Uri Levine: Why startups are a journey from crisis to crisis

1. 0:00 – 5:10

   Welcome back, Uri!

   1. LRLenny Rachitsky0:00

      Let's talk about crisis. I think it might be helpful to do a quick taxonomy of the types of crisis founders face.

   2. ULUri Levine0:05

      So two, abstractly-

   3. LRLenny Rachitsky0:07

      Yeah.

   4. ULUri Levine0:07

      ... two types of crisis. One is, I would call that a cash crisis. All of a sudden your cash program or plan is being jeopardized. You know, losing a customer, disappearing investor. And the other one is lose of product market fit. When product market fit disappear, you actually need to go back to square one, and you basically say, "Everything that I know so far is irrelevant anymore."

   5. LRLenny Rachitsky0:31

      You also talk along these lines of never give up, in a crisis and throughout your journey.

   6. ULUri Levine0:35

      Always keep on looking for ways to make it work. Never give up is the most important behavior of successful CEOs of startup. The second one, by the way, is making decisions with conviction. If you don't make them with conviction then the team is not going to follow. If the team is not going to follow then you're not going to be successful.

   7. LRLenny Rachitsky0:52

      A core part of your advice on crisis, it's always the founder's fault if things don't work out.

   8. ULUri Levine0:57

      At the end of the day, you cannot rely on someone else. You have only one company. You need to make sure that this company is successful. When you assume responsibility, you're basically saying, "You know what? I control my own destiny."

   9. LRLenny Rachitsky1:11

      Any advice for how to avoid falling into a crisis as a founder?

   10. ULUri Levine1:14

       Number one answer is no. Don't worry, you will face crisis.

   11. LRLenny Rachitsky1:19

       (instrumental music) Today my guest is Uri Levine. Uri is the co-founder of Waze, along with nine other companies. He sold two companies for over a billion dollars. He's been on 20 different startup boards, has been an advisor to over 50 different startups, and even more impressively, this is his second time on the podcast. In our first conversation, we walked through the biggest lessons that he's learned over the course of working with all of these different startups that he chronicled in his beloved book, Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution. In this conversation, we go deep on one very specific topic: crisis. As Uri shares in his book, building a startup is a journey from one crisis to the next, and my goal with this conversation is to give you tools to handle the next crisis, and the next crisis, and the next crisis that you face as a founder. This topic is so important that Uri decided to update and re-release his book with a whole new chapter dedicated to managing crisis, and this new edition is actually gonna launch right around the time this episode launches. If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. It's the best way to avoid missing future episodes and it helps the podcast tremendously. With that, I bring you Uri Levine. This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're building a SaaS app, at some point your customers will start asking for enterprise features like SAML authentication and SCIM provisioning. That's where WorkOS comes in, making it fast and painless to add enterprise features to your app. Their APIs are easy to understand so that you can ship quickly and get back to building other features. Today, hundreds of companies are already powered by WorkOS, including ones you probably know like Vercel, Webflow, and Loom. WorkOS also recently acquired Warrant, the fine-grained authorization service. Warrant's product is based on a groundbreaking authorization system called Zanzibar, which was originally designed for Google to power Google Docs and YouTube. This enables fast authorization checks at enormous scale while maintaining a flexible model that can be adapted to even the most complex use cases. If you're currently looking to build role-based access control or other enterprise features like single sign-on, SCIM, or user management, you should consider WorkOS. It's a drop-in replacement for Auth0 and supports up to one million monthly active users for free. Check it out at workos.com to learn more. That's workos.com. This episode is brought to you by Rippling, a single platform to build and scale your startup on. Rippling handles all the can't get it wrong admin work of payroll and benefits, giving you back hours every week, but it does a lot more than that. Rippling is a game changer for the entire company, with tools for HR, IT, and spend, all built from the ground up and designed to work together seamlessly. Just hired someone? Rippling makes onboarding easy, whether your new hire's sitting next to you or halfway across the world. In just a few clicks, Rippling automatically generates an offer letter, ships a laptop with the necessary apps and permissions, and even delivers a corporate card. An employee needs to update their benefits contribution? When they do it in Rippling, the change automatically syncs to payroll. CTO forgot her laptop in an Uber? Lock it remotely with Rippling. Many startups I've invested in like Sprig, Elemee, and ClassDojo use Rippling because it's a force multiplier for lean teams, helping them eliminate major headaches and operate their business more efficiently. For a limited time, Rippling is giving Lenny's listeners three months off. To redeem, visit rippling.com/lenny. That's rippling.com/lenny. Uri, thank you so much for being here, and welcome to the podcast.

   12. ULUri Levine5:06

       Thank you. Really happy to be here.

   13. LRLenny Rachitsky5:08

       I should have said welcome back to the podcast.

2. 5:10 – 8:15

   The new chapter: navigating crises

   1. LRLenny Rachitsky5:10

      This is your second time here, which is a pretty rare feat, and the reason that you're back is the first time we chatted in depth about your amazing book, I have it right here, Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution, and you decided to re-release the book recently with a new chapter about something that every single founder is going to go through. Uh, you actually have this quote I'll read that I think is a good summary of why this is so important, that "building a startup is a journey from one crisis to the next." Let me just start with this question of why'd you decide to add this chapter? Why is this so important to update your book?

   2. ULUri Levine5:43

      You know, end of the day, um, recent years have demonstrated major significant crisises, uh, throughout the world, right? From COVID to, um, to interest rate to inflation to wars to... And then I realized that wait a minute, this is something that I haven't spoke about it during my, my first, uh, book and it's time to write the, to re-write the, a new addition to that or, or a new chapter that will be added into the new release.And so this is about crisis. And, uh, and in addition, you know, my publisher told me that, "Oh, you should have a, um, a paperback. It's, uh, um, it's gonna sell more and more people are going to read it because it's easier to read." So I do have the, the new edition already. It's, will be published-

   3. LRLenny Rachitsky6:27

      There it is.

   4. ULUri Levine6:27

      ... um, uh, in about a month. Um, and, uh, um, and it does include the new chapter. And it's a paperback.

   5. LRLenny Rachitsky6:34

      I love that you're solving the jobs-to-be-done. Make it easier to read, we'll make it a paperback. I also, like as you described it, it made me realize, so the, like, the reason your book is so great is it's basically a step-by-step guide of all the things you need to know about building a successful company. And what it feels like is you just realized, "Oh, I feels, I forgot this step that every founder goes through, which is crisis."

   6. ULUri Levine6:54

      Multiple crises, right?

   7. LRLenny Rachitsky6:55

      Multiple crises. We'll get into that. Also, I love that you can actually update a book. That's like, you know, usually people are like, "Oh, books are done." You move on. I love that you have the opportunity actually to update a book. It's, uh, it's inspiring.

   8. ULUri Levine7:07

      Um, you know, I'm already thinking of the next one, but, uh ... (laughs)

   9. LRLenny Rachitsky7:11

      The next book or the next update to the book?

   10. ULUri Levine7:14

       The next, um ... not sure yet. Not sure.

   11. LRLenny Rachitsky7:17

       Mm-hmm. Yeah.

   12. NANarrator7:18

       (?) .

   13. ULUri Levine7:18

       Look, today, and, and there is a reason for me to write the book, right? The, um, I, I wrote the book in order to make a bigger impact. Uh, I'm an entrepreneur and everyone knows that, right? So I built Waze and Moovit and dozens of other startups. But I'm also a teacher, so I feel equally rewarded when I build something myself or I guide someone to build it. And the book is fulfilling my destiny as a teacher, sharing my knowhow with, uh, um, with entrepreneurs, with business people, with pretty much everyone, to help them to become more successful. So, so the realization that what I really want is people to take out of the book is, um, is something that will increase their likelihood of being successful. And, uh, um, and the next book is going to be pretty much the same, right? With the same philosophy of, uh, wait a minute, if I can make a bigger impact, I would like to make a bigger impact.

   14. LRLenny Rachitsky8:11

       Mm-hmm. It's a beautiful mission. I think we're gonna do

3. 8:15 – 29:10

   Types of crises founders face

   1. LRLenny Rachitsky8:15

      that. Let's talk about crisis. Maybe to make this very real and visceral for people to get a sense of it, like, you know, you hear the word crisis and you're like, "Oh, yeah. Sure." Can you maybe share a story of a crisis that you experienced that might be illustrative of the types of crisis that founders face across the many companies you've started and advised? What comes to mind?

