On this episode of Invested, Michael hosts Sarah Tavel. Sarah is a General Partner at Benchmark, where she invests in network effect businesses and applications leveraging AI. Sarah currently sits on the boards of Agentio, Chainalysis, Hipcamp, Rekki, Glide, Cambly, Medely, and 11x. She is also a founding member of All Raise, the nonprofit organization working to accelerate the success of women in the venture capital and VC-backed startup ecosystem. Prior to Benchmark, Sarah was a General Partner at Greylock Partners, where she led their investment in Sonder ($SOND) and Gixo (acquired by Openfit), and represented Greylock on the board of both companies. Sarah joined Pinterest in 2012 after co-leading the Series A investment while at Bessemer Venture Partners. There she was the product lead for search, recommendations, machine vision, and pin quality at Pinterest. As one of the first 35 employees, her first order of business was to launch Pinterest internationally and close the Series C financing. She also led three acquisitions as she helped the company scale through a period of hyper-growth. Sarah graduated from Harvard College with a degree in Philosophy. Please rate this episode 5 stars wherever you stream your podcasts! KEY TOPICS [00:00:00] Intro [00:04:45] Differences Between Bessemer and Benchmark [00:09:11] Silicon Valley: Upside Mentality vs. Downside Protection [00:11:55] Underestimating Market Potential [00:14:53] Using AI to Reduce Friction and Unlock Market Size [00:18:02] Operator vs. Investor Mindset [00:21:05] Lessons from Building Pinterest [00:24:04] Transitioning from Operator to Investor [00:26:50] Female Partners and Their Perspective in VC [00:29:58] Equal Partnership Culture at Benchmark [00:37:00] Every Company is an AI Company [00:41:59] AI’s Economic Value and Market Shifts [00:51:00] What Sarah Wants to See an AI Company Build [00:55:04] Competing and Winning in Crowded Markets [01:01:12] Branding’s Role in Venture Capital [01:09:10] Identity, Growth, and Personal Reflections RESOURCES Follow Sarah on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahtavel/ Follow Sarah on X - https://x.com/sarahtavel Subscribe to Invested here: https://content.aleph.vc/invested Learn more about Aleph: aleph.vc Sign up for Aleph’s monthly email newsletter: https://newsletter.aleph.vc/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@aleph-vc/ Follow Michael on Twitter: twitter.com/mikeeisenberg Follow Michael on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mieisenberg/ Follow Aleph on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mikeeisenberg Follow Aleph on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aleph-vc/ Follow Aleph on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aleph.vc/ CREDITS Executive Producer: Erica Marom Producer: Yoni Mayer Video and Editing: Ron Baranov Music and Creative Direction: Uri Ar Content and Editorial: Kira Goldring Design: Rony Karadi
Timestamps: (0:00) Sarah Tavel joins Jason. (1:38) Sarah Tavel, Benchmark Partner, on disciplined fund size and efficiency (5:06) Benchmark's commitment to founders and investment strategy (9:12) Strategies for competing in a changing venture landscape (10:00) Squarespace - Use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at http://www.Squarespace.com/TWIST (15:50) Valuations, ownership, and building deep relationships with founders (18:30) LinkedIn Jobs - Post your first job for free at https://www.linkedin.com/twist (19:39) The critical role of governance and accountability in startups (28:36) OpenPhone - Get 20% off your first six months at https://www.openphone.com/twist (30:16) The power of incremental improvements and executive limitations (34:32) Vanity metrics vs. building enduring value in startups (43:12) The consequences of choosing status over results in startup success (46:22) Building trust in leadership and the pressures of maintaining success (49:03) The importance of non-consensus bets and independent thinking (55:20) The relationship between hype, investment decisions, and startup promotion (58:19) In-person work vs. remote work: Impact on startup productivity (1:02:58) SaaS market challenges: Pricing, AI impact, and future models (1:07:33) Exciting AI investments and the transformative potential of new technologies (1:13:01) AI advancements, new use cases, and the competitive landscape (1:17:16) How incumbents and consumers are benefiting from AI advancements (1:19:15) Embracing AI in daily tasks and business operations Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com/ Check out the TWIST500: [twist500.com](http://twist500.com/) Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp Check out Benchmark: https://www.benchmark.com/ Follow Sarah: X: https://x.com/sarahtavel LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahtavel/ Sarah’s Substack: https://www.sarahtavel.com/ Follow Jason: X: https://twitter.com/Jason LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis Thank you to our partners: (10:00) Squarespace - Use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at