language_model
Meena: https://blog.research.google/2020/01/towards-conversational-agent-that-can.html
Sissie Hsiao (GM at Bard): https://www.linkedin.com/in/sissie-hsiao-b24243/
Steve Stoute: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevestoute/
UnitedMasters: https://unitedmasters.com/

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Where to find Jack Krawczyk:

Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/JackK
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack--k

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Where to find Brett Berson:

Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/

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Where to find First Round Capital:

Website: https://firstround.com/
First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/firstround
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast

—

Timestamps:

(00:00) Introduction

(02:17) Bard’s origin story

(03:54) Deciding on the application of Bard

(05:59) The ethical considerations around building Bard

(10:19) Why Bard launched to the public so early

(13:30) Risk-taking at big companies versus smaller ones

(16:20) Bard’s early user research

(21:21) Bard versus ChatGPT

(25:01) The cultural and product principles behind Bard

(30:56) Insight into Bard’s impressive development speed

(35:17) Deciding when to ship Bard

(41:41) Why Bard is different from other products Jack has built

(46:30) Evaluating Bard’s original spec

(48:02) Insight into Bard's product roadmap

(56:00) The toughest challenges Bard has faced

(57:50) What’s special about team-building at Bard

(62:54) Addressing Bard’s negative press

(67:49) Advice for aspiring LLM companies

(69:15) Advice for non-LLM companies

(71:05) The biggest barriers to advancing AI

(75:45) How product people can use or build with AI

(77:24) How AI is changing product leadership

(79:20) People who had an outsized impact on Jack

A masterclass in engineering leadership from Carta, Stripe, Uber, and Calm | Will Larson (CTO at Carta) Nov 16, 2023

Show notes

Will Larson is the CTO at Carta, an ownership and equity management platform that raised at a $7.4b valuation in 2021. Prior to joining Carta, Will was CTO at Calm, founded Stripe's Foundation Engineering org, and led Uber’s Platform Engineering people and strategy. Will also writes extensively about engineering leadership, and has authored two books in this area: Staff Engineer, and An Elegant Puzzle.

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In today’s episode we discuss:

How to form an engineering strategy
Common engineering management mistakes, and how to avoid them
Advice for explaining, measuring, and optimizing engineering velocity
Will’s nuanced approach to organizational policies
Why it’s sometimes counterproductive to tell someone not to micromanage

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Referenced:

Accelerate (book): https://www.amazon.com/Accelerate-Software-Performing-Technology-Organizations/dp/1942788339
Calm: https://www.calm.com/
Carta: https://www.carta.com/
DORA: https://dora.dev/
Good Strategy, Bad Strategy (book): https://www.amazon.com/Good-Strategy-Bad-Difference-Matters/dp/0307886239
JavaScript: https://www.javascript.com/
KAFKA: https://kafka.apache.org/
Minto Pyramid (framework): https://untools.co/minto-pyramid
Ruby on Rails: https://rubyonrails.org/
SPACE (framework): https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm
Stripe: https://www.stripe.com/

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Where to find Brett Berson:

Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/

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Where to find Will Larson:

Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/lethain
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/will-larson-a44b543/
Personal website/blog: https://lethain.com/
An Elegant Puzzle (book): https://www.amazon.com/Elegant-Puzzle-Systems-Engineering-Management/dp/1732265186
Staff Engineer (book): https://staffeng.com/book

—

Where to find First Round Capital:

Website: https://firstround.com/
First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/firstround
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast

—

Timestamps:

(00:00) Introduction

(03:03) The nuances of taking lessons from old companies

(14:28) The value of writing down engineering principles

(17:03) How to structure a strategy document

(18:48) The 2 parts of any engineering strategy

(21:08) Advice for turning strategy into action

(23:44) Carta's unique "navigator" model

(24:50) The Hidden Variable Problem

(29:59) Explaining, measuring, and optimizing velocity

(35:28) Useful metrics for engineering orgs

(39:08) The balance between micromanagement and understanding details

(43:03) Management anti-patterns

(45:49) How to execute policies whilst managing their exceptions

(47:56) What an excellent engineering executive looks like

(53:53) How Will has evolved as an engineering executive

(56:56) How to communicate with executives

(63:18) Things that derail meetings

(66:10) How to approach presentation feedback

(67:30) A bad sign when working with direct reports

(69:13) Advice for growing as an early-career engineer

(71:11) Will's model for developing engineering teams

(74:33) Sources of inspiration for Will's views on engineering management

How goal-setting and planning is different for AI products | Anastasis Germanidis (Co-Founder & CTO at Runway) Nov 09, 2023

