Today’s episode of Request for Startups features

* Auren Hoffman: CEO of Safegraph, GP at Flex Capital, and host of podcast World of Daas

* Host: Erik Torenberg: Investor, Founder of Turpentine.co

In this conversation, Erik and Auren discuss all things data business, including data on windfalls and net worth, reputational databases, and the failures and successes of LinkedIn.

What will you build?

Timestamps

(00:00) Episode Preview

(00:38) What ties Auren's businesses together

(01:01) The importance of market share and declining CACs

(02:44) Challenges & types of data businesses

(04:12) Selling horizontal data

(04:55) People, places, organizations, and products

(09:55) Methods for sourcing and verifying data

(13:04) Potential of building data businesses around products

(13:57) The nuances in recommendations for people and products

(25:52) LinkedIn’s success and disappointments

(32:16) Windfall data and net worth

(33:56) Reputation and bias

(37:34) Challenges & potential for social recommendations

(41:24) Improving the user experience of LinkedIn

(46:29) Crossbeam & second party data sharing

(48:32) DSL Co-op & aggregating general ledger data

(49:38) Building a reputation database

(51:07) NDA network

(52:34) Software businesses masquerading as services businesses

(54:46) Incubators & structuring ownership

Upcoming guests on this season of Request for Startups include Aashay Sanghvi, Talia Goldberg, Imran Khan, Qiao Wang, Nick DeWilde, Avlok Kohli, David Booth, Greg Isenberg, Gagan Biyani, and more.

SUBSCRIBE & FORWARD TO BUILDERS, ENGINEERS, FUTURE CO-FOUNDERS, ASPIRING FOUNDERS, & ANYONE NAVIGATING THE IDEA MAZE.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit requestforstartups.substack.com

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