Sanwal: Kozmo.com raised roughly $250M-$260M before its unit economics failed
Anand Sanwal · EP 437: SaaS $10m Raised, $8m+ 2015 Revenue, The Algorithmic Mckinsey with CB Insights CEO Anand Sanwal · Oct 4, 2016 · at 2:44
CB Insights CEO Anand Sanwal reflects on his early career at dot-com delivery startup Kozmo.com, which raised hundreds of millions before going bankrupt in 2001.
0:00 / 0:08exact quote · 9.0s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“We raised, I think, like, 252 hundred sixty million dollars, and did that for a while, and eventually economics caught up with us when the money dried up”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
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.”