Rampell: TrialPay spun off a high-beta product into a separate startup
Alex Rampell · a16z Podcast | Managing Uncertainty -- Layoffs and Talent · Jan 2, 2019 · at 24:46
Alex Rampell, partner at Andreessen Horowitz and former TrialPay CEO, describes how TrialPay managed restructuring by spinning off an early-stage product into a separate venture.
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“Thing number one is actually we split the company in two. We had a different product within the company that we just thought was very, very high beta. And there was a lot of controversy around this. I think most people thought that we were idiots for doing this because imagine that your financials are not doing well. What's the first thing that goes in the chopping block? It's the thing that could work in the future, but it's not anything about near term revenue. And yet these are the things that you need to invest in for the future. So actually we spun this out into a new effective series, a back company. And we had 25 people that wanted to, like, they missed the experience of working in an early stage startup. They went off with the little ship.”
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