http://www.Squarespace.com/TWIST (18:30) LinkedIn Jobs - Post your first job for free at https://www.linkedin.com/twist (28:36) OpenPhone - Get 20% off your first six months at https://www.openphone.com/twist All rights for the video shared and linked below belong to the original copyright holder, and we are using the footage under the principle of fair use. Listen here: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-startups-audio/id315114957 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ULQ0ewYf5zmsDgBchlkr9 Overcast: https://overcast.fm/itunes315114957/this-week-in-startups-audio More from us: Twitter: https://twitter.com/twistartups Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups Official site: https://thisweekinstartups.com Subscribe to our YouTube to watch all full episodes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkkhmBWfS7pILYIk0izkc3A?sub_confirmation=1 Subscribe to TWiST Clips for all the best moments: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS7tJlcUA6PzVHEMo-X7ddg?sub_confirmation=1 #startups #entrepreneurship #investing #angelinvesting #tech #news #business
It’s been a sad state of affairs for consumer companies not named TikTok. Poparazzi just shut down. (At least some of the team went to Instagram.) Popshop is struggling. The venture capital firm Benchmark helped establish both companies as consumer startups to watch by leading their Series A rounds. Sarah Tavel, who led the investment in Poparazzi and has worked closely with Popshop, agreed to come on the Newcomer podcast to talk about the brutal state of consumer startups. “Our deep belief at Benchmark is that our job is not to predict the future, but to try as best we can to see the present clearly,” Tavel told me. Of course, it’s not just Benchmark’s once high-flying startups that are reeling. Andreessen Horowitz audio company Clubhouse laid off more than half of its employees. Hype for the photo company BeReal seems to be dying down. (Searches for the company’s name on Google are at less than half their peak.) “It is a really tough environment right now to build that type of company,” Tavel said about startups building for consumers. “It’s always been difficult, but the level of difficulty has been turned all the way on. Because right now, anybody building something in consumer has to compete with the most addictive consumer format that we’ve ever had — which is short video.” Tavel, who co-led an early investment in Pinterest and then became the company’s first product manager, talked through some of the most promising opportunities in startups. Artificial intelligence seems poised to create new consumer startups. Tavel flagged the legal artificial intelligence company EvenUp, which just raised at a $350 million valuation from Bessemer, as one such promising startup. I marveled at the bootstrapped rise of Midjourney. But, of course, many generative AI startups, especially ones building foundation models, are raising such large rounds that it can be difficult for a firm like Benchmark to rationalize an investment. We also talked about one of Tavel’s most successful investments at Benchmark, Chainalysis. The blockchain data company raised $170 million at $8.6 billion last year. The New York Times wrote a glowing profile of the company last month. Tavel, who doesn’t like to announce her startup investments, revealed that she has secretly invested in an unannounced NFT company. “Crypto is a bad word now,” Tavel told me. “It’s really hard to train consumers to trust something again — once a consumer has made a first impression. It’s much easier to teach a user a first impression than to rewrite that first impression.” Finally, I asked Tavel to give us a peek behind the curtain at Benchmark. Fortune’s Jessica Mathews recently interviewed Benchmark’s Bill Gurley about his decision to step back. Today, the Benchmark partnership is made up of Tavel, Peter Fenton, Eric Vishria, Chetan Puttagunta, and Miles Grimshaw. Tavel said about the firm, “We’ve always had a pretty simple idea, which is that there’s this creative destruction.” “Once you start — there’s no training wheels. So you’re thrown into the deep end. You’re an equal partner and you’re expected to be 100% until the minute that you retire,” Tavel said. “And when you have an equal partnership, it kind of pushes you in the direction of just recognizing — as Bill said in that interview — the hustle may not be in you anymore. And if you feel that way, then the model — as was set up by the founders — is such that it’s time to raise your hand and move on.” Of course, my understanding is that partners like Gurley, Matt Cohler, and Mitch Lasky remain fairly heavily involved at Benchmark even so. “It’s like an affliction. The reason they’re here in the first place was because the curiosity and competitiveness and the drive for learning and relevance, being in the mix, that never leaves you,” Tavel said. “They are a significant portion of our LP base, they’re still there on Mondays, and I’m texting all of them all the time.”
