Afleveringen
-
Hussein Kanji is the Founder and Managing Partner of Hoxton Ventures, one of Europe’s leading early-stage firms with mega wins in the form of Darktrace and Deliveroo. Hussein cut his teeth in venture at Accel Partners in his early years.
In Today’s Episode with Hussein Kanji We Discuss:
1. How to Raise a Fund:
What are Hussein’s biggest lessons from his first fund taking 39 months to raise?
Why does Hussein believe you should fundraise for a set amount of time and not to achieve a certain amount of capital?
Does Hussein believe governments should be investing in venture funds?
What are the biggest mistakes Hussein sees emerging managers make when raising?
2. How to 10x a Fund:
What is Hussein’s formula for knowing when to sell an investment?
How did Hussein miss out on making $400M in Darktrace? What did he learn from it?
How much money did Hoxton make from Deliveroo? How did doing 37x on Deliveroo impact how Hussein invests today?
3. How to Build a Team in Venture:
Why does Hussein believe the incentive mechanism for young VCs is broken? Why do they just want to get cash out the door and not worry about quality?
Why is it hard to hire female partners today? What needs to happen for this to change?
What are the single biggest ways that venture partnerships break down? What went wrong between Hussein and his partner, Rob?
4. Is Europe Totally F*******:
Why does Hussein believe small seed rounds are a massive problem in the UK?
Why does Hussein believe the dire state of the London Stock Exchange is not a problem?
Why does Hussein advise companies that the best way to scale is in the US?
What advice would Hussein give to Keir Starmer on how to stimulate growth in the UK?
Why does AI mean that the UK can now compete with the US?
-
The story of Monday.com is insane, turned down by most VCs, then scaled from $6M to $120M ARR in just three years. Today the company is public with a market cap of $12BN. Joining us in the hotseat today is Monday's Co-Founder and CEO, Eran Zinman.
In Today's Episode with Eran Zinman We Discuss:
03:03 The Role of Video Games in Founders' Success
04:12 The Fail That Taught a $10BN Founder Everything
09:40 Pivoting to a $12BN Company: How, When and Advice on Pivots
14:15 Why 99% of Investors Turned Monday Down: Fundraising Lessons
17:05 Building a Performance Marketing Engine
21:25 How to Scale ACV and Move Upmarket
28:54 What Have Been the Most Effective Marketing Strategies
29:08 How Have Monday Been So Successful with Youtube Ads?
29:43 Biggest Challenges and Lessons in Channel Spend
30:50 Building a Multi-Product Strategy: The Rise of Monday CRM
34:37 Competing in the SaaS Market: Is Competition Good?
39:30 The IPO Journey: Why Then? Pros and Cons of Being Public?
42:38 How a Co-CEO Structure Works
43:55 How to Manage a Board
45:04 Quick-Fire Q&A
-
Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
-
Victor Riparbelli is the CEO and Co-founder of Synthesia, the world’s leading AI video communications platform for enterprises. To date, Victor has raised over $250M from Accel, GV, NEA, and more. More than 1,000,000 users and 55,000 businesses, including 60% of the Fortune 100, use it to communicate efficiently and share knowledge at scale using AI avatars.
In Today’s Episode with Victor Riperbelli:
1. The Future of Models:
Are we seeing the commoditisation of models?
Will scaling laws continue to prove out?
How far into the application layer will model providers go?
Will we see a world of few large generalist models or many fragmented smaller models?
X.ai, Anthropic, or OpenAI? Which would Victor most want to invest in and why?
2. The Future of Content:
What will the future of content look like? In 5 years time will we have more AI or human made content?
What will be the future of distribution for content? Why is TikTok the future for content distribution?
How does Victor think about the future of identity verification? What is the right approach?
What does everyone think will happen in the future with content that will never happen?
3. Startup Rules That are BS:
Why does Victor believe it is total BS to say you have to be the first to a market?
Why does Victor believe the speed of execution religion is BS?
Why does Victor believe that London and Europe is a great place to start a startup?
