productmarketfit

Wealthfront Chairman and Co-Founder Andy Rachleff joins Jason for an incredible interview! They start the show by discussing the SVB situation before breaking down different tech mini-crashes throughout Silicon Valley history (2:28). Then, they break down Wealthfront’s business and how to know if a business has market pull (40:49). They finish up the show by covering a range of topics, from AI to stock-based comp (1:13:45).

(0:00) Jason kicks off the show

(2:28) SVB situation

(9:26) The FDIC’s $250K limit

(13:27) MasterClass - Get 15% off an annual membership at https://masterclass.com/startups

(14:49) The bank run

(16:17) The SVB ecosystem

(22:20) Merge - Integrate up to 5 customers for free today at https://merge.dev/twist

(23:45) Cycle changes

(36:15) How to judge a VC

(39:27) Issuu - Get 50% off when you go to https://issuu.com/podcast and use promo code twist

(40:49) Wealthfront’s operation

(48:58) Reactions to the market

(55:00) Modern analysis and stock buybacks

(1:01:24 ) Caring about profitability

(1:02:06) Attaining market pull

(1:13:45) Andy’s thoughts on AI

(1:16:31) The makeup of a great entrepreneur

(1:18:50) Stock-based compensation

(1:25:06) How we avoided inflation

FOLLOW Andy: https://twitter.com/arachleff

FOLLOW Jason: https://linktr.ee/calacanis

Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) hosts the pod today with guests Ben Gilbert (@gilbert) and David Rosenthal (djrosent) from the Aquired podcast (@acquiredfm). In today’s episode you’ll hear: Shaan asks Ben and David to give some background on themselves and the Acquired podcast (0:30), Shaan gives four personalities that every company needs to succeed (11:00), the Acquired guys pitch an idea for an Airbnb that says whether or not the location has wifi (18:00), the Acquired guys talk about making your own stock index (29:10), Shaan talks about putting solar panels into space and beaming energy back down to earth (39:00), the guys talk about different ways to mitigate tax liability (48:10), the Acquired guys asks Shaan to tell the story of Bebo (62:10). This episode is presented by Tempo! Check them out at tempo.fit and use code "TempoHustle" for $100 off. Have you joined our private FB group yet? It's a page where people share each others million dollar ideas or what they're already working on: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ourfirstmillion.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

My guest this week is Andy Rachleff, who is the CEO of the automated investing platform Wealthfront. Andy was also a co-founder and long-time partner at Benchmark capital--one of the most interesting and successful venture capital firms in the world. We spend most of our conversation discussing venture capital investing and entrepreneurship. Andy coined the now ubiquitous term “product/market fit,” and has great insight into how investors and entrepreneurs should think about business. In that vein, we discuss both what we refer to as the value hypothesis: building a product or service that customers love, and the growth hypothesis: scaling that product or service to a large market. We finish our conversation by talking about Andy and his teams mission at Wealthfront, and this conversation is perfectly timed, as Wealthfront just released a new feature that allows investors to buy factor portfolios, similar to Smart Beta ETFs. Above all, I’ll remember Andy’s advice to “put the gun in the other person’s hand,” a strategy that we explore in the middle of our talk.   For comprehensive show notes on this episode go to http://investorfieldguide.com/andy For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag   Books Referenced The Four Steps to the Epiphany The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses Millennial Money: How Young Investors Can Build a Fortune Diffusion of Innovations Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers   Show Notes 2:36 – (First question) – The partnership setup and how they came to be 5 equal partners 7:57 – Why benchmark would not take on the chairman role in companies they invested in 9:28 – What made John Doerr the greatest capitalist investor ever 11:59 – Looking at the venture process and what made it an attractive investment for Benchmark, using eBay as an example. 18:06 – If you are willing to help other people, without an expectation of return, it can create other opportunities 20:08 – Andy is asked to explain the idea of Product Market Fit, a term that he coined 22:18 – How does one go about finding a Product Market Fit             23:05 – The Four Steps to the Epiphany             23:19 – The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses 25:55 – What are the components of the Growth hypothesis 26:51 – Why you can learn more professionally from success vs failure 28:13 – What it’s like to shift from venture capitalist to operator/CEO 30:24 – The rate at which technology gets adopted and what will help Wealthfront             30:53 – Millennial Money: How Young Investors Can Build a Fortune             31:26 – Diffusion of Innovations             31:38 – Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers 32:38 – What does it look like to innovate on top of current platforms 41:07 – Will platforms like Wealthfront help to democratize access to private markets 44:23 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Andy     Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.  Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag