Roxanne Petraeus - Modernizing Compliance - [Founder’s Field Guide, EP.26]
Invest Like the Best
- 2.3K views
- about 4 years ago
- 56:01
My guest today is Roxanne Petraeus, co-founder and CEO of Ethena, a modern compliance platform for businesses. Roxanne’s background is pretty incredible, before starting Ethena she was a Rhodes Scholar, served in the US Army, and worked at McKinsey. In our conversation, we cover the lessons Roxanne ported over from her military career to building a business, how she’s trying to make compliance training not suck, and the woeful state of funding female founders in VC today and what can be done about it. Far from a boring conversation about compliance, this was an incredible discussion with one of the best founders I’ve met recently. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Roxanne Petraeus. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. Klaviyo is the ultimate marketing platform for e-commerce. With targeted segmentation, email automation, SMS marketing, and more, Klaviyo helps you create your ideal customer experience. See why Klaviyo is trusted by more than 50,000 brands, like Living Proof, Solo Stove, and Nomad to help them grow their business. For a free trial, check out klaviyo.com/founders. ----- This episode is brought to you by DigitalOcean. DigitalOcean provides founders and creators with the platform they need to get their website and apps off the ground, all with low-bandwidth pricing to save them money over other cloud providers. If you are looking for the best place to build web apps or API backends on robust infrastructure, DigitalOcean is the place for you. They provide a fully managed solution that handles your infrastructure, operating systems, databases, and other dependencies on their new App Platform product. App Platform makes it easy to build, deploy, and scale apps. Get started for free at do.co/founders. ----- Founder's Field Guide is a property of Colossus, Inc. For more episodes of Founder's Field Guide, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus Show Notes [00:03:29] - [First question] - What Ethena does [00:06:31] - Lessons from her military career [00:09:13] - Good and bad elements of leadership training from the military [00:11:35] - The problem of what sucks in compliance training [00:14:33] - The enablement of bad behavior among people with power [00:17:56] - The original idea for Ethena and bringing it to market [00:21:15] - Determining who is the right person to serve first [00:24:03] - Lessons for building good software [00:26:21] - How they have adapted to working in and around regulation [00:29:31] - Getting other companies to buy into the product [00:34:45] - Creating effective content and measuring that effectiveness [00:38:13] - Darker sides of growing the business and raising money [00:39:57] - How ‘the Motherhood Penalty’ Plays Out for Startup Founders [00:43:12] - Fixing the problems with bias in venture capital investing [00:46:57] - What is the outlook and long-term vision for the business [00:50:38] - What has her most excited for the future [00:51:53] - Most interesting about the Rhodes Scholar program [00:54:02] - Kindest thing anyone has done for her
Ali Ghodsi – The Past, Present, and Future of Big Data – [Founder’s Field Guide, EP.18]
Invest Like the Best
- 2.8K views
- about 4 years ago
- 48:02
My Guest today is Ali Ghodsi, founder and CEO of Databricks, a data analytics platform for data scientists and developers. He's also the founder of Apache Spark, the open-source project that Databricks is built on, and is an accomplished researcher at UC Berkley's computer science department. Our conversation ranges from the origins of distributed computing to modern data infrastructure, how companies can leverage their massive datasets, and the transformation of Databricks through its phases of growth as a business. While technical, it's exactly the kind of conversation I like to have on this show. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Ali Ghodsi. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content check out https://www.joincolossus.com/episodes/4919706/ghodsi-the-past-present-and-future-of-big-data This episode of Founder's Field Guide is sponsored by Klaviyo. Klaviyo is the ultimate marketing platform for ecommerce. With targeted segmentation, email automation, SMS marketing, and more, Klaviyo helps you create your ideal customer experience. See why Klaviyo's trusted by more than 50,000 brands, like Living Proof, Solo Stove, and Nomad to help them grow their business. For a free trial check out https://www.klaviyo.com/founders. This episode is also sponsored by Vanta. Vanta has built software that makes it easier to both get and maintain your SOC 2 report, at a fraction of the normal cost. Founders Field Guide listeners can redeem a $1k off coupon at vanta.com/patrick. Founder's Field Guide is a property of Colossus Inc. For more episodes of Founder's Field Guide go to https://www.joincolossus.com/episodes. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here - https://www.joincolossus.com/newsletter. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag Follow Colossus on Twitter at @JoinColossus Show Notes [00:02:48] – [First question] – What is Databricks [00:03:34] – History of distributed computing [00:05:35] – Hardware that made this all possible [00:07:20] – Early challenges in building out these systems [00:09:43] – What has made networking technology better [00:10:35] – Doing something in storage vs with memory [00:11:45] – Origins of Hadoop [00:12:42] – Use cases of distributed data in 2010 that weren’t possible in 2000 [00:13:35] – Origins of Spark [00:15:25] – Early Spark and then the transformation into Databricks [00:16:50] – Early uses cases [00:17:37] – Their relationship to the open-source project [00:21:07] – What customers need in order to work with Databricks [00:23:11] – Their customer interaction [00:26:27] – How they think about making investments [00:28:24] – Their competitive advantage [00:30:13] – Other companies in moving the needle in building distributed computing industry [00:32:10] – Walls that need to be broken down today [00:34:02] – Best practices for companies when it comes to their data [00:34:13] – Jeff Lawson Podcast Episode [00:38:47] – Lessons being a CEO [00:39:53] – Working at the University of Berkeley’s AMPLab [00:41:56] – What excites him about the future [00:43:29] – Kindest thing anyone has done for him
Sam Hinkie – Find Your People - [Invest Like the Best, EP.204]
Invest Like the Best
- 2.3K views
- over 4 years ago
- 01:17:30
My guest today is Sam Hinkie. Sam worked for more than a decade in the NBA with the Houston Rockets and then as the President and GM of the Philadelphia 76ers. And now, after years of personal investing, he has launched his own venture capital firm, Eighty-Seven Capital. Every conversation I have with Sam is alive with insight, and this one is no different. We explore the idea of studying the "breadcrumbs" that someone leaves behind as a way to track their progress and trajectory, finding and attracting the right people into one’s orbit, and the lessons from the NBA that most shape his investing career. Sam has taught me the most about the topic of building trust, which we cover here as well. I am excited to share my conversation with Sam with all of you. Please enjoy! This episode of Invest like the Best is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus has built the most extensive primary information platform available for investors. With Tegus, you can learn everything you’d want to know about a company in an on-demand digital platform. Investors share their expert calls, allowing others to instantly access more than 10,000 calls on Square, Snowflake, or almost any company of interest. All you have to do is log in. Visit https://www.tegus.co/patrick to learn more. This episode is brought to you by the MIT Investment Management Company (MITIMCO). MITIMCO is always on the looking for promising investment managers with the potential to compound our capital for a decade or more. If you think your firm is too small, too young, or too non-institutional, you might just be exactly what we are looking for. Check us out at https://mitimco.org/partner/ or e-mail us at partner@mitimco.org. Please also see our new page for emerging managers https://mitimco.org/emerging-managers/. For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag Show Notes (3:48) – (First question) – Conducting a good interview (5:58) – Drilling into topics to learn more about people (7:49 – What percentage of people are actually worth spending time with for Sam (9:29) – People who think in a strange way that intrigues him (10:36) – Interest in digital breadcrumbs and how to follow them (14:02) – Building context around founders vs analyzing their pitch decks (17:20) – A real world example of the bread crumb strategy, Houston Rockets GM (21:25) – How successful people evolve with the erosion of their pre-established edge (23:07) – Shifting to a people-first focus (24:50) – Creating an atmosphere that attracts the best talent (26:50) – Tailoring things to someone else’s incentive structure (28:24) – Most amazing thing someone did in early days of working with Sam (30:18) – Lessons from sports that he carries with him (32:31) – Exceptions to relationships