Does Victor believe Americans work harder than Europeans? Why does Victor believe Europeans are more loyal to their companies?
-
Shervin Pishevar is a serial entrepreneur and investor. Shervin is famed for leading Uber’s Series B at Menlo alongside leading Warby Parker’s Series A and investing in Tumblr, all in just 18 months at Menlo. Following Menlo, Shervin co-founded Sherpa Capital and today Shervin is averaging over 73x on his investments. As an angel investor, Shervin made over 100 investments in the likes of Dollar Shave Club, Postmates, Facebook and more.
In Today’s Episode with Shervin Pishevar:
08:09 Meeting Travis Kalanick: The Start of a Game-Changing Partnership
11:08 The Uber Series B: Securing a Billion-Dollar Deal
12:49 The Rise of Uber: Global Expansion and Strategic Moves
19:01 The Lyft Rivalry: Missed Opportunities and Lessons Learned
20:57 Recruiting Emil Michael: Building a Strong Leadership Team
24:29 Uber China: The Challenges and Triumphs
27:19 The $15 Billion Raise: Fueling Uber's Global Dominance
30:57 The Beginning of the End: Betrayal by Benchmark
35:33 Sam Altman's Coup and Lessons from the Past
36:22 The Uber War: Legal Battles and Boardroom Drama
37:36 Fusion GPS and Fabricated Reports
39:43 The Me Too Movement and Its Impact
40:51 The SoftBank Investment and Leadership Changes
41:29 The Downfall of Uber's Visionaries
51:09 The Future of Venture Capital
57:01 Quantum Computing and AI: The Next Frontier
-
Mikey Shulman is the Co-Founder and CEO of Suno, the leading music AI company. Suno lets everyone make and share music. Mikey has raised over $125M for the company from the likes of Lightspeed, Founder Collective and Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross. Prior to founding Suno, Mikey was the first machine learning engineer and head of machine learning at Kensho technologies, which was acquired by S&P Global for over $500 million.
In Today’s Episode with Mikey Shulman:
1. The Future of Models:
Who wins the future of models? Anthropic, OpenAI or X?
Will we live in a world of many smaller models? When does it make sense for specialised vs generalised models?
Does Mikey believe we will continue to see the benefits of scaling laws?
2. The Future of UI and Consumer Apps:
Why does Mikey believe that OpenAI did AI consumer companies a massive disservice?
Why does Mikey believe consumers will not choose their model or pay for a superior model in the future?
Why does Mikey believe that good taste is more important than good skills?
Why does Mikey argue physicists and economists make the best ML engineers?
3. The Future of Music:
What is going on with Suno’s lawsuit against some of the biggest labels in music?
How does Mikey see the future of music discovery?
How does Mikey see the battle between Spotify and YouTube playing out?
How does Mikey see the battle between TikTok and Spotify playing out?
-
Carvana is one of the most wild stories in the public markets. The company IPO’d with a market cap of $2BN before skyrocketing to $60BN, only for the company to lose 99% of it’s value hitting a bottom of $400M market cap. Today the company is stronger than ever and with a market cap of $41BN. Joining us in the hotseat is Dan Gill, Carvana’s CPO, the man who oversees all technology functions, as well as strategic partnerships for the business.
In Today’s Episode with Dan Gill We Discuss:
From $60BN to $400M Market Cap:
What did Carvana do that Dan wishes they had not done?
What did Carvana not do that Dan wishes they had done?
How do you maintain morale in a team when the company has lost 99% of it’s value?
From $400M Back to $40BN Market Cap:
What have been the core needle movers in Carvana’s market cap surging?
How does the Carvana business model benefit from economies of scale?
How does vertical integration of the different products Carvana sells change the margin structure of the business?
The Future of Carvana:
Why does Dan believe there is a massive market for Cavana in selling new cars?
Why does Dan want to move into the peer to peer market, a market where so many before have failed?
Why does Dan think Carvana should sell Chinese cars on the platform if American citizens want to buy them?
What revenue line does Carvana not have today that Dan believes will be the biggest in 10 years time?