   2. ULUri Levine8:34

      You know, COVID was an excellent example. Um, um, and, uh, one of my startups back then, um, called OrderChat. And actually, it was the first, um, AI chat, um, back in, uh, in 2020, right? And, uh, that was meant to help people to make reservations to restaurants. As simple as, "Oh, I would like to make a re- reservations for six people for tomorrow night at, uh, XYZ Restaurant," right? And that chat, um, was actually very, very successful in Israel. Um, and the reason is that we actually built an engine that had facing the user with a chat, but also facing the restaurant with a chat. So we did not require any integration. We could go online anywhere, um, and, and actually cover all the restaurants in no time. And that turned out to be pretty successful, and then COVID hit. And guess what? All the restaurants were shut down for hosting guests and, um, and there were no more reservations for restaurants, right? Now, we were really good at that, but, um, but we did not have enough funding to actually, uh, pivot into something completely different. Um, and the result is that we had to shut it down. And, uh, and still, you know, people still ask me, uh, "What happened to that," right? What happened to that was, um, COVID.

   3. LRLenny Rachitsky9:59

      Yeah, I feel like COVID happened to a lot of, a lot of companies. And it feels like that's kind of a impetus, uh, to this chapter, I think you even said that, that like it created so many crises across so many companies you were involved with, helped you realize a lot of companies and founders are just not prepared.

   4. ULUri Levine10:12

      Yeah. So, so, no, by and large, I would say, um, end of the day, we look at the global crisises and we say, "Oh, this is going to impact an industry," right? And, um, but as an entrepreneur, you don't care about the industry. You care about your own startup. That's it, right? And if the rest of the world is suffering from the same problem, doesn't help you, not even a single bit, right? So your problem is your problem. That's it. And, and then you need to obstruct that and basically realize, okay, wait a minute, I will define a crisis as something that you already had that is significant disappears. So let's say that you already have, you know, millions of dollars in revenues, right? And all of a sudden your biggest customer, you know, decide not to, not to continue and you lose half of your revenues, right? All of a sudden you basically say, "Wait a minute, I have to adapt," right? Something significant happened. And that something significant is that your revenues disappeared, right? Or maybe your funding disappeared, or maybe, um ... so, so in general, the first type of crisis will be around, um, cash. All of a sudden your cash is not the same as you expected. Something ha- happened. Maybe funding, maybe revenues, maybe projection, maybe you lost big customers. A, a cash crisis, right? And then you need to adapt. The second one, which is even more significant is that you lost product market fit. And that might happen, right? It might happen because of regulations, because of, uh, um, competition, because of, uh, um, you know, something dramatic happened that there is no more value into your product. And we are going back to basic, right? Product market fit is very simple. That means that you create value to your customers. This is what it is, right? And, and you never heard of a company that did not figure out product market fit. They simply died. That's it, right?And, uh, and by the way, product/market feed in general have only one metric, only one metric: retention. Look, it's really simple. If you create value, they will come back. That's it. If they are not coming back, that means that you are not creating value. And so in your startup journey, this is going to be the first phase, and it's going to require a lot of iterations and, uh, hum, and, and, you know, it's, it's a journey of failures, right? So we're gonna try something and it doesn't work. We're gonna try something else and we keep on trying until we find one thing that does work. But once you figure that out, you are ready to move to the next part of your journey. But what if it's all disappeared, right? What if all of a sudden someone changed their regulation? Someone you rely on a very unique data that you were able to build, and all of a sudden someone create a way to, um, to access this data for everyone, right? What if there is a competitor that makes you irrelevant? You know, I'm using iPhone, obviously a lot of people using iPhone and I'm using that for a long while. iPhone is, um, born in 2007, right? Before that, we used to have different phones with keypads and, uh, and, uh, ha- when iPhone was introduced, Microsoft basically say, "This will never work." Right? They were in a positions of a market leader. They own mobile, Windows mobile operating system that was running on pretty much all the phones in the world, right? So all the smartphones in the world from Nokia to Motorola to Samsung to pretty much everything. And they look at it and say, "This will never work," right? They haven't realize how impactful it is, right? So this is a competition coming out to the market with something that is completely different, and not only disrupt the market, but actually create crisis for pretty much everyone else. And, uh, and the result is that, um, you know, today Microsoft is not a player in, in the mobile operating system. And Nokia disappeared or pretty much disappeared and, uh, and Motorola disappeared, and pretty much everyone that was really significant in this industry, they were not adopted fast enough to the, to the, um, to the change. And the change was that their product market feed disappeared. Now, it's not that their product all of a sudden become irrelevant. People simply wanted something else. So, so when product market feed disappeared, you actually need to go back to square one. And the faster that you realize and you basically say, "Everything that I know so far, everything that I knew so far is irrelevant anymore." Can I restart? Can I go back to square one and restart? Because if you cannot, you will die. You're following your own solution, and you believe that this solution is going to be marketed better than what the market wants, and what the market wants is different. Right? It can be also a matter of, uh, hum, of, um, regulation change, right? One of my startups, uh, called Fivo died because of change in regulation. So Fivo was doing, uh, tax returns, right? Uh, something that everyone hates, but we have to do that. And, um, and, and when we started, we basically say, "Wait a minute," when I speak with people and ask them, "How is tax returns being done in your country?" What I heard was pretty consistent, right? It's either complex or expensive or both. That's it, right? And I said, "Wait a minute. What if I can simplify that? What if we can make it really, really simple?" And we defined simplification by filing in less than five minutes. Whatever you do, if you can do that in less than five minutes, it's simple enough. And we ended up with building a platform in Israel that people were able to file in less than three minutes. And, and that was actually pretty amazing. Now, the result was that in about, uh, hum, now i- in Israel, filing is not mandatory. So we actually enabled people that were not filing up until now to file because it's simple. And we increased the size of the market by 25% over one year.

   5. LRLenny Rachitsky16:41

      Of people filing taxes?

   6. ULUri Levine16:43

      Yep.

   7. LRLenny Rachitsky16:45

      (laughs) That's hilarious.

   8. ULUri Levine16:45

      Because it was simple, right? So you go into the platform, you realize that, wait a minute, I'm actually entitled to get a return, so let me file, right? If I'm not entitled to get a return, then I'm not going to file because it's not mandatory, right? And the result is that we increased the load of the ta- taxation system, right? Then all of a sudden the Israeli Tax Authority didn't like us anymore and they basically shut us down. So changing the regulation and we lost product market feed overnight. They basically say, "Oh, we're gonna shut you down, and that's tomorrow." And, and that's it, right? Now, we, we did not have enough, uh, hum, you know, runway to actually... because, be- because company was, um, about breakeven, right? So, so we did not have enough funding to go and try to find something else. And we tried to fight the regulator, but fighting regulator is, um, yeah, requires a long period of time and a lot of funding, and we did not have that. So regulation might be, um, a reason why you lose product market feed, right? And, uh, hum, and, uh, hum, if you... you need to go back to square one. And what we decided is that, okay, we, um, what I decided on a personal level is that I'm not going to deal with the regulation anymore. I don't want to rely on a regulator, um, to, um, to allow me or not allow me to do what I want to do. By the way, with Waze, you know, in the early days, we thought that the business model is going to be selling data to-... to authorities, right? To municipalities, to maybe, uh, public transportation systems and so forth. And we basically say, "Wait a minute. We have the best traffic information in the world." Um, I can go to a municipality and tell them how long does it take to make a left turn in each and every traffic light in the city every day of the week, every, every hour of the day, right? And therefore, they can recalibrate that traffic control system and enable better utilizations of the, of the entire road system. And it turns out that this is really, really, really slow business, business, uh, development process, right? They, they didn't really care. And that was frustrating, right? Even if you offer that for free, they still don't care. And the result is that we changed the business model and we ended up with advertisement. But the reality is that I don't like to work with regulators. They're too slow.

   9. LRLenny Rachitsky19:20

      (laughs) Okay, there's so much here, uh, I want to dig into. One is this example, this story about losing product market fit. It reminds me of, I had Drew Houston on the podcast, founder of Dropbox, and he described a moment where, uh, when Apple launched, uh, Apple Photos or iCloud, I think it was iCloud, he's like, "It's as if there's, like, this mushroom cloud exploding far in the distance that you don't hear for a long time, and we didn't necessarily see exactly how much this would've im- this will have impacted our business." And I think that's what h- happens a lot of cases. You see something happen and you're like, "No. We're gonna... This is no problem. We're gonna, we're gonna win anyway." Like BlackBerry, I think, did the same thing with iPhone.