Show notes

Anastasis Germanidis is the Co-Founder & CTO at Runway, an applied AI research company shaping the next era of art, entertainment, and human creativity. Runway has raised $237m and was one of Time Magazine’s “100 most influential companies” in 2023. Runway has been a persistent viral sensation in recent years, and is behind many of the most famous AI demos online.

—

In today’s episode we discuss:

The origins of Runway
The limitations of being “customer-driven” when building in AI
How Runway balances research development with product development
How goal-setting and planning is different for AI products
Advice for early-stage AI founders

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Referenced:

Containerization: https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/containerization/
Docker: https://www.docker.com/
Green screen tool by Runway: https://runwayml.com/green-screen/
Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co/
Hugging Face Spaces: https://huggingface.co/spaces
Hugging Face Model Hub: https://huggingface.co/docs/hub/models-the-hub
Replicate: https://replicate.com/
Runway Gen-1: https://research.runwayml.com/gen1
Runway Gen-2: https://research.runwayml.com/gen2
Runway’s 30 AI Magic Tools: https://runwayml.com/ai-magic-tools/

—

Where to find Anastasis Germanidis:

Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/agermanidis
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/agermanidis
Personal website: https://agermanidis.com/
Personal blog: https://blog.agermanidis.com/

—

Where to find Todd Jackson:

Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/tjack
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddj0

—

Where to find First Round Capital:

Website: https://firstround.com/
First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/firstround
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast

—

Timestamps:

(00:00) Introduction

(03:23) The unique story of how Runway's co-founders met

(08:27) The origins of Runway

(09:28) Forming the initial product

(13:55) Turning Runway into a company

(14:41)Approach to initial market segments

(18:53) Early-adopters

(21:20) The limitations of being “customer-driven”

(25:54) Forming a vocal community

(27:08) Fostering community

(29:05) The progression of Runway's tech and use-cases

(33:08) How they picked users for early release

(34:00) Expanding past the first 100 users of Gen-2

(35:33) Runway’s approach to safety and content moderation

(36:44) Balancing product development and research development

(43:51) Runway's org structure

(45:08) Goal-setting amidst constant change in AI

(46:50) Why Runway doesn't plan very far ahead

(50:26) Advice to early-stage AI founders

(53:11) Will AI replace video editors?

(55:04) When Runway had the most momentum

(56:49) Anastasis' #1 piece of advice

How Vercel found extreme product-market fit by focusing on simplification | Guillermo Rauch (Vercel's CEO) Nov 02, 2023

Show notes

Guillermo Rauch is the CEO of Vercel, a frontend-as-a-service product that was valued at $2.5b in 2021. Vercel serves customers like Uber, Notion and Zapier, and their React framework - Next.js - is used by over 500,000 developers and designers worldwide. Guillermo started his first company at age 11 in Buenos Aires and moved to San Francisco at age 18. In 2013, he sold his company Cloudup to Automattic (the company behind WordPress), and in 2015 he founded Vercel.

