The Peel With Turner Novak podcast

13:44

Legendary actor and mental health advocate Glenn Close is on a quest to change how we think about mental health, starting with her decision to speak out about her own family's struggles — a brave choice considering the stigma that pervades the topic. This week, we're revisiting this sweeping conversation with TEDWomen curator Pat Mitchell, where Close shares the inspiration behind the advocacy group she founded to combat the crisis, underscoring the transformative power of community and the critical need for comprehensive mental health care systems. Want to help shape TED’s shows going forward? Fill out our survey ! Become a TED Member today at https://ted.com/join Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

The Peel with Turner Novak

Поширити

Головна серій•Feed

Exploring the world’s greatest startup stories. Get a behind the scenes look into the founding stories of your favorite companies. Learn how the industries they operate in actually work, and learn playbooks and tactics you can use to launch and scale your own business.

96 епізодів

#Tech #Peel

The Peel with Turner Novak

updated 3 дні тому

Поширити

Головна серій•Feed

96 епізодів

#Tech #Peel

Усі епізоди

The Peel with Turner Novak

1
How to Skip Your Seed, Pre-Seed Lessons Building Afore to $500M+ AUM | Anamitra Banerji 1:35:56

3 дні тому1:35:56

1:35:56

Anamitra Banerji is the Co-founder of Afore Capital, an SF-based VC firm that specializes in investing in pre-seed stage companies. Our conversation gets into the evolution of Pre-Seed as a category, why Pre-Seed is more than option checks, what Afore looks for when backing founders before they even have a product, how to skip your Seed and go straight to a Series A, and how to run a fundraise process. We also get into Afore’s Founder in Residence program, why every VC started an accelerator, how AI is changing venture, joining Twitter as the first PM, and how Oprah helped create the legendary verified checkmark. Thanks to Gaurav Jain and Derrick Li at Afore for their help brainstorming topics for Anamitra. And special thanks to Bolt and Warp for supporting this episode . Bolt : Help them break a world record for the largest hackathon - up to $1m in prizes. Sign-up . Warp : Automates payroll, handles multi-state tax compliance, and streamlines international contractor payments, so founders can focus on building, not busywork. Try it here . Timestamps: (4:00) Afore: Starting in 2016 to build the pre-seed category (8:11) The unstructured data Afore underwrites at pre-seed (11:21) Pre-seed is determining bronze from gold (16:03) Why pre-seed is more than option checks (20:33) The secret to raising a Series A (23:20) Running a tight fundraise process (32:05) Skipping your Seed round (34:01) How to measure obsession in a founder (39:20) Knowing when to follow-on (40:54) Figuring out what really matters in a business (42:36) Afore’s Founder in Residence program (49:44) Pros / Cons of more access to capital for founders (52:27) Two reasons YC made every VC launch an accelerator (1:01:05) Why AI is forcing VCs to invest earlier (1:06:55) Will AI commoditize software? (1:08:29) Growing up in India, starting his first company (1:10:39) Coming to the US for school, joining Overture + Yahoo (1:14:05) Joining Twitter as first PM, creating the Verified check for Oprah (1:18:55) Building Twitter’s first ad product (1:20:28) Why non-founders can’t take foundational risks (1:23:02) Starting Afore for the Pre-Seed opportunity (1:27:47) Raising Afore Fund 1 (1:31:14) How to raise your first fund (1:33:33) Was Turner the best Afore intern ever? Referenced Afore Capital K9 Capital Afore’s Founder in Residence Program : Speedrun PearX Neo Accelerator Gamma Develop Health Follow Anamitra Twitter LinkedIn Follow Turner Twitter LinkedIn Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week.…

The Peel with Turner Novak

1
Benchmark’s Eric Vishria on Going Zero to $100M ARR in 12 Months, Archetypes of Top AI Founders, Why Storytelling is a Superpower, How Benchmark Makes New Investments 1:45:51

