4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 28 December 2018
⏱️ 30 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Andrew Dudum is the Founder & CEO @ Hims, one of the fastest growing consumer brands of our time and the fastest growing men’s health and wellness brand. To date, they have raised over $97m in VC funding from some of the best in the business including Thrive, Founders Fund, Forerunner, IVP, Redpoint and SV Angel just to name a few. Andrew is also Venture Partner at Atomic, a venture-builder backed by Peter Thiel, Marc Andreesen and many of the world’s best investors who recently announced their new $150m fund to start companies solving the world’s problems. Prior to Atomic and Hims, Andrew led Product at TokBox.com, the leader in web-based communication and In 2012 TokBox was acquired by the global telecommunications company Telefonica ($TEF).
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Andrew made his way into the world of startups, came to build a venture builder backed by Thiel and Andreesen before starting the fastest growing men’s health and wellness brand in Hims?
2.) How does Andrew view the world of online and offline marketing in today’s proliferated D2C space? What were the core elements that allowed Hims to achieve such success with their branding? How does Andrew respond to suggestions that there is a lack of free and open distribution due to incumbents paying up for traditional channels making CAC unachievable for startups? How does Andrew look to solve for this?
3.) What does Andrew believe it is that has allowed Hims to execute faster than any other D2C brand in history? How does Andrew distinguish between people and process when considering the scaling at different stages of the business? What are the pros and cons of having such constraints on headcount? When is the right time to pour fuel on the fire?
4.) Hims raised their last round at a $200m valuation in less than a year of operating, how did Andrew evaluate this one? Does this not effectively price Hims out of the majority of M&A? What leads Andrew’s thesis with his suggestion that he thought the valuation was “quite frankly, a great price for investors”? What advice would Andrew have for founders entering the fundraising process?
5.) Andrew is also the co-founder @ Atomic, so what really is a venture builder? How have Atomic built a framework around idea generation? How do Atomic determine which ideas to pursue and which to disregard? How does data and benchmarking play a central role in this process?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Andrew’s Fave Book: Creativity Inc
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Andrew on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
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0:00.0 | 2018, and what a year it has been here at the 20 minute VC. We had over 100,000 new subscribers to the show. |
0:06.4 | We had over 20 million downloads across more than 100 episodes, and all of this revealed on |
0:10.9 | Instagram, behind the scenes at H. Debbings, 1996. What can I say, I'm always plugging, but I mentioned |
0:16.4 | 100 episodes there, and we're not quite done yet with 2018. So for this Founders Friday, I wanted to |
0:22.0 | commemorate our most downloaded founder episode of 2018. The question is, can you guess it? Well, |
0:28.2 | drum roll please, I'm absolutely thrilled to say it is an individual that's become a dear friend |
0:32.5 | since our episode in the form of Andrew Dudham, found and CEO at Hymns, one of the fastest growing consumer brands of our time, and the fastest growing men's health and wellness brand. |
0:41.3 | To date, they've raised over $97 million in VC funding from some of the best in the business, including Thrive. |
0:47.3 | Founders Fund, Forerunner, IVP, Red Point and SV Angel, just to name a few. |
0:52.3 | Andrew also works closely with Atomic, a venture builder |
0:55.2 | backed by Peter Thiel, Mark Andreessen and many of the world's best investors, who recently announced |
0:59.9 | their new $150 million fund to start companies solving the world's problems. And prior to Atomic |
1:05.4 | and Hymns, Andrew led product at Topbox, the leader in web-based communication, and in 2012, |
1:10.7 | Topbox was acquired |
1:11.7 | by the global telecommunications company Telefonica. |
1:14.5 | I'd also want to say huge thank you once again to Miles Grimshaw at Thrive for the intro |
1:18.6 | to Andrew today. |
1:19.7 | I really do so appreciate that, the start of a friendship, and it means a lot. |
1:23.5 | But before we dive into the show today, as a VC, making new investments and working |
1:27.4 | with founders, is your top priority. |
1:29.3 | So instead of worrying about scaling your back office, you need a fund administration partner. |
1:33.6 | Much like how Carter changed how private companies manage their cap tables and 409A valuations, |
... |
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