Marc Andreessen

Marc Andreessen's two-word advice: charge more

Sam cites Marc Andreessen's startup advice boiled down to two words, 'charge more,' arguing most founders price way below what they should because being cheaper feels cuter and safer.

“if Marc Andreessen had one advice for his startups, it would be simple: charge more. He goes, two words, charge more. And because most startups do what I did, you charge way little, way less than you should because you, I don't know, you're trying to be cute. I don't know what it is. It's just, it's cuter to be cheaper.”

Steal thisDefault to charging more; most founders underprice because cheap feels safe, not because it's right.

All business is bundling and unbundling

Shaan applies the Marc Andreessen line that most business is just bundling and unbundling to newsletters: they're currently all unbundled, so bundling your favorite writers into a single flat monthly fee, like a cable package, is the opportunity.

“I'm kind of a believer in that, that the Marc Andreessen thing that he stole from whoever, which was basically like most business is just bundling and unbundling. And so I think that right now newsletters are all unbundled and somebody creating a bundle of newsletters, it'll be like the cable package and somebody will say, ah, why am I paying for, I don't want to pay for 10 individual subscriptions and some of them are good, some are bad. And instead if I could just pay a flat $15 a month and get access to my 10 favorite writers, like, great.”

Steal thisWhen a market has fully unbundled (e.g. paid newsletters), the next move is to bundle the best of it into one flat subscription.

The 'one whiteboard question' until you crack it

When the company was screwed unless they landed Family Guy, Sully put all chips on one strategy: every morning the whiteboard asked 'How do we go get the Family Guy rights?' They'd try an idea that day, fail, and come back the next day until it worked.

“So he just put all his chips into this one strategy and was like, okay, every morning when we come into the office, we just have a whiteboard. The whiteboard says, how do we go get the Family Guy rights? It's like, what can we do? And they would just come up with some ideas and then they would try it that day and then they would fail and they would come back again the next day and the next day.”

Steal thisWrite the single make-or-break question on a whiteboard and attack it every single day until it cracks.

BitClout's growth hack: scrape Twitter and pre-fund influencer accounts

Shaan marvels at BitClout's aggressive growth design: they scraped Twitter profiles without permission, listed everyone's coins, raised $100M from top investors, and pre-loaded influencers' accounts with money (his had $55K) claimable only by tweeting the platform out.

“They're aggressive because They went and scraped Twitter and they put all of our profiles on their website and said, come buy their coin without anyone's permission. That took a level of aggression and sort of like willing to operate in the gray that most people wouldn't really have. And then the smart thing was they said, well, how do we make this network really valuable? Well, if we get really valuable people on it, how do we get really valuable people on it?”

VCs fought over Clubhouse by hosting shows to win the deal

Shaan describes how funds courted the hot Clubhouse round by hanging out on the app after work; a16z's Andrew Chen won the deal partly by agreeing that Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz would host public shows and open their celebrity Rolodex.

“Andrew Chen, who you were, you know, hanging out with, actually was the one who ended up winning the deal. And I think as part of it, I'm sure they agreed to host some shows. So they have like They have the Good Times show, which, uh, that's the one that Elon Musk came on the other day.”

Superhuman: 60 people, $51M raised, 360,000 on the waitlist

Rahul Vohra shares Superhuman's proxy metrics in lieu of user numbers: about 60 employees, $51M+ raised from First Round and Andreessen Horowitz, and over 360,000 people on the product waitlist.

“Other proxies or other things that people are interested in are we're about 60 people today. We've raised $51 million plus from investors like First Round Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. Marc Andreessen sits on our board. It's really exciting to be able to work with the likes of him. And let's see what else. We have a waitlist for our products. That's something that people are often interested in. We now have over 360,000 people on that waitlist.”

Market beats team and product (Andreessen)

Shaan recaps Marc Andreessen's non-consensus claim that of team, product, and market, the market matters most. Great people can't fix a dead market, but an average team can win in a great one.

“great people can't fix a shitty market. But a great market, even just average people can do well. And, um, and so I, I've seen that, you know, play out in my life as well, where you get into the right market and then you're just surfing a wave.”

Steal thisPick the market first; spend your effort surfing an existing wave instead of trying to create one.

Marc Andreessen: when your 5 smartest friends go to Denny's at 2am, go

Ben cites Marc Andreessen's old pmarchive.org career advice: if your five smartest friends gather at 2am over something new and exciting, join them every time. It's a litmus test for when a new opportunity (e.g. a SPAC media business) is worth starting.

“And one of the things is like If your 5 smartest friends are getting together at 2 in the morning and going to Denny's because of something exciting that they're thinking about or something that's new in the world, go with them every time.”

Steal thisTreat your smartest friends' late-night obsessions as your market-timing signal and follow them in.

Know which game you're playing: value investing fails in startups

Shaan argues Andreessen and Buffett are both right but playing different games. Apply Buffett's 'never lose money' rule to startups and you'd be the worst angel investor alive, because venture math is 10 bets, lose 8, two return 10-100x.

“actually the nature of the game of high-tech you know, rapid growth investing is to make 10 bets, lose on 8, and have 2 return, you know, 10 to 100x or more. And if you try to do that without losing money, if you try to be a value investor in the startup world, you'd just be sitting on your ass the whole time wondering why these 2 kids with a half-baked idea are, you know, saying they're worth $10 million pre-money, right? Like, it just doesn't work. So you got to know which game you're playing and choose wisely.”

Steal thisMatch your risk posture to the asset class: 'don't lose money' for durable cash flows, 'fund the power law' for startups.

700-person scout network feeds all-inbound deal flow

Permanent Equity sources deals entirely inbound, partly through a scout network of about 700 people who get paid when a transaction closes, a model common in Silicon Valley but rare in private equity.

“we have a scout network, which is common in Silicon Valley, uh, but very uncommon in, in private equity. Um, so we have about 700 people now that, uh, that scout opportunities for us, um, which is fantastic. Um, and we obviously pay them, um, when, when we are able to consummate the transaction.”

How TinyCo won the Family Guy license by asking 'what more can we do?' daily

Competing against EA and Zynga for the Family Guy game license, Ali asked his BD lead every single day what more they could do. They wrote a memo on why EA was wrong, and pulled board member Marc Andreessen and Hollywood's Tom Rothman to vouch for them — winning the deal.

“So every day I would go to Andrew and say, what more can we do to get the deal done today? And he was like, there's no more. I have nothing. There's nothing we could come up with. And I was like, no, we need to come up with something more.”

Steal thisWhen chasing a make-or-break deal, ask 'what more can we do today?' relentlessly until the other side is afraid to say no.