10 днів тому1:45:51

1:45:51

Eric Vishria is a General Partner at Benchmark Capital. Our conversation goes inside the new class of startups going zero to $100 million ARR in 12 months, the ways AI is changing company building, and how Eric and Benchmark make new investments. We get into the risk rewards of Series As today, how Benchmark competes to work with founders, and and why the best storytellers win. We also talk about parallels between the 90’s, 2000’s, and today, and how the archetype of successful founders has changed in the age of AI. Thanks to Spenser Skates, Sajith Wickramasekara, Bobby DeSimone, and Semil Shah for help brainstorming topics for Eric! Special thanks to this episode’s sponsors: Bolt : Help them break a world record for the largest hackathon - up to $1m in prizes. Sign-up here . Numeral : The end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance. Try it here . Timestamps: (5:17) What gets Eric excited about a new investment (7:48) Backing learning machines (12:34) Backing Cerebras at inception (16:20) Why the best storytellers win (21:17) How Eric works with founders (26:38) Companies going zero to $100m in 12 months (31:09) Revenue quality of AI products (32:41) Moats and business models in AI (38:41) AI margins and runway (41:14) Parallels between winners of the 90’s and today (44:54) Archetypes of the best AI founders (50:43) SaaS companies successfully pivoting to AI (53:43) LLMs are most comparable to transistors in the 1950s (56:19) Ways Eric uses AI personally (58:05) How VC has changed over the past decade (1:01:40) VC is a hustler’s business (1:03:20) Backing extraordinary companies is all that matters (1:09:36) What makes Benchmark unique (1:17:03) How Benchmark makes investment decisions (1:18:38) Skipping senior year of high school (1:20:21) Working with Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen ‘00-’08 (1:24:42) Starting RockMelt, selling to Yahoo (1:26:28) Joining Benchmark in 2014 (1:28:08) Investing in Confluent one month later (1:28:50) Lessons from Spenser at Amplitude (1:29:36) Fireworks AI’s hyper growth (1:30:49) Pricing in AI changing from tokens to outcomes (1:32:23) Ways Eric’s perception of VCs changed after becoming one (1:34:07) How to build a management team (1:38:21 )The best CEOs make new mistakes (1:39:50) Why there should be more public companies (1:44:03) “Even great companies can be overvalued” Referenced Benchmark Cerebras Benchling Ben Thompson + Mark Zuckerberg Interview Confluent Amplitude Fireworks AI Andy Price at Artisinal Talent Follow Eric X / Twitter LinkedIn Follow Turner X/ Twitter LinkedIn Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week…

The Peel with Turner Novak

1
Samsara’s Journey to $26B Public Company | Sanjit Biswas, Co-founder and CEO 1:32:03

17 днів тому1:32:03

1:32:03

Sanjit Biswas is the Co-founder and CEO of Samsara, the fleet management and safety platform. At the time of publication, Samsara is a public company worth over $26 billion, and we unpack how exactly they went from zero to run rating at over $1.5 billion in revenue in ten years. We get into using AI to impact the physical world, how Samsara uses AI internally, and how their products prevent over 200,000 deaths per year. Sanjit has built two unicorns, and he shares everything he’s learned along the way, including what most founders and investors get wrong about hardware, thinking customer-first instead of product-first, how to know when you have product market fit, mastering sales as a technical founder, and how to spend more time with your customers. We also talk about getting his high school online in the 90’s, and the research project that turned into Sanjit’s first company, Meraki, and its $1.2 billion dollar sale to Cisco in 2012. Thanks to Bolt for supporting this episode. Help them break a world record for the largest hackathon (up to $1m in prizes): https://bit.ly/ThePeelBoltHackathon Timestamps: (4:26) Samsara: Helping the world of physical operations (8:44) Preventing 200,000 deaths per year (11:19) AI opportunities in transportation (14:43) Samsara’s internal AI tools (16:58) What people get wrong when building hardware (19:04) Starting Samsara customer-first instead of product-first (22:23) Find adjacent products for your customers (26:28) How to know you have product market fit (34:52) How to spend more time with customers and build feedback loops (43:00) 70-20-10 framework for allocating capital (45:07) Importance of selling new products to existing customers (49:15) Revisiting the product roadmap based on new technology (50:38) Why Sanjit credits focus to hitting $1B revenue in nine years (53:41) Learning to love sales as a technical founder (57:06) Getting his high school online in the 90’s (1:01:46) The research project that turned into Sanjit’s first company, Meraki (1:04:01) Importance of asymmetric risk when starting a company (1:05:41) Early days of Meraki taking off (1:09:19) Surviving and doubling during the financial crisis (1:16:00) Cisco acquiring Meraki for $1.2B (1:18:15) Meraki’s post-acquisition integration (1:20:48) Differences between 1st and 2nd company (1:24:19) Almost starting an renewable energy company (1:25:52) The power of small teams (1:28:49) One-shotting Bill Gates’ biography at 10-years old Referenced Samsara: https://samsara.com/ Meraki: https://meraki.cisco.com/ Arduino: https://www.arduino.cc/ Raspberry Pi: https://www.raspberrypi.com/ Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire: https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Drive-Making-Microsoft-Empire/dp/0887306292 No Priors Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@NoPriorsPodcast Follow Sanjit LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjitbiswas/ 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 Peel with Turner Novak

