20VC: CB Insights' Anand Sanwal on The Most Dangerous Myth Some Investors Have Promoted, Why Most B2B Content Is Crap and How To Make It Successful & Why Predigree Is Overrated and The Right Way To Scale Teams

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The Twenty Minute VC

Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 7 December 2018

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Anand Sanwal is the Founder & CEO @ CB Insights, the tech market intelligence platform that ingests massive datasets, to answer complex questions and predict future trends. CB is the 9th best place to work in the US according to GlassDoor and one of the fastest growing SaaS companies in the US. To date, CB Insights has raised over $11m in VC funding, a topic Anand discusses at length in our episode today! Prior to founding CB, Anand held numerous roles at American Express including running a $50m Innovation Fund and managing the company's discretionary investment spend ($4-5Bn p.a.). Before American Express, Anand was one of the early team @ Kozmo.com, one of the most well-funded and infamous startups in NYC history.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Anand came to found CB Insights from running American Express' $50m Innovation fund and the a-ha moment there?

2.) Why does Anand believe that revenue funding is the best kind of funding? What 3 elements does Anand believe it fundamentally allows? What does Anand mean when he says "most have 3 masters, you can only serve two of them at once"? Does Anand believe that founders today are treating their investors as customers?

3.) How does Anand distinguish between business that can be funded from revenue vs those that cannot? How does Anand think about the relationship between growth and margin? Why does it make sense for VCs today to push for the suggestion that startups need to raise big to grow? How can founders think about and respond to this?

4.) Why does Anand believe that most B2B content today is crap? What are the core pillars that make great B2B content today? How does Anand think about potentially going too far when it comes to the risque nature of the content? What advice would Anand give to B2B founders wanting to ramp up their game in content? Where do many go wrong?

5.) What does Anand mean when he says that "pedigree is often overrated"? How has that led Anand's thinking when building out the team at CB? Where does Anand see most founders make mistakes when it comes to both team and company scaling? What interview question does Anand find most revealing of an individuals' character?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Anand’s Fave Book: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Anand on Twitter here!

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 for another very special episode of Founders Friday with me, Harry Stebbings at H.
0:04.4	Stebbings, 1996 on Instagram with two bees, where you can both submit questions and guests for future episodes, and it would be awesome to hear your thoughts and feedback there.
0:12.7	But to the show today, and if you're anything like me, you guard your time religiously when it comes to both the content you consume and especially the newsletters you read.
0:20.5	Well, today's guest is always one of my favorite newsletter reads, a friend and phenomenal
0:24.7	person, and I'm so thrilled to welcome back for a very special round two, Anand Sanwal,
0:29.3	found and CEO at CB Insights, the tech market intelligence platform that ingests massive
0:34.6	data sets to answer complex questions and predict future trends.
0:38.5	And CB Insights is the ninth best place to work in the US, according to Glassdoor,
0:42.4	and one of the fastest growing SaaS companies in the US.
0:45.1	To date, CB Insights has raised over $11 million in VC funding,
0:48.8	a topic that Anand and I discuss at length in our episode today.
0:52.0	And prior to founding CB, Anand held numerous roles at American
0:55.1	Express, including running a $50 million innovation fund and managing the company's discretionary
1:00.0	investment spend, about $4 to $5 billion per annum. But before American Express, Anand was also
1:05.4	one of the early team at Cosmo.com, one of the most well-funded and infamous startups in New York
1:10.3	City history.
1:11.2	But before we dive into the show today, as a VC, making new investments and working with
1:15.3	founders is your top priority.
1:17.0	So instead of worrying about scaling your back office, you need a fund administration partner.
1:21.3	Much like how Carter changed how private companies manage their cap tables and 409A valuations,
1:26.6	Carter are now doing the same for fund admin.
1:28.7	With Carter's new, modern fund admin software and services, you get a real-time dashboard of
	...

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