The Peel with Turner Novak Turner Novak

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Aaron Levie is a co-founder and the CEO of Box. This conversation covers the ways AI is affecting businesses, the early days of Box, and strategies Aaron has learned on his journey.

Timestamps
(00:00) Intro
(03:11) Why ChatGPT was an iPhone moment
(04:37) Advice for large companies incorporating AI
(11:16) Why AI will add jobs, not steal them
(16:13) How AI is supercharging Box’s products
(19:03) AI agents: the $1 trillion opportunity
(25:27)Estimating size of new markets(29:58) Starting Box with high school friends
(33:18) Living out of their first office
(34:52) Why early investors passed on Box
(37:24) Pivoting from consumer to B2B
(39:53) How Box got its first customers
(41:57) Should founders talk to Associates at VC firms?
(43:26) How Mamoon at Kleiner saved Box at its Series B
(46:25) Turning down an acquisition before IPO
(50:51) Why Box’s IPO was so hard
(54:11) Fending off an activist investor during COVID

Check out Box: https://www.box.com/

Where to find Aaron:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/levie

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/boxaaron/

Where to find Turner:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/

Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/

Warp: Don’t let payroll and compliance hold your startup back: visit https://joinwarp.com/peel to get started and receive a $1,000 gift card when you first run payroll.

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Elad Gil is the founder of Color Genomics and Mixer Labs, which he sold to Twitter, and an early investor in iconic companies like Airbnb and Stripe, plus upstarts like Perplexity and Anduril.

This is a wide ranging conversation that covers education, AI, and advice for building a startup.

Timestamps

(00:00) Intro
(03:46) Building cool monuments
(09:12) Fixing education
(16:38) Why AI is underhyped
(19:02) Four trends to watch in AI
(19:55) Why there aren’t large biotech companies
(23:21) The current state of Elad Gill
(24:32) How he incubates companies
(26:32) Contemplating AI-driven buyouts
(27:29) His investing strategy, from early to late stage
(36:57) Why he remained solo for so long
(40:19) How to get conviction in unpopular investments
(42:53) What made Steve Jobs a good communicator
(44:00) The importance of ambition and leadership
(46:28) Why Elad puts so much weight in the market
(47:45) The evolution of Google’s business model
(49:17) How to monetize consumer products
(50:06) Analyzing a potential startup market
(51:23) How successful products eventually become distribution companies
(56:30) Non-obvious startup advice
(59:54) When its OK to give up
(01:02:20) Advice on raising your first round
(01:03:21) Picking board members
(01:04:45) How to hire your first three employees
(01:06:48) Avoiding bad hires
(01:08:39) The importance of speed of execution
(01:12:36) Why he’s adding to his team
(01:14:31) Gardening



Referenced:

Elad’s Blog: https://blog.eladgil.com/

Elad’s Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@NoPriorsPodcast/

Elad’s Book: https://growth.eladgil.com/



Where to find Elad:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/eladgil

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eladgil

Celine's Website: https://eladgil.com/



Where to find Turner:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/

Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/

This episode is brought to you by Warp. Don’t let payroll and compliance hold your startup back: visit https://joinwarp.com/peel to get started and receive a $1000 gift card when you first run payroll.

Celine Halioua is the founder and CEO of Loyal, a biotech company developing medicine to help dogs live longer and healthier lives. And dogs are just the start - Celine thinks Loyal could one day do the same for humans.

She takes us inside what it’s like to build a biotech company from scratch. We talk through how Loyal’s longevity drugs work, the process of getting FDA approval, her biggest mistakes as a founder, how to approach building in a new market, lessons learned failing to raise her Series B, why rate of growth is all that matters in hiring, and almost not starting the company in the first place.

Timestamps:
(00:00) Preview
(03:30) How a longevity drug works
(06:08) Predictions around longevity
(08:26) Why Celine cares so much about not failing
(12:05) Differences between biotech and software startups
(14:15) Sizing a new market
(16:53) Why biotech startups are more dilutive early on
(20:22) Getting FDA approval
(22:57) Why its hard to prove longevity drugs actually work
(24:48) The reason Loyal started with dogs
(25:27) How Loyal’s drug slows aging
(33:42) Working on longevity to increase free will
(34:25) Culture shock at Oxford and dropping out of her PhD
(37:22) What makes Josh Koppelman a good VC
(39:44) Celine’s two biggest mistakes as a founder
(42:39) Why rate of growth is the best indicator of success but the hardest to predict
(45:33) Self awareness & how being a CEO is both fun and miserable
(48:11) How Laura Deming convinced her to start Loyal
(50:18) Finding the science behind Loyal
(54:21) Deciding it was the right path to start a company
(56:30) Lessons from failing to raise a Series B initially
(1:02:18) Why Silicon Valley can build 10x more deep tech startups
(1:04:05) Doing big things that improve the world
(1:04:50) What Celine looks for in startups

Where to find Celine:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/celinehalioua

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/celinehh/

Celine's Website: https://www.celinehh.com/



Where to find Turner:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/

Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/

Get Attio, the next generation of CRM: https://bit.ly/AttioThePeel

Rahul Sonwalkar is the founder and CEO of Julius, an AI data scientist.

He takes us inside his epic “Ligma Johnson” prank where he pretended to be fired from Twitter the day Elon acquired the company. He then goes inside his journey of building Julius, sharing lessons learned along the way and his vision for the product.