being a key to success (33:03) – Have people gone soft? (34:58) – Knowing whether founders are on the right path (36:07) – Avoiding transactional type people (37:04) – Most effective lessons he brought to sports from the investing world (40:01) – Ideas from the sports world he is bringing to the investing world (44:11) – How the size of the team can impact the success of the team (45:48) – Designing the game for himself (50:33) – Lessons learned from watching them build trust (52:26) – Market areas that have his attention (54:13) – Fascination into API’s (58:05) – Keeping your focus on your expertise (59:45) – Strangest things he’s seen in early stage investing (1:01:26) – Playing the long game (1:04:29) – Calling it Eighty-Seven Capital. (1:04:42) – Means of Ascent (The Years of Lyndon Johnson) (1:05:49) – Increasing his chance at a GM job (1:06:52) – What can Caro teach us about the long game (1:08:26) – Lessons of power (1:10:39) – Quality in leaders he respects most (1:11:17) – The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson (1:12:58) – The power of breadcrumbs and how people can start to lay them out Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Danny Meyer – The Power of Hospitality - [Invest Like the Best, EP.203]
Invest Like the Best
- 2.4K views
- over 4 years ago
- 50:32
My guest today is Danny Meyer, the founder and CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, which compromises some of the most acclaimed restaurants in New York like Gramercy Tavern and Union Square Café. He’s also the founder and chairman of Shake Shack, which began in New York City but is now a publicly traded company with hundreds of locations worldwide. Our conversation focuses on how great hospitality leads to a great business, regardless of what sector its in. We discuss why hospitality is the starting point for Danny’s business philosophy, why first impressions matter, Danny’s concept of ABCD - always be connecting dots, how to scale hospitality, and how to build a business with essentialism and soul. The other day, when my young son went ice skating and fell a lot he said to me “well you learn from your mistake so you try to make as many of them as you can.” You’ll hear Danny say something powerfully similar late in the conversation. It’s a lovely thought, then, that I found out my son, my firstborn, was a boy in one of Danny’s restaurants, in a reveal orchestrated by his incredible team. I really hope you enjoy our conversation. This episode of Invest like the Best is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus has built the most extensive primary information platform available for investors. With Tegus, you can learn everything you’d want to know about a company in an on-demand digital platform. Investors share their expert calls, allowing others to instantly access more than 10,000 calls on Square, Snowflake, or almost any company of interest. All you have to do is log in. Visit https://www.tegus.co/patrick to learn more. This episode of Invest Like The Best is also sponsored by Assure. Assure is changing the way investors manage private transactions. With Assure, investors can eliminate nearly all the admin cost of private investment. On top of that, they handle all the backend, legal, taxes, accounting, and compliance. All of it, with a straightforward one-time fee. Learn more and try Assure for yourself at https://www.assure.co/patrick. For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag Show Notes (3:41) – (First question) – His experience as a tour guide in Italy (8:17) – Why hospitality is the center of business focus (8:19) – Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business (11:50) – Early lessons at creating an environment of hospitality (15:17) - His strategy ABCD and learning from a trout fisherman relate and relate to hospitality (20:45) – Scaling hospitality (24:56) – What kind of people make a hospitality business work (29:34) – How to be an effective leader (33:00) – Handling mistakes well in the role of hospitality (36:28) – Creating the spark in the early part of entrepreneurial ventures (40:32) – When its time to start something new vs expand something you are already doing (45:52) – The excellence reflex and an example of this in his career (50:25) – Kindest thing anyone has done for him Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Nick Kokonas - Know What You Are Selling – [Founder’s Field Guide, EP.8]
Invest Like the Best
- 2.3K views
- over 4 years ago
- 01:22:08
My guest today is Nick Kokonas, the co-founder of the 3 of the best restaurants and bars in America - Alinea, Next, and The Aviary as well as the co-founder and CEO of Tock, a comprehensive booking system for restaurants. This was one of my favorite conversations in the history of the show. Nick is a philosophy major turned derivatives trader that is now one of the most well-known names in the restaurant and hospitality industry. We cover so many topics I can’t list them here, but I’ll remember it for why it's so important for a business to really know what it's selling and then actually sell it. Nick also pulls back the curtain on why restaurants and even book publishers can be great businesses if you do them in the right way. I felt like this conversation could have gone on for hours and I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by Microsoft for Startups. Microsoft for Startups is a global program dedicated to helping “enterprise-ready” B2B startups successfully scale their companies. If you’re a founder running a B2B company targeting the enterprise, you should definitely check them out. This episode is also brought to you by Solo Stove. There's simply no better way to create good moments this holiday season than around a fire with a Solo Stove Bonfire. Complete with 30-day return policy and a lifetime warranty, the unit is made entirely of stainless steel, and at just 20 pounds, the Solo Stove Bonfire is easy to transport for a perfect evening in the backyard, at the campground, or on the beach. Get $5 off with code Patrick5 before December 31st 2020. For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag Show Notes (3:02) – (First question) – Why he thinks it’s so important to own something (4:35) – Make decisions that have outcomes (7:00) – His interest in the restaurant business (8:54) – Why restaurants are so tough (12:05) – How their business mindset changed their running of the restaurant (14:35) – Words they would avoid in the restaurant (16:19) – Asking the right questions in the restaurant business (20:40) – Importance in taking the right risks (22:02) – Coming up with innovative strategies for ticketing, selling meals ahead of time, and dynamic pricing (30:08) – Can dynamic pricing be extended to other businesses (31:20) – Origin of Tock (36:17) – Early days of Tock and identifying the right customers/challenges (41:33) – Importance of the first customer (44:22) – The typical restaurant business model (49:23) – Lessons from Tock and the importance of knowing what your selling (53:47) – Lessons from publishing (55:44) – Other aspects of business that people know but do nothing about (1:00:19) – Their response to Covid and lessons learned (1:07:43) – The real impact to the food delivery companies (1:09:24) – How businesses communicate their end processes to their customers (1:14:07) – Kindest thing anyone has done for him Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Justin Singer - How Regulation Unlocks Opportunity - [Founder’s Field Guide, EP.2]
Invest Like the Best
- 1.7K views
- over 4 years ago
- 01:02:32
My guest today is Justin Singer, the founder and CEO of Caliper Foods and Stillwater Brands, two leading companies in the cannabis industry. We start our conversation with a fascinating discussion on how regulation creates or destroys business and investing opportunities, and then go on to discuss the ins and outs of the cannabis industry in detail. You’ll be able to tell quickly how high-quality Justin is as a thinker and operator, and you’ll learn a ton about this nascent business. Please enjoy our conversation. This episode is brought to you by Microsoft for Startups. Microsoft for Startups is a global program dedicated to helping “enterprise-ready” B2B startups successfully scale their companies. If you’re a founder running a B2B company targeting the enterprise, you should definitely check them out. This episode is also sponsored by Vanta. Vanta has built software that makes it easier to both get and maintain your SOC 2 report, at a fraction of the normal cost. Founders Field Guide listeners can redeem a $1k off coupon at vanta.com/patrick. For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag Show Notes (2:51) – (First question) – How changes in regulation create market opportunities (5:38) – Why VC’s need to pay attention to regulatory changes (6:50) – Story of Section 230 of the communication decency act (8:54) – Relationships between rules, laws, and free markets (11:56) – How regulatory changes impacted recent business ventures (13:30) – His initial interest in the cannabis space (17:28) – How the industry participants have changed over time (21:04) – An overview of the cannabis industry and different pieces of the chain (25:51) – What has led to delays in the legalization of the marijuana industry (28:52) – How the dosage of the product impacts the business (31:34) – CBD vs THC industry differences (32:53) – How much of this industry is left to be unlocked and potential timing (35:55) – Business and investing opportunities in the space (38:16) – Competitive frontier in cannabis (40:37) – The timeline and pending changes coming (43:03) – Margins and business factors of his business (45:51) – First big break for the business (49:47) – What he learned working under Tim Wu (50:34) – Why we are in the golden error for fraud (52:11) – Avoiding fraud (55:12) – What he wants to learn more about in the cannabis space (56:50) – Kindest thing anyone has done for him Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Rahul Vohra - Using Emotion to Design Great Products - [Founder’s Field Guide, EP.1]
Invest Like the Best
- 2.5K views
- over 4 years ago
- 01:19:51
Today’s episode represents a new chapter for Invest Like the Best, so requires a longer introduction than normal. Starting today, I’ll be bringing you two episodes per week on the same feed. On Tuesday’s, I’ll focus on investors, and on Thursday’s, I’ll host builders—founders, CEOs, and operators from all different fields. We call this new Thursday series Founder’s Field Guide. There’s nothing more interesting to me than how great businesses get build, and how investors can identify those businesses at the right time. We’ve already recorded with founders build companies in food, technology, infrastructure, shipping, collectibles, and many more categories. The goal each weak will be to have a builder share what they’ve done, how they’ve done it, and what they’ve learned along the way. We view this as a critical next step in furthering our mission: to capture and openly share the world’s best knowledge on business and investing. Onto the kickoff episode with Rahul Vohra. Rahul is the Founder & CEO of Superhuman, an extremely popular product for managing email. Rahul describes himself as a Computer Scientist, Gamer, Entrepreneur, and Designer. You’ll see quickly why it’s the intersection of these areas that sets Superhuman apart. We discuss why emotion matters when building products, and how other entrepreneurs can learn from his experience. Please enjoy the very first episode of Founder’s Field Guide, and stay tuned in future weeks as we host leaders from Nike, Cisco, Twitch, and so many more…listen in as we explore the world of cannabis, baking (not that kind), manufacturing, hardware, software, and more. Let’s dive in. This episode is brought to you by Microsoft for Startups. Microsoft for Startups is a global program dedicated to helping “enterprise-ready” B2B startups successfully scale their companies. If you’re a founder running a B2B company targeting the enterprise, you should definitely check them out. This episode is also sponsored by Vanta. Vanta has built software that makes it easier to both get and maintain your SOC 2 report, at a fraction of the normal cost. Founders Field Guide listeners can redeem a $1k off coupon at vanta.com/patrick. For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag Show Notes (3:56) – (First question) – His interest in game design and emotion in software creation (5:15) – Key elements of game design (6:23) – Toys in digital software creation (8:48) – Finding success in boring software solutions (11:19) – Getting confidence while building when there are no real customers (14:08) – How they landed on their final product (15:40) – The Superhuman Product/Market Fit Engine (20:46) – Determining software price (21:55) – Positioning Your Startup is Vital — Here’s How to Nail It (23:09) – Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind (24:13) – Monetizing Innovation: How Smart Companies Design the Product Around the Price (26:36) – First big break for the business (29:04) – How technology companies actually grow (32:15) – Branding a software (33:57) – How he evaluates a company brand as an investor (36:07) – Questions to ask founders when considering an investment (37:35) – How the distribution of Superhuman worked so well (41:25) – Most common question asked by VC’s about Superhuman (43:00) – Why they do manual onboarding of customers (43:05) – Daniel Ek Podcast Episode (45:10) – Cost structure of a busines looking to reach the billion-dollar valuation (47:18) – Designing for flow in software business (51:21) – His design philosophy and their joy formula (58:03) – His superpower (1:00:46) – The power of therapy (1:02:50) – Why he invests in other companies (1:05:05) – Trends in the technology space that have him excited (1:07:28) – The future for Superhuman (1:10:26) – Kindest thing anyone has done for him Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag