Dec 7, 2018 · 34m · 20vc
20VC: CB Insights' Anand Sanwal on The Most Dangerous Myth Some Investors Have Promoted, Why Most B2B Content Is Crap and How To Make It Successful & Why Predigree Is Overrated and The Right Way To Scale Teams
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of The 20 Minute VC, CB Insights founder and CEO Anand Sanwal discusses why revenue-driven growth beats venture capital reliance, how to build an authentic B2B content brand, and why hiring for grit outweighs traditional tech pedigree.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Harry holds 32.5% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Harry as informed peer 2.9 Guest teaching 5.1 Guest disagreement 3.1 Harry pushing back 1.8
speaking balance: gold is Harry, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 16:04 Calling VC Funding Narratives 'Cancerous'
Anand forcefully attacks prominent venture investors for pushing a narrative that more capital increases success, labeling the trend as cancerous and describing it as the foie gras-ing of startups.
Hardest push from Harry ▶ 10:51 Challenging Anti-VC Stance with Benedict Evans QuoteHarry pushes back on Anand's strict revenue-funding stance by introducing Benedict Evans' analogy that VC capital acts as necessary rocket fuel for non-lawnmower businesses.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 11:30 Disproving VC Scale Myths with Real Revenue NumbersAnand schools Harry on capital efficiency by comparing hard revenue figures, demonstrating that CB Insights generated higher revenue on $10M raised than competitors who raised over $100M.
Harry holds his own ▶ 15:38 Framing Capital Velocity via Finn Barnes QuoteHarry demonstrates venture expertise by quoting investor Finn Barnes, shifting the unit economics conversation toward the velocity of capital deployment rather than total quantum raised.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Harry as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Harry pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Early Career Lessons from the Cosmo.com Dot-Com Crash | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Anand reflects on his early experience at Cosmo.com during the dot-com crash, describing a flawed business model of buying items for two dollars and selling for one dollar. Harry asks light conversational follow-ups about operating mindset without challenging Anand's framing. | |
| Why Revenue Funding Beats Venture Capital | 2 | 6 | 3 | 1 | Anand delivers a detailed masterclass on why revenue funding superiorly drives non-dilutive capital, operational clarity, and genuine product-market fit. Harry prompts the subject and mostly listens as Anand contrasts client reliance against dependence on a VC sugar daddy. | |
| Building a Real Business vs. Serving Investor Demands | 5 | 6 | 5 | 4 | Harry presses Anand by quoting Benedict Evans on rocket fuel versus lawnmowers and asking how Anand defines a real business. Anand rejects the premise of the tweet and critiques the broader VC narrative as rubbish while contrasting CB Insights' revenue with heavily funded rivals. | |
| Unit Economics and the Dangers of Overfunding Startups | 4 | 7 | 6 | 2 | Harry introduces Finn Barnes' quote regarding capital velocity to explore unit economics. Anand forcefully criticizes VC investors for pushing a cancerous narrative that overfunding leads to success, describing the practice as the foie gras-ing of startups. | |
| Why Most B2B Content Is Crap and How to Fix It | 3 | 5 | 3 | 3 | Harry questions whether CB Insights' email marketing tone ever goes too far out there. Anand defends their polarizing style, explaining that B2B content is usually boring because it is not written for human beings, and that he welcomes unsubscriptions from non-ideal fits. | |
| Why Pedigree Is Overrated in Hiring | 3 | 5 | 3 | 1 | Harry connects with Anand on non-traditional backgrounds as a university dropout. Anand explains why reliance on candidate pedigree can lead companies astray and how CB Insights intentionally hires hungry misfits with chips on their shoulders. | |
| Navigating Operational Scaling and Leadership Challenges | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Harry asks standard operational questions about scaling mistakes and hiring practices. Anand candidly admits past leadership communication gaps and shares his signature interview question about candidate preparation. | |
| Quickfire Round and the Long-Term Vision for CB Insights | 2 | 4 | 3 | 1 | In the quickfire round, Anand asserts that CB Insights would likely be dead if they had taken the VC route. He concludes by laying out a five-year vision to build an automated machine-learning management consultant. |
Statements from this episode (16)
Sanwal: Modern startups are repeating Kozmo.com's flawed unit economics
“Our business model, if you were to boil it down, was essentially buying things for two dollars and selling them for one dollar and, you know, hoping somehow that that would work out in volumes. And, you know, I think interestingly enough, it's sort of a busine…”
Sanwal: Was a paper millionaire at Kozmo.com before IPO failed
“So I was a millionaire on paper. Cosmo was expected to go public. We'd filed for our S-One.”
