Matt Lerner is one of the OGs of growth having spent 11 years leading growth teams at PayPal. Post PayPal, Matt led the growth marketing program at 500 Startups. He is also the bestselling author of Growth Levers and How to Find Them. Today, Matt is the Co-Founder and CEO of SYSTM, an accelerator program helping startups find their growth drivers.
In Today’s Episode with Matt Lerner We Discuss:
From Philosophy Student to PayPal Growth Leader:
How did Matt make his way into the world of growth?
What were Matt’s biggest lessons from 11 years at PayPal?
What did Matt know now that he wished he’d known when he entered the world of growth?
How to Master Growth in a World of AI:
What is growth to Matt? What is it not?
Why does Matt think growth is more science than art?
Does Matt Agee with Adam Gross @ Vimeo that paid acquisition below $100M ARR isn’t PLG?
How does Matt think AI will change the world of growth today?
What does Matt think are the most common growth mistakes founders make?
Optimizing Growth Channels: Dos & Don’ts
Why does Matt believe there are only six types of growth channels?
What is the “locksmith moment" & how do startups find channels that work for them?
How does Matt pick a Northstar metric?
What are the most common mistakes founders make when picking North Star metrics? When is the right time to change them?
How does Matt approach horizontal product messaging? What works? What doesn’t work?
How to Hire & Manage Growth Teams
What does Matt look for in the first head of growth hire?
What questions does Matt ask when interviewing?
What were Matt’s biggest hiring mistakes? What did he learn?
Why does Matt think the best growth hires have no marketing experience?
What are Matt’s two steps to master onboarding?
What are the 3 most common patterns in leaders according to Matt?
Mike Schroepfer (Schrep) is the Founder & Partner @ Gigascale Capital, a new kind of climate-focused investment firm. Prior to Gigascale, Mike was the CTO @ Meta where he scaled products to billions of users, shipped millions of units of consumer hardware, constructed tens of millions of sq ft of data centres, built teams of up to 35,000, and made breakthroughs in AI. Before Meta, Mike led engineering at Mozilla and founded a company acquired by Sun Microsystems.
1. Lessons from Mark Zuckerberg and Meta:
2. The Future of Energy:
3. Investing in Climate: It has to be Profitable:
4. Schrep: The Man Behind Whatsapp and Instagram: AMA:
Jason Lemkin is one of the OG SaaS investors with all of his first five investments turning into unicorns with Pipedrive, Algolia, Talkdesk, Salesloft and RevenueCat all in his portfolio. SaaStr is the largest global community in SaaS and he has taught a generation the fundamentals of SaaS on saastr.com.
1. Growth Rates and Churn Rates: Average/Good/Great:
2. What Founder Combination Always Wins:
3. WTF is Happening in the World of VC:
4. WTF is Happening in PE and Later Stage Markets:
Sam Altman is the CEO @ OpenAI, the company on a mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. OpenAI is one of the fastest-scaling companies in history with a valuation of $90BN and $2BN+ in revenue.
Brad Lightcap is the COO @ OpenAI and the man responsible for the incredible scaling of sales, GTM, partnerships and business to today being over $2BN in revenue.
Arthur Mensch is the Co-Founder and CEO of Mistral AI. Since its inception in May 2023, Mistral has raised over $520M in funding from investors like Andreeseen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Microsoft with a current valuation of $2 billion.
Des Traynor is a Co-Founder of Intercom, and has built and led many teams within the company, including Product, Marketing, and Customer Support. Today Des leads all of Intercom’s R&D efforts, and parts of Intercom’s marketing.
Tom Hulme is a Managing Partner of GV (Google Ventures), and leads the European team. Today, GV has over $10BN in AUM and Tom has led investments in Lemonade.com (IPO), Snyk, Secret Escapes, Blockchain.com, GoCardless, and Currency Cloud (exited to Visa).
Tomasz Tunguz is the Founder and General Partner @ Theory Ventures, just announced last week, Theory is a $230M fund that invests $1-25m in early-stage companies that leverage technology discontinuities into go-to-market advantages.
Sarah Tavel is a General Partner @ Benchmark, one of the most successful and renowned venture firms in the world. At Benchmark, Sarah has led rounds in Chainalysis, Hipcamp, Medely, Rekki, Glide, Cambly and more.
Aaron Levie is one of the OG founders of the last two decades as the Co-Founder and CEO of Box. Today, Box does over $1BN in revenue with a market cap of $3.85BN, and has raised over $560 million from the likes of DFJ, Andreesen Horowitz, and Coatue.
In Today’s Episode with Aaron Levie We Discuss:
What You Need to Know Entering This AI Wave:
Why does Aaron think we are currently in a transformative window in AI?
What does Aaron think it takes to be successful in this next wave?
Which areas does Aaron think founders should be focusing on today? Where should they not?
AI Adoption: Business Model, Implementation, Regulation.
How does Aaron think AI will change how we work & run a business?
What does Aaron think is the single biggest obstacle to AI adoption in large organizations?
Does Aaron agree with Sarah Tavel @ Benchmark AI companies will be selling work not tools?
How does Aaron think AI will change the SaaS business model?