1
Michael Kim @ Cendana | Lessons from the Top VCs, How Cendana Does Diligence, Portfolio Construction Best Practices, the 60x Rule, How Seed Funds Compete vs Multi-stage, Inside Cendana's Early Days 1:54:58

24 дні тому1:54:58

1:54:58

Michael Kim is the Founder of Cendana Capital, a fund of funds that makes anchor investments in very early stage VC funds. We talk characteristics of the best investors, how Cendana does diligence on fund managers, portfolio construction best practices, Michael’s “60x rule”, and why high ownership to fund size is the main driver of returns. We also get in to how VCs are using AI, the competition between Seed and multi-stage investors, why US endowments are under siege, and how secondaries are driving most early stage venture returns today. Michael also opens up about the early days of starting Cendana, the 18 month grind raising Cendana Fund 1, the day he almost died, and ranking in the top 2% globally in Call of Duty. Special thanks to Roger Ehrenberg, Kevin Hartz, Semil Shah, Jeff Claviar, Beezer Clarkson, Jack Altman, Jeff Morris Jr, Sheel Mohnot, Nichole Wischoff, Ted Alling, and Rick Zullo for their help putting this episode together. Thanks to Bolt for supporting this episode. Help them break a world record for the largest hackathon (up to $1m in prizes): https://bit.ly/ThePeelBoltHackathon Timestamps: (4:24) The day Michael almost died (5:10) Call of Duty & video games (9:34) Hiring @ Cendana (10:31) How Cendana uses structured and unstructured data (16:51) How VCs are using AI (19:55) Why secondaries are driving most early stage venture returns (22:01) Deciding when to sell secondaries (24:28) Best performing venture funds ever (27:26) The best VCs have amazing access to the best founders (33:42) Why Cendana backs Solo GPs (35:57) How to invest over time and hype cycles (41:35) Why multi-stage firms are investing earlier (44:45) Cendana’s current thesis: High ownership % to fund size (45:51) Why Cendana started backing non-lead VCs (48:41) How Cendana does diligence on fund managers (52:22) VC NPS Scores and Ron Conway’s Silver Bullet (53:49) Good vs bad new VC firm strategies (56:36) Determining defensibility of a strategy (57:57) “Messy middle” software buyout fund (1:03:25) Portfolio construction best practice (1:08:11) Michael’s 60x Rule (1:14:28) How Seed funds compete with multi-stage funds (1:20:05) Should you collect logos writing small checks? (1:21:07) Becoming an LP for the city of SF (1:24:42) Taking 18+ months to raise Cendana Fund 1 in the GFC (1:26:48) Warehousing the first Cendana Fund 1 investments (1:29:56) How to do a first close (1:34:29) Why it’s hard to kill a VC firm (1:37:00) What happens to ZIRP tourist fund managers (1:40:22) How to raise a Fund 2 or 3 today (1:42:07) “US endowments are under siege” (1:44:55) What the best GP LP relationships look like (1:46:41) What Fund of Funds get wrong (1:50:43) The three most interesting trends in venture today Referenced Check out Cendana https://www.cendanacapital.com/ Deep Checks https://www.deepchecks.vc/ Prior episode with Eric at Bolt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q6n1vqUrF4 Follow Michael Twitter: https://x.com/MKRocks LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-kim-cendana-capital/ 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 Peel with Turner Novak

