Magic School uses AI to help kids learn, not cheat | E2196
Are AI tools in the classroom just time-savers, or can they have genuine educational value?In a must-watch TWiST 500 interview, Alex chats with Magic School founder (and former principal) Adeel Khan about how AI tools can make teachers more effective, and keep students inspired, without just doing all the work for them. He talks about turning an AI chatbot into a true assistant teacher, that keeps the lessons balanced yet challenging, and particularly empowers classroom novices and non-professionals.THEN… is 6 years too long for employees to wait to vest? Is this just another founder trying to reinvent EVERYTHING, just because they can’t resist? Ramp CEO Eric Glyman joins Jason and Alex to answer pressing founder questions from viewersPLUS there’s a new entrant in our Gamma Pitch Deck competition, and it’s so compelling, Jason can’t wait to invest! Kris Canete of On the Fly Energy tells us about America’s fragile power grid and his elegant solution: flywheel energy storage!Timestamps:0:00 - Welcome to TWiST!02:59 - Former principal Adeel Khan of TWiST 500's Magic School AI tells us why “teachers are magic”09:41 - Goldbelly ships America’s most delicious, iconic foods nationwide! Get 20% off your first order by going to Goldbelly.com and using the promo code TWiST at checkout.10:50 - How AI tools can particularly help out classroom novices and non-pros who are just getting started20:57 - Check out the online payroll and benefits experts with software built specifically for small business and startups. Try Gusto today and get three months FREE at Gusto.com/twist.26:58 - How Magic School stays ahead of shifting standards across different states and regions32:57 - Zite is the fastest way to build *business software* with AI. Build apps, forms, websites and portals that connect to the tools you already use. Go to *zite.com/twist* to get started.33:30 - Why the best feedback Adeel ever got came from a teenager36:30 - Making AI a true assistant teacher, that keeps lessons balanced yet challenging38:38 - Is a 6-year vesting schedule too aggressive? Eric Glyman responds.41:00 - When even ambitious founders should sometimes just accept a standard deal.57:33 - What IS flywheel energy storage?01:00:00 - Why Jason loves the Fly Energy Gamma pitch and wants to invest right now.01:34:13 - Gamma Outro*Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: [https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com](https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com/)Check out the TWIST500: [https://www.twist500.com](https://twist500.com)Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp*Follow Lon:X: https://x.com/lons*Follow Alex:X: https://x.com/alexLinkedIn: [ / alexwilhelm ]( / alexwilhelm )*Follow Jason:X: / jason LinkedIn: [ / jasoncalacanis ]( / jasoncalacanis )Great TWIST interviews: [Will Guidara,]( • Lessons in Unreasonable Hospitality with W... ) [Eoghan McCabe]( • Great Builders & Success First with Interc... ), [Steve Huffman](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast..., [Brian Chesky](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast..., [Bob Moesta,]( • Decoding Customer Insights, Trust, and the... ) [Aaron Levie](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast..., [Sophia Amoruso](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast..., [Reid Hoffman](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast..., [Frank Slootman](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast..., [Billy McFarland](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast...)*Check out Jason’s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis*Follow TWiST:Twitter: / twistartups YouTube: / thisweekin Instagram: [ / thisweekinstartups ]( / thisweekinstartups )TikTok: / thisweekinstartups Substack: [https://twistartups.substack.com](<a href="https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_
What Ramp’s data tells us about AI, unemployment and more with CEO Eric Glyman | E2192
Today’s show:
*Eric Glyman of Ramp joins us to share the fintech unicorn’s growth secrets AND their Lab full of research data.
On TWiST, Jason and Alex chat with Eric about Ramp’s counter-intuitive mission — helping startups spend LESS money — PLUS they take a deep dive into the company’s treasure trove of startup trend data. Why is there a huge spike in unemployed recent college trends? Is “static team size” as a big a story as Jason and Alex think? What does it actually take to get companies to adopt AI Agents? The answers all might be in these Ramp numbers.
PLUS Eric joins us for some hot Founder Q’s, and what’s going on with all this Y Combinator drama? We’re sifting through the angriest tweets for the inside scoop.
FINALLY, Jason recommends some of his favorite startup accelerators of the moment (aside from his own) including…
PearX
Arc from Sequoia
Antler
Speedrun from a16z
Timestamps:
(00:02:18) The 72-hour rule strikes again: Trump’s China’s tariff reversal
(00:03:10) Why crypto got hit even HARDER than the stock market post-Trump announcement
(00:07:32) Market manipulation “at a scale we’ve never seen before…”; what does this mean for everyday investors?
