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This Week in Startups

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Oct 30, 2019 • 1h 1min

E995: The Next Unicorns: NEXT Trucking CEO & Co-founder Lidia Yan brings trucking into the digital age with her two-sided marketplace, shares insights on finding & focusing on an untapped market, owning & innovating drayage, navigating the trucking industry as a woman & scaling the right team for su

0:55 Jason intros Lidia Yan 5:03 Lidia describes getting into the trucking industry and why NEXT focuses on "drayage" 13:29 How NEXT has revolutionized drayage shipping 18:22 What is a typical shipping broker's take rate 20:54 How does pricing work in the trucking industry? 27:28 How do trucking companies measure their driver's hours? 29:41 Issues within the trucking industry? 35:14 Did trucking lose employees to ride-sharing? 39:20 How NEXT compares to Uber Freight 44:50 Amazon's impact on the trucking industry 46:22 Trade war bringing inconsistency to trucking 48:41 How Lidia dealt with the challenges of being a woman starting a trucking company 50:47 Importance of getting to profitability early on
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Oct 29, 2019 • 1h 22min

E994: All Turtles CEO Phil Libin shares his state machine that answers all growth questions; Future of Early-Stage VC w/Pete Flint (NFX), Rebecca Lynn (Canvas Ventures), Dave Samuel (Freestyle Capital); plus LAUNCH Scale Partner Talk w/Lever CTO Nate Smith

1:03 Jason intros Phil Libin from LAUNCH Scale 2019 1:51 Phil Libin on "The State Machine that Answers All Growth Questions" 32:40 Jason joins Phil on stage for Q&A 39:56 Jason intros Phil (NFX), Rebecca (Canvas Ventures) & Dave (Freestyle Capital) 41:34 Transitioning from founder to VC 44:08 How to let a founder know when they are headed down the wrong path 47:42 At what stage does a founder have to change their mindset? 49:49 Dave Samuel on Airtable CEO Howie Liu not taking his advice and succeeding anyway 52:21 How Rebecca Lynn recruited current LendingClub CEO Scott Sanborn in the early days 55:39 Should startups still relocate to the Bay Area under any circumstances? 1:03:40 How are VCs dealing with the influx in the number of startups over the past 10 years? 1:13:23 LAUNCH Scale Partner Talk: Lever CTO Nate Smith
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Oct 25, 2019 • 1h 17min

E993: Superhuman CEO Rahul Vohra shares the formula for his Product-Market Fit Engine; Future of Angel Investing w/Jeff Clavier (Uncork), Ben Ling (Bling), Clara Brenner (Urban Innovation Fund); plus LAUNCH Scale Partner Talk w/Help Scout VP of Sales Tim Thyne

0:48 Jason intros Rahul Vohra 3:21 Rahul gives a talk on building a "Product-Market Fit Engine" 29:42 Rahul takes questions from the LAUNCH Scale audience 37:28 Jason intros the "Future of Angel Investing" panelists: Ben Ling (Bling Capital), Clara Brenner (Urban Innovation Fund) & Jeff Clavier (Uncork Capital) 38:54 Has Silicon Valley reached peak entitlement? 41:44 Is "too much $ chasing too few companies" the new normal in VC 45:47 How important is price & valuation in decision making? 49:10 Importance of early revenue & strong board governance 52:28 How many of their biggest hits had multiple revenue models? 58:00 What is "venture-scale" in terms of growth rate? 1:02:40 How to train new associates to understand the importance of revenue quality? 1:09:13 LAUNCH Scale Partner Talk featuring Help Scout's VP of Sales Tim Thyne
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Oct 23, 2019 • 1h 37min

E992: The Next Unicorns: Expanse CEO & Co-founder Tim Junio reduces exposure to online threats by providing “attack surface visibility”, shares insights into current threats from China & Russia, potential 2020 election tampering, reasons for cybersecurity optimism & more – E8 of 10-ep miniseries

0:50 Jason intros Tim Junio 1:44 Tim explains what Expanse does and how "attack surface inventory" is the first step in their cybersecurity platform 5:20 Tim explains the Dyn cyber attack 13:20 How many Fortune 500 companies have been blackmailed via cyber attack? 19:32 "White-hat" hackers impact on the cybersecurity industry 23:12 Human-made passwords are the weakest link 29:09 History of Russian interference 33:16 Why Gmail is good for cybersecurity 35:11 Tim's experience at the CIA 38:29 What worries Tim about potential election manipulation 45:38 Chinese infiltration via apps/tech companies 49:16 Christian Bale's rogue move was dangerous 51:17 Should Chinese-made routers be allowed in America? 56:16 Chances Alexa, Siri or Google Assistant have been compromised? 1:02:20 Is there foreign infiltration in major tech companies? 1:08:29 Jason & Tim go over the Snowden situation 1:17:49 How are government intelligence employees trained to avoid being compromised by foreign agents? 1:23:45 Working with Peter Thiel
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Oct 22, 2019 • 1h 27min

E991: #StartupTuneup with Urban-X: Waste-reducing marketplaces, traffic liability reduction, recreational sharing spaces, firefighter safety software & energy cost saving AI