1
How AI Changes Governments & Business Models, From $11 to $187M Exit | Mike Vichich, Pursuit 1:47:05

4 weeks тому1:47:05

1:47:05

Mike Vichich is the Co-founder and CEO of Pursuit, which helps companies generate more revenue from the public sector. We talk about how AI is changing Helmer’s 7 Powers, how it’s impacting the government, if DOGE is actually working, building a startup in the Midwest, and how to disagree with your team. We also get into Mike’s prior company Wisely, and how they went from $11 in the bank account and unable to pay payroll for six months, to over $10 million ARR and a $187 million exit to Olo, a public company. Thanks to Jack Altman and Blake Robbins for their help brainstorming topics for Mike! Timestamps: (3:21) How AI changes Helmer’s 7 Powers (17:06) What becomes important in AI-first economy (21:02) How AI interfaces with the government (24:02) “The rules intended to save taxpayer money ironically cause taxpayer money to be wasted” (29:34) How change orders impact public sector costs (33:20) Why DOGE has not impacted US government spending yet (38:15) Three pieces of wisdom from 2nd-time founders (41:44) Starting Pursuit to make selling to the public sector as easy as the private sector (45:35) Why cities grow expenses 5x faster than tax revenue (51:42) Pros + Cons of building startups in Ann Arbor, MI (57:43) Hiring talent density in the Midwest (59:30) Starting his first company to fix consumer credit cards (1:08:50) Pivoting Wisely to restaurant loyalty (1:12:49) $11 in the bank, missing payroll for six months (1:15:21) Embarrassing demo at an Ann Arbor tech meetup (1:18:18) Why CEOs don’t always have to be right (1:20:54) How to disagree (1:25:48) Hiring at Pursuit (1:28:30) “A bad day with customers is better than the best day in the office” (1:31:33) Crashing their first customer’s PoS on Labor Day Weekend (1:35:55) Using “The Cadence” to hit $10M ARR (1:41:55) Selling Wisely to Olo for $187M Referenced Check out Pursuit: https://www.pursuit.us/ The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steve-Blank/dp/0989200507 Ann Arbor New Tech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/a2newtech/ How to Disagree: https://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html The Cadence by David Sacks: https://sacks.substack.com/p/the-cadence-how-to-operate-a-saas-startup-436aa8099e8 Follow Mike Twitter: https://x.com/mikevichich LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikevichich 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 Peel with Turner Novak

1
Ultimate Startup Growth Playbook, Using AI to Automate Operations | Sam Ross, Numeral 2:01:12

5 weeks тому2:01:12

2:01:12

Sam Ross is the Co-founder and CEO of Numeral. This conversation is a master class on all things growth at the zero to one stage. We talk early growth lessons from Airbnb, and stories from being one of the largest, earliest Facebook advertisers. We get into working backwards from pockets of strong demand to find business ideas, how to establish early social proof around your product, why you shouldn’t hire a growth person as your first growth hire, how he raised Numeral’s Series A in four days, and why sales tax is so complicated and how they’re using AI to make it easy. Timestamps: (3:03) Why sales tax is so complicated (8:06) Running crazy Facebook ads in 2013 (11:58) Why you need to be aggressive on new growth channels (16:55) How strong retention unlocks massive businesses (18:24) Using pockets of demand to find business ideas (21:34) Balancing performance vs brand marketing (25:45) How to build a brand from scratch (29:11) When cold outbound actually works (36:18) Building early social proof around your product (43:33) Don’t hire career growth people for growth roles (49:31) Lessons building a jewelry business doing $30m in revenue (58:44) How the 2018 Wayfair v South Dakota decision led to Numeral (1:05:04) Hacking an early product together with spreadsheets (1:07:32) Automating the product (1:15:26) What happens if you don’t pay sales tax (1:20:41) How Numeral uses AI and LLMs internally (1:26:41) How to compete against non-technical incumbents (1:32:57) Why they raised VC for Numeral (1:38:19) Raising a Series A in four days (1:45:43) How big can a sales tax company really be? (1:48:55) Creating a better global tax system (1:54:31) How San Francisco is losing its soul Referenced Check out Numeral: https://www.numeralhq.com/ South Dakota v Wayfair: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Dakota_v._Wayfair,_Inc. Follow Sam Twitter: https://x.com/SpamRoss LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sambross/ 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 Peel with Turner Novak

