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Sanjit Biswas: Samsara's $18BN Market Cap & $1BN in ARR in 8 Years | E1092

Every single 20VC episode is recorded with Riverside.FM. It is the one product that I could not live without. Try it today here (https://creators.riverside.fm/20VC) and use the code 20VC for 15% off. ----------------------------------------------- Sanjit Biswas is the co-founder and CEO @ Samsara, allowing businesses that depend on physical operations to harness Internet of Things (IoT) data. Over the last 8 years, Sanjit has scaled Samsara to $1BN in ARR and a public company with tens of thousands of customers. Before Samsara, Sanjit was the CEO and co-founder of Meraki, one of the most successful networking companies of the past decade. Sanjit grew Meraki from his Ph.D. research into a complete enterprise networking portfolio. Meraki’s sales doubled every year from inception and in 2012, Cisco acquired Meraki for $1.2 billion. Huge thanks to Doug Leone for some fantastic question suggestions pre this episode. ----------------------------------------------- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (00:43) Starting in Tech: The First Project (03:34) Tackling Early Challenges and Learning Curves (06:30) Defining a Leadership Role at Samsara (07:48) Confronting Impostor Syndrome as a CEO (09:36) Key Lessons from Meraki Experience (14:46) Striving for Product-Market Fit (20:02) Listening to Customers vs. Following Vision (25:45) Transition from Engineering to Sales Leadership (30:51) Building and Training Sales Teams (38:19) Insights from Hiring and Team Building (41:12 CEO's Perspective on Resource Allocation (48:17) Reflecting on Capital Allocation and Risk-Taking (53:51) Evolution into a CEO Role (56:13) Instilling Work Ethic in Children as a CEO (57:34) Quick-Fire Round ----------------------------------------------- In Today’s Episode With Sanjit Biswas We Discuss: 1. From Founding to $1BN in ARR in 8 Years: What was the founding a-ha moment for Sanjit with Samsara? Sanjit sold his prior company Meraki for $1.2BN, what worked with Meraki that Sanjit took with him to Samsara? What did not work that he left behind? What does Sanjit know now that he wishes he had known when he started Samsara? 2. The Man Who Found Product Market Fit Time and Time Again: What is the one single moment that Sanjit believes you know you have product market fit? What are the biggest mistakes founders make when chasing product market fit? How does being a bootstrapped company change how a company approaches chasing PMF? 3. Mastering a Multi-Product Company: How do you know when it is the right time to launch a second product? Does the second product have to make the first product better? What are the biggest mistakes companies make when going multi-product? 4. The Art of Great CEOship: Does Sanjit believe that the best CEOs are the best capital allocators? What has been the single best and single worst capital allocation decision in Samsara’s journey? What are the biggest mistakes Sanjit has made in leadership? How did he learn and grow from them? ----------------------------------------------- Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3j2KMcZTtgTNBKwtZBMHvl?si=85bc9196860e4466 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-twenty-minute-vc-20vc-venture-capital-startup/id958230465 Follow Harry Stebbings on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings Follow Samsara on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Samsara Follow 20VC on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/20vchq Follow 20VC on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@20vc_tok Visit our Website: https://www.20vc.com Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/contact ----------------------------------------------- #VentureCapital #SanjitBiswas #Samsara #harrystebbings

Harry StebbingshostSanjit Biswasguest
Dec 7, 20231h 6mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Samsara CEO on product-market fit, scaling, and long-term allocation

  1. Sanjit Biswas, co-founder and CEO of Samsara, reflects on building two multibillion‑dollar companies, contrasting his tech‑first approach at Meraki with Samsara’s market‑first, problem‑led strategy.
  2. He explains how to find and not force product‑market fit, when to launch second products, and why founder‑led sales and deep customer time remain central even at $1B+ ARR.
  3. Biswas details Samsara’s capital allocation philosophy (including a 70/20/10 R&D model), the transition from doing unscalable work to building scalable processes, and the trade‑offs of going hybrid for talent access.
  4. He also discusses hiring at scale, stage‑fit mistakes, his evolving relationship to money after a large exit, and balancing being a public‑company CEO with being a parent.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Product–market fit should feel like market pull, not internal declaration.

Biswas advises founders to avoid arbitrary PMF metrics and instead “listen for the wow”: customers stop you in demos, call colleagues into the room, and proactively ask to buy—clear signs the product is being pulled out of your hands.

Use customers to prioritize second products; don’t over‑rotate on focus.

Samsara launched its second major product (dash cameras/safety) when customers repeatedly asked for it, long before maxing out growth on product one, and focused on problems that 80% of customers shared to ensure leverage.

Rehire yourself regularly to stay useful to the company’s next stage.

Biswas literally writes a new job description for himself every year or two, checking whether his time matches what the company needs 3–5 years out, and intentionally drops beloved hands‑on work that no longer scales.

Adopt a structured capital allocation model to balance now vs. later.

Samsara uses a 70/20/10 R&D allocation—70% on scaling existing products, 20% on near‑term bets, 10% on longer‑term seeds—so it can plant new product and geography bets early while still supporting the core.

Be ruthless about scalability, even when customers like the product.

Their machine‑vision line worked and delivered value, but required highly custom installs, making it more like services than software; they shut it down and redeployed the team to scalable AI features embedded in core products.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

Product–market fit is something you don’t want to force. Get out there with customers and listen for the wow.

— Sanjit Biswas

Companies pay to have their problem solved, so when we talk about revenue growth, for me it’s actually impact and problem‑solving growth.

— Sanjit Biswas

With Samsara, we said, ‘If we do this right, we will scale 10X and then 10X again.’ So we need to be building for the long term.

— Sanjit Biswas

I go through a process I call rehiring myself… I actually write a job description for what the company needs from me in the next couple of years.

— Sanjit Biswas

The CEO is the chief capital allocator of the company.

— Sanjit Biswas

Finding and validating product–market fit without forcing itTransitioning from “do things that don’t scale” to scalable processesFounder-led sales, customer time, and multi‑product expansionCapital allocation strategy, risk-taking, and long‑term planningHiring, stage fit, and maintaining a high talent bar at scaleHybrid work, sales efficiency, and access to broader talent poolsPersonal evolution: relationship to money, family, and CEO role

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