   10. ULUri Levine20:01

       You know, we had the same thing with Waze, right? Because, um, when we started, um, Waze was free and it was the only one that was offering turn-by-turn navigation, um, free, right? And, and the reason is that we created our own maps. Um, and, um, and, and then one day in 2010, Google announced their free turn-by-turn navigation. Turns out that they were working for the last two years in building the maps of the US and they enabled that on Google Maps, right? Turn-by-turn navigation with, you know, audio guidance to turn right, turn left and so forth. And, um, and, and two companies were actually shocked, right? The entire industry, but two companies were impacted. The first one is actually TomTom. TomTom was the provider of the maps for Google to do navigation and they basically said, "No, we have our own maps. We are going to terminate the contract." And TomTom said, "Wait a minute. You're paying us $18 million a year and we have five years contract." And Google say, "Yeah. We will keep on paying you that amount of money that we are committed, but we are not going to use your project anymore." And that one was Waze, right? Because basically everyone in the industry told us that we are doomed, right? Our own investors told us that, "Look, if we can sell the company for $20 or $30 million today, do it. Because you are not going to be successful." Now obviously, we, um, turned the corner and turned out to be very successful and, um, to that level that eventually Google acquired us, right? And, and the reason is that the use case was different. Waze was focusing on the daily commuters, so we wanted people to use our pl- our application twice a day, when you go to the office and when you come back home. And Google Maps is something that you're being used, uh, not that frequent, right? You're, in general I would say if I ask 100 people how often they use, uh, Waze, they will tell me every day. If I ask them how often they use Google Maps, they will tell me when I need it. So a different use case and obviously different product that is built for the specifici- specificity of the, of the use case, right? So, so Waze is way simpler and the map looks, uh, you know, al- almost abstracted. They are not, but they looks like abstracted, um, and, uh, in way less details. And the result is that the ability to create something that is simpler and people are using every day, but, uh, when they... When Google announced turn-by-turn navigation, all the investors in the world turn out, tu- turned back, turned their back on us and that was 2010. We were looking for new funding. We actually, um, I remember that night, right? Because we were, um, just about to go and meet with, um, all partners meeting at, uh, Khosla Ventures, right? And, and we had multiple meetings beforehand and that was like kind of a, "Okay, this is the final seal." And the evening before, we had dinner with the partners that was promoting us at Khosla Ventures and he told us, "Look, I have a lot of relationship in the industry and I spoke with my friends at Google and they told me that they are at least two years away from building their own maps." And, uh, and the next morning, they simply announced that, uh, this is turn-by-turn navigation. Going to that meeting was waste of time already, um, and we had very, very hard time to raise capital because of that. But eventually we were lucky in the sense that, uh, um, once Google announced their turn-by-turn navigation, turns out that the rest of the industry were took by surprise, right? And Microsoft decided that, "Wait a minute. We don't have our own map, so let's invest in Waze." So we ended up getting investment from someone that we d- did not expect.

   11. LRLenny Rachitsky23:59

       Okay. So first of all, you've shared all these types of crisis. I think it might be helpful to do a quick taxonomy of the types of crisis founders face. You shared, uh, regulation changes, competitors coming at you, investors not wanting to invest.

   12. ULUri Levine24:14

       So, so, so two, two, two types of... abstractly two types of crisis. One is that, uh, I, I would call that a cash crisis, right? So all of a sudden your, your-... cash program or plan is being jeopardized, right? For, you know, losing a customer, um, di- disappearing investor, um, um, not meeting your expectation, dramatic price change in the market. And so forth. And the other one is, um, is lose of product market fit. So all of a sudden whatever you have is irrelevant anymore and you actually need to go back to square one. For the first type of crisis, if this is a cash crisis, then what you really need to ask yourself in any, in any type crisis is the first- first of all is, what is actually being impacted? Is that my run rate? Is that my product? Is that my revenue stream? Is that my, you know, if, if I'm still relevant? With Waterjet, we were irrelevant, right? That's it. And, um, and so the first thing that you need to do is what is really being impacted. And then the second thing is how long it's going to last. Is that a temporary thing? Is that forever? Is that the new fu- the new future? Um, and, and then you ask yourself, okay, so how much run rate do I have? And you re-plan accordingly. And I'll give you some examples and, and this is really important, um, because, um, le- let's say that you're a company that you have of five million dollars of, of revenues a year. Let's see, 400,000 per month. And your burn rate, your net burn rate is, um, is, is 200,000, right? So you, you actually at the end of the year, you know, in order to run for a year, you need about two and a half million dollars to run. If you lose half of the revenues and you only had two and a half millions in the bank, you now have six months to run. So obviously you need to readapt. Now one of the things that you might say to yourself, I am gonna remain on the same course and I'm gonna deal with the crisis in five months from now. Or you can basically say, no, I'm gonna change my expense to adjust, uh, um, to the current, um, um, to the current, uh, revenue stream that I have and still have 12 month of run rate. Whatever you are going to decide, you are going to decide, you need to decide today. Right now. And the reason is very simple, right? If you want to reduce the bur- the expenses in order to extend the run rate, if you wait two more month, then it's going to become nearly impossible to do. If you wait six more month, then obviously this is impossible to do. So the more, the longer that you wait, you actually lose options. The only ability to choose is today. This is one of the most challenging part of, of a crisis, right? You actually need to make a decision rapidly, like today. And there are a few reasons to that. One, number one is that, uh, if you don't, then you might lose options. Number two, and this is about community, communicating within the organization that decision. Look, if there is a crisis, everyone knows. Everyone knows and you don't do anything about it, this is not a good practice. Now you might want to decide, no, we're going to keep on running full steam ahead until we, um, we hit the wall. Because by that, we increase the likelihood that we will have enough velocity to bypass the wall. But you need to communicate that with your team 'cause the one that is really suffer is not just you, it's the entire team. They know that there is a crisis and they want to know that someone that holds the steering wheel is making the decisions. And if you don't, then, then guess what? You are then a sinking ship. And what's gonna happen is that the top performing people, they would leave.

   13. LRLenny Rachitsky28:46

       Let me do a quick summary of what you've shared to give people a landscape and then let's keep going down this road. So there's basically two types of crisis and these are, you know, there's like small crisis, I imagine someone's pissed off at something. These are how you describe major crisis, like existential crisis for your startup, right? Is that the way to think about it?

   14. ULUri Levine29:04

       Right, because if a, if, you know, if an A player leaves, um-

   15. LRLenny Rachitsky29:07

       Yeah.

   16. ULUri Levine29:08

       ... I hate it, but it's not a

4. 29:10 – 38:31

   Navigating cash crises

   1. ULUri Levine29:10

      crisis.

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky29:10

      Yeah. Okay, cool. So there's kind of, uh, two, uh, cash crisis, which is either a bunch of revenue disappears or investors bail or don't want to keep supporting you. Those are kind of the two major buckets. And then there's product market fit crisis. Could be a competitor launches, could be the market changes, things like that. And within the cash crisis, so say you realize we are not, we don't have as much cash as we planned or need. The three steps you just described, what is really being impacted, just be really real with what is the impact to our business with this change, how long do we think this cash crisis will last, and how long do we have before we run out of cash, essentially.