Why is Aaron not as worried about AI regulation? What are his biggest concerns today?
The Next AI Breakthrough: AI Agents
Why does Aaron believe the next big breakthrough in AI will be agents?
How does Aaron think AI agents will change org structures?
How does Aaron think agents will differ from RPA? How will RPA companies benefit from AI?
What does Aaron think AI agents will look like in five years?
Startups vs Incumbents: Who Wins?
What is Aaron’s advice to startups today building against OpenAI?
Does Aaron think startups have more advantage in foundational models or the application layer?
What advantages do incumbents have? What are their biggest weaknesses?
Who does Aaron think are the biggest winners in AI today? Who is underperforming?
Why does Aaron think Apple isn’t losing the AI race?
Nikesh Arora is the CEO @ Palo Alto Networks, the leading cybersecurity company in the world with a market cap of $102BN. Before joining Palo Alto Networks, Nikesh was the President and COO of SoftBank Group. Before that, he spent ten years at Google as a senior exec, and President of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Before that Nikesh was CMO for the T-Mobile International Division of Deutsche Telekom AG. Nikesh serves on the board of Compagnie Financière Richemont S.A. Previously, he served on the boards of SoftBank, Sprint, Colgate-Palmolive Inc., Yahoo! Japan and Tipping Point.
1. From Investing with Masa @ Softbank to CEO of Largest Cyber Company:
2. What Makes the Most Valuable Businesses in the World:
3. What Makes the Best Leaders in the World:
4. Behind the CEO: Nikesh Arora: Husband and Father:
Jiaona “JZ” Zhang is the Chief Product Officer at Linktree, the world’s leading link-in-bio platform empowering 45M+ creators, brands and SMBs. JZ joined Linktree from Webflow, where she served as SVP of Product. Before that, she spent four years at Airbnb where she built and led numerous teams on the host side. JZ’s also held leadership roles at the likes of Wework, Dropbox and teaches at Stanford University and Reforge.
In Today’s Episode with Jiaona Zhang We Discuss:
Entry into the World of Product
How did JZ first fall in love with product?
Why does JZ believe the best PMs have experience in the gaming industry?
Does JZ think Linktree could be a $100BN business? How could Linktree become a $100BN business?
Mastering Product Metrics
Why does JZ think product is the most chameleon role? Where does product start & end?
Why does JZ think every function should have tension with product?
What is a KPI tree? How does JZ branch business & product metrics?
When does JZ think startups should set up a metric infrastructure?
What are the three levers of product? How does JZ determine which ones to trade off?
How to Run Product: Planning, Strategy, & Rituals
Why does JZ think planning should not exist?
What are strategy and rituals? When should founders do either?
What are JZ’s three core rituals?
What is the scorecard method? How do they help team transparency?
What are product jams? When does it work? When does it not work?
Product Career Advice
When does JZ think founders hire a product person?
What are the most common mistakes early stage founders make when hiring for product?
Does JZ think domain expertise is important? What does she look for in product hires?
What is JZ’s advice to PMs who want to get promoted today?
What is JZ’s advice to young people who want to get into product?
Dan Siroker is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Limitless, a personalized AI powered by what you’ve seen, said, or heard. For his latest funding round, Dan took an unusual approach resulting in 1,000 preliminary offers with valuations as high as $1BN — and resulted in a $350 million Series A valuation. Prior to founding Limitless, Dan was the Founder of Optimizely, scaling the company to $120M in ARR and raising from some of the best in the business including Peter Fenton @ Benchmark who led the Series A.
1. Serial Entrepreneurs are More Investable:
2. The Secret to Fundraising: How to Speak VC
3. How to Raise the Best Funding Round:
4. Dan Siroker: AMA:
Tom Blomfield is a Group Partner at YC. Before YC, Tom founded two unicorns in the UK. He was co-founder of Monzo (most recently valued at $5BN), one of the first challenger banks in the UK. Monzo raised more than £1bn and counts 15% of the UK population as customers. Before Monzo, Tom founded GoCardless (YC S11), an online payments processor, most recently valued at $2.1BN.
1. From Founding Two Unicorns to YC Partner:
2. The YC Application Process: How it Works:
3. The YC Batch: How it Works:
4. AI: Consumer vs Enterprise/ Infrastructure vs Application Layer:
20VC: Behind the Scenes at Y Combinator: The Interview Process | What the Best & Worst Do in the Program | Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | Why the Value is in Application Layer AI with Tom Blomfield
Larry Shurtz is the Chief Sales Officer at Genesys where he oversees the company’s global go-to-market strategies, including commercial activities, field sales and partner ecosystem operations. Larry has nearly three decades of experience in the software industry, from leading Confluent to delivering more than 60% revenue growth and doubling customer count as Chief Revenue Officer, to scaling a 1,300-person team at Salesforce to $2.1 billion in revenue.
In Today’s Episode with Larry Shurtz We Discuss:
From Robotics Student to $2.1BN Sales Leader at Salesforce
How did Larry lead 1300 people to $2.1 billion revenue at Salesforce? What were his takeaways?
What did Larry learn about building vertical sales playbooks at Salesforce?