(10:05) Squarespace - Use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at https://www.Squarespace.com/TWIST
(00:12:55) Ramp CEO Eric Glyman swings by to update us on his fintech unicorn’s growth and their “Lab” for research data
(20:09) Netsuite - Download the ebook CFO’s Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at https://www.netsuite.com/twist
(00:21:40) Is “static team size” a real trend? What the Ramp data shows…
(00:26:25) Ramp’s “counter-intuitive” mission: to help companies spend LESS money, not more.
(30:24) Paper OS offers the largest library of AI-driven Workflows for both founders & fund managers. Claim your $10K credit at paperos.com/twist
(00:38:07) WHY the huge spike in unemployed recent college grads? Especially among the guys?
(00:49:16) What it actually takes to get companies to adopt AI agents into their processes
(00:52:25) Why Jason thinks Eric is a top-tier TWiST guest. We’re going through the metrics…
(00:54:05) There’s YC drama on social media now… we’re spilling the tea.
Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com
Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com
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Follow Lon:
X: https://x.com/lons
Follow Alex:
X: https://x.com/alex
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm
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X: https://twitter.com/Jason
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis
Thank you to our partners:
Squarespace - Use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at https://www.Squarespace.com/TWIST
Netsuite - Download the ebook CFO’s Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at https://www.netsuite.com/twist
PAPER OS - Building an empire? PaperOS offers the largest library of AI-driven Workflows for both founders & fund managers. Whether you’re raising capital, launching a fund, or wading through diligence, PaperOS unlocks simplicity and scale for your ever-growing empire. Claim your $10K credit at paperos.com/twist
Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland
Check out Jason’s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis
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I built a billion dollar company in 18 months
Want to research million-dollar opportunities like Eric did with Ramp? Get Sam's Company Research Playbook: https://clickhubspot.com/kbf
Episode 737: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) sits down with Eric Glyman ( https://x.com/eglyman ) about how he built a unicorn in less than 2 years.
—
Show Notes:
(0:00) $100M in 18 months
(4:13) The Ramp business model
(8:58) Moving fast
(15:29) IDEA: Manufactured homes
(18:24) IDEA: Creator credit card
(21:51) The crazy history of credit in America
(28:15) Building a 100-year company
(31:20) Favorite business biographies
(40:03) Auditing your weaknesses
—
Links:
• Ramp - https://ramp.com
—
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
—
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
How Companies Are Actually Spending Money on AI Now
In theory, all of this AI spending has to deliver some kind of return. Companies (or other end users) will have to get tangible value from its outputs in order to justify the billions spent on research, chips, energy, and more. So what's actually happening at the corporate level? On this episode, we speak with Eric Glyman, who is the co-founder and CEO of Ramp, which helps corporations manage their expenses. As such, he has front row visibility in terms of what's actually being spent and who is actually getting the money. We talk about trends he's seeing in terms of spending going toward companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as how AI tech is affecting the operations of his own business.
Read More:
SoftBank Shares Soar as Masayoshi Son’s AI Vision Coalesces
Trump Pushes to Make US an AI Superpower, With Fewer Guardrails
Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Ramp CEO Eric Glyman: Using AI to Build “Self-Driving Money”
When ChatGPT ushered in a new paradigm of AI in everyday use, many companies attempted to adapt to the new paradigm by rushing to add chat interfaces to their products. Eric has a different take—he doesn’t think chatbots are the right form factor for everything. He thinks “zero-touch” automation that works invisibly in the background can be more valuable in many cases. He cites self-driving cars as an analogy—or in this case, “self-driving money.” Ramp is a new kind of finance management company for businesses, offering AI-powered financial tools to help companies handle spending and expense processes. We’ll hear why Eric thinks AI that you never see is one of the most powerful instruments for reducing time spent on drudgery and unlocking more time for meaningful work.
Hosted by: Ravi Gupta and Sonya Huang, Sequoia Capital
Mentioned in this episode:
Paribus: Glyman’s previous company, acquired by Capital One in 2016
Karim Atiyeh: Cofounder and CTO at Ramp and Glyman’s cofounder at Paribus
Devin: AI agent product from Cognition Labs and Glyman’s favorite AI app
Hit Refresh: Book by Satya Nadella
How AI can help build smarter systems for every team with Eric Glyman and Karim Atiyeh of Ramp
In this episode of No Priors, hosts Sarah and Elad are joined by Ramp co-founders Eric Glyman and Karim Atiyeh of Ramp. The pair has been working to build one of the fastest growing fintechs since they were teenagers. This conversation focuses on how Ramp engineers have been building new systems to help every team from sales and marketing to product. They’re building best-in-class SaaS solutions just for internal use to make sure their company remains competitive. They also get into how AI will augment marketing and creative fields, the challenges of selling productivity, and how they’re using LLMs to create internal podcasts using sales calls to share what customers are saying with the whole team.
Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com
Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @eglyman l @karimatiyeh
Show Notes:
(0:00) Introduction to Ramp
(3:17) Working with startups
(8:13) Ramp’s implementation of AI
(14:10) Resourcing and staffing
(17:20) Deciding when to build vs buy
(21:20) Selling productivity
(25:01) Risk mitigation when using AI
(28:48) What the AI stack is missing
(30:50) Marketing with AI
(37:26) Designing a modern marketing team
(40:00) Giving creative freedom to marketing teams
(42:12) Augmenting bookkeeping
(47:00) AI-generated podcasts
EP 110: How Eric Glyman (CEO, Ramp) Runs One of The Fastest Growing Startups
Eric Glyman (CEO, Ramp) shared his operating playbook for leading one of the fastest-growing startups on his second appearance on the podcast. We also explored the unique ways Ramp leverages AI internally, strategies for startups to build moats in AI, and the concept of self-driving money. We concluded with one of the most profound and thoughtful discussions about hiring, motivations, and success I've ever had on the podcast. It was truly enjoyable to sit down with a seasoned portfolio founder.
(00:00) Introduction and Episode Overview
(01:03) Market Reflections and Ramp's Growth
(04:01) Artificial Intelligence in Business
(10:09) Ramp's AI Implementation: Toby the Slack Bot
(16:49) AI's Impact on Business Models and Hiring
(31:15) The Future of Organizational Structure
(31:36) The Evolution of Bookkeeping
(33:49) The Impact of Automation on Bookkeeping Jobs
(35:31) Streamlining Expense Management with Ramp
(37:00) The Concept of Self-Driving Money
(38:09) AI Integration in Ramp's Services
(39:38) Zero Touch AI and Customer Experience
(40:54) Agentic AI and Practical Applications
(49:15) Balancing Autonomy and Centralization in Organizations
(56:09) Developing New Products at Ramp
(01:04:01) Resource Allocation in Organizations
(01:05:00) Creating Conditions for Success
(01:08:37) Balancing Existing and New Products
(01:11:02) Hiring for Curiosity
(01:16:09) The Pursuit of Perfection
(01:21:21) The Joy of the Process
(01:24:37) Building a Timeless Product
(01:33:15) Conclusion and Reflections
Executive Producer: Rashad Assir
Producer: Leah Clapper
Mixing and editing: Justin Hrabovsky
Check out Unsupervised Learning, Redpoint's AI Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCUl-s_Vp-Kkk_XVyDylNwLA
🎥 Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugS0jD5IAdoqzjaNYzns7w?sub_confirmation=1
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About the Show
Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode of The Logan Bartlett Show, we sit down with the people behind today’s most important startups and extract the tactics, lessons, and frameworks they’ve learned the hard way. Conversations span hiring to GTM, product, growth, fundraising and everything in between - collectively forming the ultimate playbook to make you a better CEO, investor or board member.
Tap follow and enable notifications to stay ahead of the game.
20VC: The Memo: Keith Rabois and Ramp's Eric Glyman on Behind The Scenes at The Best Run Private Company on the Planet; The Tools, Tips, Secrets and Process That Drive Efficiency
Eric Glyman is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ramp, America's fastest growing corporate card and finance automation platform. Under Eric's leadership, Ramp has raised more than $1 billion in financing, with a valuation of $8.1 billion. Prior to Ramp, Eric co-founded Paribus, a price-tracking app to help consumers save money (acquired by Capital One). Ramp recently raised another $150 million series D round co-led by Founders Fund and Khosla ventures, with a post-money valuation of $7.65 billion.
Keith Rabois is a Managing Director @ Khosla Ventures and one of the most respected venture investors of the last decade. Keith has led investments in Stripe, Faire, Ramp, Affirm and many more. Prior to Khosla Ventures, Keith was General Partner at Founders Fund, where he led investments for Ramp, Trade Republic, and Aven.
In Today's Episode with Eric Glyman and Keith Rabois We Discuss:
Behind Ramp's Partnership with Founders Fund & Khosla Ventures
How did the first Founders Fund deal come to be? How was the first meeting?
What does Keith mean when he says Ramp has the "secret sauce" to be successful?
What are 1-2 things Keith thinks Eric is world-class at? What are 1-2 things Eric thinks Keith is world-class at?
How did the latest Khosla deal come to happen?
Ramp: The Fastest Executing Company on the Planet.
How is Eric so good at executing at Ramp? What is his biggest advice to founders on speed of execution?
