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20VC: Airtable's Howie Liu on Potential Consolidation In The Collaboration Tools Market, The Transition From Peacetime To Wartime CEO & How To Make The Move To Remote Work Successful; The Process Beyond The Tools

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Apr 27, 2020

Howie Liu, the Founder and CEO of Airtable, shares insights from his journey of transforming collaboration tools. He discusses the lessons learned from leading remote work, highlighting both successes and missteps in the process. Howie explores the shift from an application to a platform, identifying core challenges along the way. He also contrasts leadership styles during peacetime and wartime, emphasizing the need for adaptability in today's changing landscape and the growing competition in the collaboration tools market.

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ANECDOTE

Early Entrepreneurial Journey

Howie Liu's parents encouraged his entrepreneurial spirit, giving him books about Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
His first company, Etacts, was acquired by Salesforce after just one year.

INSIGHT

Lessons from Etacts and Salesforce

Howie Liu's experience with Etacts taught him the value of rapid iteration and speed.
At Salesforce, he learned the importance of methodical platform building and long-term vision.

ADVICE

Successful Remote Work Practices

Establish clear processes and empower team members in remote work environments.
Use structured tools like Airtable alongside communication tools like Slack and Zoom.

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Howie Liu is the Founder & CEO @ Airtable, the all in one collaboration platform that has taken so much of our ecosystem by storm. To date, Howie has raised over $170M from some of the best in the business including Benchmark, Thrive, Coatue, Caffeinated Capital, Founder Collective, CRV and Freestyle to name a few. Prior to founding Airtable, Howie was the Co-Founder @ Etacts, an automated intelligent CRM that was acquired by Salesforce just 9 months after creation. Howie then led the social CRM product at Salesforce. Fun fact, Howie started his career as an intern at Freestyle Ventures.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Howie made his way from founding Etacts to changing the way we think about databases and spreadsheets today with Airtable? How did Salesforce acquiring Etacts impact Howie's operating mentality with Airtable?

2.) With the rise of remote work, what have been Howie's core observations from the last month of the world going WFH? What does it take to succeed? What mistakes have Airtable made in their process of work from home? Why did it not work? What lessons did Howie take from that?

3.) How does Howie think about Airtable's transition from an application to a platform? What does he perceive as the core challenges in making the transition? What lessons has he learned from studying others who have done it? Why did Howie choose Peter Fenton @ Benchmark to work with?

4.) How has Howie seen himself evolve and scale as a leader over the last few years? What have been the most challenging elements? How does Howie think about which individuals he would like as mentors? How does he determine which advice to ingest vs to reject?

5.) How does Howie analyse the remote work/collaboration tools environment today? Does Howie believe we will enter a period of consolidation with the proliferation of new tools created? Does Howie believe we will see an unbundling in collaboration tools?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Howie’s Fave Book: Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire, Spying on Whales

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