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Silicon Valley Girl

His family moved from India, he built a $10B company in the US - Nikil Viswanathan (Alchemy)

In this video, we dive into the world of startups with Nikil Viswanathan. He is an Indian-American billionaire and entrepreneur. Nikil is the co-founder and CEO of Alchemy, the blockchain company backed by Stanford University.

Nikil ViswanathanguestMarina Mogilkohost

Oct 1, 202451mWatch on YouTube

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Chapter summaries

Meet Nikil: Founder Intro and Age in Silicon Valley
Marina introduces Nikil Viswanathan and his background: the Alchemy valuation, his sister's company, Stanford and several earlier startups. They briefly joke about being 36 and the growing age of founders at accelerators.
- •Marina lists his achievements, including Forbes 30 Under 30 and a number one social app
- •Nikil is 36 and jokes that it is about 100 in Silicon Valley years
- •Marina notes older founders at the 500 Startups office
- •Marina wants to learn how to build a billion-dollar company
Raising a Confident, Persistent Child
Asked how his parents raised him, Nikil describes growing up in Lubbock, Texas, and his mother's emphasis on confidence. He says confidence and persistence are the two most important things in life, and that a small town let him be the best at everything.
- •His mom read psychology books and built his confidence through math, sports and more
- •Confidence and persistence let you do anything you want
- •Growing up in a small town meant he could excel at everything
- •Both parents came from India in their early 20s
Prioritizing Friends at Stanford
Nikil explains that school was not his top priority at Stanford and that he prioritized time with friends. He says his built-up confidence meant he knew he could excel if he chose to.
- •He says he has a 4.0 in fun
- •He did undergrad and grad at Stanford and did well
- •He has no regrets about prioritizing friends
- •His confidence from 18 years of success carried over
Visits to India and His Mother's Americanized Upbringing
After a furniture sponsor read, Marina asks about trips to India. Nikil says he went almost every year but would never move there, and describes his mother as very Americanized.
- •He visited India about 15 or 16 times
- •He would definitely not move to India
- •His mother started a software company
- •She grew up Americanized, played in a rock band and knew she wanted to come to the US
Turning Down Mark Zuckerberg's Offer
Nikil explains why he skipped job applications after graduating despite being asked to run a team at Facebook. He recounts his 2011 Messenger internship and reasons about opportunity cost, citing Bill Gates as inspiration.
- •As a kid he wanted to build software that helps everyone on the planet
- •He interned as a PM on Messenger in 2011 and sat near Mark
- •Mark asked him to come back and run a team
- •No amount of money was worth giving up the opportunity cost
- •He says that trying was worth more to him than money
Why Startups Aren't Risky and Funding Stanford
Responding to Marina's question about doubts, Nikil says he was more confident early on and that startups are less risky than people think, since his worst case was a good job. They then discuss his TA-funded tuition at Stanford, where he met his co-founder Joe.
- •If he'd known how hard it was he might not have started
- •Early life is the best time to start a startup
- •His worst case was running a team at Facebook, so not trying is the riskier path
- •Stanford TA positions covered his tuition
- •He met co-founder Joe through that graduate school period
Sixteen Pivots and a Mission to Build for the Planet
Nikil says Alchemy was their 16th pivot in nearly 10 years, and he never seriously considered giving up. He describes living with Joe, going years on low salaries, and treating the work as his hobby.
- •Alchemy was the 16th pivot after almost 10 years together
- •He wants to build something everyone on the planet uses, or die trying
- •He and Joe lived and worked in the same apartment for five years without a fight
- •They took real salaries only years later, and they would do the same work even with money
Measuring Impact and Building Down to Lunch
Nikil explains his two-axis view of impact and how loneliness after college motivated social apps. After many failed apps, he and Joe built a button that texts friends to ask about lunch, which blew up.
- •Impact is how many people you touch times how deeply you improve their lives
- •Software and the internet let one product reach everyone on the planet
- •Loneliness after college inspired apps that feel like living with friends
- •Down to Lunch grew from texting friends for lunch and spread beyond them
Side Projects, Simple Ideas and Solving Your Own Problem
