The {Closed} Session

super{set} is unabashedly all about building great products. We have to be: all the low-hanging fruit has been plucked, and the easy things in tech have all been done before. It used to be a couple of engineers (or even a lone engineer), a bunch of functional and technical specs, and six months later you’ve built something. Doesn’t work that way anymore. The ecosystems, the platforms, and the problems to be solved are much more complex - and on top of this, the speed at which product has to be built and evolve has never been faster. The paradox is that even while the founder and the product team have to be on a swivel, moving at light speed, organized thinking and careful planning have never been more critical.Tom and Vivek describe how building the best product is like planning the perfect heist. Like Danny Ocean, it always pays off to spend the time upfront to plan every move and contingency carefully. It’s not about building cool tech for the sake of cool tech: always keep the big prize in mind. To get into the Casino, you need an insertion product - something perfectly timed for the market and your first customers. And you need to identify the perfect customer - the guy on the inside - to make it happen. Finally, to drill inside the safe and make the escape, know that no plan fully survives contact with the enemy. But that doesn’t mean your product roadmap can’t peer around the corners and anticipate the needs and challenges of the future.Learn more about how we at super{set} found and fund data-driven companies at superset.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Everything we do, every company we build is based on a philosophy of “People, Product, Customers” - in that order. We mean it: people first. We don’t build alone. At every company we start, we do it alongside a talented product-oriented co-founder whom we recruit to join us. Our success is predicated on starting with the best outside talent.Tom and Vivek share what they look for in the very first hire for every super{set} company: a Head of Product Co-founder with grit, humility, organized thinking, and clock speed. They discuss why the Head of Product is the first hire and their views on the Product Manager role and discipline in the context of their decades of experience in Silicon Valley. Finally, Pankaj Rajan joins for a Q&A - about where he was before super{set}, his previous startup scar tissue, what he is doing at MarkovML (super{set}’s new MLOps company), and how his experience as a super{set} co-founder has been so far.Learn more about how we at super{set} found and fund data-driven companies at superset.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Good ideas are hard work.Nobody plucks tech startup ideas out of the air like butterflies. Ideas actualize over time. It takes hard work and persistence to ideate a new formation opportunity that will have the wherewithal to become a company. Tom and Vivek make the distinction between ideas rooted in data versus software, and why super{set} pursues only these data-driven ideas.Not all ideas are easily comprehensible from the get-go. Some ideas are straightforward and clear - like making kids' boxed mac and cheese - and others take a bit more work to unfold - like a delicious, steamy, Michelin star soufflé.  At super{set}, we discern one from the other through writing a detailed Solution Memo.Similarly, not every idea makes it out of the kitchen and onto the dining table. At the ideation stage, Tom and Vivek think about market-message fit. Market-message fit is the proto product-market fit. It is estimating product-market fit before the product even exists.Learn more about how we at super{set} found and fund data-driven companies at superset.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What's a startup studio? Is it just "venture capital" with another name?It's still early for the studio model - case in point, people still are asking "you have a fund right? aren't you just a venture capital firm with a different label?"Tom and Vivek detail just what we're doing at super{set} - what the model is, how we're different from VC, craftsmanship versus critique, what's in it for LP's, and most of all what's in it for co-founders?Learn more about how we at super{set} found and fund data-driven companies at superset.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Harpal Sandhu, a Silicon Valley veteran and friend of super{set}, joins Vivek and Tom and explains what the excitement about SPAC's is all about. How did we get from IPO's to SPAC's? What's a PIPE? And why does the $10 price show up? In this episode you'll understand why entrepreneurs might prefer a SPAC and how they navigate its possibilities and pitfalls with investors. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

With vaccines on the horizon, the idea of getting back to the workplace doesn't seem so far-fetched anymore. In this episode of The Closed Session, Tom and Vivek discuss what it's been like working from home, their likes, dislikes, and lessons learned. What pandemic habits are here to stay, and what pre-pandemic routines are likely to re-emerge? Between the 'back-to-workers' and the 'work-from-homers,' Tom and Vivek wonder whether a middle course is within reach. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The drums are beating for Big Tech, and for good reason. In this episode, Tom and Vivek break it all down and explain why you need to watch your wallet, or at least raise your antenna, whenever Google or Facebook say they're making a new product decision "to protect user privacy." Exactly how do their product decisions erode competitive markets and our own data dignity? Recorded at the tail end of 2020 before all of the post-election events unfolded, this episode explains exactly how the major platforms abuse data, why you should care, and what we can do to fix it. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tom and Vivek talk about inclusion and reflect on their personal experiences as brown guys in tech. Inclusion feels like a moral imperative, but does it really make for stronger, better companies? Are there unintended consequences of acting on good intentions to 'fix' an inclusion problem at a company? Why is tech so lacking in diversity, and what can we do to get it right? See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

If you came to this edition for deep company-building wisdom, prepare to be disappointed. Being cooped up in a pandemic has turned Tom and Vivek into a couple of curmudgeons, and they're in need of catharsis. Why is Jared Kushner in charge of COVID response, and what makes rich people think they're so smart? Why does Siri perfectly nail the pronunciation of Vivek's name, but she can't retrieve a contact or anything useful on the web when you need it? How long will it take for new entrepreneurs to unlearn all the bad lessons they've picked up on the heels of Softbank's recent run? See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Should you sell your company—or keep building? In this episode, Tom and Vivek break down the timeless founder’s dilemma with lessons from their own exits at Rapt and Krux. They explore the frameworks entrepreneurs can use to decide, from evaluating whether you have a feature, a product, or a category to weighing investor, employee, and personal motivations. Along the way, they share candid stories of near misses, tough boardroom conversations, and what it really takes to “land the plane” when opportunity knocks.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.