Product Advice, North Star Metrics, Idea Selection:
What is the product advice that Dan gives more than any other?
How does Dan advise startup founders on how to know they have the right north star metric? What is his framework?
How does Dan advise founders on how to select the right idea to work on?
What is Dan’s prioritisation framework for if an idea will have a larger enough impact and is therefore worthy of being worked on?
-
Mike Maples is one of the OG seed investors of the last two decades. As a co-founding Partner at Floodgate, Mike has been on the Forbes Midas List eight times in the last decade. Some of Mike’s investments include Twitter, Twitch.tv, Clover Health, Okta, Outreach, Chegg, Demandforce, and Applied Intuition.
In Today’s Episode with Mike Maples We Discuss:
04:02 Does Seed Even Make Sense as an Asset Class?
05:16 Fund Size and Strategy: How to Do a 10x Fund?
08:12 Follow-On Investments: Are they BS?
16:41 Finding Inefficiencies in the Market
26:31 Exit Strategies and Liquidity Events: When to Sell?
35:14 How Floodgate Lost Billions Missing Airbnb and Pinterest
35:43 3 Frameworks for Evaluating Startups
36:23 Case Studies: Zoom and Okta
43:34 How to Truly Analyse Product-Market Fit
45:22 Challenges with Overfunding Startups
50:02 2024 in Review: Company and Fund of the Year
54:25 Predictions for 2025
-
Matt Plank is Rippling's Chief Revenue Officer where he oversees all Sales and Account Management functions in the US and Internationally. Matt joined Rippling in the very early days when Parker Conrad (founder) was building V1 in a basement with $0 in revenue. Today the company is a market leader with 100s of $Ms in ARR. Prior to Rippling, Matt was a Sales Director @ Zenefits where he helped the company scale to $70M in ARR.
In Today’s Show with Matt Plank We Discuss:
08:25 Challenges and Strategies in Outbound Sales
10:29 Building Effective Sales and Marketing Partnerships
13:37 Founders and Sales Playbooks: Who Should Create Them?
20:45 Pricing Strategies and Customer Success
24:43 Discounting and Urgency in Sales
33:57 Building Relationships for Successful Deals
34:22 Effective Deal Reviews: Asking the Right Questions
35:30 Pipeline Reviews: Frequency and Participants
35:59 Handling Deal Slippage: Acceptable vs. Non-Acceptable Reasons
39:17 Maintaining Morale in Volatile Times
42:14 Outbound Sales Strategy: Lessons Learned
46:03 Scaling Sales Teams: Hiring and Promoting
47:15 Challenges and Strategies in International Markets
01:00:45 Signs of Scaling Issues in Sales Leadership
-
Daniel Dines is the Founder & CEO @ UiPath, one of the most incredible journeys in startups. For 10 years, UiPath was a bootstrapped company that scaled to just $500K in revenue. Then it all changed, product market fit became obvious and the rest is history. The company went on to raise funding from Sequoia, Accel, Kleiner Perkins and more. Today, the company is worth over $10BN, listed on the NASDAQ and does $1BN+ in revenue.
In Today’s Episode with Daniel Dines We Discuss:
1. The Future of LLMs:
Why does Daniel believe that we are at the upper end of scaling laws and more compute will not lead to increased performance?
Does Daniel believe we will see a world of many specialised models or fewer generalist models?
OpenAI, Anthropic, Xai. Which would Daniel most want to invest in? Why them?
2. Is RPA F******* in a World of Agents:
What is the core difference between RPA and agents? How do the tasks they complete differ?
Why must we have a neutral meta layer coordinating RPA processes and agents?
Why will siloed applications like Salesforce be unable to expand beyond their initial function?
Why does Daniel believe that agents will not complete tasks but make recommendations?
3. The Future of Work: WTF Happens with Agents:
How long will it be before agents are fully utilised in the enterprise?
What is the role of the human in a world of agents?
What are the single biggest concerns of enterprises considering implementing agents in their companies?
