The Peel with Turner Novak

• Roger Ehrenberg | Investing in Sports, 10x Funds, Traits of Top Founders, Current Seed Stage Market, Investing in Detroit

  Roger Ehrenberg is the Co-founder of Game Changers Ventures and IA Ventures.We talk about the current Seed stage venture environment, what he learned investing in sports teams, how COVID changed sports, what he’s investing in today, characteristics of the top founders, advice for emerging managers, and his real estate and consumer brand projects in Detroit.Thank you to Michael Kim, Jon Oberheide, Jesse Beyroutey, James Fitzgerald, Dan Feder, Sarah Smith, Marc Weisser, and Charles Hudson for help brainstorming topics for the conversation.Thank you to Hanover Park for supporting this episode. Upgrade to an AI-native fund admin at https://www.hanoverpark.com/TurnerTimestamps:3:45 Current Seed stage market7:17 Starting Game Changers to invest in sports 12:25 Investing in the Miami Marlins16:45 Investment opportunities in sports18:21 Tomorrow Golf League23:54 Investing in sports teams25:50 Business models in sports27:12 Importance of real estate development, gambling32:53 How COVID changed sports38:41 Clippers experimenting with cheap tickets & concessions41:51 Opportunities monetizing super fans46:51 Sports as an investable venture asset53:24 Great founders find big TAMs56:31 The desire to win58:09 Sending letters to break into Wall Street from Michigan1:02:38 Raising IA Ventures Fund 1 in 20091:07:58 Advice for emerging managers1:13:18 The Trade Desk’s three bridge rounds1:18:03 Lessons on recycling capital1:20:16 What it’s like working with your kids1:24:53 Brand Detroit1:29:14 Being world class at multiple disciplinesReferencedGame Changers Ventures: https://gamechangers.vcIA Ventures: https://www.iaventures.comEberg Capital: https://www.ebergcapital.comTGL Golf: https://tglgolf.comBrand Detroit: https://www.branddetroit.comFollow RogerTwitter: https://x.com/infoarbitrageLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rehrenbergFollow TurnerTwitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovakLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovakSubscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

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• Why AI Coding Will Never be 100% Autonomous, How Engineering Teams Are Actually Adopting AI, Inside the 996 Discourse, How to do Creative Marketing | Daksh Gupta, Co-founder and CEO of Greptile

  Daksh Gupta is the Co-founder and CEO of Greptile, the AI code reviewer that understands your entire code base.Greptile just closed a $25M Series A led by Eric Vishria at Benchmark, and we get into their long and winding journey to build one of the fastest growing AI companies.Thanks to Suds at SF1 for helping brainstorm topics for the conversation.Thank you to Numeral and Hanover Park for sponsoring this episode.Numeral: The end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance. Try it here: https://bit.ly/NumeralThePeelHanover Park: Modern, AI-native fund admin at https://www.hanoverpark.com/TurnerTimestamps:(3:15) Evolution of AI coding + code review(11:23) Coding will never be fully automated(18:07) Why you need a separate code reviewer(24:34) How eng teams adopting AI is changing(27:37) Why LLM costs will come down(31:54) Pricing AI products(35:27) Getting your team to adopt AI(38:17) How Daksh started the 996 discourse(42:10) Recruiting is a funnel, open roles are a product(49:19) Making an energy drink for programmers(51:19) Brainstorming marketing stunts(57:22) Don’t do hype marketing too early(59:41) Starting a band, hitting #14 on Spotify(1:06:35) Evolution of the startup meta(1:12:39) Starting Greptile in class at Georgia Tech(1:19:18) Moving to SF, getting into YC(1:23:44) Pivoting from codebase chat to code review(1:27:09) Crazy growth and mimetic desire(1:29:47) Pricing AI software(1:34:44) How to market developer tools(1:39:46) Greptile's fundraising journey(1:42:57) Why YC is worth the 7% dilution(1:46:39) Treat fundraising like datingReferencedGreptile: https://www.greptile.com/Careers at Greptile: https://www.greptile.com/careersMonetizing Innovation: https://www.amazon.com/Monetizing-Innovation-Companies-Design-Product/dp/1119240867Greptile Work Culture: https://www.greptile.com/blog/work-cultureEpisode with Adit @ Reducto: https://youtu.be/h98dLRJFHMMFollow DakshTwitter: https://x.com/dakshgupLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dakshg/Follow TurnerTwitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovakLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovakSubscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