1
Scaling Amplitude to $300M ARR with Co-founder and CEO Spenser Skates 1:44:04

6 weeks тому1:44:04

1:44:04

Spenser Skates is the Co-founder and CEO of Amplitude. Our conversation gets into the importance of data in product design and company building, how Amplitude is thinking about AI, and the future of user responsive software. We also get into the early days of building Amplitude, when to go multi-product, how to construct your board as a startup, hiring executives at various company stages, lessons from closing three acquisitions, lessons scaling to $300 million in ARR, inside Amplitude’s 2021 IPO, and what most people get wrong about Founder Mode. Thanks to Numeral for supporting this episode, the end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance. Try it here: https://bit.ly/NumeralThePeel Timestamps: (4:45) Using data to build great products (8:31) Why data is existential to every business (13:14) How to go multi-product (15:48) Every startup becomes a distribution company (19:29) Lessons from three acquisitions (29:09) AI hasn’t changed B2B SaaS yet (31:24) Challenges of incorporating AI in B2B SaaS (33:09) Amplitude’s AI experiments (36:29) Navigating technology hype cycles as a public company (39:40) Amplitude’s opportunity in LLMs (43:08) User responsive software (46:16) Surprising things that slow your speed of execution (51:27) What people get wrong about Founder Mode (59:48) Pivoting into Amplitude after YC (1:04:42) Nine months to raise Amplitude’s first round (1:08:31) Surprises from closing the first customers (1:12:46) Two sales lessons for technical founders (1:13:44) Scaling to $300M+ ARR (1:17:14) How to choose board members (1:19:55) Inside Amplitude’s IPO (1:21:56) “Stock price is an output of the business” (1:26:36) Evolving from startup founder to public company CEO (1:31:54) How hiring execs changes as you scale (1:34:32) Why DEI is important at Amplitude (1:39:46) Relevance of gaming and startups Referenced Try Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/ Careers at Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/careers Moxie Marlinspike’s web3 article:https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html Sheep Logic: https://www.epsilontheory.com/sheep-logic/ Follow Spenser Twitter: https://x.com/spenserskates LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/spenserskates 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 Peel with Turner Novak

1
Lessons Going Zero to $40M ARR in Two Years | Dan Lorenc, Chainguard 1:14:56

7 weeks тому1:14:56

1:14:56

Dan Lorenc is the Co-founder and CEO of Chainguard, the safe source for open source. The internet runs on free, open source software. But as its risen in popularity, its become the latest attack point targeted by hackers and nation states. This conversation with Dan gets into the history of open source software, cloud computing, Linux, the software supply chain, how AI will impact it, and what the next big cyber attack will look like. Dan is an engineer, but he also loves sales and go-to-market. We unpack how Chainguard went from zero to 150 customers and a $40m ARR in two years. Chainguard just announced a $350 million Series D led by Kleiner and IVP, and Dan unpacks the round, plus shares his secret methodology for valuing the company. A big thank you to Dan’s Co-founder Kim Lewandowski, to Clay Fischer @ Spark, Bogomil Balkansky & Andrew Reed @ Sequoia, and Tom Loverro @ IVP for their help brainstorming topics for Dan. Thanks to Numeral for supporting this episode, the end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance. Try it here: https://bit.ly/NumeralThePeel Timestamps: (3:26) A safe source for open source (4:57) The software supply chain (7:19) Can you trust open source code with contributors in Russia? (9:43) Malware attack that almost took down the entire internet (12:40) What the next big cyber attack will look like (15:12) How will AI impact the software supply chain (17:53) The history of cloud computing (21:42) Why all cloud computing runs on Linux (23:16) How Linux + Linux distros work (29:28) Automating open source security (32:43) Chainguard roadmap: Libraries and VMs (36:40) Focusing on FedRAMP (42:44) Impact of DOGE (44:06) Zero to $40m ARR in two years (45:40) Learning to love sales as a technical founder (47:24) Lessons from Frank Slootman (51:15) How to create urgency in sales (53:16) How to build a sales team (58:23) Hiring Ryan Carlson from Wiz & Okta (1:01:45) Inside Chainguard’s $350m Series D (1:07:41) Vibe coding + Dan’s software stack (1:09:51) Cutting his hair in front of the entire company (1:10:27) Wearing a different suit to each board meeting (1:12:32) Bogomil, world’s best SDR Referenced Check out Chainguard: https://www.chainguard.dev/ Jobs at Chainguard: https://www.chainguard.dev/careers Prior episode with Dan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC4cOJ9n_Z8 Linux Origin Email: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/mmmlh3/linux_has_a_interested_history_this_is_one_of/ The Qualified Sales Leader: https://www.amazon.com/Qualified-Sales-Leader-Proven-Lessons/dp/0578895064 Julius, AI data analysis: https://julius.ai/ Claude Code: https://www.anthropic.com/claude-code World’s best SDR: https://x.com/BogieBalkansky/status/1913269714882814350 2025 Chainguard Assemble Keynote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adfU9LJg3I0 Follow Dan Twitter: https://x.com/lorenc_dan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danlorenc/ 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 Peel with Turner Novak