Why has GenAI not been successful in enterprise so far? Will this change?
4. Daniel Dines: The Billionaire Behind the Brand:
How does Daniel deal with the loneliness of being CEO?
What problem did Daniel struggle with for much of his twenties and thirties? How did he overcome it?
Why does Daniel fear that he is becoming more and more disconnected?
Why does Daniel believe 1-1s are BS?
What is Daniel’s single biggest advice to a new parent today?
-
Reid Hoffman is one of the most impactful people in technology and startups. As a Founder he founded Paypal and Linkedin before moving to the investing side where he has led deals in Facebook, Airbnb and more.
In Today’s Episode with Reid Hoffman We Discuss:
1. China and Tariffs:
Should the US ban Tiktok and other Chinese companies, given China banning US companies presence in their country?
How does Reid evaluate the rise of the Chinese car industry? What are his concerns?
How does Reid hope Trump uses tariffs to advantage the US position?
What is Reid concerned about what Trump could do with tariffs? What would be bad?
2. Elon Musk and DOGE:
What impact will Elon Musk have on the future of AI in America?
Why does Reid believe that it is impossible for DOGE to achieve it’s targets?
What should Elon must be given credit for? What does he not deserve credit for?
What are Elon’s greatest strengths? What are his greatest weaknesses?
3. The US Defence Budget and Ukraine:
Why does Reid believe that the US should reduce their defence budget?
Does Reid believe the US should continue to finance the war in Ukraine?
Should the US continue to subsidise NATO’s lack of defence spending?
4. NVIDIA and The Future of Chips:
Will NVIDIA be able to sustain their monopoly?
What is the biggest threat to their position?
Should both the US and Europe have their own chip sovereignty?
How does Reid evaluate potential conflict between China and Taiwan impacting chip supply?
5. Nuclear, Quantum and Climate:
Why does Reid believe nuclear fusion can solve climate change?
Does Reid believe that with the rise of global conflict and AI, the importance of climate change is reduced in the attention of the world?
Why does Reid believe that AI does more to help than harm climate change?
Why is Reid so excited for a future with quantum computing?
What are the biggest dangers of quantum that we need to be mindful of?
-
Guillaume Moubeche is the Founder of Lempire, a company he has bootstrapped in the most competitive market in technology and scaled to a staggering $30M in ARR. Guillaume has never raised primary funding for the business but sold $10M of secondary at a $150M valuation. Guillaume is also an angel investor and and best selling author.
In Today’s Episode with Guillaume Moubeche:
1. How to Build a Sales Machine:
What is the biggest mistake founders make when crafting their ideal customer profile?
What are Guillaume’s biggest lessons in scaling from $0-$1M in ARR?
Why are most founders afraid to sell? What can they do to overcome this?
What is the ultimate equation to success in sales?
2. How to Build a Content Machine:
How does Guillaume come up with ideas for new content?
How does he structure his content creation time?
How does Guillaume advise founders on which platform and content type they should focus on? What are the biggest mistakes they make?
How does Guillaume think about content repackaging and reposting? What have been some of the biggest lessons in how to get the max out of existing content?
3. How to Build a Hiring Machine:
Why does Guillaume think you should pay people well above market rate? What does it allow you to do as their employer?
Why does Guillaume think in 90% of times, more people equals more problems?
What have been Guillaume’s biggest hiring mistakes? What did he learn?
4. Making $10M, Ironman and Family:
How does Guillaume reflect on his own relationship to money? How has it changed post making $10M?
Why does Guillaume believe that endurance sports makes for better entrepreneurs?
When asked if all the sacrifices were worth it, how does Guillaume respond? What does his life not have yet that he would most like?
-
Torsten Reil is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Helsing, a new type of defence company providing artificial intelligence to protect our democracies. Torsten has raised over $825M from the likes of Prima Materia, Elad Gil, Accel and General Catalyst. Previously Torsten founded NaturalMotion, one of the UK's most successful games and technology start-ups. Torsten was named as one of MIT's Top 100 Innovators and is a member of the Munich Security Conference Innovation Board.