What are Eric's biggest challenges in the next 12 months at Ramp?
Why does Keith believe momentum is crucial for early stage startups? What are some easy ways founders can build momentum?
How does Eric think AI will accelerate Ramp and the world of finance?
Leadership Lessons From the Best Founders
What are Keith's biggest lessons from Brian Chesky @ Airbnb?
What did Keith learn from Jack Dorsey @ Square about leadership?
What does Eric think founders today should build? What should they not build?
What did Eric learn from Keith on how founders should measure time & progress?
Hiring & Team Management
How did Ramp build a solid talent team? What did they do differently?
Does Keith & Eric believe it is better to hire externally or promote internally? What is the right balance?
Does Keith agree founders should hire & get out the way or micromanage?
How many direct reports does Keith think is enough?
EP 20: Interview with Ramp’s Eric Glyman (+ explaining Cartoon Avatars’ origins) and a Crypto Debate with Mike Dudas and Zach Weinberg
(01:14) Introducing Zach Weinberg and Mike Dudas
(06:06) Mike’s background
(19:02) Exciting about crypto
(24:18) Zach vs crypto
(32:04) Inflation hedge
(38:25) Does Zach own Crypto
(41:00) Banking in foreign countries
(53:59) Stablecoin vs wire transfer
(59:00) KYC
(1:03:57) Crypto insurance
(1:09:24) Eric Glyman: Welcome
(1:11:32) Eric Glyman: Background
(1:16:57) Eric Glyman: Mandarin Debate video
(1:20:28) Eric Glyman: Starting Paribus
(1:24:51) Eric Glyman: Selling to Capital One
(1:28:57) Eric Glyman: Fintech’s success
(1:33:49) Eric Glyman: What is Ramp?
(1:43:10) Eric Glyman: Learnings as a 2-time founder
(1:48:13) Eric Glyman: Being purposeful
(1:52:55) Eric Glyman: Delegating as a CEO
(1:58:53) Eric Glyman: Building the inevitability of success
(2:02:43) Eric Glyman: Thinking through your investor base
(2:08:29) Eric Glyman: How do you determine your valuation?
(2:13:15) Eric Glyman: Advice for executives
(2:18:03) Eric Glyman: Craziest investor stories
(2:20:40) Eric Glyman: The origin of Cartoon Avatars
(2:21:54) Eric Glyman: Relationship between companies and media
(2:28:58) Outro
Links:
Eric Glyman debate video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxB5bb8xEDg
Mixed and edited: Justin Hrabovsky
Produced: Andrew Nadeau and Rashad Assir
Executive Producer: Josh Machiz
Music: Griff Lawson
🎙 Listen to the show
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cartoon-avatars/id1606770839
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🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/cartoonavatars
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About the Show
A Saturday morning podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett (Partner and Managing Director at Redpoint Ventures) covering the tech news with his friends and other people with industry expertise.
Executive Producer: Rashad Assir
Producer: Leah Clapper
Mixing and editing: Justin Hrabovsky
Check out Unsupervised Learning, Redpoint's AI Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCUl-s_Vp-Kkk_XVyDylNwLA
🎥 Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugS0jD5IAdoqzjaNYzns7w?sub_confirmation=1
Follow on Socials
📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theloganbartlettshow
📱 X - https://twitter.com/loganbartshow
🎬 Clips on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@theloganbartlettshow
About the Show
Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode of The Logan Bartlett Show, we sit down with the people behind today’s most important startups and extract the tactics, lessons, and frameworks they’ve learned the hard way. Conversations span hiring to GTM, product, growth, fundraising and everything in between - collectively forming the ultimate playbook to make you a better CEO, investor or board member.
Tap follow and enable notifications to stay ahead of the game.
Eric Glyman - Reimagining Corporate Finance - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 275]
My guest today is Eric Glyman, co-founder and CEO of Ramp. Ramp is best known for its corporate cards but it has a range of software products to help finance teams save money and time. Since its founding in 2019, the business has grown rapidly and was last valued at $8 billion. Eric and I discuss Ramp’s initial marketing wedge, how the business has dealt with such fast growth, and why they hold stablecoins on their balance sheet. Please enjoy my conversation with Eric Glyman.
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
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This episode is brought to you by Canalyst. Canalyst is the leading destination for public company data and analysis. If you're a professional equity investor and haven't talked to Canalyst recently, you should give them a shout. Learn more and try Canalyst for yourself at canalyst.com/Patrick.
