Sarah Tavel, a General Partner at Benchmark and former product manager at Pinterest, shares her expertise on startup growth. She introduces the Hierarchy of Engagement framework, emphasizing core actions and user retention over vanity metrics. Tavel outlines strategies for marketplace growth, discussing three key vectors and the importance of focusing on niche markets. She highlights real-world examples from Pinterest and other platforms, illustrating how understanding user engagement can lead to sustained success. Tavel's insights provide a valuable roadmap for founders in the dynamic startup landscape.

Join Peter Fenton, Sarah Tavel, Chatham Williams, and Eric Vishria from Benchmark for a captivating discussion. They share insights on their unique investment strategies, the significance of informal dinners in fostering partnership culture, and the emotional complexities of venture decision-making. The team delves into what it takes to become a Benchmark GP and why there's no growth fund, along with their supportive ethos towards entrepreneurs. Listen to their humorous takes on family dynamics and the evolving landscape of venture capital!

Sarah Tavel, General Partner at Benchmark and former Pinterest leader, shares insights from her venture capital journey. She discusses whether foundation models will become commoditized and expresses her belief that future frontier models will likely be closed-source. Tavel emphasizes the importance of the application layer for creating sustainable value in companies. She also contrasts traditional funding approaches with the evolving landscape of AI, where the focus is shifting from selling tools to delivering outcomes.

Sarah Tavel, a general partner at Benchmark and former Pinterest product manager, shares her insights on applying intellectual rigor in venture capital. She connects her philosophical training to better investment analysis, emphasizing evidence-based reasoning. The conversation dives into talent acquisition in fast-growing firms, the importance of meaningful metrics over vanity metrics, and the influence of company culture on founder integration. Tavel also reflects on the transformative effects of the pandemic on startups and the dynamics of competition in the tech landscape.

Sarah Tavel and Eric Vishria, General Partners at Benchmark, discuss their firm's distinctive minimalistic approach to venture capital. They dive into the importance of deep partnerships with founders and how this shapes their investment strategy. The duo contrasts Benchmark's equal partnership model with larger firms, emphasizing the joy of collaboration. They also navigate the challenges of today’s market, highlighting the significance of sustainable investment practices and meaningful relationships in fostering long-term success.

Benchmark GPs Sarah Tavel and Eric Vishria discuss central ideas of Benchmark's firm-building beliefs, including platform teams' role in aiding general partners. They explore venture capital challenges, the impact of capital on investment strategy, and the importance of playing your own game in a competitive market.