   3. ULUri Levine29:51

      Yep. And, and then you need to, um, decide and then you need to decide on, on your action, right? And your, your new plan, right? And maybe it's a new strategy if, um, if all of a sudden I would say if this is about product market fit disappeared, then this is a new strategy. And maybe it's about, um, deciding on, on extending the run rate or keep on trying or whatever. And, and this is something that is really interesting and we go back to COVID and I look at the, you know, two of my startups that, uh, that were in the travel space, right? One of them is, uh, We Ski and it's an essentially, you know, the booking.com of ski vacations. And, uh, um, and guess what? COVID started and there was no more ski trips to Europe, right? Europe was shut down completely and all the ski areas were shut down. And, and you know that I'm an avid skier, right? For me, that was a disaster on a personal level, right? Um, and, and eventually, by the way, um, what happened is that, um, um, I was back in Tel Aviv and I was unable to travel to Europe and it was only in, um, that, uh, somewhere in, in 2022, um, that I was able to travel to the US with, um, after vaccination and so forth. And in March 2000, uh, 2022, I actually, um, moved myself to Utah, to Salt Lake City, and I basically said, "You know, I'm gonna ski every day that I'm not busy." And, uh, and I skied until the end of the season. So, so what happened is that, you know, COVID started and we realized that we have major problem. And the problem was actually, um, the first, um, the, the first thing that you face is cancellations, right? Because all of a sudden out of, uh, you know, um, very few cancellations per day, you ended up with hundreds of cancellations per day because, uh, this is it, right? And, uh, um, and after you dealt with that, then the next question that we ask ourselves, "Okay, so, s- so how bad is it? How long it's going to, to last?" Now that was supposed to be the first year that we were profitable, right? So we did not have a lot of cash in the bank because we expected to become profitable this year. And we basically told ourself, "Okay, this season is over. Next season is not going to happen. We don't know, but we need to plan for something that is going to last longer than that." And then we basically say, "Okay, um, how can we, how can we deal with it now?" Because of, Whiskey had a lot of strategic investors from the travel industry, right? In the travel industry, they didn't really care about whiskey. They care about their own profits, right? If you're a hotel chain, then guess what? You have no travelers. If you're an airline, guess what? You have no flyers. So anyone in the travel industry had suffered from the same problem and the last thing on Earth that they care about is a startup that they invested at. And we realized that, "Okay, wait a minute. What? We don't have enough cash to survive for two seasons without revenues. We need to raise additional capital." Now, no one, no new investor is going to speak with us, right? Because, uh, there is no ski, so what are you talking about, right? Um, and, uh, um, and we approached the existing investor, by the way, I'm one of them, right? And, uh, and we basically say, "Okay, you know what? We need your help." And everyone told us, "Oh, we, we are busy, right? We have other problems to deal with. We are have our own problems. Now I don't see how is that going to become a good investment," and, uh, and so forth. And then we basically decided that, "Okay, wait a minute. We're gonna do a pay-to-play," right? A pay-to-play is actually sort of, uh, forcing new investors at the expense of the existing one, right? So, so for example, doing a major down round is sort of pay-to-play, right? Because if you're not participate, your, your, um, your position in the company is going to be diluted severely, right? And this is what we decided to do. And, uh, um, and that was way more complex. I described that in the book. Way more complex than that because we also had, you know, safe instruments that we need to convert before we can actually do something like that and that was really complex, but we ended up doing that. And, uh, um, and today the company is actually very successful. Um, after COVID, we, um, we used the time, uh, of COVID to actually, um, improve the product and, uh, um, and as soon as COVID was, uh, was over, then we started to grow rapidly and company is, is profitable is, is growing rapidly, is actually providing very, very good service to its customers. Um, and so to a certain extent I would say we ended up, uh, um, um, getting out of this crisis successfully. But if you are in the middle of it and you ask yourself, "So what are the chances that we will end up su- being successful?" It looks way smaller. Way smaller. Um, so what happened here is that you realize that "Okay, this is, this is not forever," right? So ski is going to come back, but we don't know how long. And, uh, um, and therefore we assume that it's going to be for two seasons until it's, uh, this coming back, until 2022. And for that we need to adapt, right? And so we resize the company to be very, very lean and small. And we raise just enough capital to survive those two years. And, uh, um, and it ended up to be, uh, working very well, right? But, uh, uh, but in that sense now if you were to ask me how much luck was in there, luck is always good.

   4. LRLenny Rachitsky35:42

      (laughs)

   5. ULUri Levine35:42

      Uh, I think that I heard that, um, you know, maybe, um, maybe the most significant real estate developers in New York is, uh, is Silverstein, right? And he built the, the World Trade Center and pretty much everything on the Hudson. And, uh, um, and he was asked, uh, um, how he become such a successful developers and he said, "You know, tell you the truth, this is 85% luck and 15% skills and know-how" and so forth. And then he was asked, "Wha- if you can change one thing, what exactly is going to be it?" And he said, "You know what? I'm gonna replace the 15% skills with additional 15% luck." So luck is good. Um, for me, luck, you know, I will define luck as opportunity meets readiness. Readiness is up to you, opportunity not always.

   6. LRLenny Rachitsky36:32

      Beautifully said.I, I also agree with luck being so core to most people's success, most companies' success. Uh, but you probably don't give... I feel like you're not giving people enough credit for the work, the hard work that's also involved in, you know, the, the skills and timing and all that stuff.

   7. ULUri Levine36:45

      On, on, on the readiness, right?

   8. LRLenny Rachitsky36:46

      That's the readiness piece. Okay. (laughs) Got it. (laughs)

   9. ULUri Levine36:49

      Part of, of being ready to, uh, take advantage of opportunity.

   10. LRLenny Rachitsky36:52

       That makes sense. Okay. There's a bunch of stuff I wanna dig into here. So, so one is, and this is something, uh, it's kind of a tangent, but I think it's a core part of your, your advice on crisis, which is that it's always the founder's fault if things don't work out. Even if there's completely out-of-your-control, even if the whole world is changing, it's still your responsibility and your fault if things don't work out.

   11. ULUri Levine37:18

       I wouldn't say fault.

   12. LRLenny Rachitsky37:20

       Okay.

   13. ULUri Levine37:20

       I would say responsibility.

   14. LRLenny Rachitsky37:21

       Responsibility.

   15. ULUri Levine37:23

       Um, you know, it, it, it might not end up beautiful. In some cases, you will die. Um, but at the end of the day, you cannot rely on someone else. The fact that this is, um, uh, you know, um, the interest rate is going up and the result is that it's fa- becoming very, very hard to raise the net capital, the fact that this is industry-wide, so what? You have only one company. You need to make sure that this company is successful. And, uh, um, and later on, you know, if you fail then you can rely to then basically say, "This is my excuse. It was, uh, not just me," right? Not just me is not going to help you to become successful. Just me is going to help you to become successful. When you assume responsibility, then you are able to, you're basically basically saying, "You know what? I control my own destiny. I'm gonna make the decisions and, uh, um, and I control my own destiny." When this happens, you increase the likelihood of being successful regardless what happened to the rest of the market and you don't really care.

5. 38:31 – 46:26

   The importance of never giving up

   1. ULUri Levine38:31

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky38:31

      You also talk along these lines of, you have this in your chapter, this section of Never Give Up. "In a crisis and throughout your journey, this is by far the most important behavior of a startup CEO." Can you just talk about that? 'Cause a lot of times, it's like maybe just stop. Maybe just give up. You shared one example where it's like, I don't wanna deal with regulation in other companies. I'm just gonna stop. Any advice there of just like, okay, maybe it does make sense just to stop and try to give the investors' money back versus, yeah, it's just part of your job not to give up?

   3. ULUri Levine38:57

      Eh, you know, I heard of cases that you basically say, um, our underlining assumptions didn't work out and, uh, and our thesis is wrong, and therefore we would like to return the investors their, their money. But, uh, entrepreneurs never give up, right? And, uh, um, and this is the, the most successful behavior of, of, uh, of startup CEO, right? Never give up. Always keep on looking for ways to make it work, right? And, uh, um, and so it is going to be a journey of failures, right? And in particular during crisis. But you still need to keep on trying to make it work, even though that it's way harder. So never give up is, um, is the most important behavior of successful CEOs of startups. The second one, by the way, is making decisions with conviction. This is true for all CEOs of all companies, not just, um, startups. Now, startups, those decisions are probably more frequent and there are a lot of them in the, uh... But during crisis, all CEOs in the world needs to make hard decisions, and you need to make them with conviction. Because if you don't make them with conviction, then what will happen is that the team is not going to follow. If the team is not going to, to follow, then you're not going to be successful. Um, but they never give up. You know, you ask entrepreneurs what will happen if, and, and they will basically tell you, "No, we keep on fighting." One of my other startups in the travel industry called OverSea, um, back then they called Fairfly, and they, um, um, you know, with the CEO told me that, um, a cat might have nine souls, right? We are a cat in that sense. We have nine souls, and the way, the reason that I know that is that we already died nine times. Or almost died nine times, right? And so, um, the reality is that you don't give up. You keep on as long as... And, and for a second, I would say, look, there are only two reasons that you would like to give up. One is that your mission is wrong, right? So, so the problem disappears. And, um, if the problem disappears, your mission is no longer relevant or non, no longer valid, and you wi- m- might want to consider to give up. The other one is that if the team is not right and you are unable to change it. So you brought, um, toxic investors into, uh, the board and they, um, um, and they start to control the company, and obviously in many cases they create more damage than help and you are unable to change that anymore, then this is a good reason to give up. Other than that, never give up. Crisis, not crisis, hardship, no money to pay, um, no, you know, anything that might happen, anything that you might want to think that might happen will happen.

   4. LRLenny Rachitsky41:57

      (instrumental music) I'm excited to chat with Christina Gilbert, the founder of OneSchema, one of our longtime podcast sponsors. Hi, Christina.

   5. NANarrator42:06

      Yes. Thank you for having me on, Lenny.

   6. LRLenny Rachitsky42:08

      What is the latest with OneSchema? I know you now work with some of my favorite companies like Ramp, Vanta, Skale, and Watershed. I heard that you just launched a new product to help product teams import CSVs from especially tricky systems like ERPs.

   7. NANarrator42:23

      Yes. So we just launched OneSchema File Feeds, which allows you to build an integration with any system in 15 minutes as long as you can export a CSV to an SFTP folder. We see our customers all the time getting stuck with hacks and workarounds, and the product teams that we work with don't have to turn down prospects because their systems are too hard to integrate with. We allow our customers to offer thousands of integrations without involving their engineering team at all.

   8. LRLenny Rachitsky42:45

      I can tell you that if my team had to build integrations like this, how nice would it be to be able to take this off my roadmap and instead use something like OneSchema. And not just to build it, but also to maintain it forever.

   9. NANarrator42:57

      Absolutely, Lenny. We've heard so many horror stories of multi-day outages from even just a handful of bad records. We are laser-focused on integration reliability to help teams end all those distractions that come up with integrations. We have a built-in validation layer that stops any bad data from entering your system, and OneSchema will notify your team immediately of any data that looks incorrect.

   10. LRLenny Rachitsky43:16

       I know that importing incorrect data can cause all kinds of pain for your customers and quickly lose their trust. Christina, thank you for joining us and if you want to learn more head on over to OneSchema.co. That's OneSchema.co. This idea of never give up, it's very similar to Dalton Caldwell was on the podcast, he's a partner at YC and his whole, uh, he has a famous talk, I guess, at YC and this was the title of his podcast episode was Just Don't Die, that's his main advice to a startup, "Just don't die."

   11. ULUri Levine43:45

       Never give up, uh, human-

   12. LRLenny Rachitsky43:46

       Never give up. (laughs)

   13. ULUri Levine43:47

       ... by the way, you might die, but you'll never give up.

   14. LRLenny Rachitsky43:51

       Then re- be reborn. And to be clear the way a startup dies is they run out of money. Is that the simplest way to think about that?

   15. ULUri Levine43:57

       That's the only way that they die.

   16. LRLenny Rachitsky43:59

       Okay. (laughs)

   17. ULUri Levine44:00

       And by the way, all the companies in the world, right, they are unable to pay their bills and therefore they die.

   18. LRLenny Rachitsky44:04

       Yeah. And many of the tactics you share is just ways to not run out of money. Oftentimes it involves down rounds, uh, creating strange cap structures just to keep it alive, losing, you know, equity percentage just to keep it going. That's part of the job basically, and that's what you have to deal with.

   19. ULUri Levine44:24

       Y- you know, in many cases, we had to engage the employees, right? Now, we don't have cash. So what we did is that we diluted all shareholders in order to give employees way more equity, right? So five times more equity than they had before and we told them, "We need you to- to trust us in the, um, in believing in the cause and believe in our ability to recover. And if we don't then, um, then everyone loses, but if we do then everyone wins big time." And so this will be a way to- to actually reengage employees if you are unable to pay them their regular pay and- and that was the case in- in most of the startups that, uh, almost ran out of cash. Um, occasionally you can do, um... You know, if you, if you will tell me that, uh, um, you're gonna run out of cash next month and therefore you need to shut down, I would like to imagine that you have at least six more month of run rate. You don't know that, but this is through leadership, right? So you- you basically tell your people, "Stay with me. You know, you believed in the cause, you believed in the, my leadership. I still believe in the cause and I still believe in you. And maybe we gonna have some hard time, maybe we gonna have some, uh, some month that they're unable to pay, but eventually we will get out of that." In many cases, most people will stay. Now leadership, you don't, you don't build leadership during crisis. You might, but in particular you build leadership through, um, you know, um, transparency, through, um, recognitions of, uh, of your team through actually putting your team as the top priority. At the end of the day, you are going to be successful if your team delivers. And, uh, in order for the team to deliver then, uh, then they need you to trust them to deliver.

6. 46:26 – 47:59

   How to keep people engaged through a crises

   1. LRLenny Rachitsky46:26

      This is really powerful advice and I want to spend a little more time here, which is keeping people on board and engaged and motivated through a crisis. So this, uh, kind of almost script you just shared is really great. Is there anything else that you found useful or any advice you could share for helping a founder keep the team on board, keep people excited, driven? There's, um, you know, these words you shared I think is- is a really good example. Is there anything else?

   2. ULUri Levine46:53

      So- so during crisis people will appreciate more than anything else transparency and if you, if you hide information from them then they would leave. They- they don't trust you anymore. Uh, but if there is a crisis and- and look, if there is a crisis then everyone knows that there is a crisis, right? It's not surprising for anyone and this is where they expect your leadership the most. This is where they expect you to be there for them and tell them that, "This is what we're gonna do and if A, B, C happens then we will be successful and if it's not then we will die and, uh, I want you to, um, believe that we can deliver A, B and C and I want you to stay here for- for that part of the journey." And, uh, and this is really, really dramatic, this is, uh, perhaps the most important part. Look, during crisis the team is the one that is going to take you out of the crisis and you need them more than, more than ever. And guess what? They need you.

7. 47:59 – 56:58

   Transparency in crisis management

   1. ULUri Levine47:59

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky47:59

      When you talk about being transparent and open about everything, like how... What's an example of just like how far you recommend people go? 'Cause, you know, you could just be like, "Here's all of our data and metrics and numbers. Here's what our investors are emailing me." Like how- how real do you recommend people get? I know it's hard to just summarize in a couple sentences, but what's a good way to illustrate that?

   3. ULUri Levine48:20

      So number one, don't sugarcoat. Right? So you basically, you don't need to share all the feedbacks from all the investors. You can tell them, "Look, I met dozens of investors in the last couple of weeks and they're all saying no." Or, you know, "We had a signed term sheet and the investor disappeared." Right? Okay, that's fine. It is what it is. Look, the fact that it's ugly, if you don't tell that it's ugly, it's still ugly-And so you, I would, I would share um the, the essence and if we have metrics then what I would like to do is believe that everyone is aware of the metrics, of the key metrics of the company. This is something that in general I would say, "Oh, the, the in the lobby of the office, we should have the key metrics displayed for everyone to understand this is what we stand for. This is how well we are executing anyhow." Right? And so when they will see the numbers drop, they know that the numbers drop, right? Um, and this is something that I believe in general I would say, "Look, key metrics, they should be shared anyhow." And so in particular during a crisis we should keep on sharing them, right? Definitely not hiding information. So if you have um a major customer leave or investor disappear, right, or um or we are unable to sign a term sheet, right, and uh-huh so this is the highlight, this is, this is the major issue. And uh the details themselves, it's less critical. Now if people ask, then answer. If someone ask, "Okay, so how many investors have you met that said no?" Then um start counting, 37, right? Be specific.

   4. LRLenny Rachitsky50:10

      That's a great answer. I want to come back to something you said that I think is so important but so hard. Which is act fast. If I was a founder, something changes in the market, it's uh easy to say, "Okay, you need cut burn, you need uh go raise money down round." It's so hard to do. To lay people off, to do all these challenging things for your company. Can you again just help people understand why it's so important to act fast? You talked about optionality goes away. Just like what actually happens there if you don't?