It’s been a sad state of affairs for consumer companies not named TikTok. Poparazzi just shut down. (At least some of the team went to Instagram.) Popshop is struggling. The venture capital firm Benchmark helped establish both companies as consumer startups to watch by leading their Series A rounds. Sarah Tavel, who led the investment in Poparazzi and has worked closely with Popshop, agreed to come on the Newcomer podcast to talk about the brutal state of consumer startups. “Our deep belief at Benchmark is that our job is not to predict the future, but to try as best we can to see the present clearly,” Tavel told me. Of course, it’s not just Benchmark’s once high-flying startups that are reeling. Andreessen Horowitz audio company Clubhouse laid off more than half of its employees. Hype for the photo company BeReal seems to be dying down. (Searches for the company’s name on Google are at less than half their peak.) “It is a really tough environment right now to build that type of company,” Tavel said about startups building for consumers. “It’s always been difficult, but the level of difficulty has been turned all the way on. Because right now, anybody building something in consumer has to compete with the most addictive consumer format that we’ve ever had — which is short video.” Tavel, who co-led an early investment in Pinterest and then became the company’s first product manager, talked through some of the most promising opportunities in startups. Artificial intelligence seems poised to create new consumer startups. Tavel flagged the legal artificial intelligence company EvenUp, which just raised at a $350 million valuation from Bessemer, as one such promising startup. I marveled at the bootstrapped rise of Midjourney. But, of course, many generative AI startups, especially ones building foundation models, are raising such large rounds that it can be difficult for a firm like Benchmark to rationalize an investment. We also talked about one of Tavel’s most successful investments at Benchmark, Chainalysis. The blockchain data company raised $170 million at $8.6 billion last year. The New York Times wrote a glowing profile of the company last month. Tavel, who doesn’t like to announce her startup investments, revealed that she has secretly invested in an unannounced NFT company. “Crypto is a bad word now,” Tavel told me. “It’s really hard to train consumers to trust something again — once a consumer has made a first impression. It’s much easier to teach a user a first impression than to rewrite that first impression.” Finally, I asked Tavel to give us a peek behind the curtain at Benchmark. Fortune’s Jessica Mathews recently interviewed Benchmark’s Bill Gurley about his decision to step back. Today, the Benchmark partnership is made up of Tavel, Peter Fenton, Eric Vishria, Chetan Puttagunta, and Miles Grimshaw. Tavel said about the firm, “We’ve always had a pretty simple idea, which is that there’s this creative destruction.” “Once you start — there’s no training wheels. So you’re thrown into the deep end. You’re an equal partner and you’re expected to be 100% until the minute that you retire,” Tavel said. “And when you have an equal partnership, it kind of pushes you in the direction of just recognizing — as Bill said in that interview — the hustle may not be in you anymore. And if you feel that way, then the model — as was set up by the founders — is such that it’s time to raise your hand and move on.” Of course, my understanding is that partners like Gurley, Matt Cohler, and Mitch Lasky remain fairly heavily involved at Benchmark even so. “It’s like an affliction. The reason they’re here in the first place was because the curiosity and competitiveness and the drive for learning and relevance, being in the mix, that never leaves you,” Tavel said. “They are a significant portion of our LP base, they’re still there on Mondays, and I’m texting all of them all the time.”