1
Surviving Two Seed Extensions, Fixing Auth for AI Agents | Clerk Founder & CEO Colin Sidoti 1:39:38

8 weeks тому1:39:38

1:39:38

Colin Sidoti is the Co-founder and CEO of Clerk, the best way to build authentication and user management. I loved this conversation, because Colin is currently in the arena building Clerk. It has not been easy, and he takes us inside some of the harder moments of the past six years. We hit on three main themes: authentication; lessons raising multiple hard Seed extensions in the early days, including a recap before the A, and the demo that got a16z to invest; and things AI and MCP. We also talk founding a company with his brother, building a compound startup, why components are the new APIs, and what he learned about audacious goals from John Collison @ Stripe A big thank you to Reid Christian @ CRV, Paul Klein @ Browserbase, and Joseph Nelson @ Roboflow for helping brainstorm topics for Colin. Timestamps: (3:39) The best developer tool for authentication and user management (5:45) The easiest way to set up billing (7:13) Building a compound startup (9:15) Lesson on audacious goals from John Collison (12:40) Developer tools are now trusted category experts (13:47) How auth impacts billing, CRM, marketing, analytics (19:44) Why auth is always changing (25:40) Coming up with the idea for Clerk (29:24) What its like starting a company with your brother (30:58) Living in a basement during Clerks early days (35:33) Getting early users narrowing focus in South Park Commons (40:10) Fundraising lessons from struggling to raise (43:46) The trick that raised Clerk’s first round from S28 (45:09) Launching + the first Seed extension (50:15) Sequoia’s feedback that improved conversion rates (52:22) Why a16z led Clerk’s 2nd Seed extension (58:11) How to do a recap before Series A (1:03:34) Changing Clerk’s pitch to scare investors (1:08:56) Fundraising advice “Why partner alignment is all that matters” (1:11:42) Fast Series A and breaking 7%/week growth (1:16:32) Negotiating Clerk’s Series B at the bar (1:22:15) Investors in the arena vs in their mansions (1:27:57) The three ways AI is changing authentication (1:31:21) Why AI agents all try to steal free AI credits (1:33:09) Remember to have fun (1:36:24) Building a better product to compete in a crowded market Referenced Try Clerk: https://clerk.com/ Jobs at Clerk: https://clerk.com/careers Martin Casado’s tweet https://x.com/martin_casado/status/1558134697753841664 Try Inngest: https://www.inngest.com/ Follow Colin Twitter: https://x.com/tweetsbycolin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colin-sidoti-751a219 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 Peel with Turner Novak

1
Building Verkada, the $4.5B Physical Security Company | Filip Kaliszan, Founder and CEO 1:42:51

9 weeks тому1:42:51

1:42:51

Filip Kaliszan is the Founder & CEO of Verkada, the physical security company. Verkada started in 2016 by building the best camera for physical security teams, and has since evolved into a full suite of security products for buildings. Filip takes us inside Verkada’s rapid growth to almost a billion in annual revenue, over 2,000 employees, and raising capital from investors like Sequoia, Meritech, First Round, General Catalyst, and Next47. We get into how AI and LLMs are changing hardware, the power of customer therapy, how Filip iterated on early startup ideas, inside Verkada’s very difficult first funding round, how signing their first big customers changed the trajectory of the business, and how to think about adding new products over time. We also talk through Verkada’s commitment to in-person work in the summer of 2020, how you should evaluate joining a startup as an employee, Verkada’s “software zero” employee bonus policy, and building a rooftop bar for the office. Thanks to Numeral for supporting this episode, the end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance. Try it here: https://bit.ly/NumeralThePeel Timestamps: (4:20) Verkada, the physical security technology company + Demo! (11:02) Building software powered hardware (12:56) LLM opportunities in cameras (15:49) Filip’s lifelong fascination with photography (17:57) Taking one year to come up with the idea for Verkada (22:27) Building his own home security system to learn the $16B market (27:14) Why hardware experimentation is cheaper and easier than you’d think (30:36) The importance of customer therapy (32:37) How to get your first customers, importance of quick time to demo (35:06) Why early fundraising was so hard (40:38) Verkada’s first big customer (42:23) How to decide what startup to join (45:45) The opportunity in “smart building tech” (50:34) How to launch new product lines (58:07) Re-architecting the security industry to be software-native (1:02:31) How hiring and managing a team changes as you scale (1:08:55) Why each team at Verkada has its own recruiters (1:14:00) Adding senior leaders to the team as you scale (1:17:06) Evolving from introverted engineer to CEO of multi-thousand person company (1:21:59) Verkada’s cool office and focus on in-person work during COVID (1:28:12) Building a rooftop bar on the office (1:32:20) Verkada’s Software Zero employee bonus program with 40x ROI (1:36:00) How Filip thinks about IPO vs staying private Referenced Verkada: https://www.verkada.com/ Open roles at Verkada: https://www.verkada.com/careers/ Follow Filip LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaliszan/ 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 Peel with Turner Novak