   5. ULUri Levine50:42

      So, so I'll give you an example, right? So let's say that you have um, um you're almost run out of cash, right? And you have um, um, you believe that you're going to raise capital in the next two month. And uh um and if it not, then you run out of cash, right? So, so one of the things that you might want to do is extend the run rate. M- one other thing that you w- might want, might want to do is actually tell the people that we will be running out of cash in two month. And uh hum and number one, I want you to um help me even if we run out of cash because there are good chances that we eventually will be able to raise capital and uh hum and recover that. And number two, um in order to um hum, you know, in, in order to to get your support and belief in the company, I am going to offer you more equity. So the more equity is of something that I will do twice, right? Once today, once you realize that this is going to be challenging. And then again if we need to ask people to reduce their salary or, or do something dramatic around that. Um and the first one is actually preventive, um uh preventive action, right? So, so you um share the know-how, you share, you share the, the, the, the you know the challenges that we are going to face and you demonstrate generosity not out of you have to, but you demonstrate that. And then you win, you essentially dramatically increase their loyalty and their commitment and when you will need them they will be there. So so this is one example. The other example is about calculating end of cash, right? And and this is really, really important, right? So so let's say that you have run rate of of X month, right? Six month, right? If you reduce burn by 50% today and you simply increase your run rate to a year. If you don't do it today and you wait three more month then you only can do that for the... So the first three month you burn the same way that you did up until now, and now when you reduce that to half so you have six more month, right? Total of nine month. If you decided today that you need 12 month and you don't act today you will never have 12 month. Now is that the on- the only way to uh to do that? No it's not the only way but it's uh one of the ways that by the way most companies will do so they will reduce uh burn rate today in order to extend the run rate. Um is that going to be more helpful? Don't know, right? Really depending on the case if you would ask me if you redu- reduce the run, reduce the burn rate, increase the run rate so now you have 12 month to raise new capital, is that going to have higher likelihood of remaining with the current plan and growth and raise capital within six month? I don't know that but this is exactly the decision that you need to make.

   6. LRLenny Rachitsky54:17

      That's a really great way of putting it, just the math uh means the leverage you have now to extend run rate, runway is so much higher the sooner you make the decision. And the key just going back to your kind of algorithm of deciding if we need to act in this way quickly is first think about what's being impacted then how long is this impact gonna last and then how long do I have before you run out of money? And those questions is your advice for deciding do we let people go now? Do we raise money now?

   7. ULUri Levine54:51

      Um, there is always, by the way, there is always alternative for, uh, let people go, right?

   8. LRLenny Rachitsky54:56

      Mm-hmm.

   9. ULUri Levine54:57

      Um, I, in general, I would say letting people go is, um, um, is probably better than reducing salary for everyone, right? But let's say that you need, um, um, you know, cost reduction of 30%, right? One of the options is let, uh, 30% of the people go. Another option is actually, um, uh, reduce salary by 30% for everyone and it's going to have the same impact, right? Um, not exactly. The same impact on, on, on the balance sheet and on the P&L, but not necessarily on the organization. Now, if the organization feels that they are committed to each other, they will prefer the second way. If this is more of individuals, then obviously they will prefer the first way. Is there a different way? What about if management gives up on their salary? That might, uh, make the same impact, right? And definitely the demonstrations of leadership, right? And by the way, increasing the commitment of the rest of the organization. So, so in that sense, I would say there are multiple ways of, of reducing the cost, but, um, in general, this is always about impacting people. Like, if you look at a startup and you look at the budget, 70% of the budget is people, maybe 75% of the budget is people, right? Everything else is, is nickels and dimes. If you're gonna tell me, "Oh, no, we're gonna, you know, we, we are going to, um, stop the supply of coffee to the office and this is how we're going to reduce cost." No, this is how you create dissatisfaction with the team and, and you red- reduce cost because some people would leave because of that. Not because of lack of coffee, but because of inability to, to determine and to make hard decisions. Um, so end of the day, if you need to reduce cost, that means people.

8. 56:58 – 59:27

   Navigating product-market-fit challenges

   1. LRLenny Rachitsky56:58

      That was really good advice and really good, uh, set of options to consider for slaying people off. So most of what we've been talking about right now has been the cash crisis route. We've spent a little time on the product market fit crisis route, but I wanna spend a little more time there. So for the cash crisis route, you have these kind of three questions and then it's like, cool, this will tell you how quickly to act and how severely to make cuts. In the product market fit route is it essentially if you've lost product market fit, it's to pivot? Is that basically the question, and then it's a question of where to pivot and what to do?

   2. ULUri Levine57:32

      So, so the first questions is am I still relevant, right? And, and probably the answer is no. And then the next question that you basically say, "Okay, um, do I want to pivot, right?" And for that, I would say if I would start today is this is what I'm gonna do. And if the answer is yes, then do it. Now, in many cases, you say, "Oh, wait a minute. I already have the organization and I already have money in the bank and this is what I'm gonna do instead." Um, I wouldn't necessarily do that. The, um, the, the way that I would look at it is different, right? So because the, the other alternative is basically say, "Wait a minute. All of my underlining assumptions are gone, right? They are wrong. The, I lost product market fit, the value proposition that I had is wrong and, uh, or is no longer valid or no longer relevant, and therefore I need to start from scratch." Do I really have the assets to become successful on the new path? And the assets could be, you know, technology that you already developed, could be the team that you already built, could be the know-how that you have in that specific market that gives you a significant advantage. And if any of those is really, really significant, then it's possible that you want to pivot. Pivot basically say, you know, major fuck-up. All of our underlining assumptions are gone. And, uh, um, and, and because everything else, if it's not, then that's part of the journey of failures, right? If you'll tell me, "Oh, we tried this product or we tried this feature and didn't work," then this is journey of failure, right? This is, this is going to be your journey.

9. 59:27 – 1:13:34

   Deciding when to pivot or shut down

   1. ULUri Levine59:27

      But once you figure out product market fit, if it disappears, then pivot is one option. Shutting down is another option. And for shutting down, there are two things that you need to ask yourself. Do I have the energy to keep on going? Right? Maybe you basically say, "I spent the last seven years trying to do that and now it's gone. And you know what? I need some time off." Um, and the other one is that do I really have the assets to become dramatically successful? Conterra is one of my, uh, startups that I started back in 2012 and, um, and back then, we called it FiEx and we were dealing with financial fees in Israel and we were actually pretty successful. And then we decided, "Okay, wait a minute, Israel is a small market. Let's move to the US." And we moved to the US and one day, the CEO came to me and say, "Look, we need to focus. I cannot do both, so we need to pivot." And we stopped the Israeli operation completely in order to focus all of our efforts on the US operation. And then we realized that the nature of the beast is different and therefore we need to re-look for product market fit and eventually we found that with, uh, um, with the regulations of the Obama Administration and, um, and that was our product back in 2016 or '17.And then the administration have changed and now it's going to change again. Um, and they changed the regulation. And overnight we figure out that... And, and we were actually on a, being a successful path and, um, and we had to reinvent ourselves. Now what we basically said is, "Look, we have, um... We have the energy to keep on going. We have something, a thesis that we, that we believe might be relevant for us. We have the technology that can serve the thesis, and we have enough cash to try it out." And we went back to the board and we offered them two options. "Number one, we give you your money back. And number two, with this is what we're gonna try." And the, the, the interesting part is that investors don't want their money back. They did not invest in order to have their money back. They invest in order to make a significant impact and obviously they don't want to go back to their investors and tell them, "Guess what?" And so, uh, we had all the support to keep trying some- something else and since 2018, we are actually being pretty successful on this path. And, uh, and all of a sudden, um, you know, company's 12 years old, um, and, uh, um, and we pivoted twice. And now we are, um, you know, end of the day helping Americans to retire richer. Um, helping financial advisors to, um, uh, to support you on your 401 (k) plans, on retirement saving plans. And the result is pretty significant. So this company is on a path of being successful and, uh, um, but, uh, um, we almost died. Twice. And, uh, um, and, and look, all the CEOs in the world, if you would ask them, "Have you nearly died already?" And they will tell you yes. And then the next question will be, "How many times?" And they will tell you multiple times. Um, and if they are not, that means that they are simply too early on their journey.

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky1:03:05

      That's such an important point and it came up. I just had Tobi from Shopify on the podcast and he said exactly the same thing. That just like the number of times Shopify almost died, people have no idea.

   3. ULUri Levine1:03:14

      Yeah.

   4. LRLenny Rachitsky1:03:14

      Um, it's important to know, that's very common.

   5. ULUri Levine1:03:16

      It's, um, yeah, and, and, um, I'm a good friend with, uh, Harley Finkelstein, the president of Shopify.

   6. LRLenny Rachitsky1:03:23

      Uh-huh.

   7. ULUri Levine1:03:23

      And he told, you know, we exchanged horror stories about nearly dying, right?

   8. LRLenny Rachitsky1:03:28

      Yeah. (laughs)

   9. ULUri Levine1:03:28

      And we're still here. (laughs)

   10. LRLenny Rachitsky1:03:30

       Just never give up. To double down on this pivot point real quick. So the things you should list, uh, look at to help you decide if a pivot is a good idea. You shared you have some tech that might be helpful in this new direction. You have a team that's really well-suited to this new idea or you have some knowledge. Is there anything else? Just like what's that list of things you should look at to see, to come up with ideas/decide this is a good idea for us to pursue?

