The Startup Podcast

The founder of WeWork, Adam Neumann, spent countless billions of investor money on the way to a failed IPO that values the company at over $50 Billion. Now, it is worth just one-tenth of that amount. The WeWork story was presented as one of disgrace and faiure. Now Adam Neumann is back in the news, having raised $350 million from Andreesen Horowitz in what may be the largest Pre Seed capital raise in history. How did that happen? In this episode, we discuss: The external media narrative on WeWork vs. the Silicon Valley narrative Why Adam Neumann's failure at WeWork makes him so investable What this tells us about how venture capitalists view failure The need for boldness and risk-taking when running a startup and raising capital https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-startup-pod/ Follow us on Twitter @ybernstein @chrissaad ***Leave us a rating and review in your favourite podcast app***

Casey Winters joins Yaniv and Chris this episode for a very special discussion on Growth. Casey is currently CPO at Eventbrite and instructor at Reforge, Casey has a ridiculous CV spanning leadership roles at GrubHub and Pinterest, as well as key advisory roles at unicorns like Canva and Thumbtack. Even more importantly, Casey is one of the clearest thinkers in the world when it comes to the topic of Growth. In this episode, Casey, Chris and Yaniv discuss: What is Growth? Why is “Growth Hacking” such a distasteful term? How to build a Growth team at a startup. Should you hire a VP of Growth? Building the Growth “muscle” The art and science of running effective experiments When to build an MVP (hint: less often than you think!) How to “graduate” successful experiments Resources: Casey’s blog Article on MVP Mindset Join the discussion on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-startup-pod/ Follow us on Twitter @ybernstein @chrissaad ***Leave us a rating and review in your favourite podcast app***

As a newcomer in Silicon Valley, Chris was awed by the kindness shown to him by influential insiders and tech luminaries, people he had never met and for whom he could provide little in return. From mentoring, warm intros, couches to sleep on, and more, Chris built lifelong friendships by receiving—and then giving. The concept of “pay it forward” is profoundly ingrained in Silicon Valley culture. But what is it exactly? How did it take root so deeply in an individualistic culture full of immigrants and blow-ins? And why is it so fundamental to the success of the ecosystem? In this episode, Chris and Yaniv unpack the magic of pay it forward, by way of game theory and the marvellous Robert Scoble. ***Become a True Fan of The Startup Podcast and help build our audience! DM Yaniv on LinkedIn to find out more*** 👉 Join the discussion on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-startup-pod/ Follow us on Twitter @ybernstein @chrissaad Leave us a rating and review in your favourite podcast app

Chris and Yaniv talk with Christine Nguyen, founder of ReciMe. ReciMe is a social cooking app that is building a two-sided marketplace of inspirational recipe creators and dedicated home cooks. In this very first Office Hours episode, we dive deep on: How to think about solving the marketplace “cold start” problem. When and how to monetize. Focusing on user experience. Targeting a specific market niche. High profile angel investors and celebrity endorsements Being global from day one. This isn’t your typical interview: Office Hours is live-on-air consulting, where we dissect a startup and provide actionable advice and feedback that will help make it stronger. Listen as we take all the building blocks from previous episodes and apply them to a real, live startup. Join the discussion on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-startup-pod/ Follow us on Twitter @ybernstein @chrissaad People Engineering Newsletter: newsletter.peopleeng.com Startup Newsletter: www.chrissaad.com/startupnewsletter ***Leave us a rating and review in your favourite podcast app***

Chris and Yaniv have seen the three key things that lead to success in startups: momentum, hustle, and an understanding of opportunity cost. In this episode, they’re diving deep into all three of them. Chris and Yaniv discuss why momentum, hustle and opportunity cost are the critical concepts to operationalise not just in your business but life in general. There are some long-awaited rants on bureaucracy in start-ups, and great practical advice for anyone working at a startup right now drawn straight from both of their early-career experiences. Timestamps: 1:45 Why momentum is critical to startup success 4:12 Defining momentum 7:00 Why it’s important to compare your momentum to the global benchmark 8:40 How to know if you have the momentum you need to succeed 9:23 Why you need to be both patient and impatient 9:42 What hustle really means 12:55 Why you need to understand opportunity cost 19:23 How to use opportunity cost and impatience to drive momentum 21:50 Why replicating big company processes at a start-up is bad business Join the discussion on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-startup-pod/ Follow us on Twitter @ybernstein @chrissaad People Engineering Newsletter: newsletter.peopleeng.com Startup Newsletter: www.chrissaad.com/startupnewsletter ***Leave us a rating and review in your favourite podcast app***

Uber has been in the news recently thanks to a fresh trove of emails discussing some of the early practices at the company. Chris and Yaniv use this news as a jumping-off point to discuss the social obligations of tech companies, shifting public perceptions, the role of the media in framing issues around tech, and the way in which this fits into the broader political landscape---especially in the United States. This is a bit different to our usual material, but we really enjoyed recording it. We'd love it if you let us know what you think! 👉 Join the discussion on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-startup-pod/ Follow us on Twitter @ybernstein @chrissaad People Engineering Newsletter: newsletter.peopleeng.com Startup Newsletter: www.chrissaad.com/startupnewsletter ***Leave us a rating and review in your favourite podcast app***

Founder-led companies are at a distinct advantage, as long as the founder is able to keep up with the radical change in their role as a startup grows. In this episode, Chris and Yaniv discuss the ways in which the role of a founder-CEO changes in quite revolutionary ways, what it looks like when a founder can't keep up with the pace of change, and how founders can work on themselves to make sure they don't become the limiting factor in their startup's success. 👉 Join the discussion on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-startup-pod/ Follow us on Twitter @ybernstein @chrissaad People Engineering Newsletter: newsletter.peopleeng.com Startup Newsletter: www.chrissaad.com/startupnewsletter ***Leave us a rating and review in your favourite podcast app***

Software engineering is a discipline that is often deeply misunderstood, often leading to frustration and inefficiency. With over 15 years experience as an engineer, Yaniv will help straighten things out (with Chris's help). What even are software engineers? How are they different from IT? How do they work with product management? How do you keep your engineers accountable? Why is outsourcing problematic? Do no-code tools mean that software engineers are no longer necessary? Listen in to hear the answers to these questions and more. 🚨🚨🚨 Join our Office Hours Competition 🚨🚨🚨 Would you like to get free consulting from Chris and Yaniv and appear on an entire episode of The Startup Podcast? This is what you need to do: DM Yaniv on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ybernstein/) to get your unique link code to The Startup Podcast Promote us to your network and aim to reach as many interested people as possible If you get the most unique listens by 12:00PM AEST on Friday, July 15 then you are the winner We will contact you to arrange a topic and recording time 👉 Join the discussion on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-startup-pod/ Follow us on Twitter @ybernstein @chrissaad ***Leave us a rating and review in your favourite podcast app***

As a startup with ambitions of global disruption, the odds are already against you. Don't make things worse by launching in a geography that lengthens those odds, or that distort your company in a way that dooms international expansion. How to think about geography? Chris and Yaniv don't quite see eye to eye on this one, so join them for a thought-provoking and (mostly) respectful debate. After that, tell us what you think! (Ed: Yaniv is clearly correct) 👉 Join the discussion on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-startup-pod/ Follow us on Twitter @ybernstein @chrissaad People Engineering Newsletter: newsletter.peopleeng.com Startup Newsletter: www.chrissaad.com/startupnewsletter ***Leave us a rating and review in your favourite podcast app*** **This episode is brought to you by n14.io**

You're building a complex product, so you need a lot of specialists to handle the complexity, right? BA, PM, UXR, UX, UI, PgM, PMM, Architect, TL, Scrum Master, FE dev, BE dev, DevOps, QA... Right? Wrong. Chris and Yaniv describe the misunderstandings that lead to the formation of oversized teams of over-specialised roles---and the very real problems and dysfunctions that follow. They then discuss the scalable and effective organisational design adopted by some of the best tech companies such as Google, Uber, Facebook, Spotify, and Amazon. Follow us on Twitter @ybernstein @chrissaad People Engineering Newsletter: newsletter.peopleeng.com Startup Newsletter: www.chrissaad.com/startupnewsletter Please leave us a rating and review in your favourite podcast app! **This episode is brought to you by n14.io**