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In today’s episode we discuss:

Guillermo’s fascinating path into tech
Learnings from building Cloudup and selling the company to Automattic (the company behind WordPress)
Vercel’s origin story and path to product market fit
How to make an open source business successful
Vercel’s unique philosophy on developer experience
Insights and predictions on the future of AI

—

Referenced:

Algolia: https://www.algolia.com/
Apache Zookeeper: https://zookeeper.apache.org/
Apache Kafka: https://kafka.apache.org/
AWS: https://www.aws.training/
C++: https://www.techtarget.com/searchdatamanagement/definition/C
Clerk: https://clerk-tech.com/
Cloudup: https://cloudup.com/
Commerce Cloud: https://www.salesforce.com/products/commerce/
Contentful: https://www.contentful.com/
Debian: https://www.debian.org/
Fintool: https://www.fintool.com/
Figma: https://www.figma.com/
GitLab: https://about.gitlab.com/
IRC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat
KDE: https://kde.org/
Linux: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux
Mozilla: https://www.mozilla.org
MooTools (UI library): https://mootools.net/
Next.js: https://nextjs.org/
React Native: https://reactnative.dev/
Red Hat: https://www.redhat.com/
Redpanda: https://redpanda.com/
Resend: https://resend.com/
Rust: https://www.rust-lang.org/
Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com
Servo: https://servo.org/
Shopify: https://www.shopify.com/
Socket.io: https://socket.io/
Symphony: https://symphony.com/
Trilio: https://trilio.io/
Twilio: https://www.twilio.com
Vercel: https://vercel.com/
V0.dev: https://v0.dev/

—

Where to find Guillermo:

Twitter/x: https://twitter.com/rauchg
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rauchg/
Personal website: https://rauchg.com/

—

Where to find Todd Jackson:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/tjack
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddj0

—

Where to find First Round Capital:

Website: https://firstround.com/
First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/firstround
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast

—

Timestamps:

(02:35) Becoming an “internet celebrity” at age 11

(08:30) Guillermo's first company: Cloudup

(11:09) Biggest learnings from Cloudup and WordPress

(15:06) The insights behind starting Vercel

(17:11) Sources of validation for Vercel

(20:29) How Vercel formed its V1 product

(23:25) Navigating the early reactions from competitors and users

(25:58) The paradox of developers and how it impacted Next.js

(31:20) Advice on finding product market fit

(34:48) The forces behind a trend towards "Front-end Cloud”

(38:35) Why people now pay so much attention to the front-end

(40:06) How to make an open source business successful

(44:54) Insights on product positioning and category creation

(48:52) Vercel's journey through becoming multi-product

(51:44) Guillermo's take on the future of AI

(53:43) Heuristics for building better product experiences

(55:49) AI insights from Vercel’s customers

(57:37) How AI might change engineering in the next 10-20 years

(62:43) Guillermo's favorite advice

(65:45) Guillermo's advice to himself of 10 years ago

The business of growing and monetizing an open source product | Ashley Kramer (GitLab CMO/CSO) Oct 26, 2023

Show notes

Ashley Kramer is the CMO and CSO at GitLab, a publicly listed DevSecOps platform. Ashley took a unique path into her CMO role. She started out in software engineering before becoming a product leader, and eventually, a marketer. Most recently, Ashley was the CPO and CMO at Sisense, a data analytics company last valued at over $1b.

—

In today’s episode we discuss:

How GitLab layered a commercial model on top of open source roots
GitLab’s main marketing metrics
Examples, benefits, and downsides of a transparent company culture
How GitLab serves enterprise customers, and a passionate developer community
Unique marketing lessons from working in an open core company
An example of a recent marketing campaign

—

Where to find Brett Berson:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/brettberson
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/

—

Where to find Ashley Kramer:

Twitter/x: https://twitter.com/ashleyekramer
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyekramer/

—

Where to find First Round Capital:

Website: https://firstround.com/
First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/firstround
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast

—

Referenced:

CISO: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/security/what-is-ciso.html
DevSecOps: https://about.gitlab.com/topics/devsecops/
E-Group: https://about.gitlab.com/company/team/e-group/
GitLab: https://gitlab.com
GitLab legal team’s SAFE framework: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/legal/safe-framework/
GitLab’s open core business model: https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/stewardship/
GitLab’s open source employee handbook: https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/
GitLab’s open source marketing handbook: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/
GitLab’s open source remote handbook: https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/culture/all-remote/guide/
Sid Sijbrandij, CEO of GitLab: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sijbrandij/
Tableau: https://www.tableau.com/