Nikil describes building random projects like ratemyfridge.com just for fun, and says great consumer apps often start as simple side projects. He argues that brainstorming a grand company idea tends to go wrong.
- •They built a smart home system, a fridge site and tried a food delivery idea
- •They aimed to make something people use by solving their own problem
- •He cites Slack, Snapchat and Facebook as products that started as simple projects
- •Ideas built around ego are usually too complex and solve no real pain point
When to Give Up on an Idea: Product-Market Fit and the Two-Week Rule
Asked about his criteria for abandoning ideas, Nikil says founders hang on too long. He stresses product-market fit, iteration speed, and a two-week limit before changing or scrapping a product without traction.
- •Product-market fit is the only thing that matters early on
- •Be excited about the goal but flexible on the method
- •Iteration speed is the number one early metric
- •Don't go more than two weeks without feedback and a new version
- •Solving your own problem guarantees it exists for at least one person
How Alchemy Began: From Consumer Social to Crypto Infrastructure
Nikil recounts how crypto summer in 2017 and neighbors building a Bitcoin payments company led them to explore crypto. Finding it hard to build, they decided to make it easy, pivoting to developer infrastructure, and he discusses the risk of a tiny early market.
- •They tried crypto during a summer break from their college app
- •They first brainstormed a hedge fund data platform in the wrong way
- •Difficulty building led to infrastructure for other developers
- •The product launched at the end of 2018 and took off about two years later
- •Their early market sizing guessed only $5 to $10 million
What Alchemy Does: The AWS of Web3
Nikil explains Alchemy as a developer platform for Web3, comparing it to Windows and Mac for computers and AWS for the internet. He gives examples including Robinhood, OpenSea and a Shell supply chain project, and notes developers grew 4X despite a crypto price drop.
- •Alchemy powers apps behind the scenes, as AWS does for Netflix
- •Examples include Robinhood, OpenSea and a Shell supply chain
- •Supply chains suit an open blockchain no single company controls
- •Alchemy's success isn't tied to one vertical
- •Developers grew 4X while crypto prices fell 84%
Crypto's Future, Invisible Technology and Growth Since 2021
Marina says her own crypto use case is just holding it, and Nikil argues that crypto is still very early, comparing it to early computers. He gives examples such as hyperinflation countries and a California blockchain license, and says users have grown about four and a half times since 2021.
- •Bitcoin is about 15 years old and still in the early innings
- •In places like Turkey and Korea, over 50% of people trade or hold crypto
- •A California DMV license on blockchain is cited as a real use case
- •Crypto will have succeeded when no one knows it's crypto
- •Usage-based revenue has been more stable, with users up about 4.5x since 2021
Raised Money Untouched and Playing the Long Game
Nikil says they never needed the money they raised, and most of it sits in the bank. He says he's willing to stay in crypto as long as it takes, shrugs off skeptical comments, and says his investors are long-term aligned.
- •Almost all raised money is in the bank, with some in crypto
- •They may still be too early for massive adoption, perhaps one to ten years out
- •He would stay as long as it takes and not be attached if something better appears
- •Skeptical comments suggest to him there's still opportunity
- •The team is about 170 and investors are long-term aligned
Networking, Team Culture and Work-Life Balance
Nikil distinguishes networking for gain from simply enjoying being around people, and credits friendships for building his early team. He explains the in-person culture and its cost, then discusses work-life balance, saying he would sleep more and invest in relationships.
- •He avoids networking but loves being around people
- •Early hires came from friends and social connections
- •Alchemy has two goals: impact everyone and have a blast
- •Staying in person limits recruiting but he thinks benefits outweigh costs
- •He would have slept more and invested in relationships
Final Advice for Founders When Nothing Is Working
Nikil gives advice to founders trying ideas with no traction: focus on product-market fit, become a domain expert, have fun, and move fast. He says finding product-market fit is the hardest part and does not get easier.
- •Focus on product-market fit and talk to customers to the exclusion of vanity metrics
- •Become a domain expert by living the life of the people you build for, as DoorDash founders delivered orders
- •Have fun, because success takes at least 7 to 10 years
- •Speed is the key weapon: the fast eat the slow
- •Product-market fit is the hardest part

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