Sanwal: Revenue funding beats VC on cheap capital, clarity, and speed
“There are three main reasons before that I think revenue funding is the cheapest form of capital, and I'll kind of dial into these. Two, it provides clarity on where you as an organization and your team should focus, and then third, I think it helps achieve pr…”
Sanwal: VC funding would have locked CB Insights into 1000x smaller TAM
“And I think if we were not revenue funded, we'd have not seen that opportunity. I'm pretty sure that we'd have raised a bunch of money. We'd have burned time and effort on that. It's ultimately a total addressable market. For that first segment of dealmakers, …”
Sanwal: Startups can only balance two of three key stakeholders
“You can have three masters, right? You can have your clients, you can have your team, and you can have investors. And in our view, you can balance two of them.”
Sanwal: Real businesses are fundamentally valuable, not exit-dependent
“A real business to us is one that's not reliant on a flip, is not reliant on selling out to Somebody who values it in some esoteric way, it's a business that's fundamentally valuable.”
Sanwal: CB Insights raised $10M, untouched, and out-earns heavily funded rivals
“You know, we've raised 10, haven't touched any of it, and are doing more revenue than all of those.”
Sanwal: CB Insights has maintained 70% to 100% year-over-year growth
“We've grown kind of at a hundred percent, you know, 70 to a hundred percent year over year for the last several years.”
Sanwal: CB Insights will never operate at negative margins
“We're never going to do something that's sort of a negative margin, just because we don't think that that is a prudent way to build a business.”
Sanwal: Investor push that more funding increases success is unsupported folklore
“One of the most cancerous things that some And I wouldn't say it's all, but some prominent investors in sort of emerging tech companies have done is to push a narrative that more funding increases your likelihood of success. That idea is not supported by data.…”
Sanwal: Most B2B content fails because creators write buzzwords for robots
“Yeah, I mean, I think it sort of fundamentally comes down to, for whatever reason, B to B content providers don't write for human beings, right? They sort of have a perception that they're Clients are these robots, I think, that just want to read buzzwords and…”
Sanwal: CB Insights newsletter reached over 500,000 subscribers
“And then again, like the numbers don't lie, right? We crossed 500,006 weeks ago. We're probably at 520,000 now. You know, like it just keeps growing.”
Sanwal: Elite pedigree in hiring is overrated for challenger startups
“For us, right? But I think for us, like, pedigree has sometimes led us astray. We are, because of how we've grown and how we've sort of been brought up, we like people who are hungry and ambitious and, you know, who have a bit of the chip on their shoulder. An…”
Sanwal: Asking candidates how they prepared reveals work ethic and analytical ability
“Yeah, so the question I like to open with is just tell me how you prepared for this conversation. A lot of doing well, you know, and again, at CV Insights is about being prepared, doing the work, glamorous or not glamorous, to make sure that you put yourself i…”
Sanwal: Candidates who add value during interviews show an exceptionally strong signal
“Like that's a really helpful conversation because somebody's, they're adding value and that's an incredibly good sign at the interview stage if somebody's adding value that early.”
CB Insights is building an AI-driven management consultant product
“From a technology perspective, it's really building kind of a machine learning driven management consultant. Basically, you tell us what your challenges are, and we will curate the data for you. We will run the calculations on it, and we will create the presen…”