   11. ULUri Levine1:03:57

       So, so, you know, going back to basic, right? Um, but now you, you already running, so you probably have already validated the problem or the value proposition, right? So, so you... When, when, when you're... About, about pivoting, right? So when you start, you think that, "Okay, I have this brilliant idea." And what I really encourage people is first of all, go and validate the problem, right? Speak with people, understand their perception of the problem. And only then start to think about the solution. Now, this is still not the case in mo- in most, um, most startups, but, um, and this is fall in love with the problem, not the solution. And, and for, for a few reasons, right? And maybe number one reason is, uh, look, entrepreneurship journey is about creating value. Simplest way to create value is solve a problem. That's it. Simplest way. And I like simple. Um, but then in addition, when you focus on the problem, then the problem is going to serve as the North Star of your journey. And when you have a North Star, you're gonna make less deviation from the course and increase the likelihood of being successful. But by and large, your story is going to be way more compelling. If we will be here in 2017 and I will tell you that I'm gonna build an AI crowdsource space navigation system, you're gonna say, "Oh yeah, very interesting." But you don't care. If I will tell you that I'm gonna help you to avoid traffic jams, then you do care. When your customer care, they want you to be successful, and when they want you to be successful, they are going to help you to become successful. And so this is going back into pivoting the same way, right? First of all, validate what's your value proposition? What's the problem you're going to solve? Now in most cases, you already validated that because you, you know, in the market for some years and you had dialogues with customers and you already realized that and y- maybe you already told yourself, "You know what? In my next startup, this is what I'm gonna do." And so in, it's possible that you already validated and if you haven't, then this is exactly the time to revalidate the value proposition. So this is the first thing that you need to do. And then the second thing that you want to do is ask yourself, "Do I really have a significant advantage here? Do I really have the team, the technology, the know-how to make a leapfrog here and, and really lead the market?" And then the other part of it is, "Okay, do I have the energy and the passion to go and do it all over again?" Right? Because this is going back to square one by trying to figure out product market fit and then figuring out business model and then figuring out growth and so forth. So the entire, the entire journey from scratch. And if, if you answer yes to all of those, so you have the, a very significant value proposition and you think that you have something that is going to accelerate you dramatically because of the know-how, the technology, the team. Then the next thing that you're gonna do is validate it with the team.... and your underlining assumptions, the team is going to continue, maybe, maybe not. This is exactly the time that you would like to validate that. And the way that you're gonna validate that is you basically say them, "Guess what? We are fucked." Right? Our, our underlining assumptions are no longer valid and this is our new opportunity and, uh, we can go this path or we can die and, um, and let's see what people if they believe in the new path then this is a good idea. In many cases, by the way, it's possible that the new path will come from them. They are the one that are closer to the customers, they are the one that are closer to the technology, they are the one that are probably know better than you, um, if this new path is actually valid or not. And if this is the case, then you go and do it. The last, the last one that you want to... Look, even if you don't have the money for it, let's say that you don't have plenty of cash in the bank, go back to the investors and go back to raise capital because now you actually have a very significant advantage, right? You already have a technology, you already have a team, you already have the know-how, you're already second time entrepreneur because pivot is like restarting from scratch or, or you are a- already multiple times entrepreneur. So you are way more attractive today than, than when you were few years back. And so go back to existing investors and new investors and raise more capital for, for this new journey.

   12. LRLenny Rachitsky1:08:39

       I like this algorithm. I was writing it down as you're talking. So basically, when you're deciding to pivot, loo- looking for opportunities to pivot, step one is find a problem, validate there's a problem that exists. Step two is s- figure out if you have the tech team or know-how that gives you an advantage to win at solving this problem. Then ask yourself, do you have the passion and energy to be spending your life and the many number of years attacking this problem? A- and then make, validate your team wants to also go after this problem. And then check with your investors and try to get m- money to fund you going after this problem.

   13. ULUri Levine1:09:16

       Yep.

   14. LRLenny Rachitsky1:09:17

       Awesome.

   15. ULUri Levine1:09:17

       And, and I like this order right now. Some people will tell you, "Oh, my order is different." And, and I'm not saying if this is the right thing or the wrong thing, but I think that, um, one of the reason that I say this is the order is look, when you validate the problem and the value proposition, even if you don't have the passion, if it's being validated, your passion will be built up because then you feel... You know, you speak with, um, with, with, you know, w- with potential customers and you tell them, um, "This is what, uh, this is what I'm thinking of doing and this is, um, how it's going to help you." They will say, "Yes, I need that. Can you do it tomorrow?" Right? Then all of a sudden, you get excited about it and, uh, usually when I tell, when I speak about consumers then I, I tell people, "Look, when you go and speak about the problem, if the answer that you is going, that you are going to get is, 'Oh, I know someone that had this problem,' don't follow this path." If they will tell you, "No, no, no, no, no. This is not the problem. The problem is..." And they will give you their version of the problem, this is where you want to follow that. To a certain point, if you speak with enough people, you would have the sense that you are being sent on a mission and this is where your passion is going to go through the roof, right? And so don't start with the passion. Let the passion be built.

   16. LRLenny Rachitsky1:10:45

       I totally feel that. I have friends who started this company Zip, which is a procurement, a really good procurement platform, and I don't know if they're... Growing up wanting to be building a business that helps procurement, uh, experiences be better but in their... And they pivoted six times before they pick this idea. Uh, but they've through that, I think, found how big of a deal this was and how much happier people can be in their day-to-day with a better product and got excited about it. Now that's what they're building.

   17. ULUri Levine1:11:14

       The best thing happen when you try to validate a problem is that you speak with someone and they will, they will tell you in a very strong emotional word, "I hate that." Right? Or something like that. Yeah, this is exactly what you're looking for. You're looking for something, something that people will engage emotionally and with strong emotions.

   18. LRLenny Rachitsky1:11:34

       Someone once described it as you want to look for their pupils to dilate when you tell them, when you talk about this problem. (laughs)

   19. ULUri Levine1:11:39

       Yep.

   20. LRLenny Rachitsky1:11:40

       There's a, there's a quote I wrote down as you were talking earlier that I think is really great. It's kind of a framework for... The way you used it is to help you pick which p- direction to go, but I think it's a useful framework in general for companies and founders is ask yourself, "If I were to start today, what would I have done and what would I do if I were to start this company again today?" I think it's, uh, that's such a powerful thing to always think about even when everything's going great.

   21. ULUri Levine1:12:03

       I agree. It's, you know, today is the first day of the rest of your life and, and this is pretty much everything in your life, right? So, so, so ask yourself, "Knowing what I know today, would I do something different?" Now, if the answer is yes, then do something different today. Don't wait until next life, right? Or next company or next relationship or next something. If you basically know today that you should be doing something different, then change.

   22. LRLenny Rachitsky1:12:33

       I think that's extra important because somebody will do that probably and compete with you and put you out of business and it's better that you do that first.

   23. ULUri Levine1:12:42

       But this is f- true for everything in your life, right? Look, if you, if you are working in a place and you are not happy and you suffer there then, then I would say, um... You know, the guide, the guidance that I give to my children is very simple. If you're not happy at your working place then ask yourself, "Is there something that I can do to change that?" And then try to change that for the next three months. If you're unable to change that, then leave.You don't de- deserve to be unhappy. And you need to control your own destiny, right? For me, quitting your job, do you know what it means? You fire your own job boss. That what it means. You fire your boss by quitting. That's it.

10. 1:13:34 – 1:17:06

    Real-life startup survival stories

    1. ULUri Levine1:13:34

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky1:13:34

       That's empowering. I like that. Okay, uh, just okay, two more questions. One is I wanna close the loop on the Waze story. So you talked about how Google launched a competitor, basically free turn-by-turn directions. That was the business you were building and you essentially had to change direction. What did you actually do? How'd you decide and realize this?

    3. ULUri Levine1:13:56

       So we didn't change. We, we, back in 2010, we were simply not good enough. We were still in the product market feed iterations and iterations and iterations and we were not good enough and we kept on building and we kept on iterating and iterating and iterating. Um, but we almost ran out of cash, right? And then we had, um, you know, this, um, um, lucky day that Microsoft decided to invest and so-

    4. LRLenny Rachitsky1:14:23

       Mm-hmm.