—

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro

(02:34) Marketing in closed vs open source companies

(07:40) The role of marketing at GitLab

(09:23) The tensions of being a commercial, open source company

(12:36) Advice for nurturing community and dealing with disagreements

(15:02) GitLab's main marketing metrics

(20:26) The thinking behind GitLab’s org structure, in and around marketing

(28:19) Selling to enterprise as an open core company

(29:53) The difference between open core and open source

(30:39) Serving many different customer segments

(35:10) GitLab's planning process

(39:22) An example of GitLab’s marketing in practice

(42:12) How marketing collaborates with product

(45:55) Marketing lessons from working in an open core company

(49:46) Examples of GitLab's focus on transparency

(52:22) Why GitLab is transparent about their marketing

(54:59) 2 examples of GitLab's uniquely transparent culture

(58:35) The downsides of being a transparent company

(60:13) GitLab's meeting structure and cadence

(62:04) Benefits of having an engineering and product background as CMO

(71:09) People who made an outsized impact on Ashley's career

How to leverage intuition, customer support, and raw effort | Colin Zima (Omni & Looker) Oct 12, 2023

Show notes

Colin Zima is the co-founder and CEO of Omni, a business intelligence tool that has raised over $26.9m. Prior to starting Omni, Colin was Chief Analytics Officer and VP of Product at Looker, which was acquired by Google for $2.6b. Colin was an early employee at Looker, and stood up its high-touch customer support arm, which turned into a cornerstone competitive advantage for the company.

—

In today’s episode we discuss:

Lessons from Looker
When, why and how to invest in white-glove customer support
Tactics for scaling high-touch customer support
Colin’s intuition-based approach to product
How Looker hit their goals for 24 quarters in a row
The founding story of Omni
Colin’s hot takes on picking startups, hiring PMs, and more

—

Referenced:

BigQuery: https://cloud.google.com/bigquery
Hotel Tonight: https://www.hoteltonight.com/
Omni: https://omni.co/
Tableau: https://www.tableau.com/

—

Where to find Brett Berson:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/brettberson
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/

—

Where to find Colin Zima:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/drinkzima?lang=en
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinzima/

—

Where to find First Round Capital:

Website: https://firstround.com/
First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/firstround
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast

—

Timestamps:

(00:00) Introduction

(02:30) Colin's unique entry into Looker

(04:35) How Colin talks to users

(08:20) How Colin's scope at Looker expanded

(10:53) Why and how to provide white-glove customer support

(20:25) Which companies should invest heavily in customer support?

(22:49) Hiring for and hiring from customer support

(27:40) The #1 thing for making customer support effective at scale

(29:32) The culture of customer support at Omni

(32:57) Insights on product strategy

(41:33) The role of intuition vs data in product decisions

(44:25) The merits and downsides of an intuition-driven approach to product

(48:36) Insights from hitting every goal for 24 quarters straight

(55:07) The founding story of Omni

(58:10) How Colin maintains intellectual honesty as a founder

(60:02) How Colin thinks about what to copy vs not copy from Looker

(63:25) How to pick which startup to join

(66:07) The most underrated trait in early stage startup employees

(68:11) Colin's take on founder-market-fit

(69:42] Unpopular opinion on how to hire good PMs

(72:28) The people who made an outsized impact on Colin's career

Building Zapier from first principles | Contrarian takes on growth, hiring, fundraising | Wade Foster (Co-founder & CEO) Oct 05, 2023

Show notes

Wade Foster is the Co-founder & CEO at Zapier, a platform for building workflow automations without a developer. Zapier was started during 2011 in Columbia, Missouri, and by 2021, it was valued at $5b, having only raised $1.3m. Prior to founding Zapier, Wade had just two professional jobs, and had never managed or hired anyone. He worked as a PM on a web app used by 20k students, and as an Email Marketing Manager at Veterans United - a role that had a significant influence on Zapier’s eventual success.

