20VC: $18BN Market Cap and $1BN in ARR in 8 Years; Samsara | How to Find Product Market Fit Reliably | How to Create a Multi-Product Company | The Pros and Cons of Serial Entrepreneurship with Sanjit Biswas, Founder & CEO @ Samsara
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 8 December 2023
⏱️ 53 minutes
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Summary
Sanjit Biswas is the Founder and CEO @ Samsara, allowing businesses that depend on physical operations to harness Internet of Things (IoT) data. Over the last 8 years, Sanjit has scaled Samsara to $1BN in ARR and a public company with tens of thousands of customers. Before Samsara, Sanjit was the CEO and co-founder of Meraki, one of the most successful networking companies of the past decade. Sanjit grew Meraki from his Ph.D. research into a complete enterprise networking portfolio. Meraki's sales doubled every year from inception and in 2012, Cisco acquired Meraki for $1.2 billion. Huge thanks to Doug Leone for some fantastic question suggestions pre this episode.
In Today's Episode With Sanjit Biswas We Discuss:
1. From Founding to $1BN in ARR in 8 Years:
- What was the founding a-ha moment for Sanjit with Samsara?
- Sanjit sold his prior company Meraki for $1.2BN, what worked with Meraki that Sanjit took with him to Samsara? What did not work that he left behind?
- What does Sanjit know now that he wishes he had known when he started Samsara?
2. The Man Who Found Product Market Fit Time and Time Again:
- What is the one single moment that Sanjit believes you know you have product market fit?
- What are the biggest mistakes founders make when chasing product market fit?
- How does being a bootstrapped company change how a company approaches chasing PMF?
3. Mastering a Multi-Product Company:
- How do you know when it is the right time to launch a second product?
- Does the second product have to make the first product better?
- What are the biggest mistakes companies make when going multi-product?
4. The Art of Great CEOship:
- Does Sanjit believe that the best CEOs are the best capital allocators?
- What has been the single best and single worst capital allocation decision in Samsara's journey?
- What are the biggest mistakes Sanjit has made in leadership? How did he learn and grow from them?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I think product market fit is something you don't want to force. |
| 0:02.5 | When they call someone out into their office or in from the hallway and say, hey, so-and-so, you need to see this, right? That's when you know you have something that's a true solution to a big problem. Companies pay to have their problem solved. And so when we talk about things like revenue and revenue growth, for me it's actually impact in problem-solving growth. Welcome to 20 VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and today we feature the most incredible company, |
| 0:23.6 | a company that in just eight years has scaled to $1 billion in ARR, a public company, and tens of thousands of customers. |
| 0:31.6 | This is Samsara, and joined today by Sam Sara's CEO and founder, Sanjit Biswas. |
| 0:36.6 | Before Samsara, Sanjit was the CEO and co-founder |
| 0:39.6 | of Maraki, one of the most successful networking companies of the past decade. Sanjit grew Maraki |
| 0:44.8 | from his PhD research into a complete enterprise networking portfolio and their sales doubled |
| 0:50.5 | every year from inception and in 2012, Cisco acquired Maraki for $1.2 billion. |
| 0:56.6 | I want to say huge thank you to Doug Leone at Sequoia, some fantastic questions suggestions |
| 1:00.7 | today in preparation for this episode. But before we dive into the show today, there is no shortage |
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