M&A, competition, pricing, and investing | Julia Schottenstein (dbt Labs)

Julia Schottenstein is a product lead at dbt Labs, a data transformation company, and an active angel investor in data and infrastructure startups. She first got excited about dbt in 2019 when she was a VC at NEA and decided to make the leap from investor to operator by joining dbt Labs. She also co-hosts the dbt Labs Analytics Engineering Podcast, a show about data trends that impact analytics engineers’ work. In today’s episode, we discuss: • Advice for founders hoping to improve their M&A outcome • How to strategically think about competition • How to determine your paid features and have willingness-to-pay conversations • Why Julia lives by “worse is better” and “tech debt is a champagne problem” • Lessons from dbt Labs • What PMs can learn from investors — Brought to you by Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security | Superhuman—The fastest email experience ever made | AssemblyAI—Production-ready AI models to transcribe and understand speech Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/m-and-a-competition-pricing-and-investing Where to find Julia Schottenstein: • Twitter: https://twitter.com/j_schottenstein • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julia-schottenstein-25424318/ • Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4BKMMeVXk4jJnAQSqGSJvE Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Julia’s background (04:15) How Julia went from VC to working in product at dbt Labs (08:24) Four things Julia uses to evaluate a company’s potential  (11:10) How to identify whether or not you have product-market fit (12:05) Distribution strategies (13:11) M&A strategies (15:54) Lessons from the Transform acquisition (18:01) Competitive values at dbt (20:25) Keys to dbt’s success (26:35) An offsite exercise Julia used to help her team internalize upcoming changes (29:32) Determining what features are included in open source (31:56) Pricing and willingness to pay (33:34) Lessons from dbt Labs’s first pricing change (36:33) Whether or not to be public about selling your startup (40:08) How to utilize connections during acquisitions (44:57) How to communicate selling your company (46:33) M&A market forecast (47:28) Values at dbt Labs  (50:14) Lessons from working with strongly opinionated users (52:02) The importance of shipping, learning, and iterating  (54:08) How VC skills translate into product (57:03) Lightning round Referenced: • dbt Labs: https://www.getdbt.com/ • Tristan Handy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tristanhandy/ • dbt Labs acquires Transform to enhance Semantic Layer tool: https://www.techtarget.com/searchbusinessanalytics/news/365530993/DBT-Labs-acquires-Transform-to-enhance-Semantic-Layer-tool • Snowflake: https://www.snowflake.com/en/ • Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid: https://www.amazon.com/G%C3%B6del-Escher-Bach-Eternal-Golden/dp/0465026567 • Red strings training clip from Ted Lasso: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVe3Iwy10MA • Monetizing Innovation: https://www.amazon.com/Monetizing-Innovation-Companies-Design-Product/dp/1119240867 • Madhavan Ramanujam on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-art-and-science-of-pricing-madhavan#details • Pricing survey: https://www.qualtrics.com/marketplace/vanwesterndorp-pricing-sensitivity-study/ • Hunter Walk’s blog post about publicly selling your startup: https://hunterwalk.com/2023/05/13/the-acquihire-market-for-early-stage-startups-is-ice-cold-one-better-strategy-announce-youre-for-sale/ • Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World: https://www.amazon.com/Range-Generalists-Triumph-Specialized-World/dp/0735214506/ • The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life: https://www.amazon.com/Snowball-Warren-Buffett-Business-Life/dp/0553384619/r • Sam Walton: Made in America: https://www.amazon.com/Sam-Walton-Made-America/dp/0553562835 • Succession on HBO: https://www.hbo.com/succession • In Depth podcast: https://review.firstround.com/podcast • dbt community Slack: https://www.getdbt.com/community/join-the-community/ Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.