In today’s episode, we discuss:

The stories and thinking behind Zapier’s most unorthodox decisions
How Wade thinks about product market fit
How Zapier built their powerful distribution engine
The fascinating story of Veterans United, and its impact on Zapier
How Wade thinks about fundraising
Why Wade lives by “don’t hire ‘til it hurts”
Key lessons on people management

Referenced:

Basecamp: https://basecamp.com/
Bingo Card Creator: https://www.bingocardcreator.com
Bryan Helmig, Co-founder of Zapier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryanhelmig
John Wooden quote: https://www.thewoodeneffect.com/be-quick-but-dont-hurry/
Mailchimp: https://mailchimp.com/
Mike Knoop, Co-founder of Zapier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeknoop
Patrick Mckenzie, creator of Bingo Card Creator: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickmckenzie/
PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/
Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/
SMBs: https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/SMB-small-and-medium-sized-business-or-small-and-midsized-business
Stripe: https://stripe.com/
Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke: https://www.amazon.com.au/Thinking-Bets-Annie-Duke/dp/0735216355
Tony Xu, CEO of DoorDash: https://www.linkedin.com/in/xutony/
Twilio: https://www.twilio.com/
Veterans United Home Loans: https://www.veteransunited.com/
Zapier: https://zapier.com/

Where to find Brett Berson

Twitter: https://twitter.com/brettberson
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/

Where to find Wade Foster

Twitter: https://twitter.com/wadefoster
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wadefoster

Where to find First Round Capital:

Website: https://firstround.com/
First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/firstround
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast

Timestamps

(05:46) The fascinating story of Veterans United

(06:55) Lessons from Veterans United

(08:35) The most important things Zapier got right

(10:13) How Zapier built their powerful distribution engine

(16:56) Why Zapier didn't move to focusing on enterprise

(19:06) How Wade thinks about product market fit

(24:26) The role of skill vs luck in Zapier's success

(26:23) What was hard about building Zapier

(30:03) Key lessons on people management

(32:35) Rule of thumb: "don't hire ‘til it hurts”

(36:42) Zapier's #1 hiring mistake

(42:50) How to test for scrappiness in the hiring process

(44:31) Do hiring playbooks transfer between companies?

(50:01) The 12 year evolution of Zapier's product

(53:20) How Zapier makes product decisions

(55:40) How Zapier thought about competition

(60:11) How to foster intellectual honesty in yourself and your org

(65:35) The people who most impacted Wade's worldviews

How young outsiders changed the shipping industry by finding product-market fit again and again | Laura Behrens Wu (Shippo) Sep 28, 2023

Show notes

Laura Behrens Wu is the Founder & CEO at Shippo, a company that has raised $100m+ and was last valued at $1b in 2021. Shippo provides an API and dashboard that makes shipping easy for e-commerce businesses, marketplaces, and platforms. Prior to starting Shippo, Laura graduated from Harvard University, and was heavily influenced by a short internship at LendUp, which exposed her to Silicon Valley and startup culture.

In today’s episode we discuss:

Shippo’s pivot-stricken origin story
Finding product-market-fit, again and again and again
Laura’s unique take on founder-market-fit
Advice on talking to users
The 3 Horizons Framework for prioritizing resources across a core business and longer-term bets
The email Laura sends every Sunday because of Frank Slootman’s advice

Referenced:

Amp It Up by Frank Slootman: https://www.amazon.com/Amp-Unlocking-Hypergrowth-Expectations-Intensity/dp/1119836115
Expedia: https://www.expedia.com/
FedEx: https://www.fedex.com/
Frank Slootman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankslootman/
Jerry Colonna: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerry-colonna-reboot/
Josh Koppelman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jkoppelman/
Khalid Halim: https://review.firstround.com/the-science-of-speaking-is-the-art-of-being-heard
LendUp: https://www.lendup.com/
Shippo: https://goshippo.com/
Shopify: https://www.shopify.com/
SMBs: https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/small-business/articles/smb-business/
Stripe: https://stripe.com/
UPS: https://www.ups.com/us/en/global.page
70/20/10 rule from Google: https://www.itonics-innovation.com/blog/702010-rule-of-innovation

Where to find Todd Jackson:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/tjack
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddj0