In Today’s Episode with Torsten Reil We Discuss:
1. The World Around Us: China, Russia and Trump:
What will happen between China and Taiwan?
What will happen between Russia and Ukraine?
How will a Trump administration impact the US’ commitment to fund European defence?
What conflict do people not pay enough attention to in the world today?
2. Are We Ready and What Needs to Be Done:
Are the west ready to fight against our adversaries as we stand today?
What do we need to do to equip ourselves?
What needs to change in our defence budgets? Where do they need to go?
How does the procurement process for defence need to change?
3. The Future of War:
Why does Torsten believe the future of war is contactless?
In the next wave of defence, what are the most important elements for allies to own? What elements concern Torsten the most?
What role does AI and autonomous play in the future of war?
4. Is Europe F********:
Why does Torsten believe that Europe’s biggest problem is ambition not capital?
Why does Torsten believ that we put too much weight on the location in which companies are founded? Why does it not matter?
How does Torsten respond to the statement that we do not have the depth of experienced talent in Europe to recruit?
-
Marc Benioff is one of the iconic founders and visionaries of our time. From the founding of Salesforce 25 years ago, Marc has in many ways created an entire industry. He has scaled the company to a market cap of $346BN, $38BN in revenue and over 72,000 employees.
Ask Me Anything with Marc Benioff:
The Future of Models:
Why does Marc believe we are at the upper end of LLMs and they are commoditising?
Why does Marc believe the future of models is many smaller, verticalised models specialised in different areas?
OpenAI vs Anthropic vs Xai. Which would Marc buy and which would he short?
What is the single biggest barrier to Salesforce winning the AI war in the next 10 years?
The Future of Agents:
What does Salesforce need to do to prevent becoming a database in the next generation of AI?
To what extent do agents hurt vs help Salesforce?
What do very few people understand about agents that is very important?
The Future of Labour:
Will Salesforce replace it’s human labour with digital labour? Will Salesforce be bigger or smaller in 10 years time, people wise?
Why does Marc believe that layoffs are a crucial tool for CEOs to win?
How will a future of digital labour change the pricing model of SaaS tools today?
Management Lessons from Marc Benioff:
How did one meeting with Steve Jobs change how Marc views leadership?
How does Marc analyse the required mindset to win as a CEO today?
What has Marc changed his mind on most in the last 12 months?
-
Zachary Bookman is Co-Founder and CEO of OpenGov, the GovTech cloud software leader that was acquired for a staggering $1.8BN earlier this year. Prior to acquisition, Zac raised over $180M from some of the best of the best including Marc Andreesen, Josh Kushner, Joe Lonsdale and Founder Collective to name a few. Zac is also a successful angel investor with investments in Flexport, Flock Safety and Addepar.
In Today’s Show with Zac Bookman We Discuss:
04:27 Navigating Enterprise Sales and Pricing Strategies
07:49 The Importance of High Gross Retention in SaaS
11:03 Investor Relations and the Power Law in Venture Capital
14:32 WTF is Product Market Fit
18:14 What No One Knows About M&A
20:05 Fundraising Challenges and Lessons Learned
32:51 What Marc Andreesen Taught Me About Boards
34:18 Why Founders and Investors are Misaligned
35:29 The OpenGov Acquisition: Selling for $1.8BN
37:22 What Does It Feel Like to Sell for $1.8BN
43:58 Why Venture Capital is a S*** Asset Class
45:13 Investment Mistakes and Lessons
01:02:05 The Importance of In-Person Collaboration
-
Nik Storonsky is the Co-Founder and CEO of Revolut, one of the fastest-growing companies in the world with a $45BN valuation and 50M customers around the world. In July 2024, Revolut posted a whopping $2.2BN in revenue with $545M in pre-tax profit in 2023. To date, Nik has raised $1.8BN for the company from the likes of Index, Balderton, Ribbit, DST and TCV.
In Today’s Show with Nik Storonsky We Discuss:
1. When & Where Will Revolut IPO:
What does Revolut need to do or change before they are ready to go public?
