The Peel with Turner Novak Turner Novak

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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/

Josh Miller is CEO and co-founder of The Browser Company, which is building a new internet browser. He explains why effective hiring requires caring a lot and trusting your taste and why Arc Search, a default mobile browser, could be The Browser Company’s next act.



TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00:00) Intro

(00:02:35) Working for Obama

(00:03:55) Giving up 8-figures in Meta stock

(00:08:19) Barack Obama’s favorite web browser

(00:09:02) Why Arc released a mobile browser

(00:10:03) How Josh met Josh Kushner

(00:11:26) Becoming an EIR at Thrive Capital

(00:12:09) How The Browser Company got started

(00:15:51) Why they named it The Browser Company

(00:18:49) Pivoting to consumer when COVID hit

(00:20:37) Leaving Thrive to join as a Co-founder in February 2020

(00:21:05) Why COVID made browsers relevant

(00:22:42) How to hire a great team

(00:25:02) Hiring Josh Lee to edit their videos

(00:26:52) The biggest difference between Josh as a first-time and second-time founder

(00:28:46) Learning to delegate

(00:34:03) Why Thrive gave up double-digit equity back to the founders

(00:40:18) Launching

(00:40:52) Why build a web browser

(00:42:17) This history of browsers

(00:43:36) Why they’ve gotten worse over time

(00:50:26) The reasons people use Arc

(00:53:23) How Arc will make money

(00:56:45) Why Arc’s existential question is getting people to care about their browser

(00:59:47) The story behind Arc Search

(01:00:45) Arc’s potential growth flywheel

(01:09:17) Why Arc bet big on building in public on YouTube

(01:10:16) The publisher backlash to Arc Search

(01:11:33) Why praising your team publicly is so important

(01:13:39) How Josh hired Nate Parrott



More on The Browser Company:

https://thebrowser.company/

https://arc.net/https://

www.youtube.com/c/TheBrowserCompany



Where to find Josh:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/joshm

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-miller-b31259106



Where to find Turner:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak

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

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

Subscribe to my newsletter The Split for new episodes emailed every week: https://www.thespl.it/
Brought to you by Attio, the next generation of CRM: https://bit.ly/AttioThePeel

Peter Walker is Head of Insights at Carta and writes a newsletter called “The Data Minute”, a weekly newsletter highlighting data from over 43,000 private tech companies that use Carta’s platform to manage their cap table. He gives us into a deep dive on VC valuation trends, the fundraising landscape, and startup strategies.

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro

(04:50) Valuation trends in 2023

(08:10) Why Seed valuations went up over the past two years

(12:27) AI startups are getting higher valuations

(17:40) Why Biotech might be the next big bubble

(19:15) Boston as the 2nd largest VC ecosystem

(21:15) How SAFE’s work

(24:06) The impending SAFE reckoning

(26:13) Why startups don’t pay dividends

(28:31) Downrounds were 2x more common in 2023

(32:11) Almost half of all 2023 Series As were extensions

(35:34) Is there really a lot of dry powder?

(40:43) The emerging manager fundraising landscape

(48:19) Exit environment

(51:45) Why pre-Series B is the most common acquisition stage

(52:47) Liquidation preference & why an acquisition at Seed might make a founder more money than at a Series B

(55:59) Compensation market data

(56:38) Why the number of total startup employees shrank in 2023

(57:38) Why startup employees aren’t exercising their options

(1:00:57) Health of the secondary markets

(1:04:51) Most co-founder splits aren’t 50/50

(1:06:47) Why you should always vest co-founder equity

(1:09:30) 2023 record year for startup shutdowns

(1:17:19) Will other startup ecosystems ever catch Silicon Valley?

Links:
Carta’s Q4 ‘23 Private Market Report: https://carta.com/blog/state-of-private-markets-q4-2023/
Peter’s Newsletter: https://carta.com/subscribe/data-newsletter-sign-up/

Where to find Peter:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PeterJ_Walker
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterjameswalker/

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

Subscribe to my newsletter The Split for new episodes emailed every week: https://www.thespl.it/



Chris Bakke has founded and sold three companies for between $25-100 million to Zillow, Indeed, and most recently Twitter / X. He shares how he convinced Elon to buy his company, what it's like working for Elon, exactly how the Twitter algorithm works, and all his meme making secrets.

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Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(02:52) Inside Twitter’s acquisition of Laskie(05:38) Why Twitter / X works so well for recruiting(08:11) A sneak peek at upcoming Premium features(13:58) How the X algorithm works(20:48) Why “dwell time” is the most important metric(24:07) What it’s like reporting to Elon(27:40) Elon’s crazy ability to context-switch(29:16) Why you should consider selling your company for $25-100 million(35:39) The reasons large M&A deals are so rare(42:07) Surviving inside Big Tech as a founder(46:23) Chris's philosophy on company building(51:23) Why “Time in Market” is so underrated(53:44) YC’s “sandwich incident”(55:44) How to use memes for marketing(58:55) Chris’ 100+ page Google Slide meme library(1:01:46) His top three favorite meme templates(1:03:48) His favorite proprietary trade secret at X(1:05:03) Turning down jobs at Coinbase and WhatsApp

— — — —

Twitter jobs: https://twitter.com/jobs

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Where to find Chris

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChrisJBakke

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bakk3/



Where to find Turner:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak

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

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