As I mentioned when I covered how I built Wallstrip, I’m doing more origin stories over the next year. I’m covering my own projects as well as those of the ten or fifteen people from the companies I’ve loved and the products I’ve used in Web 2. There were mostly good exits, but there were also a few that we learned from. 

In today’s episode I’m back in the hot seat covering the lessons learned from building Stocktwits in a Web 2 world. Knut and Riley join me as we talk about what worked back then, and what it will take to succeed building a company moving forward. 

This is a very different era. Back then money was the game in a zero interest rate world. Today I think it’s more about the craft, and less about money. Do you know who your customer is? What are your margins? How are you going to make money, and how are you going to get your users? If founders and investors aren’t asking those questions today, they could be looking at massive losses down the road. I hope this helps and maybe gives you a peak at what might be coming around the corner as AI seems to be eating the world right now. Enjoy! 

Guest - Howard Lindzon, General partner at Social Leverage and Host of Panic With Friends Podcast 

Co-hosts - Knut Jensen and Riley Rosebee 

howardlindzon.com, stocktwits.com, socialleverage.com 

Twitter: @howardlindzon, @be_rosebee @PanicwFriends, @knutjensen 

Rosebee.beehiiv.com

linkedin.com/in/howardlindzon 

linkedin.com/company/socialleverage 

linkedin.com/in/knutejensen 

#fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance 

Show Notes:

• Introduction (00:22)
• Historic look at Web 2 (01:58)
• Starting Stocktwits (03:25)
• Why I didn’t wait (05:34)
• Creating Bloomberg on Twitter (06:54)
• Building the team (07:28)
• Coming up with the name (08:03)
• Raising money (09:24)
• The first version (12:04)
• Creating the branding (12:16)
• The cap table (15:57)
• Building around twitter (25:08)
• The cash tag (18:16)
• Building on our own (26:02)
• Early Web 2 lessons (29:56)
• Thoughts on AI (32:20)
• Valuing deals (33:56)
• Stocktwits culture (34:28)
• Predicting the future (37:57)
• Wrapping up (39:01)
• Closing thoughts (42:58)