Timestamps:
(00:00) Preview

(04:16) The "Ligma Johnson" prank

(09:02) Meeting Elon

(13:10) Doing hackathons in college

(14:30) Scraping emails from Hacker News to get internships

(16:25) Using Twitter to learn and meet people

(22:26) Lessons from his first failed startup

(26:19) Taking too long to quit Big Tech & his failed startup idea in trucking

(32:12) Convincing Guillermo Rauch to invest with speed of execution

(34:48) How to avoid analysis paralysis

(36:15) Building Julius, the AI data scientist

(39:25) How COO of a hot tub company uses Julius

(40:40) Professor embracing AI, using Julius to teach his class

(42:47) Iterating on early versions of the product

(44:42) PMF is as much about the market as the product

(45:08) Building dozens of ChatGPT plugins to acquire Julius’ first users

(45:41) Using dev API keys and missing the first paying customers

(49:22) Talking to hundreds of early customers

(50:10) Why customers love when you ship new features every week

(52:14) The power of Julius’ small team

(54:38) Why Rahul gives his number to customers

(57:47) How to avoid idea backlogs

(59:27) Why Julius tests so many models

(01:01:44) Why it feels great when people love your product

(01:03:43) AI will write more code than humans

(01:06:33) Giving an AI a computer

(01:11:05) What happens to all the AI startups?

(01:12:36) Why you have to Ride the Tiger

(01:16:43) How NVIDIA beat 89 other graphics card startups

(01:20:14) Building a moat as a startup

(01:22:50) Rahul’s favorite AI companies

(01:25:11) Why Julius’ changes UI components based on the use case

(01:27:42) Benefits of lifting

(01:29:54) Why Rahul loves SF

(01:31:38) The early days of Microsoft



Referenced:
https://julius.ai/
Guillermo’s tweet: https://x.com/rauchg/status/1773168477957919055

Where to find Rahul:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/0interestrates
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulsonwalkar23

Where to find Turner:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/
Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/

Brought to you by Attio, the next generation of CRM: https://bit.ly/AttioThePeel
Bill Shufelt is the Founder and CEO of Athletic Brewing, the craft brewer that created the non-alcohol beer market in the US.
Bill takes us inside the early days of starting the company, including realizing there was an opportunity to make non-alcoholic beer, finding a co-founder, struggling to find early investors, building multiple breweries, and getting into Whole Foods before launching. Our conversation is a case study on creating a new market - I hope you enjoy.
Timestamps:
(00:00) Preview

(04:10) Becoming the #1 beer in Whole Foods(05:54) The history of non-alcoholic beer(10:41) Why an outsider had to create this new category(15:34) Health benefits of avoiding alcohol(17:51) Turner tries the beer(22:49) Bill’s wife pushing him to start Athletic Brewing(26:38) Writing a 96 page white paper on non-alcoholic beer(28:42) Quitting his job to start six months of research and networking(30:21) Meeting the perfect co-founder after 100’s of meetings(32:34) Putting his life savings into a warehouse and brewing equipment(33:04) The importance of setting company values early on(34:23) Brewing the first beer in Gatorade jugs(36:16) Selling the first bottles to retailers(37:42) Explosive growth in 2019(39:39) Why new products and D2C helped them scale so fast(40:39) Using TikTok to sell-out new product launches in 30 seconds(42:00) The value of doing early customer service himself(44:45) Getting to 61% market share in non-alcoholic beer(46:10) Struggling to raise the first angel round(48:34) Using consistent investor updates to easily raise the Seed, Series A, and Series B(50:47) Transitioning to institutional capital for its Series C(52:33) Betting on a new category to expand market size(55:44) Information access is enabling healthier consumer behavior(58:11) Bill’s early strategy for marketing the product(1:01:43) The importance of over communicating with your investors(1:03:44) Why retailers like Athletic Brewing’s unique omni channel approach(1:06:16) How building its own breweries and supply chain enabled its unique strategy and better margins at scale(1:09:04) Getting into Whole Foods before launching(1:11:31) Doing unscaleable things over and over again(1:13:50) Why entrepreneurship is a long game(1:14:22) Most of Athletic’s new products come from the team

Check out Athletic Brewing: https://athleticbrewing.com/
Where to find Bill:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-shufelt-650059138
Where to find Turner:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/
Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/

Dane Atkinson is the Founder and CEO of Odeko, the all-in-one operations partner for local businesses.
Dane has spent his entire career helping small businesses. This episode is a masterclass on selling to SMBs. He shares all his lessons learned as a founder, and how Odeko survived zero revenue during COVID and hit $150 million in revenue two years later.
Timestamps
(00:00) Intro
(03:33) The magic formula to sell to SMBs
(04:06) Why every small business starts as a dream
(21:57) The reasons you shouldn’t listen to customers
(25:16) Lessons running Squarespace for four years
(27:12) Why simplicity is better for SMBs
(28:58) How Squarespace ran the very first podcast ads
(35:35) Lessons messing up his second company
(37:46) How to demote an employee
(50:29) Coming up with the idea for Odecco
(52:05) Why VCs screw their portfolio companies
(55:16) How to navigate pivots with your board
(01:04:27) Growing revenue from zero to $100m+ in two years
(01:12:10) Advice for first-time founders
(01:14:18) How Dane would re-design the food system
(01:15:39) Why our food is so bad for our health
(01:16:17) How Odeko empowers local makers
Check out Odeko: https://odeko.com/
Where to find Dane:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/daneatkinson
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daneatkinson
Where to find Turner:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/
Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/