From making $6/week selling worms to making $110M+
Episode 697: Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) sits down with James Currier ( https://x.com/JamesCurrier ) to talk about going from $0 to $110M through network effects.
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Show Notes:
(0:00) $0 to $1.6B
(4:23) Your life on network effects
(8:00) Savage founders
(13:40) Speed
(15:49) The art of unlearning
(21:23) Technology window curves
(30:29) Network Vampire attacks
(37:37) Language first
(43:15) Tickle
(42:29) Finding a business bromance
(58:47) James isolation mistake
(1:01:27) Become an API
(1:05:02) AI business ideas
(1:16:07) What to do in your 20s
(1:22:18) One world currency
(1:32:16) Go to therapy
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Links:
• Steal Shaan's $20M Pitch Deck: https://clickhubspot.com/qrd
• NFX - https://www.nfx.com/
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Check Out Shaan's Stuff:
• Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com
• Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents.
• Mercury - Need a bank for your company? Go check out Mercury (mercury.com). Shaan uses it for all of his companies!
Mercury is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC
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Check Out Sam's Stuff:
• Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/
• Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/
• Copy That - https://copythat.com
• Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth
• Sam’s List - http://samslist.co/
My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano
E994: All Turtles CEO Phil Libin shares his state machine that answers all growth questions; Future of Early-Stage VC w/Pete Flint (NFX), Rebecca Lynn (Canvas Ventures), Dave Samuel (Freestyle Capital); plus LAUNCH Scale Partner Talk w/Lever CTO Nate Smith
1:03 Jason intros Phil Libin from LAUNCH Scale 2019
1:51 Phil Libin on "The State Machine that Answers All Growth Questions"
32:40 Jason joins Phil on stage for Q&A
39:56 Jason intros Phil (NFX), Rebecca (Canvas Ventures) & Dave (Freestyle Capital)
41:34 Transitioning from founder to VC
44:08 How to let a founder know when they are headed down the wrong path
47:42 At what stage does a founder have to change their mindset?
49:49 Dave Samuel on Airtable CEO Howie Liu not taking his advice and succeeding anyway
52:21 How Rebecca Lynn recruited current LendingClub CEO Scott Sanborn in the early days
55:39 Should startups still relocate to the Bay Area under any circumstances?
1:03:40 How are VCs dealing with the influx in the number of startups over the past 10 years?
1:13:23 LAUNCH Scale Partner Talk: Lever CTO Nate Smith
20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX
Pete Flint is a Managing Partner @ NFX, one of Silicon Valley's newest and most exciting funds with the recent announcement of their new $150m fund late last year. Prior to VC, Pete was a serial entrepreneur building one of today's most successful marketplaces, as the co-founder of Trulia. Pete led the company from inception to more than 50 million monthly unique users, $250m in VC funding from the likes of Sequoia and Accel culminating in their merger with Zillow in 2015 that valued Trulia at $3.5 billion. Before Trulia, Pete was part of the founding team of lastminute.com, a leading European online travel site that was acquired in 2005 for over $1 billion.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Pete made his way into the world of startups joining the founding team of lastminute.com and how that led to the founding of Trulia and entry into VC?
2.) Why does Pete believe that startup timing is so crucial? How does Pete analyze market timing risk when investing? What is the right way for investors to think about the innovation cycle we are in today? On review, what does Pete believe lastminute.com did most right? What would he most want to change?
3.) What are the leading indicators that suggest potential in a network effect business? Would Pete agree with Josh @ Jackson Square that not all GMV is created equal? How does Pete anlyse the lack of free and open distribution today and how that affects marketplace scaling? Why does Pete still believe marketplaces are some of the most capital efficient businesses to grow?
4.) What has been Pete's greatest time of failure in his career? What is the framework Pete uses to analyse and assess his own ego? What are the commonalities in how Pete has seen truly great founders overcome failure? How does Pete balance between realism when something is not working and the mission and vision of the founder?
5.) How does Pete think about optimising decision-making, both in investing and operating? How does Pete approach the balance of head vs heart? When is the right time to decide with your head? When is the right time to decide with your heart? Why does Pete argue early stage investing must be decided with your heart?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Pete's Fave Book: Leonardo Da Vinci
Pete's Most Recent Investment: Ribbon
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Pete on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
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20VC: How To Balance Between Vision and Stubbornness, Why Speed Is The Most Important Startup Superpower & The Main Role of A Startup Founder Today with James Currier, Managing Director @ NFX
James Currier is the Managing Partner @ NFX and one of Silicon Valley's foremost experts in growth and network effects. Just last week, NFX announded their latest fund, a new $150m fund to turn NFX into a significant institution. As for James, before becoming an investor, he co-founded one of the internet's first successful user-generated companies, Tickle, in 1999. Under James' leadership, Tickle grew to become the 18th largest website in the world and was acquired by Monster for $110 million. James then co-founded three other successful companies - Wonderhill (online video games, merged with Kabam in 2010 which then sold for $800M), IronPearl (acquired by PayPal in 2013), and Jiff (raised $68M from Venrock & GE before merging with Castlight in 2017).
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How James made his way from multiple success in the world of operations with Tickle, Jiff and Wonderhill to now managing NFX's new $150m fund?
2.) Why does James believe speed is the number one superpower for startups? How important is being first to market for products? Why does language and psychology play a much more prominent role? What should the correlation be between product and the language used to market the product?
3.) What does James believe the main job of the founder is? Where do most founders go wrong in depicting their story? Why is it so important for founders to "speak with data"? How can one retain that personal sentiment when heavily using data?
4.) Why does James believe that network effects play such a prominent role within value creation of companies? What really is core to network effect success? Other than marketplaces and social networks, what other forms of network effect exist and succeed?
5.) What does James believe is the right mindset for growth? What has James always believed about paid growth? Why is James altering his views on paid growth in today's environment? Does James believe we are in a fallow period for the consumer space?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
James' Fave Book: The Razor's Edge
James' Fave Blog: The Edge
James' Most Recent Investment: Outdoorsy
As always you can follow Harry, James and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
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a16z Podcast: Not all Network Effects Are Created Equal
From hardware and hardwires to smartphones and social, technology wants to connect. It's almost a native property of technology and especially software businesses, which is why network effects matter. "It was endemic to these technologies that they wanted to become connected and once connected, they become networks and once networks, they become network effects. Other products like cars or toasters or houses or whatever, aren't natively connected physically or through information sharing," observes James Currier.
But not all network effects are equal -- not only can they be strong or weak, there are many different types depending on the business. Currier, who is the co-founder and managing partner of an accelerator (NFX Guild) that advises and runs a runs a program for all kinds of early-stage companies with network effects, shares their ever-evolving taxonomy for thinking about different types of network effects in this episode of the a16z podcast.
These labels matter. It's not just words, but language that aids understanding -- and the corresponding growth playbook -- that can help build businesses with network effects, especially given the specific challenges they face. And finally, why did some companies with network effects take off but others didn't?
The views expressed here are those of the individual AH Capital Management, L.L.C. (“a16z”) personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies of funds managed by a16z. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, a16z has not independently verified such information and makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation.
This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities or digital assets are for illustrative purposes only, and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to invest in any fund managed by a16z. (An offering to invest in an a16z fund will be made only by the private placement memorandum, subscription agreement, and other relevant documentation of any such fund and should be read in their entirety.) Any investments or portfolio companies mentioned, referred to, or described are not representative of all investments in vehicles managed by a16z, and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results. A list of investments made by funds managed by Andreessen Horowitz (excluding investments and certain publicly traded cryptocurrencies/ digital assets for which the issuer has not provided permission for a16z to disclose publicly) is available at https://a16z.com/investments/.
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Episode 31: James Currier
James Currier is a prominent entrepreneur and investor. He was one of the earliest to build social networks, starting Tickle in 1999 and then selling it in 2004 He’s since advised/invseted in a bunch of startups including Goodreads, Honeybook and Meerkat, among many others. and most recently started NFX Guild, which is an invite only accelerator program for networks effects businesses. In this episode we discuss what James looks for in founders, common advice he finds himself giving, the concept of personal brand, his involvement in Goodreads and Meerkat, and more. Edited by Alex Kontis For any feedback, tweet me at @eriktorenberg http://nfx.com/