1
Forage: The Trillion Dollar Opportunity in Restricted Payments | Ofek Lavian 1:13:06

10 weeks тому1:13:06

1:13:06

Ofek Lavian is the Co-founder and CEO of Forage, the mission driven payments company. This is a special episode, because I’m an investor in Forage, and Ofek shares everything he’s learned building the company. We go deep on food stamps, also known as EBT or SNAP, the government program that provides over $200 billion dollars per year in benefits that help 42 million low income Americans buy food. Our conversation gets into lessons from Ofek’s time leading payments teams at Uber and Instacart, building Instacart’s EBT program up to 40 employees and 10% of its total revenue, and why Ofek is so passionate about helping low income Americans. We get into the history of food stamps, market dynamics that led to low online adoption, the days Ofek thought Forage might not make it all the way to now working with the biggest players in online grocery, like Uber and DoorDash, and the long-term opportunity Forage has to build the rails the government uses to distribute trillions of dollars of restricted consumer benefits. Thanks to Numeral for supporting this episode, the end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance. Try it here: https://bit.ly/NumeralThePeel Timestamps: (4:53) Forage: Helping 42m Americans buy food (5:24) History of food stamps & EBT (9:26) Growing up as an immigrant family with low food access (11:39) 90% of EBT recipients are elderly, disabled, or working parents (12:39) How Forage sells revenue to its customers (14:15) Building Instacart’s EBT program during COVID (18:25) Why no one built an EBT payments product (22:13) Joining Forage as a Co-founder (25:01) Why government payments are so hard (30:25) Growing 15x in six months (33:52) Underdiscussed mental health challenges of startups (37:06) How the political environment impacts EBT (43:20) Why Forage charges more than competitors (45:58) Seasonality in EBT spend (46:59) Why early investors passed on Forage (48:10) The trillion dollar opportunity in restricted payments (50:56) “ There's no single idea that has destroyed more business value on planet Earth than the idea that micromanagement is bad.” (54:45) Why Forage doesn’t care about job titles (58:51) Lessons backpacking across 28 countries after college (1:02:09) How to travel on a budget (1:04:24) Importance of health (1:06:15) Saving a friends life on Mount Everest Referenced Forage: https://www.joinforage.com/ Ofek’s viral tweet: https://x.com/OfekLavian/status/1766950034581700697 Follow Ofek Twitter: https://x.com/OfekLavian LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ofeklavian/ 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 Peel with Turner Novak

1
How the World’s Most Active Angel Investor Operates | Ed Lando, Founder of Pareto Holdings 1:44:42

12 weeks тому1:44:42

1:44:42

Ed Lando is the Co-founder of Pareto, where he’s been an early investor in over 25 unicorns, started and incubated over 10 companies, and was recently named the most active angel investor in the world according to Crunchbase. We get into how Ed first got started angel investing, how he built up deal flow, why he’s historically kept a low profile, and why he hasn’t raised outside capital. We also talk concentration vs diversification, why there’s many ways to build successful companies, advice on hiring your first employees, and his playbook for incubating companies at Pareto, which is where he focuses most of his time. Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (2:51) Getting into angel investing (3:58) Debating high vs low PR strategies (8:27) How to start building deal flow when angel investing (10:00) Pareto: first investor in people leaving school or their job (12:05) Evolving from angel to fund (14:57) Why Ed didn’t raise outside capital (20:33) Concentration vs diversification (28:29) Investing in non-sexy categories (32:50) There’s no one right way to build a company (36:03) When to go against traditional wisdom (39:36) Lessons from his anti-portfolio (45:59) Ed’s close relationship with his parents( (49:04) How we’re using AI (54:04) Incubating companies (58:38) Investing beyond spreadsheets and DCF models (1:05:49) How to trust your intuition investing (1:09:47) How to move fast (1:14:24) What most people get wrong when incubating companies (1:18:40) How to hire your first employees (1:26:27) Navigating hype when building and investing 1:29:59 Venture math and the Power Law 1:35:33 How Ed and Pareto’s strategy might break 1:38:45 Differences between the US and Europe Referenced Pareto: https://pareto20.com/ Misfit Market: https://www.misfitsmarket.com/ Catalina Crunch: https://catalinacrunch.com/ Zamp: https://zamp.com/ Magnus Carlsen on Joe Rogan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybuJ_nIXwGE Follow Ed Twitter: https://x.com/edwardlando LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwardlando/ Substack: https://edwardlando.substack.com/ 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 Peel with Turner Novak

