Anand Sanwal
@asanwal
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Founded @cbinsights. Montessori teacher in-training. Giving free $$ to middle/high school entrepreneurs w/ @formidablegrant https://t.co/vLLJLp6nlv
Joined September 2008
On April 17, 2017, my dad passed away. For the last 13 months, I worked @CBinsights and also ran his chemical manufacturing biz in India. It was acquired on June 1. Lessons, thank yous and observations here .
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Guy in white shorts = VC-backed startup. Guy in black shorts = bootstrapped, revenue-funded startup
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Earlier today, I declined a $100M offer to acquire @CBinsights . 1. See how it unfolded in these screenshots.2. A great reminder to never check or respond to Twitter DMs again. cc: CBI board, investors & team
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Group travel rule. If someone else plans the whole trip, books everything, etc, and you don't like some element of it, you need to STFU.
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HR people everywhere are losing their shit. “I don't believe in 1-on-1s and almost no great CEO in history has ever done 1-on-1s.". Brian Chesky out here throwing 💣s
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Random career tips. 1. Don't get drunk at company events.2. Never write a business email while mad or frustrated.3. Don't come to 1:1s with manager w/out agenda.4. Don't take 1+ days to respond to work emails.5. Format your emails (no walls of text).
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Andrew Carnegie's 23 traits of an attractive personality. pretty timeless advice. source: The Wisdom of Success
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"If you're frenzied, it's you. It's not the job.". Jamie Dimon on the role of a company versus where personal responsibility & accountability is needed
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There isn't a single book that reads. "Hey, I had this idea. I started it. Everything went great. The end."
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Why's it so hard to make friends as an adult?. This was a great articulation of the why behind this. h/t SJP
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Some 🚩 when hiring. * job-hoppers .* credential droppers in 1st min of convo (HBS, Mckinsey) .* blue hair .* ppl who've worked at lots of failed startups .* face tattoos .* "thought leader, keynote speaker" on LI/X bios.* talks isht abt prior mgr/employer. What are your 🚩?.
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Pro tip: If you're a startup raising right now, don't emphasize your 4 day work week.
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Hubspot, @stripe and JP Morgan Chase all acquired similar companies recently. Really?!. Yup - Tech and financial services are looking to buy media companies and communities . And this type of M&A is going to accelerate. Why? . In 6 letters, the answer is LTVCAC. 🧵.
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Airtable is probably worth less than the total equity funding it has raised. I'm not talking about the $11.7B valuation it raised at in December 2021. I'm talking about it being worth less than the ~$1.4B+ in financing it has raised. Here's the math/data. Airtable is on track for
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Your tweets did it. You saved the US economy. Great job guys. America owes you.
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“Vacation with kids is often not vacation at all”. - Aristotle.
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Breaking news: Successful startup has intense work environment. Is not for everyone.
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Thinking of changing my Twitter bio to include:. Stripe alum.YC founder .Stanford grad.Thiel Fellow.5 successful exits. What else should I add to make me look smart & accomplished?. Needn’t be true as people won’t check. Lmk.
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1/ Some signs to look for that suggest your startup equity won't be worth shit. (note: there are probably exceptions but generally, these will steer you right).
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"I've had a court side seat at all of the Warriors championship games. But just because I had a front row seat at championships, doesn't mean that I could coach an NBA team. And that's true of venture capitalists.". 😂. Brian Chesky, founder of Airbnb, on VCs in convo w/ @rabois
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PSA: 9.9 of 10 times, that big company person who says they want to work at a startup really doesn't. They think they do. They want to think they could. But they don't. And they can't.
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AI is eating entry level jobs. For the first time in nearly 4 decades, recent college grads are doing worse in the job market than the general population. Not the same. 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝘀𝗲. That bottom rung of white-collar work?.The reports, the research summaries, the PowerPoints?
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All VC websites say they partner with exceptional founders. There is a large untapped opportunity for a VC to come along that partners with average and perhaps mediocre founders. Who will own this space? 🤔. #blueocean.
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Reference checks are not taken seriously enough . A couple of years ago, I got religion on them. Here are 8 reference call questions that get past BS and really help understand a candidate. 🧵.
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Guy in white shorts = VC-backed startup. Guy in black shorts = bootstrapped, revenue-funded startup
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13-year old accounting software @bench shuts down abruptly 3 days before year-end. If you're a customer, ouch!. Raised $104M w/the last round being $60M in 2021. A zero value here is wild . Would figure the customer base, software would be worth something? . But guess not
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New startup model to build $10-25M revenue cos. Here’s the constraints. - never have >50 on the team.- everyone takes profit distributions (eventually).- no outside capital.- product quality + automation to keep < 50. Anyone building cos w/ headcount constraint?. What ya think?.