Which framework did Larry learn at Salesforce that he still uses at Genesys?
Mastering Sales Leadership
What are the biggest mistakes sales leaders make on prioritization today?
What are Larry’s “3 Rs” to master prioritization?
What does Larry think are the most common reasons fast-scaling teams break in sales?
Has Larry ever caused bad culture in a sales team? What did he learn from the experience?
Does Larry think sales is more art or science? How does Larry blend the two?
Building the Best Sales Team
How does Larry structure the hiring process for a new sales hire?
How big should your recruitment team be?
What are Larry’s most commonly asked questions when interviewing?
What were Larry’s biggest hiring mistakes? What did he learn from them?
How does Larry structure the comp? How does he get it right? What do most new hires care about today?
The Onboarding: The Dos & Don’ts
How does Larry structure the onboarding process?
Why does Larry onboard new hires with big customers? What is the buddy system?
How does Larry tell if a new hire is bad? What are the biggest red flags to look out for?
What does Larry mean when he says “You can make all the physical errors, you cannot make mental errors?”
Does Larry agree with Max Levchin @ Affirm that “When there’s doubt, there’s no doubt?”
Tom Hulme is a Managing Partner of GV (Google Ventures), and leads the European team. Today, GV has over $10BN in AUM and Tom has led investments in Lemonade.com (IPO), Snyk, Secret Escapes, Blockchain.com, GoCardless, Blue Vision Labs (exited to Lyft), and Currency Cloud (exited to Visa). Prior to joining venture full-time, Tom was one of Europe's most successful angel investors with a 5x DPI track record and 20x+ TVPI.
1. Lessons from a 24x TVPI Angel Track Record:
2. The Four Pillars of Venture Capital:
3. The Conventional Wisdom in Venture That is Not True:
4. AI: Foundation Models, Generative AI, The Incumbents: Where Does the Value Go:
Sarah Tavel is a General Partner @ Benchmark, one of the most successful and renowned venture firms in the world. At Benchmark, Sarah has led rounds in Chainalysis, Hipcamp, Medely, Rekki, Glide, Cambly and more. Prior to Benchmark, Sarah was a Partner at Greylock Partners. Before Greylock, Sarah was the first 30 employees at Pinterest. Sarah joined Pinterest in 2012 after co-leading the Series A investment while at Bessemer Venture Partners.
1. Becoming a GP at The Most Renowned Firm in Venture:
2. Foundation Models: Is it All Going to Zero:
3. Application Layer: Where $BN Companies Will Be Built:
4. Inside Benchmark: How the Best Do Venture:
Eric Glyman is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ramp, America's fastest growing corporate card and finance automation platform. Under Eric’s leadership, Ramp has raised more than $1 billion in financing, with a valuation of $8.1 billion. Prior to Ramp, Eric co-founded Paribus, a price-tracking app to help consumers save money (acquired by Capital One). Ramp recently raised another $150 million series D round co-led by Founders Fund and Khosla ventures, with a post-money valuation of $7.65 billion.
Keith Rabois is a Managing Director @ Khosla Ventures and one of the most respected venture investors of the last decade. Keith has led investments in Stripe, Faire, Ramp, Affirm and many more. Prior to Khosla Ventures, Keith was General Partner at Founders Fund, where he led investments for Ramp, Trade Republic, and Aven.
In Today’s Episode with Eric Glyman and Keith Rabois We Discuss:
Behind Ramp’s Partnership with Founders Fund & Khosla Ventures
How did the first Founders Fund deal come to be? How was the first meeting?
What does Keith mean when he says Ramp has the “secret sauce” to be successful?
What are 1-2 things Keith thinks Eric is world-class at? What are 1-2 things Eric thinks Keith is world-class at?
How did the latest Khosla deal come to happen?
Ramp: The Fastest Executing Company on the Planet.
How is Eric so good at executing at Ramp? What is his biggest advice to founders on speed of execution?
What are Eric’s biggest challenges in the next 12 months at Ramp?
Why does Keith believe momentum is crucial for early stage startups? What are some easy ways founders can build momentum?
How does Eric think AI will accelerate Ramp and the world of finance?
Leadership Lessons From the Best Founders
What are Keith’s biggest lessons from Brian Chesky @ Airbnb?
What did Keith learn from Jack Dorsey @ Square about leadership?
What does Eric think founders today should build? What should they not build?
What did Eric learn from Keith on how founders should measure time & progress?
Hiring & Team Management
How did Ramp build a solid talent team? What did they do differently?
Does Keith & Eric believe it is better to hire externally or promote internally? What is the right balance?
Does Keith agree founders should hire & get out the way or micromanage?
How many direct reports does Keith think is enough?
Mark Suster is a General Partner @ Upfront Ventures, one of LA's leading early-stage venture firms. Prior to leading Upfront, Mark was a serial entrepreneur having founded two software companies, selling both with the last selling to Salesforce.com. Mark is also a prolific writer and one of his favourite pieces, Lines Not Dots is one for the ages.
1. From Serial Entrepreneur to Leading VC:
2. How to Raise a Fund:
3. Exit Environments are F******: What Now:
4. Trump, The Woke Left and The World Around Us: