The Importance of knowing your role in Building Successful Products

Episode 495: Shaan Puri (https://twitter.com/ShaanVP) and Sam Parr (https://twitter.com/theSamParr) talk with Kevin Ryan, Founder and CEO of AlleyCorp, an incubator and venture capital fund behind Business Insider, MongoDB, GILT and Zola among others. Kevin shares how he runs his +$20B venture studio AlleyCorp, why Buzzfeed ultimately failed, how he launches 8 companies a year and much more.

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Check Out Sam's Stuff:

• Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/

• Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/

• Copy That - https://copythat.com/

Check Out Shaan's Stuff:

• Try Shepherd Out - https://www.supportshepherd.com/

• Shaan's Personal Assistant System - http://shaanpuri.com/remoteassistant

• Power Writing Course - https://maven.com/generalist/writing

• Small Boy Newsletter - https://smallboy.co/

• Daily Newsletter - https://www.shaanpuri.com/

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Show Notes:

(0:00) Intro

(3:15) Selling DoubleClick to Google for ~$3B

(5:20) Starting Business Insider, MongoDB and Gilt

(11:00) What led Kevin to start Business Insider

(15:00) Why Kevin hired Henry Blodget to run Business Insider

(16:45) What did Buzzfeed get wrong?

(18:45) Why has AlleyCorp been such a success compared to other venture studios?  

(29:20) What businesses Kevin’s excited about right now

(39:00) Thoughts on buy vs. build vs. bootstrap

(41:00) What business has been the easiest and most profitable?

(42:50) Thoughts on AI

(44:50) Launching 8 companies a year

(47:40) Why Kevin isn’t on social media

(50:20) Starting companies in the recruiting space

(54:20) The benefit of being emotionally stable

(56:20) Kevin’s investment portfolio

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Links:

• Kevin’s Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinryan3/

• AlleyCorp - https://alleycorp.com/

• Business Insider - https://www.businessinsider.com/

• Henry Blodget - https://twitter.com/hblodget

• MongoDB - https://www.mongodb.com/

• Gilt - https://www.gilt.com/

• The Ladders - https://www.theladders.com/

• RippleMatch - https://ripplematch.com/

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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.

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