Alex Western
Managing Director, Think3. On 1 show, 0 appearances, plus 1 compilation re-air not counted. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
Alex Western is a Managing Director at Think3. He focuses on addressing SaaS startup overgrowth and navigating exit strategies for venture-backed companies.
1shows
0appearances
14statements
0resolved
0supported
0contradicted
Everything Alex Western said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Western: Founders amass more wealth through frequent, smaller startup exits
“We think that most founders can actually use the overfocus on growth to their advantage, like a judo artist, either by more often choosing the lifestyle option, or by having a more sober approach to their relationship with their companies and with VCs, by actu…”
Western: VCs are incentivized to force startups into unicorn outcomes
“So, if you're a VC, you have the incentive, no matter where you think the company might initially fall on this rank, force ranking of multiples of invested capital, you have an incentive to try to force every company to be a unicorn, to try to shoot for the st…”
Western: Raising VC funding removes attractive mid-tier startup exits
“Each time you raise VC funding, each time you bring more investors into your cap table, each time you have to introduce greater and greater growth projections in order to justify that valuation and get to the next step, you take more and more options off the t…”
Western: VC-founder incentive misalignment forces hypergrowth and ruins startups
“We at Think Three think that there is an incentives misalignment, fundamentally, between most VCs and founders, and that that incentives misalignment is pushing companies to grow too much too fast, and it's ruining great companies like PowerDrive.”
Western: VCs push portfolio companies harder during market downturns
“Because ironically, if and as things start to turn sour, VCs actually have to push harder to make up the losses.”
Western: Most B2B startups should prioritize customer retention over growth
“Most companies aren't necessarily in situations where they can grow that quickly, so we find they're usually better off actually focusing on retention, not on growth, but they can't make that trade-off because they feel a lot of pressure from their venture cap…”
Western: Founders secretly prefer lifestyle businesses but feel market pressure
“Most of the founders we talk to actually want to choose the lifestyle option, but they're almost sort of embarrassed by it, given the market we're in, so they feel like they have to sprinkle a little bit of big leagues into it, and that just makes their lives …”
Western: Only 0.02% of VC-backed startups become unicorns
“There was some now famous research done by Cowboy Ventures into outstanding VC-backed startups, and they found that 0.02% of VC-backed startups become unicorns, and our own research suggests that only about 10% are ever on escape velocity trajectory or above t…”
Western: Founders should sell early, move on, and start anew
“Founders should more often be selling their companies more quickly and moving on to start more companies because they get a lot better every time they do it.”
Cowboy Ventures: 90% of Unicorn Startups Never Pivoted
“Cowboy Ventures also found, and I'm plagiarizing their stuff that once they were in the Unicorn Venture, 90% of those startups never pivoted, and a hundred percent of those startups were always above the Mendoza line, the escape velocity trajectory.”
Western: Pursuing rapid growth merely introduces volatility and widens outcomes
“Growth is another word for introducing volatility. Widening the fan of outcomes for that company.”
Western: One or Two Portfolio Companies Drive Entirety of VC Fund Returns
“They follow a power distribution where literally one or two companies drives the entirety of the returns. 20 to 30% plot along and return between one and two X, and two thirds actually lose money.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Alex's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 SAASTRLEDGER | Managing Director, Think3 | 0 +1 | 14 | — | full record on the Official SaaStr Podcast → |