When would Nik like for Revolut to go public?
When they do go public, where would Nik list? Would it be in London?
How does Nik respond to claims that he has moved to Dubai for tax reasons?
2. What Revolut Needs to Achieve to Hit $100BN:
Why has no challenger bank won the US market yet?
What will Revolut do differently to allow them to win the US market?
What market share will Revolut have in Europe in 3 years time?
What line of the business that does not exist today, will be the biggest in 5 years time?
3. How to Build an Execution Machine:
Why does Nik believe the biggest mistake he made was hiring senior managers?
What have been Nik’s biggest lessons on how to hire for roles you have never hired for before? What works? What does not?
How does Nik retain insane velocity of execution at scale?
How does Nik bucket people into three different buckets? What does each bucket mean for the type of work they do and the expectations placed on them?
4. How Revolut Tests New Products:
How does Revolut use a portfolio approach to test new product ideas?
How are teams for new ideas structured? What roles do they have?
How much time and resources are they given?
What is the tracking process to determine the success of new products?
What % of new products do succeed and progress to the core app?
Which product did Nik think would be massive but turned out to be a flop?
What did Nik not expect to be massive and turned out to be mega hit?
5. The UK and Europe: Are We F******:
The Chancellor has said we will have no growth in the UK for the next 3 years. How does it feel for Nik to grow Revolut in this environment?
If Nik could advise Keir Starmer on how to turn the UK around, what would he say?
Why does Nik believe the US has created so many more $100BN companies?
Why does Nik believe that work/life imbalance is the secret to success and happiness?
-
George Arison is the CEO of Grindr. The app that results in 40% of lesbian and gay marriages, the average user uses the app for 1 hour per day and sends more messages on Grindr than they do Whatsapp. The company will do over $300M in revenue in 2024 with a 40% EBITDA margin. One of the insane public company success stories. Prior to Grindr, George was the Founder and CEO of Shift, which he took public in 2020.
In Today’s Episode with George Arison We Discuss:
1. Wild Story of How the Chinese Bought and Lost Grindr:
How did the Chinese come to buy Grindr and then fire the founder?
Why did the US government force the sale of the company from the Chinese?
What happened when the whole development team was in Taiwan and then resigned overnight?
George got the CEO role in Sept and the company went public in Oct. How did that all happen so fast?
2. How Grindr is a Free Cash Flow Machine:
What are the three core ways that Grindr is able to print money with a 40% EBITDA margin?
Why does Grindr not spend any money on marketing or customer acquisition?
Why does George think that most companies have way too many people?
Why does George believe that most startups are very badly managed?
What will Grindr do with the insane amount of free cash flow the company is producing?
3. Lessons Building Grindr to $300M in Revenue:
What has George done with Grindr that he wishes he had not done?
What has he not done that he wishes he had done?
Why does George not make political statements today? Does George think we have freedom of speech when CEOs face such repercussions for political views?
What does Wall St not understand about Grindr that it really should understand?
-
Guy Podjarny founded Tessl, Snyk and Blaze. Tessl is reimagining software development for the AI era and shaping AI Native Development. Snyk created and leads the Developer Security category, and is now a multi-billion dollar company with over 1,000 employees. Guy was previously CTO at Akamai (following its acquisition of Blaze), is an active angel investor, and co-hosts of the AI Native Dev podcast.
In Today’s Episode with Guy Podjarny We Discuss:
03:02 Discussion on NVIDIA's Market Position
04:14 Will We See a Trough of Disillusionment in AI
07:36 The Future of AI Development and Specialized Models
10:17 Challenges and Opportunities in AI Dev Tools
17:41 Concerns About Closed vs. Open Development Platforms
21:27 Speculations on AI's Role in Application Layers
24:40 Google's Competitive Edge
25:28 IPO and M&A in the Trump Era
26:45 The Future Role of Software Developers
32:20 Security Challenges in AI Development
33:41 Spicy Questions and Charity Donations
36:05 Quickfire Round: Insights and Advice
-
Klaus Hommels is one of Europe’s leading start investors of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Spotify, Airbnb, Facebook, Coinbase, Revolut and more. Among his many responsibilities, Klaus is the Founder of Lakestar, his own venture fund and chairs the board of directors of the NATO Innovation Fund.