Where to find Laura Behrens Wu:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LauraBehrensWu
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurabehrenswu
Personal website: https://laurabehrenswu.com/

Where to find First Round Capital:

Website: https://firstround.com/
First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/firstround
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast

Timestamps

(02:36) The Shippo origin story

(06:57) Why they pivoted into Shippo

(11:01) How they got their first customers

(13:27) The role of timing in Shippo's early success

(14:40) The value of being an outsider

(17:49) When founder-market-fit is and isn't necessary

(19:07) The path to product-market-fit

(22:06) What kept the Shippo team persisting

(24:41) Advice on talking to users

(29:28) Shippo's fundraising journey

(34:26) Finding product-market-fit again and again

(37:54) The 3 Horizons Framework

(45:04) Shippo's culture and early team

(49:17) Hiring people you can learn from

(50:40) Laura's most impactful hires

(52:12) Frank Slootman's "Sunday Email”

(55:43) Laura's #1 piece of advice for founders

(57:34) The most memorable influences on Laura's career

AI Hot Takes and Unusual Twitter Fundraising Strategies with Dan Siroker (Rewind AI) Sep 14, 2023

Show notes

Dan Siroker is the co-founder and CEO at Rewind AI, a personalized AI powered by everything you’ve seen, said, or heard. Dan launched Rewind to an emphatic response on Twitter, and used a public pitch video to fundraise at a $350m valuation. Prior to starting Rewind, Dan co-founded Optimizely, which reached $120m ARR before being acquired by Episerver, a content management company. Dan was also the Director of Analytics for Obama’s first presidential campaign.

In today’s episode, we discuss:

Rewind’s journey to Product Market Fit
Lessons from Optimizely and being a second time founder
Dan’s one-of-a-kind Twitter fundraising strategy
Dan’s hot takes on the future of AI
Where to build in AI, and what makes a “wrapper” thin versus thick

Referenced:

Apple’s Silicon: https://www.macrumors.com/guide/apple-silicon/
ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/
Dan publicly sharing his own 360 performance reviews: https://twitter.com/dsiroker/status/1689763756459675650
Dan’s public Twitter fundraise: https://twitter.com/dsiroker/status/1646895452317700097
Dan’s Rewind demo tweet: https://twitter.com/dsiroker/status/1638799931891920897
Google Glass: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass
Google Wave: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Wave
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html
Optimizely: https://www.optimizely.com/
Paul Graham: https://twitter.com/paulg
Rahul Vohra’s framework for measuring and optimizing Product Market Fit: https://review.firstround.com/how-superhuman-built-an-engine-to-find-product-market-fit
Rewind AI: https://www.rewind.ai/
Scribe (which morphed into Rewind): https://www.scribe.ai/about
The Mom Test book: https://www.momtestbook.com/

Where to find Dan Siroker:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/dsiroker
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dsiroker
Personal website: https://siroker.com/
Blog: https://medium.com/@dsiroker

Where to find Todd Jackson:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/tjack
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddj0

Where to find First Round Capital:

Website: https://firstround.com/
First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/firstround
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast

Timestamps

(02:25) Rewind's origin story

(04:04) How Rewind works

(07:24) Managing scope when building Rewind

(13:47) How Dan thought about early user feedback

(17:08) Rewind's cultural mantra for shipping and validating fast

(18:35) Product positioning as a category creator

(20:39) Lessons from being a 2nd time founder

(26:11) Cultural values at Optimizely and Rewind

(28:22) How Dan defines and operationalizes Product Market Fit

(32:06) Audience segmentation

(34:32) Measuring Product Market Fit

(36:23) Dan's take on the current AI hype

(38:11) What makes a "wrapper" thin vs thick?

(39:50) Where founders should and shouldn't build within the AI ecosystem

(43:22) Trends in consumer expectations around data privacy

(46:59) What AI might look like 10 years from now

(51:09) Dan's one-of-a-kind public Twitter fundraise

(59:40) What's next for Rewind?

(61:26) The influence of Paul Graham

(62:47) Dan's #1 piece of advice

(64:23) Dan's #1 book recommendation

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