Sameer Shariff is the co-founder and CEO of Cambly, an online language-learning platform. He discusses supply and demand dynamics across Cambly's platform history.
“So we've always been a demand constrained marketplace.”
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 Sameer Shariff
Insight
Shariff: Optimizing for upfront revenue over product usage is unsustainable
“A lot of the companies that came before us optimize much more for revenue. They kind of just focused on the revenue number. And the challenge with that is. You can sell the dream for a product people don't actually use and make a lot of money in the process. A…”
Sameer ShariffAug 5, 2022▶ 12:33Cambly CEO Sameer Shariff: Why I Raised $60M and Didn't Touch a Dollar | 20VC #914 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Shariff: Language learners want friendly conversational practice over formal lessons
“What the two of us wanted wasn't necessarily. A professional teacher or a formal lesson. What we wanted was just a friendly person to practice with.”
Sameer ShariffAug 5, 2022▶ 2:17Cambly CEO Sameer Shariff: Why I Raised $60M and Didn't Touch a Dollar | 20VC #914 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Cambly has not touched its Series A or Series B funding
“Just because we haven't touched the series A money and the series B money, it doesn't mean that we sort of behaved exactly the same, you know, had we not raised that money. Like, Having that cash cushion, I think allows us to be much, much more aggressive and …”
Sameer ShariffAug 5, 2022▶ 17:59Cambly CEO Sameer Shariff: Why I Raised $60M and Didn't Touch a Dollar | 20VC #914 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Shariff: Burning cash for fast growth teaches startups the wrong lessons
“And if you're kind of blowing through a lot of cash and doing unsustainable things, there's a really good chance you're learning the wrong lessons. And they're not necessarily gonna serve you down the road.”
Sameer ShariffAug 5, 2022▶ 19:41Cambly CEO Sameer Shariff: Why I Raised $60M and Didn't Touch a Dollar | 20VC #914 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Shariff: A/B testing does not work for early-stage startups
“The reality is in the very early days of startups you don't really have much data. And so, you know, in theory, you might think, oh, let me just like AB test everything and AB test my way to success. And it doesn't really work because like you're tiny, there i…”
Sameer ShariffAug 5, 2022▶ 4:53Cambly CEO Sameer Shariff: Why I Raised $60M and Didn't Touch a Dollar | 20VC #914 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
AssertionSupported
Shariff: 1.5 billion people globally are actively trying to learn English
“There's about 7.58 billion people in the world. Six billion of them don't know English. And by the way of those 6000000001.5 billion are actively trying to learn it right now.”
Sameer ShariffAug 5, 2022▶ 7:27Cambly CEO Sameer Shariff: Why I Raised $60M and Didn't Touch a Dollar | 20VC #914 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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.
We use essential cookies to make the site work. With your permission we
also use analytics cookies (Google Analytics and Mixpanel) to understand
usage and improve StarZero. See our Cookie Policy.