    5. ULUri Levine1:14:23

       ... did Qualcomm and, uh, and you know, the funny part is that I had this dialogue with Qualcomm Ventures and they told me, um, that they are not sure why is that important for them. And I read someplace that they did not invest at Twitter at $55 million, and this is exactly what I told them. "May I remind you that you did not invest in Twitter at $55 million valuation? This is where Waze is today." And, um, you know, obviously different story, but that was, um, the, the fear of missing out, the FOMO was ...

    6. LRLenny Rachitsky1:14:57

       Yeah, yeah. I was gonna say, the FOMO.

    7. ULUri Levine1:15:00

       But the result was that, um, uh, we had enough cash to keep on trying, um, and keep on iterating and iterating and iterating and eventually we ended up to be, uh, uh, very successful. So that was not about, uh, um, uh, pivoting or changing directions or doing anything dramatic. We basically say, "Okay, um, we will need to reduce costs dramatically." We decided that we are not going to... By the way what we did is we reduced the salary of the management only. And, uh, uh, and to a certain extent I would say, uh, people didn't even know. Um, we decided in a management meeting that this is what we gonna to do and if we, if, uh, push come to shovel then we will do the next step and the, uh, and the next step and the next step. And, uh, um, but we were eventually able to raise capital. So, so in that sense, uh, um, the, the nearly die was a matter of, uh, um, of state of mind but, uh, um, but we did not run out of cash. We, we raised capital just before that.

    8. LRLenny Rachitsky1:16:01

       The story is actually really illustrative of a point I was thinking as you were talking which is, that product market fit crisis often also leads to a cash crisis from investors not wanting to invest.

    9. ULUri Levine1:16:12

       In many cases, yes. In many cases.

    10. LRLenny Rachitsky1:16:14

        You get a double whammy.

    11. ULUri Levine1:16:16

        But, but, uh, um, but to a certain extent I would say no, product market fit basically means that you go back to square one.

    12. LRLenny Rachitsky1:16:23

        Mm-hmm yeah.

    13. ULUri Levine1:16:23

        So you... The other alternative that you have, a- and by the way it's also valid, is if you are unable to convince your existing investors to re- to reinvest in the company in order to build the new part of the journey, the new, uh, the new journey, then you know what? Shut down the company and restart a new company that is doing exactly that. Uh, and that's a bigger threat for investors, right, because they are not part of the new journey. Now they might want to say, "Oh, we, you know, the company owns the, the IP." The know-how is the people, owned by the, the people, not the company.

11. 1:17:06 – 1:21:21

    Avoiding and preparing for crises

    1. ULUri Levine1:17:06

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky1:17:06

       How do you avoid the crisis? You know, a lot of this advice is here is you have a crisis, here's how to deal with it. Uh, any advice for how to avoid falling into a crisis as a founder?

    3. ULUri Levine1:17:17

       Number one answer is no. Don't worry, you will face crisis. Um, and if you worry, you're still going to face crisis. Um, number two is that, look, it's way easier to, to deal with a crisis if you have plenty of cash in the bank. So if you can raise capital and maintain higher level of cash in the bank, it will help you to go through the next crisis. But it's not going to avoid it. Um, so, so always be funded and it's a good advice. But in general, look, you do not prepare for the next crisis because you don't know what kind of crisis is going to be next, and, uh, um, and, uh, uh, you can't assume that there will be the next crisis, right? Trust me, there will be the next crisis. And, uh, um, and then the most important part is that you analyze that fast and then you act fast. Um, but you cannot prepare for it, because you don't know where it's going to come from. Um, and, and this is really, really important. The best preparation is that if you have plenty of cash. In general, I would say if you have plenty of cash, then this is going to help you for many things.

    4. LRLenny Rachitsky1:18:36

       When you say plenty of cash, do you have any advice or just kind of common advice of have 18 months of runway? Is there anything there you'd recommend, uh, for founders?

    5. ULUri Levine1:18:44

       And then... And this is really depending on, um, on the CEOs right, and their, um, risk attitudes. Some of my CEOs prefer to have two to three years of runway and basically say, "This is my comfort zone. I know that I can restart if I need to. I know that I can, um, suffer major crises. I know that I, um, um, can go into new dir- direction if I want to. I know that I can expand and try something completely different if I want to." And this is not necessarily as a result of a crisis, right? So maybe you basically say, "Here is an opportunity and I have the cash to do that."The gen- my general rule will be around 18 month. Are you okay with 12 month? Yeah, if you, if you risk-taker, bigger risk-taker, then you can survive with 12 month. But the challenge is that, look, if you have shorter period of time, then you don't have enough time to execute. You need to focus on fundraising all the time. And, um, and, and you want to fo- to focus on creating value and not just, um, bringing cash into the company.

    6. LRLenny Rachitsky1:19:53

       Yeah. Obviously, the downside of raising more runway is you're giving away more of your company. But it's always this trade-off, how much to sell, how much money to get. Being a founder, what a, what a, what a tough r- gig. And I'm gonna come back to this quote you had, th- that I shared at the beginning of the podcast, which is, "Building a startup is a journey from one crisis to the next."

    7. ULUri Levine1:20:13

       Yeah. It's, you know, it goes back into how, um, you know, the other three dimensions of, of a startup, right? It's a rollercoaster journey with ups and downs and ups and downs, and it's a journey of failures, because we are trying to build something new that no one did before, so we, we tried multiple things. Uh, for that, Albert Einstein used to say that, "If you haven't failed, that because you haven't tried new things before." And it's a long journey. It's a very long journey. In particular, the longest part is until you figure out product market fit. And now I add the fourth dimension of that, that this is a crisis from one ... This is a journey from one crisis to the next one.

    8. LRLenny Rachitsky1:20:50

       Yeah. And you've done, how many companies have you started, 10, last time I saw?

    9. ULUri Levine1:20:54

       Um, yeah, about, uh, a little bit more than that, yeah, yeah.

    10. LRLenny Rachitsky1:20:57

        A little bit more than that, okay. (laughs)

    11. ULUri Levine1:20:59

        It's, um, you know, not all of them are going to be successful, but most of them are.

    12. LRLenny Rachitsky1:21:07

        Mm-hmm. In some form. And you just keep doing it. You're a glutton for crisis, is what I'm hearing here.

    13. ULUri Levine1:21:13

        Y- you know, I, I, I'm not there for the crisis. I'm there for the value creation.

12. 1:21:21 – 1:23:44

    Final thoughts and book promotion

    1. LRLenny Rachitsky1:21:21

       Yeah. Uri, is there anything else that you wanted to share that you think might be helpful to get into before we wrap up?

    2. ULUri Levine1:21:30

       Um, I really like this podcast. I really like-

    3. LRLenny Rachitsky1:21:34

       Okay. Me too.

    4. ULUri Levine1:21:35

       ... um, and, uh, and hopefully, you know, i- in my mind, this is my, my mindset of a teacher, my, my destiny is about value creation. And if this podcast or this book, this one, can help people to become more successful, then I fulfill my destiny.

    5. LRLenny Rachitsky1:21:58

       Uri, I'm so delighted to be helping you fulfill your destiny. Two final questions. Where can folks find the book, when is it for sale, and then just how can listeners be useful to you?

    6. ULUri Levine1:22:08

       Uh, the book is going to be published in about a month from now. And it is already available for pre-orders on Amazon, but, uh, later on, it will be on bookstores, uh, throughout, uh, US and Canada and so forth.

    7. LRLenny Rachitsky1:22:20

       What's the date it'll be published? 'Cause we're recording this bef- uh, maybe it's coming out around the time we publish this, so what's the date?

    8. ULUri Levine1:22:26

       Um, I think it's February 15th.

    9. LRLenny Rachitsky1:22:29

       Okay, great. I think this is coming out right around there. So, perfect timing.

    10. ULUri Levine1:22:32

        Um, so, perfect timing. And, um, he can follow me on LinkedIn or he can go to my website, urilevin.com. Um, and, um, and I want you to read the book, right? End of the day, you know, you asked me at the beginning, wh- what do I want to accomplish? Do I want people to, um, uh, buy the book or read the book? And, and I told you, "Look, everything that I'm trying to do in my life is, um, is about doing good and doing well." So, um, buying the book is the doing well part of it, and reading the book is the doing good part of it. And I want you to read the book.

    11. LRLenny Rachitsky1:23:11

        That's so good. Uri, thank you so much for being here.

    12. ULUri Levine1:23:15

        Thank you. Appreciate it.

    13. LRLenny Rachitsky1:23:17

        Bye, everyone. (instrumental music) Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review, as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at lennyspodcast.com. See you in the next episode.

Episode duration: 1:23:45