It’s been a sad state of affairs for consumer companies not named TikTok. Poparazzi just shut down. (At least some of the team went to Instagram.) Popshop is struggling. The venture capital firm Benchmark helped establish both companies as consumer startups to watch by leading their Series A rounds. Sarah Tavel, who led the investment in Poparazzi and has worked closely with Popshop, agreed to come on the Newcomer podcast to talk about the brutal state of consumer startups. “Our deep belief at Benchmark is that our job is not to predict the future, but to try as best we can to see the present clearly,” Tavel told me.Of course, it’s not just Benchmark’s once high-flying startups that are reeling. Andreessen Horowitz audio company Clubhouse laid off more than half of its employees. Hype for the photo company BeReal seems to be dying down. (Searches for the company’s name on Google are at less than half their peak.) “It is a really tough environment right now to build that type of company,” Tavel said about startups building for consumers. “It’s always been difficult, but the level of difficulty has been turned all the way on. Because right now, anybody building something in consumer has to compete with the most addictive consumer format that we’ve ever had — which is short video.”Tavel, who co-led an early investment in Pinterest and then became the company’s first product manager, talked through some of the most promising opportunities in startups. Artificial intelligence seems poised to create new consumer startups. Tavel flagged the legal artificial intelligence company EvenUp, which just raised at a $350 million valuation from Bessemer, as one such promising startup. I marveled at the bootstrapped rise of Midjourney. But, of course, many generative AI startups, especially ones building foundation models, are raising such large rounds that it can be difficult for a firm like Benchmark to rationalize an investment. We also talked about one of Tavel’s most successful investments at Benchmark, Chainalysis. The blockchain data company raised $170 million at $8.6 billion last year. The New York Times wrote a glowing profile of the company last month. Tavel, who doesn’t like to announce her startup investments, revealed that she has secretly invested in an unannounced NFT company.“Crypto is a bad word now,” Tavel told me. “It’s really hard to train consumers to trust something again — once a consumer has made a first impression. It’s much easier to teach a user a first impression than to rewrite that first impression.”Finally, I asked Tavel to give us a peek behind the curtain at Benchmark. Fortune’s Jessica Mathews recently interviewed Benchmark’s Bill Gurley about his decision to step back.Mathews wrote:“The venture business, if you want to be at the top, requires insane, remarkable hustle… You have to live in fear that the next Google is going to get funded by a firm that’s not yours,” he says. “Either you’re in there rowing as hard as you can, because we’re all a team, or you’re not.”That said, he still has strong instincts about the future of tech. “If I were still active as a venture capitalist, I’d be looking at a lot of the vertical applications of A.I. I look at the coding stuff, and it’s insane… If you’re not using it, I think you’re probably writing your own death certificate as a programmer, because people are going to be so much more efficient. And the question is: What are other applications that have that kind of productivity boost or lift, and I think people are trying to figure that out.”But in the end, it was a book by Steve Martin, Born Standing Up, that helped convince Gurley it was time to step back. “One day, [Martin] is in Vegas and he comes out, and the top row is empty, the first time he’s ever seen the top row empty. He quits the next day—never does standup again. And then he goes off and he does his banjo and his theater and his acting.… Like I said, I don’t think I ever played the stage, so I’d rather not say I’m the same. It influenced me. That notion influenced me.”Today, the Benchmark partnership is made up of Tavel, Peter Fenton, Eric Vishria, Chetan Puttagunta, and Miles Grimshaw. Tavel said about the firm, “We’ve always had a pretty simple idea, which is that there’s this creative destruction.”“Once you start — there’s no training wheels. So you’re thrown into the deep end. You’re an equal partner and you’re expected to be 100% until the minute that you retire,” Tavel said. “And when you have an equal partnership, it kind of pushes you in the direction of just recognizing — as Bill said in that interview — the hustle may not be in you anymore. And if you feel that way, then the model — as was set up by the founders — is such that it’s time to raise your hand and move on.”Of course, my understanding is that partners like Gurley, Matt Cohler, and Mitch Lasky remain fairly heavily involved at Benchmark even so. “It’s like an affliction. The reason they’re here in the first place was because the curiosity and competitiveness and the drive for learning and relevance, being in the mix, that never leaves you,” Tavel said. “They are a significant portion of our LP base, they’re still there on Mondays, and I’m texting all of them all the time.”Find the Podcast Get full access to Newcomer at www.newcomer.co/subscribe

Sarah Tavel, a Partner at Benchmark and former leader at Bessemer Venture Partners and Pinterest, shares her insights on the dynamic venture capital landscape. She discusses how startups can navigate increasing competition, the importance of governance and trust, and the balance between hype and value creation. Tavel emphasizes the significance of incremental gains in leadership and the challenges of hiring in today's market. Her experiences shed light on what truly drives successful partnerships between investors and founders.

Sarah Tavel, a general partner at Benchmark and former product leader at Pinterest, dives into the dynamics of consumer technology and marketplaces. She shares valuable insights on the food delivery market's evolution, emphasizing DoorDash's strategy over Grubhub. Tavel discusses the importance of reputation scores within networks and the unique challenges of building niche marketplaces. Additionally, she explores how effective user engagement can drive marketplace success, leveraging data and community to enhance experiences.

Sarah Tavel and Auren discuss selling work in SaaS industry, AI impacts, consumer social transformation, AI avatars, and unconventional wisdom in Harvard, UAPs, TikTok, and fundraising.