20VC: Hiten Shah on The Right Way To Think About Depression, Control and Burnout, Why Nobody Really Knows What They Are Doing and How One Should Receive Advice As A Result & How To Gain Self-Awareness As A Leader
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 9 August 2019
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Hiten Shah is the Co-Founder @ FYI, the startup that allows you to find your documents in 3 clicks or less. Before FYI, Hiten co-founded QuickSprout alongside Neil Patel, together they scaled the platform to over 500,000 readers every month. Before QuickSprout, Hiten was the Co-Founder and CEO of KISSmetrics, raising over $19m in the process for the company from the likes of True Ventures, Uncork Capital and Felicis Ventures just to name a few. Finally, Hiten is also the Co-Founder @ Crazy Egg, the heat mapping tool used by thousands to improve the effectiveness of their websites. Finally, Hiten is also an angel investor with a portfolio including Buffer, Clearbit, Front, Gusto and more incredible companies.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Hiten made his way into the world of startups, growth market and SaaS and how that led to his co-founding FYI today? Having founded multiple startups, does Hiten agree with Joe Fernandez @ JoyMode that "serial entrepreneurship is overrated"? Why does Hiten believe that fundamentally, nobody knows what they are doing?
2.) How does Hiten feel about the compression of fundraising timelines today? How does Hiten advise founders on building authentic relationships with investors? What is it crucial that founders understand about the investing class? How does Chetan advise founders on building hype and urgency within their fundraising? What works? What does not?
3.) Why does Hiten believe that we have seen the eradication of the friends and family round? What other large trends has Hiten observed in the early stage over the last few years? How does Hiten advise founders on how to approach which seed investors they take on board? Does Hiten think founders and investors can be friends?
4.) How has Hiten seen himself change and evolve as a leader over the last decade? What have been the biggest learnings on what great leadership really means? What are the 5 core elements that all great leaders must focus on? How does he split his time across these 5 disciplines? Where do founders often not spend adequate time among the 5?
5.) How does Hiten think about the element of "burnout" and depression today? Has Hiten ever felt burned out himself? How does this stress manifest itself? How does Hiten think that burnout and control are correlated? What can one do to change their relationship to control? What has worked for Hiten? What has not?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Hiten’s Fave Book: The Courage To Be Disliked
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Hiten 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 a very special Founders Friday here on the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, |
| 0:04.2 | and I'd love to hear your feedback on how we make the show better for you, and I respond to all messages |
| 0:08.1 | directly at H. Stebbing's 1996 with 2Bs on Instagram, but to the special episode, and I have to admit, |
| 0:14.2 | it's not 20 minutes, but the discussion was just so great, so enjoyable, and just free-flowing, that it was too special an opportunity not to run with. |
| 0:21.1 | So with that, I'm thrilled to welcome back to the hot seat, Hitten Shah, co-founder at FYI, |
| 0:25.7 | the startup that allows you to find your documents in three clicks or less. |
| 0:29.3 | Before FYI, Hidton co-founded Quicksprout alongside Neil Patel. |
| 0:32.9 | Together, they scaled the platform to over 500,000 readers every month. Before Quick Sprout, Hidton was the co-founder |
| 0:38.6 | and CEO of Kiss Metrics, raising over $19 million in the process for the company from the likes |
| 0:43.3 | of our friends at True Ventures, Uncourt Capital and Felisus Ventures, just to name a few. Finally, |
| 0:48.2 | Hitton is also the co-founder at Crazy Egg, the heat mapping tool used by thousands to improve the effectiveness of their websites. |
| 0:54.5 | And if that wasn't enough, Hidon's also an incredible angel investor with a portfolio including |
| 0:58.6 | the lights of buffer, clear bit, front, gusto and many more incredible companies. |
| 1:03.4 | But before we dive into the show today, I want to give a big shout out to my friends over |
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... |
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