Building the Successor to Google Docs with CEO of Almanac, Adam Nathan

If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we need better tools to work and collaborate remotely. For years engineering teams have solved this problem with GitHub and other version control systems, but for documents and other collaborative workflows, there hasn’t been a rock-solid tool. Today’s guest, Adam Nathan, co-founder and CEO of Almanac is working to change that. Almanac is working to replace entrenched players like Google Workspace and Microsoft Office, and a recent $34M Raise led by Tiger Global and joined by Floodgate and others will give them a real shot at disruption.

About Adam Nathan:Adam started his career at the White House, where he worked on policy initiatives. He moved to the private sector and had roles at Lyft, Apple, and Varo before co-founding Almanac. He did his undergrad at Duke and an MBA at Harvard.

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In this episode we discuss:

02:57 Adam’s journey to becoming a founder

07:34 Why disrupting the status quo has been a recurring theme in his career

11:45 How starting Almanac prior to the pandemic allowed them to A-B test assumptions prior to being more widely adopted

16:19 Painpoints with Google Workspace and Microsoft Office that Almanac is trying to solve

19:50 What Almanac has learned from early use cases outside of the tech world

23:39 How their CORE document template library has helped customers and accelerated growth

26:01 Uses for Almanac’s Snippet feature

28:18 Why Adam thinks Hybrid office strategies are doomed to fail

31:24 How Almanac is a cultural choice, not a productivity tool

35:15 Adam’s experience working with Floodgate and Tiger

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