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This episode is brought to you by Lemon.io. The team at Lemon.io has built a network of Eastern European developers ready to pair with fast-growing startups. We have faced challenges hiring engineering talent for various projects - and Lemon.io offered developers for one-off projects, developers for full start to finish product development, or developers that could be add-ons to the existing team. Check out lemon.io/patrick to learn more.
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Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.
Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.
Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus
Show Notes
[00:02:41] - [First question] - What was most notably awry about the industry before Ramp
[00:04:45] - Breakdown of Visa; The business model of the Black Card compared to the business card offering of Ramp
[00:08:40] - Causes and what he attributes their early success to
[00:11:30] - Description of Ramp’s software in the beginning and the evolution of co-building it
[00:16:34] - How he’s gone about building the company and team fast enough to handle their explosive growth curve
[00:19:47] - Approaching all aspects of recruiting and acquiring such great talent
[00:21:39] - Thoughts on the biggest mistake he’s made while building Ramp
[00:24:05] - Lessons learned about marketing that this journey has taught him
[00:26:13] - Learning to manage a senior team and advice for managing rapid growth
[00:28:58] - Unique aspects of Ramp’s approach to the financing side
[00:32:56] - Why they are storing some of their balance sheet in stablecoins
[00:34:47] - What the idealized end state of Ramp looks like
[00:37:26] - How the data and information he sees indicates trends in the economy writ large
[00:39:33] - Providing secondary liquidity to employees in a world where companies stay private for longer periods of time
[00:43:03] - Aspects of company building that are still unnecessarily hard
[00:44:55] - What has him most excited about Ramp in the next 12-18 months
[00:46:42] - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for him
20VC: Ramp's Eric Glyman on Why You Should Never Take The Highest Price, Working With Venture Funds vs Crossover Funds and How To Determine What To Buy vs Build as a Founder Today?
Eric Glyman is the Founder and CEO @ Ramp, the only corporate card and spend management platform designed to help you spend less. To date, Eric has raised over $390M for the company from some of the best including Thrive, Stripe, Founders Fund, Coatue and Box Group to name a few. Prior to changing the game of spend management, Eric founded Paribus, the price-tracking app that raised seed funding from General Catalyst and Greylock, which was acquired by Capital One in 2016.
In Today's Episode with Eric Glyman You Will Learn:
1.) Entry to Startups: How Eric made his way into the world of startups with Paribus and how that journey and exit led to his founding the recently minted unicorn, Ramp?
2.) Decision-Making: How does Eric deal with moments of intense pressure as a leader? How does pressure impact Eric's decision-making quality? Through what framework does Eric evaluate his decision-making process today? Why does Eric believe operational velocity is so key to company success? How does Eric determine between being fast vs spending real time on something?
3.) Funding Rounds: Why does Eric believe that "funding rounds are science experiments"? What should founders look to prove or disprove with each round? Why does Eric believe "you should never take the highest price"? What are the downsides? How does it impact employee stock options? Does it change investor sentiment? How does it change customer acquisition through referrals?
4.) The Rise of Crossover Funds: What does Eric make of the rise of crossover funds? In what way does their value differ to the value provided by traditional VCs? How does their communication style differ compared to traditional VCs? Does Eric worry about the signalling risk of having crossover funds invested early? Does Eric believe they will change the landscape of venture?
5.) Board Management: How does Eric analyse his style of board management today? How has it changed over time? Where does Eric believe many founders go wrong when it comes to board management? How can boards be used to bring together the wider team and company? What documents does Eric always prepare for the board?
Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode with Eric Glyman
Eric's Favourite Book: John Wooden: The Legendary UCLA Coach's Top 20 Quotes
As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here!
FF 015: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Eric Glyman, Co-Founder & CEO @ Paribus
Eric Glyman, Co-Founder and CEO @ Paribus (Y Combinator S15), the service which scans your inbox for receipts and automatically saves you money when the items you bought drop in price. Stores often guarantee that you will get the lowest prices. But they don’t follow through unless you work for it. Paribus does the work for you.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) What was Eric's career before Paribus and what was his a-ha moment was for the idea?
2.) How did Eric do things differently from the typical startup? Was this effective or would it have been more productive to go full in?
3.) What were Paribus' testing hypotheses like? Does Eric prefer mass market testing or niche 100 person testing?
4.) How was the admissions process for YC, why did Eric choose YC and why were YC attracted to Paribus?
5.) What would Eric advise founders looking to get into YC? Is there anything they can do or know that will increase their chances of getting into YC?
6.) What were the breakthrough moments for Paribus? What were the most challenging elements and how did Eric overcome them?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Eric's Fave Book: I, Robot
Eric's Fave Blog: AppSumo by Noah Kagan
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC, Eric and Paribus on Twitter here!
If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, follow Harry on Instagram here!
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