1
Alloy’s Unconventional Path to $1.5B with Tommy Nicholas, Co-founder and CEO 1:29:54

13 weeks тому1:29:54

1:29:54

Tommy Nicholas is the Co-founder and CEO of Alloy, the identity and fraud prevention platform trusted by over 700 financial service companies. Our conversation explores the early days of fintech, why more consumer financial protections actually lead to more fraud, and gets into the weeds of various tactics he’s learned building a technical platform company like Alloy. We talk about embracing that the hard parts of company building are actually the best parts, why you’re most likely to give up when things first start getting better, using hands-on sales implementations in the early days to gave Alloy product market fit on steroids, how hiring changes as you scale, getting 100’s of no’s over 20 months raising their Seed round, and why TAM doesn’t matter. Thanks to Charley Ma for his help brainstorming topics for Tommy! Thanks to Numeral for supporting this episode, the end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance. Try them here: https://bit.ly/NumeralThePeel Timestamps: (3:56) The platform to manage fraud (5:48) What fintech risk was like in the early 2010’s (14:34) Why company building never gets easier (19:30) Reasons the hard stuff is actually the good stuff (24:00) You’re most likely to give up when things start getting better (33:47) Doing hands-on sales implementation to get PMF on steroids (42:26) Deciding when PLG or hands-on sales will work best (52:33) Why more consumer financial protections leads to more fraud (58:14) 20 months to raise $2m vs $200m from a spreadsheet (1:06:32) “Make yourself look like a good investment” (1:10:14) Why TAM doesn’t matter (1:14:35) How to hire collaborative problem solvers (1:24:38) Why Alloy didn’t do much marketing early on Referenced Try Alloy: https://www.alloy.com/ Charley Ma’s Pod Episode: https://youtu.be/5cxgB1_q2lw Try Artie: https://www.artie.com/ Follow Tommy Twitter: https://x.com/tommyrva LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommynicholas 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 Peel with Turner Novak

1
The $750 Billion AI Opportunity in Customer Service | Mike Murchison, Co-founder and CEO of Ada 1:32:45

14 weeks тому1:32:45

1:32:45

Mike Murchison is the Co-founder and CEO of Ada, the AI-powered customer service automation platform. Ada’s product and scale puts Mike at the forefront at how AI is changing software and labor markets, and this conversation felt like both a glimpse into the future, and a look into the past, at a story of pure grit and determination, working seven customer service jobs at once. We talk about why management capabilities becomes even more important in AI-native companies, how customer service is changing from a cost center to a revenue driver, and how to talk to customers more as you scale. We also get into why AI is still underhyped, what truly AI native software looks like, the realities of selling enterprise AI software today, and advice for anyone building an AI agent from scratch. Thanks to Boris Wertz and Fahd Ananta for their help brainstorming topics for Mike! Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (03:49) Making customer service extraordinary for everyone (05:44) Management becomes more important in AI-first companies (12:13) From customer inquiry to solution in production, fully autonomously (16:01) Why companies talk to customers less as they grow (20:36) Creating new products from customer service data (22:45) Broken incentives in customer service (26:10) Working 7 customer service agent jobs at once for a year (37:19) Why pivoting to Ada felt like failure (46:11) How Mike would build an AI agent from scratch today (49:15) Ways AI will change how we build and manage companies (56:44) Why the best managers are great users of AI (1:00:27) How the top 1% of people are using LLMs (1:06:22) Realities of selling enterprise AI software today (1:11:02) Building a sales team from scratch (1:15:21) Reflecting on Ada’s scale + doubling the last six months (1:16:41) Biggest software category of all-time ($750B) (1:19:51) Why AI is still under hyped (1:21:01) Ego is the biggest inhibitor to AI adoption (1:23:33) How AI will fuel explosion of creativity and productivity (1:25:20) Large companies will benefit the most from AI (1:27:41) Multi-modal language models and autonomous (computers Referenced Try Ada: https://www.ada.cx/ Follow Mike Twitter: https://twitter.com/mimurchison LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemurchison 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 Peel with Turner Novak

1
Why Founders are Moving to Chattanooga, Tennessee to Lock-in | Cam Doody at Brickyard 1:45:47

15 weeks тому1:45:47