Aug 2, 2020 · 22m · top-founders
Woven.com: Ex Facebook CIO Looking to Re-Invent How We Setup Meetings
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Former Facebook CIO Tim Campos details the origins, architecture, and go-to-market strategy of Woven, explaining how the calendar intelligence startup utilizes retention frameworks, seed capital, and empirical pricing research ahead of its paywall launch.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Nathan holds 30.4% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Nathan as informed peer 5.0 Guest teaching 4.5 Guest disagreement 1.9 Nathan pushing back 3.5
speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 16:26 Withholding active user figures
Tim directly resists Nathan's questioning by stating they are not disclosing active user counts publicly.
Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 17:45 Challenging the 100% conversion assumptionNathan refuses Tim's framing of achieving 100% conversion, arguing that high conversion is trivial unless the paywall is moved deeper down the activation stack.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 10:39 Clarifying Facebook's L 5 of 7 retention metricTim corrects Nathan's memory of Facebook's 10 friends metric by detailing the actual 'L 5 of 7' engagement framework and how it applies to calendaring.
Nathan holds their own ▶ 18:50 Synthesizing freemium virality mechanicsNathan articulates the trade-offs of freemium viral loops, noting that non-converting users represent free top-of-funnel distribution.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Nathan as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Nathan pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tim Campos's Facebook Background and the Genesis of Woven | 4 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Nathan introduces Tim Campos and asks about his transition from Facebook CIO to founding Woven. Tim explains the origins of the internal calendar tools at Facebook and how they solved specific enterprise problems. | |
| Establishing the Ten-Dollar Price Point with Van Westendorp Surveys | 5 | 5 | 1 | 3 | Nathan asks how Tim determined the ten-dollar price point. Tim explains utilizing Van Westendorp price sensitivity surveys on retained users to locate the optimal pricing band. | |
| Testing Customer Acquisition Costs Across User Personas | 6 | 4 | 2 | 4 | Nathan probes into acquisition economics and how Tim models LTV to CAC for a pre-revenue product. Tim outlines desktop and mobile CAC target thresholds and using engagement as a paying proxy. | |
| Defining Retention Metrics and the 'L 5 of 7' Framework | 5 | 6 | 2 | 3 | Nathan brings up Facebook's famous onboarding milestones, prompting Tim to correct the metric to 'L 5 of 7' days active and explain why calendar activity predicts retention better than simple event creation. | |
| Capitalizing on Existing Calendar Data to Filter Core Users | 4 | 6 | 2 | 2 | Tim discusses the unique advantage of calendar metadata over blank-canvas apps and explains the technical complexity of building time zone mechanics, prompting banter from Nathan. | |
| Woven's Team Structure and Resource Allocation | 5 | 3 | 3 | 4 | Nathan asks for specific team breakdown, fundraising details with Amplify and Battery, and presses for active user numbers, which Tim politely declines to disclose. | |
| Applying Slack's Paywall Insights and Freemium Virality | 7 | 5 | 2 | 5 | Nathan pushes on the conversion funnel mechanics, arguing that 100% paywall conversion is trivial if only shown to top users. Tim shares insights learned from Slack's accordion paywall model. | |
| The Famous Five: Leadership Insights, Sleep Habits, and Advice | 4 | 2 | 2 | 5 | In the Famous Five lightning round, Nathan humorously pushes back when Tim reveals he only gets two hours of sleep per night, arguing that it is unsustainable for long-term execution. |
Statements from this episode (12)
Campos: Facebook internal calendar tools inspired the founding of Woven
“There was a tool that we had at Facebook called the meeting tool and eventually became the calendar tool. And the innards of that were ultimately what inspired Woven.”
Woven Targeted $10 Per User Monthly Subscription Pre-Launch
“Woven is pre-revenue, so we haven't enabled our paywall just yet, but we're, the products can be a price about 10 bucks a user per month.”
Campos: Van Westendorp Surveys Pinpoint the Pricing Sweet Spot for Products
“We put a Van Westendorp survey in front of them to get feedback on You know, how much is too much? How little is too little? What do you think is fair? What would feel like a good value for you? And the union of those four questions helps to get you right to w…”
Campos: Woven Ran Unbranded Alpha to Avoid Founder Hype Bias
“Even when we put the product out into alpha, we didn't brand it. It wasn't connected to either myself or my co-founder so that we could allow users to use the product without the connection to, you know, who the company is.”
Campos: Woven Targeted Desktop CAC Under $12 and Mobile Near $5
“We had two platforms that we were testing on desktop and mobile. We were trying to get the desktop CACs below 12 bucks. A user, we were trying to get the mobile CACs down to as close as five.”
Woven Targeted an LTV-to-CAC Ratio Above Three
“Ultimately, when we're looking at the entire marketing budget, we're trying to keep that you know, LTV to CAC ratio above three. So, you know, the higher we can price the product and the more we can spend on acquisition, but for a 10 dollar user a month produc…”
Campos: Facebook's core engagement metric was 'L 5 of 7'
“Actually when Facebook had was what's called L five of seven. So did you use the product five out of the last seven days? And we're using something very similar or woven to track engagement. The 10 friends was basically the, if you got 10 friends, you were muc…”
Building Calendar Apps Is Technically Complex Due to Time Zone Relativity
“To build a calendar app is extremely difficult, and it requires really top-notch engineers. The most, in fact, this is a bit of a surprise for me, the most difficult aspect of this is the nature of time itself. It is complicated.”
Campos: Woven raised a $4.8M seed round from Amplify and Battery
“So we raised a seed round with Amplify Partners, and then we got Battery Ventures to join that round, and we raised 4.8 million with them.”
Campos: Woven has about 15 employees, including nine engineers
“So today we're about 15 people with nine of them as engineers and one as a product designer. There's, I effectively serve as a product manager and then the rest of the company is growth.”