0:41 Jason intros the #StartupTuneup with Urban-X companies 2:33 David Rodriguez pitches Food for All: food marketplace to reduce waste & help restaurants sell unused food 12:43 Jim Selevan pitches Pi-Lit: innovating transportation thru a wireless lamp system 26:33 Caroline Hansen pitches Hubbster: providing easy access to outdoor games & gear 41:24 Patrick O'Connor pitches 3AM Innovations: safety software for firefighters 50:52 Michael Lee pitches Evolve Energy: SaaS product that helps consumers save on energy costs thru AI 1:02:51 Urban Us Co-Founder & Partner Stonly Baptiste joins Jason to discuss the companies
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Oct 18, 2019 • 45min

E990: SurveyMonkey CEO Zander Lurie on driving growth by listening to customers & employees, importance of a strong & diverse board, direct listings v. IPOs, lessons learned from WeWork; plus LAUNCH Scale Partner Talk featuring Yosiat Gimbernard from Odoo

1:45 Zander’s take on the recent volatility in the public markets 3:38 What are the lessons learned from the WeWork disaster in terms of corporate governance? 6:09 Importance of diversity on BoD 10:18 Where does WeWork go from here, and how will the situation resolve? 12:35 Why Venture investing is so skewed towards growth, and why the best investors focus on gross profitability 14:41 What is SurveyMonkey’s current business, and why did they go into Enterprise SaaS? 19:20 How listening to customers & employees drives growth 23:33 How Dave Goldberg discovered SurveyMonkey and turned it into the company it is today 25:47 How Zander wound up as CEO after Dave’s passing 28:51 Zander’s thoughts on a Direct Listing as opposed to an IPO 30:42 Getting Serena Williams on the Board of Directors at SurveyMonkey 35:12 Motivating & hiring Gen Z & Millennial employees 37:45 Yosiat from Odoo on integration enabling scalability
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Oct 16, 2019 • 1h 19min

E989: The Next Unicorns: Culture Amp CEO & Co-founder Didier Elzinga is building an employee analytics platform that keeps workers satisfied & motivated, shares insights on the changing role of culture, what modern employees value & maintaining culture while scaling – E7 of 10-ep miniseries

0:52 Jason intros Culture Amp's Didier Elzinga 2:44 How Didier's prior career in Visual Effects led him to start Culture Amp 8:24 Issues with yearly performance evaluations 14:15 Did Silicon Valley take culture too far? 17:35 What defines good culture? 24:24 Generational differences in workplace culture 28:30 How should companies view the gig economy in terms of culture and compensation? 37:12 How should compensation work in this era? 43:20 Didier demos Culture Amp 58:45 Jason gives Sir Charles positive/negative feedback 1:07:20 "Buying" culture and anti-fragility
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Oct 15, 2019 • 54min

E988: Aileen Lee, Founder & Managing Partner of Cowboy Ventures, pioneered actionable change to diversify tech & VC, shares early days innovating in e-commerce, insights on current funding landscape, dangers of prioritized growth over sustainability, & lessons learned from backing winners like Dolla

Aileen Lee, Founder of Cowboy Ventures, discusses diversifying tech & VC, early e-commerce innovation, dangers of prioritized growth, lessons from Dollar Shave Club, & challenges for women in VC. Insights on SoftBank valuations, WeWork, & diversity in tech.
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Oct 12, 2019 • 56min

E987: The Next Unicorns: Upgrade CEO & Co-founder Renaud Laplanche is empowering users to better understand credit through his consumer credit platform, announces the Upgrade Card, shares insights on taking LendingClub public & how startups have changed since he started his first company in 2000 – E

0:51 Jason intros Upgrade CEO Renaud Laplanche 2:07 Renaud goes over the idea of his previous startup, LendingClub, and taking it public 9:57 What happened at LendingClub after the IPO? 11:18 What is Upgrade? How did it grow out of LendingClub? 12:40 Are credit scores an outdated metric? 14:11 What is the Upgrade Card? 15:30 Are modern credit card companies sinister in their approach? 24:54 Renaud's thoughts on Crypto 27:40 Where does Upgrade's lending capital come from? 31:22 Are we approaching a downturn after an unprecedented period of growth? 37:28 What goes into a great credit score 42:50 What has changed in startups since Renaud started his first company in 2000? 51:25 What keeps Renaud going after two successful exits as a founder?
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Oct 11, 2019 • 1h 2min

E986: StockX Co-founder Josh Luber is building a stock market for things, shares insights on the two cultural shifts that brought sneaker culture mainstream, attracting Mark Wahlberg, Eminem & Steve Aoki to invest along with Google Ventures & Marc Benioff & growing a unicorn out of a sneaker-data si

1:00 Want to work at LAUNCH? gettheseat.com 2:28 Jason intros StockX's Josh Luber 3:14 When did the sneaker crazy start? 6:37 What is StockX? 9:19 What should Jason wear courtside? And why not Kawhi's? 14:13 Most $ Josh has spent on pair of sneakers? What were they? 18:15 What is StockX's take on a standard transaction? 18:44 Meeting Co-founder & Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert 19:58 Attracting Mark Wahlberg, Eminem, etc. as investors 22:55 Attracting SV firms vs. attracting famous investors? 29:39 What was Josh's background before StockX? 34:22 Finding investors who understood his space 36:36 How do IPO's (Initial Product Offerings) come into play on StockX? 41:35 StockX's future priorities 42:03 Value of authentication 48:37 Selling on StockX

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