(screaming)
- Holy crap.
What is happening in this world right now?
I don't even know how to start this episode.
If you are running a startup right now,
I absolutely implore you to find a way
to get to 18 months of runway.
We don't really know when it's really going to end yet,
and I think that we're in the early innings unfortunately.
That being said, take care of your people,
take care of your families, take care of yourselves.
We're going to beat this.
Well, today, we're going to do a little bit of Q&A,
and as always, you can DM me questions,
or episode ideas. I'd love to hear from you.
Let's get to the questions!
Omar asks, "What is your advice for people
"who want to transition from engineering
"to product management?
"What are the skills I need to master
"before making that transition?"
It's a really good question. I studied computer engineering
but it was Microsoft that actually told me that
"You know what, maybe you're not that good a software
"engineer, maybe you should be a product manager.
"You seem to be able to talk somewhat well."
The number one thing you really need to narrow
in on though, is empathy.
So the things that you'll be really good
at right off the bat, systems, thinking,
understanding the underlying technology,
and understanding what's possible.
On the other hand, if you want to transition
into a product role, you've got to get a lot better
at business, empathy and design.
Understanding economics, understanding business,
understanding corporate finance,
these end up being much more important in a product role,
because you've got to make trade offs between
what your user needs, what's possible,
and what the business actually needs.
Second is empathy.
Empathy is about understanding your user,
and being able to feel their pain.
And if you feel that pain,
then what are you going to do as an engineer?
You're going to go ahead and fix those pains.
If you're transitioning from an engineering role
to a PM role, those are the things you really have to nail.
Thanks for that question, Omar.
Next up is Arpit.
He asks, "What's the biggest pain point
"that you see in photo related products
"by Apple, Google and Amazon?"
I kind of don't really rely on Amazon
other than for e-commerce.
I think that they're really lacking
on the design and product side.
As a designer, you really want to join Athens,
you know, you want to be a part of the Athenian culture.
It's very hard for a great designer to thrive
in a place that has a Spartan culture.
- This is Sparta!
(upbeat electronic music)
- One that's really about profits.
It's just a great marketplace.
But a great marketplace does not have to have
that type of design that you would expect.
♪ This is Sparta ♪
but their user experience is a little bit lacking,
in particular around the thousand edge cases.
And yes, with even photos, there're crazy amount
of small edge cases that become problematic.
An example of what I mean is when Google detects
that you have photo edit on your phone
that then conflicts with the same photo
that you might not have edited on your desktop.
There's usually a sync error and then they really
don't pop UI, or help you through that process.
What's probably happening is actually
what happens at a big company like Google.
Yes, it's a problem, and in fact,
people might even see it happen within
their own photo feeds, but then a call is made,
a bug in a bug database is taken care of,
and then it's gone.
And at a bigger organization,
often it's very hard to know what is going on.
It's very hard to have a visceral sense for what
your users are actually going to run into,
and whether or not that's a problem to actually solve.
Apple actually has incredible design,
but has technical flaws.
It's actually a very slow sync process,
and there's very little feedback.
So it's almost the match pair to Google's problem.
I think Apple does do the right things
when it comes to design, but then the technical part
of the implementation doesn't really work.
Second question, "Is it common for founders
"to be more non-social, introverts and silent?
"How do they end up building a strong company culture?"
In order to have a strong company culture,
you've got to go back to again empathy.
You can be an introvert.
Some of the introverts in my life are actually
the most well-considered people I've ever met.
They actually spent a lot of time thinking about
other people, what they're thinking, what they're feeling,
and then they sort of adjust
and attenuate their behavior in response.
So I actually think that introverts
can often be the best founders.
I think introverts have certain strengths,
but you don't have to be one type or another.
Brian Bassard, hey Brian.
"Do you enjoy being a VC as much
"as being a founder/builder in a startup?"
Initialized to me, is the startup.
And it happens to be a startup that I think could help
many, many more billion dollar companies exist.
That's the entire reason why I chose to start Initialized.
What's crazy is, if you look at a lot of venture capitalists
they actually don't have any software
in their operations.
They're still using calendar, they're still using email.
It's basically a process that's built around
one or a few people.
I think it's really important in this world
of infinite capital for people to take a step back
and look at from first principles.
Venture capital as a business
should be run like a startup.
So to answer your question, I'm having a ton of fun,
because this is my startup.
"Do you find any correlation between being a photographer
"or creative and being a VC?"
Being a creative and having taste really seems to help,
is being able to both identify and attract
other people who are like you.
Especially if you're looking at things from
a brand perspective, from a story telling perspective.
That's one of the things I enjoy the most
about working with founders.
I get to sit down with them,
they tell me their dreams,
and then I get to do improv with them.
It ends up being yes and.
And if we're successful, they get to go and set
the world on fire, and if I can help them tell that story,
and be a very small part of that,
Great to see you, fellow Stanford alum.
Jimmy, thanks for this question.
Two parts, "Telehealth is now thrust
"on the scene, gaining awareness.
"It seems like this week alone, I've seen 20 new startups
"doing something in the telehealth space.
"One, how can telehealth companies differentiate
"themselves in a moment when we see many different
"products and rapid adoption?"
It's a good question, this is sort of the classic question.
It's that of customer acquisition cost.
In the end, what we're trying to look for,
are people who can actually tell that story,
and lower that cost of acquisition by a lot.
I think it was Chamath who said that 40% of startup funds
that are raised actually go to Facebook or Google ads.
So, right down the middle, one of the easiest ways
that consumer startup can differentiate itself,
especially a D2C or telehealth brand,
is actually having someone on that team
who has bought sometimes millions or tens of millions
of dollars worth of ads.
When it come to people who have done that sort of top 100
level digital marketing, there're really only several
hundred people in the world who are capable of doing that.
It's basically like high frequency hedge fund trading,
but applied to eyeballs.
And there aren't that many people who are amazing at it.
If you can hire someone like that as a co-founder,
or if you can hire them off the bat as an employee,
that's straight up the middle
how you beat the CAC problem.
The second way is someone who can tell the story,
can they sell the dream?
If you can sell the dream, then you can go through
organic means, social means, content marketing,
and yes, eventually SEO.
You can make all of those channels work,
bring CAC down and beat your competitors.
And that's really necessary in this day and age.
I think I'm going to need to expand on that thought
in a future episode.
Second part of that question from Jimmy.
"If an unexpected user demographic or use case arrives
"at this moment of Covid-19, how should founders think
"about a strategy to service these users,
"while not losing sight of the overarching strategy?"
This is a really great question,
and it's one that we're talking
about across our whole portfolio.
I think the way to think about it again,
is that framework of customer acquisition cost.
There are going to be a bunch of strategies
where suddenly what if you took that CAC down to zero?
Or took that CAC down to something one tenth
of what it would have been otherwise?
Now, if you can turn that into lifetime value,
that is super awesome.
Is this a lasting behavior change
that will stick with people over the long haul?
Or is it a one-time thing that will happen
and then go away?
Be very wary of that latter type,
but really lean into that first type.
Thank you all for the questions,
and thanks for hanging out with me today.
It's really crazy what's happening out there
in the world, isn't it?
Stay at home, stay safe, we're going to get through this.
I'll catch you soon.