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UES NYC parent success formula. Get kid into Trinity.They get into Harvard.They get job at Goldman.They get into Stanford GSB.They get a job at Blackstone. What did I get wrong?.
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Want to write great copy?. Study this. "1999 Toyota Corolla - Fine AF". Absolute masterclass. Just read it. Thank me later
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$170M in revenue.Awesome. “They bootstrapped and turned down offers of VC funding. Before the sale, Park and Marino owned the vast majority of the biz, with the only other stockholders being employees to whom they had given equity grants”.
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When someone's thought leadership volume increases suddenly, they're looking for a new job.
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From the "it ain't talking shit if you can back it up" school of living is this 2016 letter from TopTal CEO to potential investors
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Lord, give me the confidence of a founder who just raised a $2m seed round from a tier 2 VC.
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Prediction: In 3 years, this is what air travel will look like due to the Apple Vision Pro. Agree or disagree?
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Ok - doing some market research for my next startup. How fast do you really need your groceries?.
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I operated my dad's business in India after his sudden death. Was an absolutely brutal place to do business. Heard this wisdom from a non-Indian last night who built and ran a biz in India. INDIA = I'm Never Doing It Again. Amen 😂.
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I had no idea VCs were also experts about coronavirus and pandemics. What don't these guys know?. #impressive.
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Dear VCs - here's an example of a great outreach email from a junior VC. Note: this intern will go far
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To: My fellow data/info-biz nerds. This is a great summary and another reason why proprietary quantitative or qualitative data & insights are going to be so powerful in this generative AI / LLM future. h/t @joeobrien513
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Alright, some napkin math analysis that suggests @flexport's current valuation might actually be 80+% lower. Yup - not the $8 billion valuation it last raised at in 2022. But more on the order of $1.41 to $1.58 billion. Ouch … but why?. It’s a combo of the company being priced
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Most career advice is 💩. If you want to be great, this is the only advice you need
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A tweet is currently selling for $267k. What the f^ck is happening?!!!!!
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Remember when VCs pushed for keeping politics out of the workplace?.
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Ambitious young people are underserved. and so I'm excited to launch the Formidable Fund. Along with my friend Raj Shah, we've started FF with $500k . We're giving $1000 grants to middle & high school entrepreneurs. I'd like your help (keep reading):.
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VC on Twitter: "Who are the most promising early-stage companies in __________?". VC to their LPs: "We have unrivaled proprietary dealflow".
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Tried my hand at startup advisory work earlier this yr (early-stage). Didn't like it. Advice mostly boiled down to same 5 things. 1. Narrow focus & increase quality.2. Optimize for speed .3. Don't hire until it hurts.4. Talk to customers a lot .5. If unsure abt teammate, move on.
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We bootstrapped @cbinsights by first building a totally different business . It involved hedge funds, too big too fail banks and $100,000 PDFs. For nerds interested in data and information services businesses, you might enjoy this.
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VC is a crazy game. "When founders get diluted below double-digit ownership, they begin to see themselves as employees, not owners and that is bad for the company, the team & investors. For some founders, they start to feel that way at below 20% or 15%".
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Still amazed at how many deal makers (VCs, M&A folks, corporate VCs) don't do double opt-in intros. They should teach you this in day 1 of dealmaking school.
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Your startup has more than 5 people. Here's 18 things you can do in 2022 to screw it up. Want your startup to end 2022 weaker than when you started?. Follow these tips. 🧵 (ya, I know).
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Lol at all the VCs who did undisciplined deals with crazy valuations now lecturing startups about discipline . (Note: not talking about any VCs I personally know. Just the other ones).
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What are your top 5 podcasts?. - MFM .- All-In.- People v Algorithms.- Hard Fork .- Limited Supply .- Mktg Against the Grain .- Colin & Samir .- Flagrant (only on YT). That's actually 8. Who do you like?.
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When Sam Altman is less busy, he should write a book on negotiating. Absolute assassin as a deal maker.
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Unpopular opinion. I think founders speaking at / keynoting conferences is generally a huge waste of time. Good for ego but branding/biz dev value is meh. Used to speak at lots of events and should have just spent that time generating content which pays dividends forever. WDYT?.
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“People rarely see the small steps when they’re looking for enormous outcomes, but deserving enormous outcomes is mostly the result of a series of small steps that culminate into something visible.“.
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So capital-as-a-weapon doesn't work in:. - startups.- politics. Any other domains?.
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How much customer interest founders expect they'll get from the TechCrunch article on their $2.5M seed round
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2018 startup founder’s toolkit. 1. Must have read Radical Candor.2. Swear by intermittent fasting.3. Be doing something in AI. What’d I miss?.
