Gokul Rajaram | Lessons from Zuck, Jack Dorsey, Sergey Brin + Defining your ICP, Evolution of Seed Investing
Show notes
Gokul Rajaram is an early stage technology investor. As a product leader, operator and board member, he’s helped build seven generational technology companies, including Alphabet, Block, Coinbase, DoorDash, Meta, Pinterest, and The Trade Desk. We talk about lessons learned from Zuck, Sergey Brin, and Jack Dorsey, when big acquisitions can go well, how to define your ICP, why you should always size markets bottoms-up, having a fast response time, how seed investing has changed since 2007, and Gokul’s hot takes on titles at a startup. Building an enterprise-ready SaaS app? WorkOS has got you covered with easy-to-integrate APIs for SAML, SCIM, and more. Start now at https://bit.ly/WorkOS-Turpentine-Network. Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (02:14) Common thread of success between the founders of Google, DoorDash, Facebook, and Square (05:50) Gokul’s first job in Silicon Valley (07:46) How Serendipity led to PMing Adsense, one of Google’s biggest products (12:20) Lesson from Sergey Brin on reducing friction before a products magic moment (18:50) How Zuck used founder mode to beat Google Plus in 2011 (22:51) When big acquisitions can go well (24:47) How Gokul switches from startup helper to public company board member (28:09) The evolution of Seed investing since 2007 (33:27) How to have a fast response time (37:40) Lessons from Jack Dorsey always selling (39:54) How to define your ICP (42:40) Using bottoms-up to size a market (44:05) Why Director and VP titles are bad for startups Referenced: Who’s Got the Monkey? https://hbr.org/1999/11/management-time-whos-got-the-monkey Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity/dp/0142000280 How to Size a Market in 30 Minutes https://blog.blingcap.com/2023/02/13/How-to-Size-a-Market/ Follow Gokul: Twitter: https://x.com/gokulr LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gokulrajaram1 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/
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Analysis: done · source seed