Stay ConnectedExploring the world’s greatest startup stories.
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.
Copyright: © Turner Novak
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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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/
Kirsten Green is the founder of Forerunner Ventures, a venture capital firm that focuses on understanding the mindset of the modern consumer. Kirsten started Forerunner in 2010, and was an early investor in companies like Faire, Chime, Warby Parker, Dollar Shave Club, Hims, Glossier, Jet, Bonobos, HotelTonight, and The Farmer’s Dog. This episode takes us behind the scenes of Kirsten’s two decade journey building Forerunner from scratch. She talks about her biggest mistakes, wins, and lessons learned along the way. Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (02:50) Doing market research at the mall (08:00) Her journey from public markets to venture (18:30) Lessons from her first investment going to $0 (28:51) How she raised her first $5m angel fund (31:11) Transitioning to a $41.7m institutional fund (43:20) Why she almost didn’t invest in Dollar Shave Club (sold for $1.1 billion) (51:05) How Forerunner thinks about fund size (57:05) How she led Faire’s Series A with a small fund (58:46) How Kirsten builds relationships with LPs (01:02:10) Is consumer investing dead? (01:15:00) Her unfair advantage as an investor Where to find Kirsten Twitter: https://twitter.com/kirstenagreen LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirstengreen Where to find Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/
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:
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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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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Where to find Danielle:
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Where to find Turner:
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Cristina Junqueira is the Co-founder and Chief Growth Officer of Nubank, the largest neobank in Latin America – and in the world – with more than 80 million customers. She is also the second self-made female billionaire in Brazil.
Cristina and her co-founders David Vélez and Edward Wible launched Nubank in 2013, essentially building the fintech category in a market where it was nonexistent, and went on to release a no-fee credit card, app, and other banking products across Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia.
Cristina takes us through the rise of Nubank, from the scrappiest days building in a house in Sao Paulo to being backed by investors like Sequoia, Founders Fund, DST, TCV, Tiger Global, and Warren Buffett, and then on to their IPO in December 2021. We also touch on the impact of Nubank’s distinctive brand choices, how they navigated government regulations that nearly shut them down, and how they were able to spend $0 on marketing throughout most of their history.
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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
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:
Where to find Turner:
Pim de Witte is the Co-founder and CEO of Medal, which enables millions of gamers to capture and share their favorite gaming moments with friends. Pim started the company in 2015 and has since raised over $72 million, supported by investors like OMERS Ventures, Makers Fund, Dune Ventures, and Horizon Ventures.Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts: https://bit.ly/3OwGdGCRead the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/growing-medal-to-tens-of-millionsIn this episode, we discuss: Why we play video games Why 200 million gamers play Roblox Learning to code at 13 to build a private Runescape server that did $1.5 million in revenue Why paid acquisition is so important in mobile gaming Why consumer platforms need a social inflection point How Medal blew up during COVID Why multiplayer platforms die when network effects unravel Why Medal’s Seed round was so hard to raise Pim’s biggest mistake building Medal His three favorite interview questions Medal’s unique hybrid in-person / remote work environment Why it’s a mistake to focus on competitors instead of customers Why rapid iteration is everything How to acquire another startup Why building product is the ultimate game How Elon’s changes at Twitter caused a great reset in techWhere to find Pim:Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PimDeWitteLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pimdw/Where to find Turner:Newsletter: https://www.thespl.itTwitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovakRead the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/growing-medal-to-tens-of-millionsProduction and distribution by: https://www.supermix.ioFor sponsorship inquiries: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform
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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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:
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Referenced:
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Where to find Turner:
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Wade Foster is the Co-founder and CEO of Zapier, an automation platform that helps you work faster. Wade and his co-founders Mike and Bryan started the company in 2011, and have always done things a bit differently. From being a startup based in Missouri, working as a remote team since 2011, and raising very little outside capital despite being one of the fastest growing startups in the world. — Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts. Get compliant with security and privacy frameworks like SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, GDPR, and more. Sign-up here: https://bit.ly/3QOr2eo — Topics discussed include: The founding story of Zapier Wade’s contrarian take on Product Market Fit Why new products are usually built on emerging distribution channels How Wade deals with imposter syndrome Never raising more money after a $1.3 million Seed during YC How Zapier thinks about it’s product roadmap Shutting the company down for a weeklong AI hackathon Why Wade thinks LLMs will unlock new types of product interfaces How he delegates work without losing track of the details — Referenced: https://zapier.com — Where to find Wade: Twitter: https://twitter.com/wadefoster LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wadefoster — Where to find Turner: Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak Banana Capital: https://bananacapital.vc — Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io — Want to sponsor the show? https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform
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