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Silicon Valley GirlHis family moved from India, he built a $10B company in the US - Nikil Viswanathan (Alchemy)
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WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Alchemy Founder Nikil Viswanathan on Persistence, Pivots and Product-Market Fit
- Viswanathan credits his mother's focus on building his confidence, plus growing up in small-town Lubbock, Texas, for the self-belief that let him turn down a Facebook offer and go straight into startups.
- He argues startups are less risky than they seem, since the worst case in the US is getting a job, and says not trying and missing the 'what if' is the bigger risk.
- He and co-founder Joe went through about 16 pivots over roughly a decade, including the Down to Lunch app, before Alchemy emerged in 2017 as infrastructure they needed themselves.
- Alchemy provides developer infrastructure for Web3, which he compares to AWS for the internet, and he says its usage-based revenue and user base have grown despite crypto prices falling about 84%.
- His advice to founders centers on product-market fit, becoming a domain expert, having fun and iterating quickly, while admitting he would now spend more time on sleep and relationships.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasConfidence and persistence are the two most important traits
Viswanathan says his mother deliberately built his confidence by making sure he was good at everything he did, and that confidence plus persistence lets you do anything you want.
Startups are less risky than staying safe
He argues that in the US and Silicon Valley the worst case is getting a job, and that for him not trying and missing the opportunity is the riskier outcome.
Don't cling to an idea
He says most founders, himself included, hold onto ideas too long. He suggests that if users aren't retaining after about two weeks of feedback, you should change or scrap the product, and that iteration speed is the key early metric.
Solve a problem you actually have
Solving your own problem confirms the problem exists for at least one person. Down to Lunch and Alchemy both grew out of the founders' own needs, and he says people often solve problems others don't have.
Great companies often start in small markets
He says most great companies picked a tiny market, dominated it, and then watched it grow fast. Alchemy's own 2017 market sizing estimated only about $5-10 million.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesThe two most important things in life are confidence and persistence, and if you have both of those two things, you can do anything you want.
— Nikil Viswanathan
Most things you build in the beginning will not be good, and people won't want them. And you have to be okay, like, throwing it away.
— Nikil Viswanathan
We will know crypto will be successful when no one even knows that it's crypto.
— Nikil Viswanathan
if you live in the United States, um, your worst case is you go get a job. That's most people around the world's dream job
— Nikil Viswanathan
I think the way I measure impact is on two axes. Your X axis is how many people's lives do you touch. Your Y axis, like how deeply do you improve their life every day?
— Nikil Viswanathan
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SPEAKERS
Nikil Viswanathan
guestCo-founder of Alchemy, a developer platform company in the crypto/web3 infrastructure space.
Marina Mogilko
hostHost of the YouTube channel Silicon Valley Girl with Marina Mogilko, interviewing startup founders and tech leaders.
High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.
