$100T is managed by "human duct tape" | E2308
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Today's show:
*There are $100 trillion in global assets sitting on top of what Hanover Park co-founder/CEO Chris Hladczuk calls "human duct tape": armies of accountants in offices patching together work from various legacy tools (QuickBooks, Excel) that are holding funds' own data hostage. Can all of this be replaced with AI? Find out how their startup went from overseeing $1B to $20B in assets in just 15 months.
PLUS, we flash back to March 2020, when Jason and Figma co-founder/CEO Dylan Field broke down the design tool's initial go-to-market strategy, made some WILDLY inaccurate COVID predictions, and considered anxiety about "SaaS burnout" years before the category went full apocalyptic.
Guests:
Chris Hladczuk on X: https://x.com/chrishlad
Hanover Park: https://www.hanoverpark.com/
Dylan Field: https://x.com/zoink
Figma: https://www.figma.com/
Relevant Links:
Turner Novak on X: https://x.com/TurnerNovak
Banana Capital: https://www.bananacapital.vc/
Emergence Capital: https://www.emcap.com/
Lux Capital: https://www.luxcapital.com/
Susa Ventures: https://susaventures.com/
Bill.com: https://www.bill.com/
METR: https://metr.org/
Granola AI note taker: https://www.granola.ai/
Vanta: https://www.vanta.com/
Foo Camp on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/foocamp
TechCrunch Mahalo coverage: https://techcrunch.com/2014/01/27/inside-mobile-news-launch/
Timestamps:
0:00 Hanover Park & the fund admin problem
3:32 Why funds outsource instead of building
5:44 Why fund accounting is so complex
10:38 The "one-click migration" goal
10:48 Northwest Registered Agent - Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity — Learn more at https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist
13:51 Context vs. intelligence gaps
16:11 No PMs, No Designers
20:46 Vanta - Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://www.vanta.com/twist
23:18 This is a $100T opportunity
25:36 Flashback w/ Dylan Field of Figma
29:15 Sentry - Your team should be focused on shipping features — not chasing down bugs. New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to https://sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST
31:22 Pre-AI enterprise security worries
36:30 SaaS overload and SaaS burnout
37:30 The evolution of Figma pricing
42:38 The rise and fall of Mahalo dot com
51:38 The work-from-home revolution begins
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Inside Hanover Park: Building an AI-Native Service Business, Growing to $15B in Assets
Chris Hladczuk is the Co-founder and CEO of Hanover Park, the AI-native fund administrator, vertically integrating fund administration, portfolio management, and LP experience for finance and investment teams.
Chris is the 2nd ever returning guest of the show, and is fresh off announcing Hanover’s $27m Series A. We go inside the round, their explosive growth, why they built their own general ledger from scratch, and how that enabled them to build incredible AI products for investment firms that touch over $100 trillion in assets.
Thanks to Sahil Bloom, and Chad + Pratyush at Susa for help brainstorming topics for this conversation.
Thank you to Numeral and Flex for supporting this episode.
Try Numeral, the end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance: https://www.numeral.com
Sign-up for Flex Elite with code TURNER, get $1,000: https://form.typeform.com/to/Rx9rTjFz
Timestamps:
(0:37) Financial infrastructure for investment firms
(1:35) Hanover Park’s $27m Series A
(5:30) AI-enabled services businesses
(9:07) Productizing the service layer
(11:30) Helping CFO’s and investors use AI
(13:46) Building a general ledger from scratch
(18:03) Compete against companies with IT departments
(19:55) Hiring in an unsexy industry
(21:30) Live in constant paranoia of your customers
(25:19) Gongs, music in the office, blizzard commutes
(28:54) Friday night hackathons
(30:54) Automating onboarding and manual admin work
(35:05) Real-time visibility on all data
(38:07) Always get on the plane
(40:36) Turning customers into raving fans
(43:45) Using polite persistence in sales
(47:36) How to master founder-led content
(51:29) 99% of advice is wrong in AI era
(54:21) Importance of one-way vs two-way doors
(56:11) Growing from VC into PE and Private Credit
(1:00:36) When to turn down new customers
(1:02:22) Becoming a customers most important vendor
(1:04:00) Chris’ personal AI stack
(1:07:41) Hanover Park’s MCP
Referenced
Try Hanover Park: https://www.hanoverpark.com/
Careers at Hanover Park: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/hanover-park
First episode with Chris: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lomqcrFNv8
Artie: https://www.artie.com/
Episode with Jacqueline @ Artie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fd1YKsBaq0
Granola: https://www.granola.ai/
Claude Cowork: https://claude.com/product/cowork
HubSpot: https://www.hubspot.com/
Attio: https://attio.com/
Monaco: https://www.monaco.com/
Follow Chris
Twitter: https://x.com/chrishlad
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-hladczuk-b09204153
Follow Turner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak
Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/
The Rise of AI-Powered Services + Ultimate Sales Crash Course for Founders | Chris Hladczuk, Hanover
Chris Hladczuk is the Co-founder and CEO of Hanover, where he’s building 1-click migration and 1-minute time to value fund administration for the $8 trillion in private market assets.
Chris takes us through his story of building an audience online at nights while working at Goldman, breaking into tech and going from an IC to Chief Revenue Officer at a Series A startup in nine months.
This episode is packed with advice on sales, getting your first startup role, and everything he’s up to at Hanover.
Timestamps
(00:00) Intro
(02:11) Why B2B SaaS is dead
(07:20) Competing against companies that have “IT departments”
(11:37) Going from 0 to 100k on Twitter in one year
(19:06) The ASS networking framework
(25:17) Interviewing at 50 startups before quitting Goldman to join Meow
(28:41) Lessons going from sales IC to Chief Revenue Officer in nine months
(32:47) Using SSS to send good cold emails
(35:51) Learnings as a first-time manager
(40:46) How to make a good first impression
(47:22) Why sales and copywriting are underrated
(49:17) Navigating the startup idea maze to fund admin
(56:47) 1-click fund admin migration, 1-minute time to value
(59:46) Turning down Hanover’s first term sheet with no backup plan
(01:03:28) Using polite persistence to get customers
(01:08:41) Why the best companies are cults
(01:11:01) John D Rockefeller and vertical integration
(01:13:26) Doing culture fit questions at the beginning of the hiring process
(01:15:34) Chris’ favorite AI tools
(01:17:58) How to make founder-led content
Referenced
Check out Hanover: https://www.hanover.co/
Brick: https://getbrick.app/
Alex Hormozi’s Sales Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6YNopzKDGDwf0auIpPTIID
Sweetgreen: https://www.sweetgreen.com/
Chipotle: https://www.chipotle.com/
Eight Sleep: https://www.eightsleep.com/
Turner’s episode with Jonathan Neman at Sweetgreen: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1Emm6VOq6MCEfQlXv05q6U?si=hJMc8LhBTeeonYJGza4gxQ
The Hanover Manifesto: https://www.hanover.co/manifesto
Claude Sonet: https://claude.ai/
Cursor: https://www.cursor.com/
Hemingway Editor: https://www.hemingwayapp.com
Follow Chris
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chrishlad
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-hladczuk-b09204153
Follow Turner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak
Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/