20VC: Calm Founder Alex Tew on What It Takes To Build Viral Products Today, The Current State of Customer Acquisition Costs, What Makes The Best Brands
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 11 September 2020
⏱️ 36 minutes
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Summary
Alex Tew is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO @ Calm, the #1 App for Meditation and Sleep allowing you to find your calm, sleep more, stress less and live better. To date, the company has raised over $143M in funding from some of the best including Lightspeed, Insight, TPG and then some very cool names such as Ashton Kutcher, Harry Styles, Brad Feld and Jason Calacanis. Prior to Calm Alex founded numerous other startups including PopJam, Pixelotto and most famously rose to internet fame with his founding of The Million Dollar Homepage.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Alex went from playing Fifa with Michael Acton Smith in Berwick St, London to founding one of the hottest startups in the valley, Calm?
2.) What does Alex believe the very best brands do today? How do they message? How do they present? How do they divide opinion? How did Alex think about the early Calm brand? How has it changed? How does Alex advise others looking to build a company brand?
3.) Does Alex agree with Peter Fenton, "there is a lack of free and open distribution"? How does Alex analyse the economics for customer acquisition costs today? What is a good paid vs organic ratio? How do CACS change over time in Alex's experience?
4.) What have been Alex's biggest learnings on what it takes to build a viral product? Where do many people go wrong? Why does Alex believe pressure is the enemy of creativity? Does Alex believe people should create time for creative thought? What does Alex do to stimulate idea creation?
5.) How has Alex seen himself evolve and develop as a leader over the last 5 years? What have been the hardest elements to scale? How does Alex think about effective delegation? What have been Alex's biggest lessons on what it takes to hire A* people consistently?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Alex’s Fave Book: Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
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Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We are back on the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and this show is one I've really wanted |
| 0:03.6 | to do for a long time. For anyone that knows me, they know I'm the biggest geek on customer |
| 0:06.9 | acquisition costs and virality. And our guest today has been held as one of the best in the world |
| 0:11.5 | for cac and virality. So I'm thrilled to welcome Alex Chu, co-founder and co-CEo at Com, the number one app for meditation and sleep, allowing you to find your calm, sleep more, |
| 0:21.1 | stress less and live better. |
| 0:22.9 | To date, the company's raised over $143 million in financing from some of the best, including |
| 0:27.6 | light speed, insight, TPG, and then some very cool names including Ashton Coucher, Harry Stiles, |
| 0:33.1 | Brad Feld and Jason Calacanis. |
| 0:34.9 | Prior to Calm though, Alex also founded numerous other startups, |
| 0:37.7 | including Pop Jam, Pixelotto, and most famously rose to internet fame with his founding of the |
| 0:42.1 | million dollar homepage. I do also need to say a huge thank you to Alice's co-founder, Michael |
| 0:46.3 | Axton Smith, for some fantastic questions, suggestions and prep today. Michael, I really appreciate |
| 0:50.9 | that. But before you dive into this show today, I'm sure you've heard me talk about it before, but I love |
| 0:55.1 | Carter. |
| 0:55.9 | Carter simplifies how startups and investors manage equity, track cap tables and get valuations. |
| 1:01.1 | Go to carter.com forward slash 20 VC to get 10% off. |
| 1:05.5 | More than 800,000 employees and shareholders use Carter to manage hundreds of billions of dollars |
| 1:10.7 | in equity, |
| 1:11.6 | and Carter now offers fund administration so you can see real-time data in the Carter platform |
| 1:16.1 | and work with Carter's team of experienced fund accountants. As I said, head over to |
| 1:20.1 | carter.com forward slash 20 VC to get 10% off. And speaking of a transformational product like |
| 1:25.5 | Carter there, 2020 has been a year full of |
... |
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