Anand Sanwal, founder of a profitable data business, shares his strategies for data arbitrage and discusses quirky business ideas like high-end Glassdoor and autonomous HOA convenience stores. He also touches on the importance of competency-based learning, leadership lessons from coaches, and innovative ventures like online addiction centers.

Anand Sanwal, CEO and co-founder of CB Insights, talks about building companies, importance of data, growing niches, executive briefing emails, pricing data business, college rankings, managing and selling a company, spotting scams, and more.

Episode 404: Sam Parr (@TheSamParr) and Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) binge on business ideas in this episode. They discuss becoming the next member of the Twitter Guy Mafia to going through Anand Sanwal's treasure trove of ideas - the good and the bad, plus much more.Want to see more MFM? Subscribe to the MFM YouTube channel here.-----Links:* Anand Sanwal* Yardstiq* Guy Dealership* Luxury Watch Guy* Franchise Wolf* Mobile Home Park Guy* Mini Katana* Isaac of Mini Katana Store* Do you love MFM and want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel.* Want more insights like MFM? Check out Shaan's newsletter.------Show Notes:(03:10) - Anand Sandwall, CB Insights, and Yardstiq(10:45) - Anand Sandwall business idea list(20:35) - IDEA ALERT: The Guy Mafia & Car Dealership Guy(35:30) - Agency affiliates(37:35) - MFM Back Office(40:55) - The Katana Story(50:40) - The application for Sam's researcher-----Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more.-----Additional episodes you might enjoy:• #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits• #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future• #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto* #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett• ​​​​#218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates• Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More• How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More

In today’s episode, I talk to Anand Sanwal of the market research company, CB Insights.  Anand bootstrapped CB Insights for 6 years… And now it’s worth over $100 million dollars!!!  He’s a really impressive guy and knows a thing or two about growing a company.  This episode also goes into the current state of the startup market, the importance of defining the right priorities for your business, and why every business SHOULDN’T appeal to every customer.  Check out Anand Sanwal on Twitter at @asanwal.  If you’ve ever wanted to learn about the data that’s driving businesses forward, you’ll love this episode.  In this conversation, you’ll enjoy 3 BIG things: - The difference between good ideas and bad ideas, and why you need to be able to identify them - The fiction book that taught Anand the MOST about business - And the ONE sub-market that’s raising a TON of money right now  Enjoy those 3 things… plus a bunch more ear nuggets along the way. Also, if you want to launch your own business but don’t know where to start, I reopened my course Monthly1K for just $10. It’s helped thousands of people start their business journey and I know it will help you, too. Head over to OkDork.com/Monthly1K and sign up.

Erik Torenberg sits down with Anand Sanwal, CEO of CB Insights. Over 900,000 people turn to CB Insights for the insights they share in their newsletter. Riverside.fm is a presenting sponsor of Media Empires. Go to https://creators.riverside.fm/MediaEmpires + use code MEDIAEMPIRES for 20% off individual plans.In this conversation, Anand and Erik discuss data collection, scaling across different technology markets, media and data businesses, and more.Media Empires is part of the Turpentine podcast network. To learn more: www.turpentine.co-RECOMMENDED PODCAST:🎙️ECON 102 W/ NOAH SMITH - Keeping econ entertaining - Noahpinion author Noah Smith and Erik Torenberg break down business news and politics every week.Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1696419056Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6q7Gn5lP8TTtBPuV1NJSGs-SPONSOR:Head to Beehiiv, the newsletter platform built for growth, to power your own. Connect with premium brands, scale your audience, and deliver a beautiful UX that stands out in an inbox. 🐝to https://Beehiiv.com and use code "EMPIRES" for 20% off your first three months.-We're hiring across the board at Turpentine and for Erik's personal team on other projects he's incubating. He's hiring a Chief of Staff, EA, Head of Special Projects, Investment Associate, and more. For a list of JDs, check out: eriktorenberg.com.-TIMESTAMPS(00:00) Episode Preview(02:00) What is CB Insights(02:45) What CB Insights does(03:30) The needs of the CB Insight customer(07:00) Scaling to a thousand markets(12:16) Evolution of CB Insights(15:58) Which data is most helpful to collect?(17:51) A dataset Anand would want to acquire(19:45) Events and Community(21:32) The Future of CB Insights(23:15) Increasing density of coverage(26:48) Perspective on past opportunities(28:30) Litmus test for what is worth Focusing On(30:08) Breadth of data front(32:38) Private analyses(34:25) Data business idea: startup-investor pitches(38:16) Data business idea: Reference checks(39:12) Online reputations(42:20) Which media businesses should be data businesses?(46:10) Scalable and programmatic ways of acquiring data(48:50) If Anand was starting today(49:44) Building a data business on top of a successful media companyLINKS:CB Insights: https://www.cbinsights.com/SOCIALS:Anand's Twitter: https://twitter.com/asanwalAnand's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anandsanwal?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2FErik's Twitter: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg

Anand Sanwal, Founder of CB Insights, discusses tech narratives vs data, AI integration, future of data businesses, CEO transitions at 1 to N companies. Tech competition dynamics and challenges in emerging markets, data selling strategies, efficiency of AI in data processing, CEO succession planning, personal branding, rethinking education, and dynamics of hiring and empowering people in business.

Anand Sanwal, Co-founder and CEO of CB Insights, discusses the background and motivation behind starting CB Insights, the business model and pricing of the company, data sourcing and confirmation techniques, and the use cases and value of CB Insights as a deal flow and analysis tool for growth equity firms and venture capitalists.

Anand Sanwal, founder of CB Insights, discusses stepping down as CEO, hiring a new CEO, and creating an entrepreneurial school. Topics include evaluating CEO effectiveness, building repeatable processes, executive recruiting, effective time management for new CEOs, and tactics for influencing company culture. Also, delves into the importance of speed and agility for insurgent companies and empowering young entrepreneurs through innovative school models.

Anand Sanwal, Founder and CEO of CB Insights, talks about the advantages of revenue funding, common mistakes in scaling teams, and the importance of serving clients. He also discusses building an operating system for enterprise growth and reflects on CB Insights' success.

Anand Sanwal, CEO and co-founder of CB Insights, discusses the rise and fall of Cosmo, a company that overspent and failed. They also talk about fundraising in the SaaS space, evaluating companies and setting valuations, and CB Insights' launch year, customers, funding, revenue, and team size.