Opinion certainty 4/5 debate potential 3/5

Hiten Shah: Expansion strategy matters far more than initial market size

Hiten Shah · 20VC: Hiten Shah on The Right Way To Think About Depression, Control and Burnout, Why Nobody Really Knows What They Are Doing and How One Should Receive Advice As A Result & How To Gain Self-Awareness As A Leader · Aug 9, 2019 · at 23:39

Serial entrepreneur and angel investor Hiten Shah discusses how he evaluates early-stage investments with host Harry Stebbings on The 20 VC.

0:00 / 0:19exact quote · 19.6s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“Markets are all pretty big now, and I don't really care about market size as much as if this business has a natural path or some, not even natural, but the founders and the team are thinking about how it expands over time and where they see it going. I feel like that's so much more important than you starting with some massive market opportunity.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

More from Hiten Shah

Insight
Hiten Shah: Nobody in tech actually knows what they are doing
“I think the number one lesson there was basically nobody knows what they're doing. And that's not just them. That's also me. And I've also met with many investors and many other folks, even folks that worked at companies and nobody really knows what they're do…”
Hiten Shah Aug 9, 2019 ▶ 6:11 20VC: Hiten Shah on The Right Way To Think About Depression, Control and Burnout, Why Nobody Really Knows What They Are Doing and How One Should Receive Advice As A Result & How To Gain Self-Awareness As A Leader
Insight
Hiten Shah: Startup founders want encouragement, not tactical advice
“One key thing though, that after a lot of reflection, a lot of time that I realized is that most people, they just want encouragement. They don't really want advice.”
Hiten Shah Aug 9, 2019 ▶ 7:03 20VC: Hiten Shah on The Right Way To Think About Depression, Control and Burnout, Why Nobody Really Knows What They Are Doing and How One Should Receive Advice As A Result & How To Gain Self-Awareness As A Leader
Insight
Hiten Shah: Burnout stems from attempting to control uncontrollable factors
“Depression or burnout or whatever other folks would call it is really a result of stress and unrecognized stress based on me trying to get control of things I cannot control. And that's the fundamental thing that really burns me out is when I'm trying to get c…”
Hiten Shah Aug 9, 2019 ▶ 35:25 20VC: Hiten Shah on The Right Way To Think About Depression, Control and Burnout, Why Nobody Really Knows What They Are Doing and How One Should Receive Advice As A Result & How To Gain Self-Awareness As A Leader
Insight
Hiten Shah: Founders who don't need venture capital shouldn't raise it
“If you don't have to raise money, don't raise money.”
Hiten Shah Mar 4, 2016 ▶ 6:27 20VC FF: Hiten Shah on VC Funded vs Bootstrapped Businesses and How He Decides Which Startups To Advise
Disclosure
Hiten Shah asks prospective hires about their earliest traumatic memory
“I do that even with team members, you know, especially early team members at a company”
Hiten Shah Mar 4, 2016 ▶ 11:30 20VC FF: Hiten Shah on VC Funded vs Bootstrapped Businesses and How He Decides Which Startups To Advise
Insight
Hiten Shah: Past personal hardship indicates a founder's capacity for persistence
“A sign of persistence or a sign of that they can be persistent is that they've had hardships in their life and have got, and have gotten through it.”
Hiten Shah Mar 4, 2016 ▶ 13:00 20VC FF: Hiten Shah on VC Funded vs Bootstrapped Businesses and How He Decides Which Startups To Advise
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 1,200 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.