In Today’s Episode with Klaus Hommels We Discuss:
1. The Investing Rules that are BS:
Why does Klaus totally reject the idea of price sensitivity?
Why does Klaus hate the idea of “building portfolios”?
Why does Klaus believe the best investments are made when there is not a fundraising round in motion?
Why does Klaus believe that capital concentration limits on a per company basis are BS? How concentrated is Klaus happy to be?
2. Europe: What The F*** is Going On:
Why is Europe underfinancing innovation by a factor of eight?
Why is Europe unable to send satellites into space for six years?
What should Europe do to become a global superpower once again? What needs to change?
Why should European pension funds be forced to invest in venture capital?
3. The Stories Behind the $BN Returns:
How did a dinner with Klaus’ son lead to his investing in Revolut?
How did Klaus analysis of Friendster and MySpace lead to his buying Matt Cohler @ Benchmark’s Facebook shares?
How did a small investment in a Swedish company, Stardoll, lead to Klaus investing in the seed round of Spotify?
How did a conversation with Madonna’s manager lead to Klaus investing in Airbnb?
-
Jason Citron is the Co-Founder and CEO of Discord, a voice, video and text platform for friends playing games. Jason has raised $1BN for the company and was able to scale to 200M users. Prior to co-founding Discord, Jason founded OpenFeint, the biggest social mobile gaming platform, which sold to GREE in 2011 for $104 million.
In Today’s Episode with Jason Citron We Discuss:
1. Leadership Lessons That are Total BS:
Hiring: Why does Jason believe hiring experienced executives is the worst thing you can do for your company? What did he learn by doing it?
Culture: Why does Jason believe that empowerment and alignment are total BS? How does Jason empower people when they are told what to do vs choose what to do?
Strategy: What does Jason believe is the most effective way to drive and implement the strategy?
2. The Untold Moments Behind Scaling to 200M Users:
Why did Jason offer to give investors their money back at one point? What was the hardest round to raise and why?
Why did Jason turn down the chance to sell to Microsoft for $12BN?
What one single change in how Jason communicated with the first 100 users changed the trajectory of the entire company?
What do most founders think they know about product market fit that they do not?
3. The Makings of a Unicorn Founder:
Does Jason believe that richer founders make better founders?
Why does Jason believe that entrepreneurs who play video games have a higher chance of being successful in the future?
What single trait does Jason believe he has that has made him such a successful founder? Does Jason ever have imposter syndrome? When?
-
Dan Fougere is one of the most successful sales leaders of the last decade. Most recently, Dan was Chief Revenue Officer for Datadog, growing revenues from $60 million to $1BN ARR. Before Datadog, Dan was Head of Global Sales at Medallia where he created the Mediallia sales playbook. In addition, Dan is also a minority owner of the New York Yankees.
In Today’s Episode with Dan Fougere:
1. Lessons Scaling Sales to $1BN in ARR at Datadog:
What did Datadog not do that Dan wishes they had of done?
What did they not do that Dan wishes they had done?
What does Dan know about scaling sales to $1BN in ARR that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
What stage of the scaling process was hardest? Why?
2. How to Hire the Best Sales Team:
What are the top signals of the best sales candidates?
How does Dan structure the interview process for new candidates?
How does Dan use tasks and take-home assignments to test candidates?
What does Dan think of hiring panels?
What are the biggest hiring mistakes Dan has made? What did he learn?
3. Discounting, Logos and Deal Reviews:
Is discounting always wrong? How should sales leaders use it?
How important is the quality of logo in the early days vs revenue in the door?
What is the right way to structure deal reviews? What makes good vs great?
Is outbound dead in 2024? Advice to founders on outbound?
- Laat meer zien