Recording of the Everything Marketplaces Group Chat #140 (9/12) with Sarah Tavel, who's a Partner at Benchmark. Benchmark is a leading venture fund that's backed notable marketplaces like Uber, Hipcamp, Cambly, Medely, REKKI, and more. Sarah is a leading mind when it comes to marketplaces and also writes about them on her blog and newsletter. 0:06 Intro 1:10 Sarah's background 5:31 What makes marketplace great businesses to invest in 7:53 Joining Benchmark as a Partner 10:16 An overview of Benchmark as a leading venture fund 12:10 What Benchmark looks for in marketplaces that they invest in 17:16 How GMV can be a vanity metric for marketplaces 20:58 How Benchmark evaluates marketplaces 22:52 Founder traits & characteristics that Sarah looks for 25:01 Misconceptions with early stage marketplaces 28:17 Opportunities for marketplaces to leverage AI 32:13 Group Q&A on marketplace aggregation with supply or demand 34:28 Group Q&A on marketplace learnings from working with Bill Gurley 37:57 Group Q&A on marketplace monetization 40:29 Group Q&A on the the tipping point with marketplaces Sarah's blog posts: https://www.sarahtavel.com Sarah on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/sarahtavel Benchmark: https://www.benchmark.com Join other marketplace founders & all of our group chats: https://www.everythingmarketplaces.com
How do you build an enduring, profitable marketplace? In this presentation, Sarah Tavel lays out a framework that synthesizes her learnings, both as an investor at Benchmark, and as an operator at Pinterest. She discusses how to focus correctly when you kickstart a marketplace. Then what it takes to tip a market. And lastly, how to build dominant, “winner take most” value. Sarah Tavel is a General Partner at Benchmark. Sarah invests in consumer businesses (particular focus on marketplaces & social), SaaS, and the future of work. Sarah led Benchmark's investment and currently sits on the boards of Chainalysis, Hipcamp, Rekki, and three additional unannounced companies. Prior to Benchmark, Sarah was a Partner at Greylock Partners, where she led Greylock's investment in Sonder and Gixo (acq). Before Greylock, Sarah was the product lead for search, recommendations, machine vision, and pin quality at Pinterest. As one of the first 25 employees, her first order of business was to launch Pinterest internationally and close the Series C financing. Sarah then moved into product, becoming Pinterest’s founding PM for search and discovery, and launching Pinterest’s first search and recommendations features. She also led three acquisitions as she helped the company scale through a period of hyper-growth. Sarah graduated from Harvard College with a degree in Philosophy. How do you build an enduring, profitable marketplace?
What separates the AI startups gaining real traction from those burning out? At the AI Rabbit Hole Conference, Benchmark Capital general partner Sarah Tavel joins Reuters tech correspondent Anna Tong to unpack how early-stage investing is evolving in the face of foundation models, rapid churn, and unprecedented competition. They discuss: • The shift from software spend to human capital spend • Why existential risk is higher than ever for AI startups • What makes a moat in a world with 45-second switching costs • Which founders win in this environment (and why) • The timeless “10x better & cheaper” playbook • The rise of agent-native companies that sell output, not software Timecodes: 00:02 – Intro and Sarah’s background: Bessemer, Pinterest, Greylock, Benchmark 01:33 – Benchmark’s thesis: escape competition, win by a mile 02:27 – How this AI boom differs from the 2010s SaaS era 04:18 – Software spend vs human capital spend: a bigger market 05:07 – Speed, intensity, and existential risk in the AI era 06:01 – Why AI startups face brutal logo churn and low switching costs 07:45 – Threats from above: will foundation model companies move upstack? 09:26 – Founders matter more than ever: adaptability is everything 10:17 – What to look for: paranoia, ambition, and enduring moats 12:10 – Playbook 1: 10x better and cheaper (DeepL, HeyGen examples) 16:09 – Playbook 2: Sell output, not software (Sierra, 11X) 17:53 – Skeuomorphism in SaaS: moving beyond co-pilot UX 18:44 – Final question: Are we in a bubble? Sarah’s honest take
Hierarchy of Marketplaces - Sarah Tavel, General Partner, Benchmark The Marketplace Conference Online December 2020 The Marketplace Conference is an event focused on all things marketplaces & network effects, uniting marketplace entrepreneurs, investors and industry experts. It provides a platform for exchanging knowhow and best practices and attracts entrepreneurs and investors of all stages. Website: https://www.marketplaceconf.com/ Sign-up for our monthly newsletter 'The Marketplace Snippet', a highly curated selection of content on all things marketplaces & network effects: https://bit.ly/38Xt3Oi