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My next startup. sort of. Except it's not a startup. Along with a few others, I'm working on building a 6th to 12th grade School of Entrepreneuring. And so I wanted to share some of my 'wet clay' thoughts on how we're thinking about this as I know there are a lot of smart.
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Is there a Glassdoor for tech cos to evaluate and see ratings of advisors/service providers like lawyers, bankers, accountants?.
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Would this be illegal?. 1. Organize a few hundred thousand folks to simultaneously cancel their subscriptions to a Netflix, Disney, etc.2. Short the stock. I know it's not easy to do but curious if illegal?. Don't you dare reply to this saying it's a perfect use case for a DAO.
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Why do kids learn about sedimentary vs igneous vs metamorphic rocks in school?. Genuinely curious the value school systems believe this type of information provides.
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Robinhood got 600k signups (as of yday) for their checking/savings aka cash management account. This was fantastic marketing. They had to change the copy today but only after they’d derived most of the value from the launch . Well played by their team.
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When a founder shares revenue w/ media, here's how to decode:. "7 figures of revenue" .>>> revenue is $980k. "millions in revenue" .>>> revenue is $2 million. "tens of millions in revenue" .>>> revenue is $10.05M. "close year with $100M ARR" .>>> ARR is $70 million.
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Worst startup advice ever. “Hire smart people and get out of their way”.
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7/ Early stage founders (Seed/Series A) lecturing others on how to build a business vs actually talking about their business. Personal brand building founders trying to be 'gurus' are almost always a total dumpster fire.
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"What makes great products is not process. It's content.". 1 minute of wisdom by Steve Jobs
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So good. Someone sent a cover letter in the format of our newsletter.
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Dear @DOGE,. Here's a proposal on how to solve a $1.73 trillion problem aka the world's most inefficient government-backed market. I'm talking about college student debt. Today:.* Sellers (colleges) face zero consequences for failure.* Buyers (students) can't discharge debt
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When people at big co say . "I'm on a small team. It's like working in a startup inside a large organization". I'm like
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Periodic reminder that when folks say "It's like working at a startup in a big company", they have no idea what it's like to actually work at a startup.
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The intense drama about SVB has died down. But the implications on the pvt markets will be felt in coming weeks & months. They will be big for VCs, PE and startups. We’ll dig into what the data says here. First stop - Let’s dig into how debt was being used to prop up valuations.
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"Valuation is temporary. Control is forever." . Not discussed nearly enough in the unicorn boom. Wonder how many founders work for their investors now? . Prob works if you’re consistently going up & to the right. Prob not ideal when you hit a bump. quote by @naval via @lpolovets.
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68 things not to do in your SaaS company. Learn from @cbinsights screwups my presentation from #SaaStrAnnual.
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4/ Mid- to later-stage company and the about us page is all about their investors. That's ok at the early stages but eventually you gotta build some shit for customers. If you're bragging about your investors at Series B, C, the actual biz model is fundraising.
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What essay or article have you read that has had a significant impact on how you think about business, markets, entrepreneurship and/or technology?.
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🐐When our AGI overlords arrive, @harrymack is the only 1 whose job will be safe. Absolutely unbelievable skills. Don't know him?. Watch this. I guarantee you will be blown away (and probably smile)
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🔥 💣 I’ve decided to “fire” myself after 14 years as CEO of @CBinsights . I'll still be working 180% at CBI but now in the role of Founder & Executive Chairman. In this role, my focus shifts to customer conversations, product, content & partnerships. One area I'll be spending
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Generative AI company revenue multiples. • @OpenAI 18.1x.• @AnthropicAI 20.5x.• @AI21Labs 28x.• @glean 56.4x.• MosaicML 65x (acq by Databricks).• @perplexity_ai 65x.• @harvey__ai 71.5x.• @cohere 100x.• @huggingface 150x . OpenAI a bargain? :).
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AI and jobs. Klarna CEO is shrinking number of employees by 20% per year and has stopped recruitment
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Elon Musk is the best business builder of this generation (perhaps ever). I wish he'd share more about business building . This video of him is great. My favorite parts.* "Make your requirements less dumb".* Name people, not departments.* "Don't optimize something that should not
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Name a startup (not your own) that you admire. And why?. Mine: @AngelList .Why: Product shipping velocity.
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We bootstrapped @cbinsights by first building a different business involving hedge funds, too big to fail banks, and $100,000 PDFs. Data and information services nerds, you might enjoy this. Backstory.▪️ My first day of freedom from big company employment: Jan 1, 2008. ▪️ Bad
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Your startup is a wrapper on GPT-4?. OpenAI is "going to steamroll you" per Sam Altman
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