Founder's Friday 001: How to Create Great Company Culture with Anand Sanwal, Founder @ CB Insights
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 26 June 2015
⏱️ 24 minutes
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Summary
Anand Sanwal is the CEO and Co-Founder of CB Insights. Specifically, CB Insights tracks financing trends and private companies in the healthcare, industrial, technology, software, energy & utilities, renewable, internet and mobile industries. CB Insights works primarily with venture capital, private equity, angel investors, corporate development, corporate strategy and family offices. Formerly, Sanwal was the Vice President at American Express. Sanwal was responsible for managing three primary functions which included the (1) Chairman’s $50 Million Innovation Fund, (2) CFO’s strategic planning function and (3) Enterprise Investment Optimization group. He is the author of “Optimizing Corporate Portfolio Management” which features a forward by former American Express and Citigroup CFO, Gary Crittenden.
In Todays Episode You Will Learn:
- Why Anand chose not to take VC funding for CB Insights?
- Should all subscription based companies be revenue funded?
- What one key determinant has contributed to the success of CB Insights?
- How has Anand's hiring strategy changed over time?
- How strategies does Anand use to create this company culture?
- What is the biggest challenge facing Anand today?
- What tactics have not worked when trying to create a good working environment?
- Is CB Insights replacing VCs, potentially losing their core customers?
- What metrics Anand would most look for in a startup?
We then delve into a quick fire round and discover what is Anand's favourite business book, what gets Anand excited, what advice Anand would give to himself 10 years ago starting out in the industry and finally the next 5 years for Anand and CB Insights.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Wow, what a special episode do we have lined up for you today. |
| 0:03.3 | And it's unlike any episode ever before of the 20-minute VC, |
| 0:07.6 | as today is the first Founders Friday, |
| 0:10.5 | where we interview the most prominent founders of the hottest tech startups around. |
| 0:15.6 | It is with huge pleasure and honour that I welcome our first Founders Friday guest, |
| 0:23.3 | Anand Sanwal, founder and CEO of CB Insights, the Bloomberg for private companies. In today's amazing episode, we |
| 0:29.8 | discuss the importance of company culture and Annan's actionable strategies to create and maintain |
| 0:36.2 | a happy company culture. |
| 0:38.1 | But before we dive into today's show, if you've ever looked at an inbox full of |
| 0:42.2 | candidate applications and felt a little overwhelmed, you'll love hiring screens Blink algorithm. |
| 0:48.1 | First, build your job by selecting criteria such as work experience or qualifications, |
| 0:53.9 | and then let Blink do all the heavy lifting by scoring each candidate against your requirements and displaying every candidate in order of relevance for the job. |
| 1:03.5 | Hiring screen is without a doubt the smartest and fastest way to identify the most relevant candidates. |
| 1:09.6 | But ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, may I |
| 1:12.0 | introduce to you, Anand Sanwal. |
| 1:14.5 | Three, two, one, zero. |
| 1:20.0 | You have now arrived at your destination. |
| 1:22.9 | Welcome to the first ever instalment of Founders Friday, Ant. It's a great honor to have you here. |
| 1:29.1 | Thanks for having me, Harry. Can you start off by telling us a little bit about yourself and the origins of CB Insights? |
| 1:36.3 | Sure thing. So I am the co-founder and CEO of CB Insights. You can think of the company as a Bloomberg for private companies. So what we do is |
| 1:45.7 | we track financings, exits, venture capital, angel investment, etc., all related to private companies |
| 1:51.8 | and the trends and sort of underlying intel that that data offers. I worked prior to CB Insights |
... |
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