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Lenny's PodcastM&A, competition, pricing, and investing | Julia Schottenstein (dbt Labs)
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Episode Details
EPISODE INFO
- Released
- July 13, 2023
- Duration
- 1h 0m
- Channel
- Lenny's Podcast
- Watch on YouTube
- ▶ Open ↗
EPISODE DESCRIPTION
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.
SPEAKERS
Julia Schottenstein
guestLenny Rachitsky
host
EPISODE SUMMARY
In this episode of Lenny's Podcast, featuring Julia Schottenstein and Lenny Rachitsky, M&A, competition, pricing, and investing | Julia Schottenstein (dbt Labs) explores Julia Schottenstein on M&A, competition, pricing, and product bets Julia Schottenstein, product leader at dbt Labs and former VC, shares how her investing background shapes her approach to product, company selection, and strategic decisions like M&A and pricing.
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