Sanwal: Hacker News Front Page Is Useless for Non-Developer SaaS
Anand Sanwal · Don't do these 68 things in your SaaS company · Jul 21, 2023 · at 15:56
This episode carries Anand Sanwal's own address, with nobody on the show putting questions to them. It still counts as said, and it is kept out of every score on their page.
Anand Sanwal, CEO of CB Insights, discusses vanity traffic sources and startup marketing traps at SaaS Open.
0:00 / 0:13exact quote · 13.4s
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“Unless you sell developer tools, like, totally useless, right? We would get, we did get there a couple times. Our Google Analytics traffic spiked, and then we just got, you know, a bunch of people who said our product sucks in the comments, so that was fun.”
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More from Anand Sanwal
Sanwal: Best practices produce average results and will not build exceptional companies
“Best practices are for losers, full stop. They're for people who want to be average. Like, nobody who follows best practices builds great companies or builds exceptional companies.”
Sanwal: Odds that VC alone changes startup trajectory are close to nil
“The odds that a VC alone is going to change the trajectory of your business is close to nil.”
Sanwal: Giving early employees C-level titles causes organizational friction later
“If somebody's gonna be a CTO when you're three people, and then you get to 30, and that person no longer is relevant in that role, then you're gonna have to top them, they're gonna look like they took a demotion, it just creates all sorts of agita and anxiety …”
Sanwal: Consensus-driven culture results in a 'shit brown culture'
“If you give everybody input into what the culture's gonna become, you're gonna have a shit brown culture. And so what you got to do is say, nope, this is our culture, and we're going to spike on these two colors, and that's it”
Sanwal: Do not hire candidates with a track record of startup failures
“When you see somebody who's taking a lot of L's, like, you know, hey, I was at a startup, it failed, my prior startup had this problem, and you look at their resume, and it's just like a string of losses, like, don't hire that person.”