Village Global co-founder and partner Erik Torenberg was joined by Sarah Tavel (@sarahtavel), general partner at Benchmark. Sarah gave a fireside chat as part of Village Global’s Network Catalyst accelerator program in summer 2019. They talk about: * The state of education and what Sarah is looking for in the space. * Why founders need to focus on “getting one thing really right, no matter how big or small.” * What Sarah sees in the crypto space and why she invested in Chainalysis. * The promise of vertical marketplaces. * Why Benchmark say “we are not in the business of predicting the future but rather of seeing the present clearly.” * How she evaluates markets and some of the verticals that she’s looking at investing in. * Company-building tips, including why as a company grows the CEO needs to “transition from CEO of the product to CEO of the system that builds a system.” And much more. — Village Global is an early-stage venture capital firm backed by some of the world's most successful entrepreneurs including Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Reid Hoffman, and many more. — We’re not a traditional VC. We’re a network. From how we invest in startups to how we help founders. When you raise money from Village, you’re not just getting money. You’re getting connected capital. We invest in early-stage technology startups across sectors around the world. — Learn more about Village and submit your startup today: ▶ http://bit.ly/ApplyToVillageGlobal — Become a Villager and subscribe to our newsletter in order to stay up to date on all of our most important announcements, investments and events: ▶ http://bit.ly/VG-Newsletter — Stay connected with Village Global on: ▶ Twitter: http://bit.ly/VG-Twitter ▶ Medium: http://bit.ly/VG-Medium ▶ LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/VG-LinkedIn ▶ Facebook: http://bit.ly/VG-Facebook ▶ Podcast: http://bit.ly/VillagePodcast — Learn more about our own philosophy on venture, investing, entrepreneurship and innovation on our team publication by Village Global: ▶ http://bit.ly/VG-Publication — Listen to our “Venture Stories” podcast on your platform of choice: ▶ http://bit.ly/VillagePodcast _______ Opinions and thoughts expressed by the participants in this production may not be reflective of Village Global. Any opinions, projections, forecasts and estimates contained in this production are necessarily speculative in nature, are based upon certain assumptions, and subject to change without notice. It can be expected that some or all of such assumptions will not materialize or will vary significantly from actual results. This production is not an offer to buy or sell any investments. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
In this session, Sarah Tavel, General Partner at Benchmark, and early employee at Pinterest shares her 4-step framework for building multi-billion dollar companies. Sarah covers how to: - drive engagement - retain users - create viral loops Sarah Tavel is a General Partner at Benchmark where she invests in consumer businesses, consumerization of IT, and the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Prior to Benchmark, Sarah was a General Partner at Greylock Partners and was also Vice President at Bessemer Venture Partners, where she sourced the firm’s investment in Pinterest before joining the company as one of their first 35 employees. While at Pinterest, Sarah served as product lead for search, recommendations, machine vision, and pin quality, and also led the company through a period of hyper-growth, including international launch and several acquisitions. She is also a founding member of All Raise, a nonprofit organization working to accelerate the success of women in the venture capital and VC-backed startup ecosystem. Presented by: Boast.AI R&D Tax Credit Software - https://boastcapital.com Launch - https://www.launchacademy.ca
In this session, Sarah Tavel, General Partner at Benchmark, and early employee at Pinterest shares her 4-step framework for building multi-billion dollar companies. Sarah covers how to: - drive engagement - retain users - create viral loops Sarah Tavel is a General Partner at Benchmark where she invests in consumer businesses, consumerization of IT, and the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Prior to Benchmark, Sarah was a General Partner at Greylock Partners and was also Vice President at Bessemer Venture Partners, where she sourced the firm’s investment in Pinterest before joining the company as one of their first 35 employees. While at Pinterest, Sarah served as product lead for search, recommendations, machine vision, and pin quality, and also led the company through a period of hyper-growth, including international launch and several acquisitions. She is also a founding member of All Raise, a nonprofit organization working to accelerate the success of women in the venture capital and VC-backed startup ecosystem. Presented by: Boast.AI R&D Tax Credit Software - https://boastcapital.com Launch - https://www.launchacademy.ca
Sarah Tavel is a General Partner @ Benchmark, one of the most successful and renowned venture firms in the world. At Benchmark, Sarah has led rounds in Chainalysis, Hipcamp, Medely, Rekki, Glide, Cambly and more. Prior to Benchmark, Sarah was a Partner at Greylock Partners. Before Greylock, Sarah was the first 30 employees at Pinterest. Sarah joined Pinterest in 2012 after co-leading the Series A investment while at Bessemer Venture Partners. ----------------------------------------------- Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (00:51) Background (09:11) Value of Selling the Work in the Application Layer (23:37) The End State of the Model Landscape (36:06) The Challenges & Future of AI Models (39:15) The Role of Competition in the AI Industry (46:02) Reflecting on Missed Investment Opportunities (58:03) Quick-Fire Round ----------------------------------------------- In Today’s Episode with Sarah Tavel We Discuss: 1. Becoming a GP at The Most Renowned Firm in Venture: How did the process of Sarah joining Benchmark start? How did it progress? What was it that convinced her to leave Greylock and join Benchmark? What does Sarah believe makes Peter Fenton the world-class investor that he is? What does Sarah know now that she wishes she had known when she started in venture? 2. Foundation Models: Is it All Going to Zero: Will foundation models be commoditised? Will 99% of the funding going to foundation models go to 0? How does Sarah view the future of open vs closed source? Why does Sarah believe that all frontier models of the future will be closed-source? Why does the business model of foundation models remind Sarah of the food delivery business? 3. Application Layer: Where $BN Companies Will Be Built: Why does Sarah believe that sustainable value-creating companies will be in the application layer? How does Sarah determine between a wrapper on top of ChatGPT and true product value? Are enterprises opening real budgets for AI today or are we still in experimental budgets? How does Sarah think about how AI companies differentiate when there are so many in the same space of customer service, sales team support etc etc? Why does Sarah believe that it is rational to pay more for these companies when investing in them? What does Sarah mean when she says the future is “selling the work and not the tools”? 4. Inside Benchmark: How the Best Do Venture: What is the one rule that Benchmark is willing to break when doing a deal? Why do Benchmark aim to be the best recruitment firm in the world? Why do Benchmark not agree with the concept of reserves? In a case where Benchmark have lost, why did they lose? How did they change their approach? ----------------------------------------------- Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3j2KMcZTtgTNBKwtZBMHvl?si=85bc9196860e4466 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-twenty-minute-vc-20vc-venture-capital-startup/id958230465 Follow Harry Stebbings on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings Follow Sarah Tavel on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sarahtavel Follow 20VC on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/20vchq Follow 20VC on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@20vc_tok Visit our Website: https://www.20vc.com Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/contact ----------------------------------------------- #20vc #harrystebbings #sarahtavel #benchmark #ceo #founder #venturecapital #startup #partnership #hiring #aifuture
TalkIQ is a series of curated conversations with distinguished trailblazers to help untangle complexity, identify trends, and codify skills necessary to succeed in today’s fast-changing world. Each chat includes a discussion on market dynamics, short- and long-term investment and career opportunities, and lessons on the analytical mindsets, mental models, and leadership styles essential to adapt and advance a purposeful career. This event features Sarah Tavel, general partner of Benchmark, moderated by Professor R.A. Farrokhnia. For more information on The Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Center for Leadership and Ethics, please visit our website: https://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/leadership/
Sarah Tavel is a General Partner at Benchmark and sits on the boards of Chainalysis, Hipcamp, Rekki, Cambly, and Medely. She is a founding member of All Raise, the nonprofit organization working to accelerate the success of women in the venture-capital and VC-backed startup ecosystem. Before Benchmark, Sarah was a partner at Greylock Partners. She joined Pinterest in 2012 as their first PM and launched their first search and recommendations features. She also led three acquisitions as she helped the company scale through a period of hypergrowth. In this episode, we discuss: • Sarah’s Hierarchy of Engagement framework for growing a consumer startup • The three levels of the Hierarchy of Engagement: core action, retention, and self-perpetuation • The importance of measuring cohorts and maintaining focus on the core action • Examples of core user actions from Pinterest and YouTube • Sarah’s Hierarchy of Marketplaces framework for building a marketplace startup • The three vectors of growth for dominating a marketplace • Advice on “tipping the marketplace” and ultimately dominating the market • The value of focusing on a constrained market • How to avoid disruption — This entire episode is brought to you by Gelt—Redefine your approach to taxes: https://www.joingelt.com/lenny Find the transcript and references at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-hierarchy-of-engagement-sarah-tavel-benchmark-greylock-pinterest/ Where to find Sarah Tavel: • X: https://twitter.com/sarahtavel • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahtavel/ • Substack: https://www.sarahtavel.com/ Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Sarah’s background (03:33) Framework 1: The Hierarchy of Engagement (06:03) Level 1: Core action (10:33) Level 2: Retention (14:00) Level 3: Self-perpetuation (19:32) The importance of focus (23:54) The challenge of anonymity (26:04) Advice for founders who want to increase retention (29:34) What founders often get wrong (31:43) Examples of core actions (37:37) Finding your North Star Metric (38:12) Who should use the Hierarchy of Engagement framework (38:54) The Hierarchy of Marketplaces framework (46:09) Level 1: Focus on a constrained opportunity (50:19) Sarah’s “happy GMV” and “minimum viable happiness” concepts (54:47) Thumbtack: a counterexample to this approach (56:36) Signs you’re ready to move to level 2 (58:06) Level 2: Tipping the marketplace (01:04:15) Tipping loops (01:10:53) Not all markets are susceptible to tipping (01:15:55) The challenge of homogeneity in B2B marketplaces (01:20:29) Signs you’re tipping successfully (01:21:43) Level 3: Dominating the market (01:28:29) The opportunity in underestimated markets (01:30:11) The challenges of chasing GMV and losing focus (01:36:36) Recognizing currents and momentum in the market (01:39:20) You can never rest on your laurels (01:41:03) How to apply these frameworks outside of marketplaces (01:42:57) Three ways to find marketplace opportunity (01:45:10 ) Lightning round Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
#startup #founder #marketplace #tech #vctok startup founder podcast, best founder tips, marketplace startups, uber business story, airbnb business story
Sarah Tavel thinks it's criminal that ChatGPT isn’t inherently social. There’s no easy way to discover great prompts or share the ones that worked. As a venture partner at Benchmark, Sarah believes that the next wave of consumer AI will be built on this missing social layer—by product-driven founders who understand people, not just models. Sarah has seen this shift before. As one of Pinterest’s first product managers, she saw the company grow from a niche consumer tool to a beloved global community. On this episode of Every's podcast AI & I, we talk about how she’s applying the lessons she learned to AI—and what it takes to build a breakout consumer AI app today. We get into: - Why product geniuses win as new tech matures. In the early days of a new technology, companies win by wrangling raw innovation into something usable. But as the infrastructure matures, Sarah says the edge shifts to product thinkers—founders who turn new capabilities into delightful user experiences. - The future of prompting is social. When Sarah had to dig through Reddit to find a prompt to help her interpret her blood test results, she saw a gap: The best prompt creators are invisible. Sarah bets that a social AI product that makes them discoverable and followable would gain traction. - Sarah’s method to spot exceptional founders. Sarah backs founders for whom building a company feels like a calling—or even an affliction. These are people who have fallen in love with the process and are obsessed with learning how to grow alongside their companies. - How to tell if your startup really has network effects. Founders raising money love to say that their business has “network effects.” Sarah has learned to look for early signs they’re real—like traction in a small, white-hot segment of the market. If there’s no evidence the flywheel is already starting to spin, it’s probably not a network effect. - How LLMs change the way the best VCs invest. Sarah thinks the future of venture will be shaped by how well VCs can turn the decisions they make into training data. After every pitch, she logs what she liked, what she didn’t, the deal terms, and her reasoning. Over time, she’s building a dataset of her own judgment—one an LLM could help her use to pressure-test decisions and avoid past mistakes. This is a must-watch for if you’re building a consumer AI product and want to see ahead of the curve. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? - Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: - Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe - Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Episode start 00:01:10 - Introduction 00:02:26 - Why the future of consumer AI belongs to founders with product intuition 00:11:09 - What Sarah sees as ChatGPT’s biggest weakness 00:18:45 - How Sarah would design a consumer AI app with social DNA 00:24:10 - The kind of founders Sarah invests in 00:28:33 - How to know if your startup’s network-effects are real 00:35:40 - What’s catching Sarah’s eye beyond AI 00:40:41 - How AI will change the way top venture capitalists invest Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Sarah Tavel: @sarahtavel Sarah’s substack: https://www.sarahtavel.com/ Eugene Wei’s essay about Status-as-a-Service: https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2019/2/19/status-as-a-service The book Sarah talks about in the context of founders who become CEOs in pursuit of status: https://www.amazon.com/Five-Temptations-CEO-Anniversary-Leadership/dp/0470267585