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Mar 4, 2016 · 17m · top-founders

Blab goal is 7% week over week growth. Here's how the Founder will do it with Shaan Puri CEO of Blab Episode 185

Shaan Puri · 9m spoken Nathan Latka · 5m spoken
0:00 / 0:00

gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions

In this episode of The Top, host Nathan Latka interviews Shaan Puri, co-founder and CEO of Blab, exploring the live video platform's high user engagement, 7% weekly growth target, monetization plans, and Puri's journey from pre-med to startup founder.

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 37.4% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 4.3 Guest teaching 3.8 Guest disagreement 2.8 Nathan pushing back 5.0
05100:0010:001:07–6:40 · Nathan as informed peer 4/10 Shaan Puri's Journey from Pre-Med to Biotech Nathan challenges Shaan's claim that Blab acts as a replacement for TV or Netflix, citing existing business TV shows. Shaan counters by reframing the dynamic around on-demand niche creator access using a blogging analogy.6:40–9:04 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Differentiating from YouTube Live and Brand Adoption Nathan presses Shaan multiple times to share specific user metrics rather than vague watch minutes to prove traction to listeners. Shaan refuses to share proprietary figures due to competition and pivots to mentioning enterprise brand logos.9:04–12:33 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Monetization Strategy, 7% Growth Goal, and Team Size Nathan directly calls out Shaan for being evasive on data before interrogating his 7 percent week-over-week metric on watch time versus acquisition. Shaan explains the mathematical necessity of user acquisition when hitting engagement ceilings, which satisfies the host.12:35–16:45 · Nathan as informed peer 2/10 Connecting with Shaan and Mid-Show Announcements The segment includes mid-show promotional announcements and transitions smoothly into the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions with minimal conflict.1:07–6:40 · Guest teaching 5/10 Shaan Puri's Journey from Pre-Med to Biotech Nathan challenges Shaan's claim that Blab acts as a replacement for TV or Netflix, citing existing business TV shows. Shaan counters by reframing the dynamic around on-demand niche creator access using a blogging analogy.6:40–9:04 · Guest teaching 3/10 Differentiating from YouTube Live and Brand Adoption Nathan presses Shaan multiple times to share specific user metrics rather than vague watch minutes to prove traction to listeners. Shaan refuses to share proprietary figures due to competition and pivots to mentioning enterprise brand logos.9:04–12:33 · Guest teaching 5/10 Monetization Strategy, 7% Growth Goal, and Team Size Nathan directly calls out Shaan for being evasive on data before interrogating his 7 percent week-over-week metric on watch time versus acquisition. Shaan explains the mathematical necessity of user acquisition when hitting engagement ceilings, which satisfies the host.12:35–16:45 · Guest teaching 2/10 Connecting with Shaan and Mid-Show Announcements The segment includes mid-show promotional announcements and transitions smoothly into the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions with minimal conflict.1:07–6:40 · Guest disagreement 3/10 Shaan Puri's Journey from Pre-Med to Biotech Nathan challenges Shaan's claim that Blab acts as a replacement for TV or Netflix, citing existing business TV shows. Shaan counters by reframing the dynamic around on-demand niche creator access using a blogging analogy.6:40–9:04 · Guest disagreement 4/10 Differentiating from YouTube Live and Brand Adoption Nathan presses Shaan multiple times to share specific user metrics rather than vague watch minutes to prove traction to listeners. Shaan refuses to share proprietary figures due to competition and pivots to mentioning enterprise brand logos.9:04–12:33 · Guest disagreement 3/10 Monetization Strategy, 7% Growth Goal, and Team Size Nathan directly calls out Shaan for being evasive on data before interrogating his 7 percent week-over-week metric on watch time versus acquisition. Shaan explains the mathematical necessity of user acquisition when hitting engagement ceilings, which satisfies the host.12:35–16:45 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Connecting with Shaan and Mid-Show Announcements The segment includes mid-show promotional announcements and transitions smoothly into the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions with minimal conflict.1:07–6:40 · Nathan pushing back 5/10 Shaan Puri's Journey from Pre-Med to Biotech Nathan challenges Shaan's claim that Blab acts as a replacement for TV or Netflix, citing existing business TV shows. Shaan counters by reframing the dynamic around on-demand niche creator access using a blogging analogy.6:40–9:04 · Nathan pushing back 6/10 Differentiating from YouTube Live and Brand Adoption Nathan presses Shaan multiple times to share specific user metrics rather than vague watch minutes to prove traction to listeners. Shaan refuses to share proprietary figures due to competition and pivots to mentioning enterprise brand logos.9:04–12:33 · Nathan pushing back 7/10 Monetization Strategy, 7% Growth Goal, and Team Size Nathan directly calls out Shaan for being evasive on data before interrogating his 7 percent week-over-week metric on watch time versus acquisition. Shaan explains the mathematical necessity of user acquisition when hitting engagement ceilings, which satisfies the host.12:35–16:45 · Nathan pushing back 2/10 Connecting with Shaan and Mid-Show Announcements The segment includes mid-show promotional announcements and transitions smoothly into the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions with minimal conflict.

speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)

0:00 · Nathan 53.4% · guest 46.6%0:00 · Nathan 53.4% · guest 46.6%3:00 · Nathan 12.9% · guest 87.1%3:00 · Nathan 12.9% · guest 87.1%6:00 · Nathan 21.5% · guest 78.5%6:00 · Nathan 21.5% · guest 78.5%9:00 · Nathan 33.9% · guest 66.1%9:00 · Nathan 33.9% · guest 66.1%12:00 · Nathan 61.9% · guest 38.1%12:00 · Nathan 61.9% · guest 38.1%15:00 · Nathan 41.9% · guest 58.1%15:00 · Nathan 41.9% · guest 58.1%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 8:21 Shaan refuses metric disclosure citing competition

Shaan resists Nathan's repeated demands for hard numbers, asserting that revealing traction would only aid competitors.

 Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 10:02 Nathan calls out Shaan's evasiveness

Nathan openly states that Shaan is not giving listeners enough real data to evaluate Blab and challenges his monetization timeline.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 5:39 Shaan explains the long-tail niche audience model

Shaan educates Nathan on why aggregations of niche live streams capture attention that mainstream television and Netflix cannot serve.

 Nathan holds their own ▶ 11:46 Nathan pokes hole in watch-minute growth metric

Nathan sharply highlights that growing watch time does not prove new customer acquisition if existing users are simply consuming more.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicNathan as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementNathan pushing backWhy
Shaan Puri's Journey from Pre-Med to Biotech 4535 Nathan challenges Shaan's claim that Blab acts as a replacement for TV or Netflix, citing existing business TV shows. Shaan counters by reframing the dynamic around on-demand niche creator access using a blogging analogy.
Differentiating from YouTube Live and Brand Adoption 5346 Nathan presses Shaan multiple times to share specific user metrics rather than vague watch minutes to prove traction to listeners. Shaan refuses to share proprietary figures due to competition and pivots to mentioning enterprise brand logos.
Monetization Strategy, 7% Growth Goal, and Team Size 6537 Nathan directly calls out Shaan for being evasive on data before interrogating his 7 percent week-over-week metric on watch time versus acquisition. Shaan explains the mathematical necessity of user acquisition when hitting engagement ceilings, which satisfies the host.
Connecting with Shaan and Mid-Show Announcements 2212 The segment includes mid-show promotional announcements and transitions smoothly into the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions with minimal conflict.

Statements from this episode (6)

Insight
Shaan Puri: Winning business plan competitions provides false hope
“We started winning all these business plan competitions, which gives you know, a bit of false hope that your business plan is any good.”
Shaan Puri Mar 4, 2016 ▶ 2:04
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Puri: Blab DAUs spend over an hour daily watching live video
“The average daily active users watching for just over an hour a day which is one of the metrics that gave me the most faith. Cause that means they're using this like a replacement for TV or Netflix in many cases. So about an hour a day for every daily active u…”
Shaan Puri Mar 4, 2016 ▶ 3:47
Assertion Supported
Puri: ESPN, UFC, Adobe, IBM, and Cisco use Blab
“We've got people as, you know, we've got people who are just sitting in their basement, and they're nobodies, but all the way up to reality TV stars, ESPN, UFC, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, big brands that have also come on and use the platform.”
Shaan Puri Mar 4, 2016 ▶ 8:31
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Puri: Blab's audience will be larger than any cable TV network
“And so what we're going to do is we're going to gather the biggest audience we can. And I believe that that will end up being bigger than Any cable TV network out there.”
Shaan Puri Mar 4, 2016 ▶ 9:31
Disclosure
Blab targets 7% week-over-week growth in daily watched minutes
“The watched minutes, so the amount of time people spend watching Blab every day. We want that to increase seven percent week over week.”
Shaan Puri Mar 4, 2016 ▶ 11:32
Disclosure
Blab employees pay $10 to a swear jar for sending internal emails
“My company has a zero email policy, so if you email somebody in our company, you got to put 10 dollars in the swear jar.”
Shaan Puri Mar 4, 2016 ▶ 15:33
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