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• Inside Reducto: YC to Series B in 18 Months, From Pivot to Fortune 10 Customers, Lessons in Founder-Led Sales | Adit Abraham, Co-founder and CEO of Reducto

  Sign-up here to get weekly episodes + transcripts in your inbox: https://www.thespl.it/Adit Abraham is the Co-founder and CEO of Reducto. Reducto’s product takes PDFs and physical documents, and extracts all the data, just like a human would if they were reading it.At the time of recording, they’ve processed over 1 billion pages, grew 6x over the past five months, and are fresh off a $75 million Series B led by a16z. And Adit told me they’ve only burned $1 million of capital so far to get here.And the craziest part, Adit told me they’ve only burned $1 million of capital so far to get here.Anyone building an AI product probably sees Reducto as essential infrastructure. Our conversation gets into how they built the best product in the space, landing a Fortune 10 customer as a two-person startup, getting to $1 million in ARR within a few months, lessons doing founder led sales to over $5 million in ARR, and what the future of PDF’s, and human / computer data looks like.Thank you to Liz Wessel at First Round, Chetan Puttagunta at Benchmark, and Adel Wu at Reducto for helping brainstorm topics for Adit.Thank you to Numeral and Hanover Park for sponsoring this episode.Numeral: The end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance. Try it here: https://bit.ly/NumeralThePeelHanover Park: Modern, AI-native fund admin at https://www.hanoverpark.com/TurnerTimestamps:(3:35) Reading unstructured human data(10:44) Growing 5x in four moths(12:38) Insurance, healthcare, legal, logistics(19:13) Where LLM’s still struggle(28:23) Starting Reducto from a blog post during YC(32:01) Landing a Fortune 10 customer with two people(35:48) Limiting the product and growth early on(40:57) Getting an MIT professor fired(43:50) How to avoid pivot hell(49:00) $108M from First Round, Benchmark, a16z(51:48) Chetan convincing them to raise a Series A(55:50) Raising a Series B in 48 hours(59:36) Redeye flight to hire the 1st AI researcher(1:05:42) Lessons hitting $5m ARR with founder-led sales(1:13:09) Staying on top of changes in AI modelsReferenced:https://reducto.aihttps://reducto.ai/careersFollow AditTwitter: https://x.com/aditabrmLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aditabrahamFollow TurnerTwitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovakLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovakSign-up here to get weekly episodes + transcripts in your inbox: https://www.thespl.it/

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• Building AI-Native Infrastructure for Developers | Erik Berhnardsson, CEO of Modal

  Erik Bernhardsson is the Co-founder and CEO of Modal, building high-performance AI infrastructure.We talk about building what is essentially a new cloud provider, created from the ground up, optimized for AI. We also talk about what actually happened with the great GPU shortage, how Modal fixes the inference problem in AI, and why he thinks AI will lead to 10x more developers.He also shares lessons on culture from joining Spotify as the 40th employee, treating hiring like a prediction problem, what most people get wrong working with early customers, why more people should start companies in their 30’s and 40’s, and reflections on fundraising in a hot market.Thank you to Tim Chen at Essence Venture Capital and Erik’s Co-founder Akshat for their help brainstorming topics for this conversation.Thank you to Meow and Hanover Park for supporting this episode.Meow: Get free bookkeeping for your startup at https://www.meow.comHanover Park: Modern, AI-native fund admin at https://www.hanoverpark.com/TurnerTimestamps:(4:26) Modal: AI-native infrastructure(9:02) Why its so hard to get GPU’s(15:00) Hitting PMF with AI generated media(20:37) Competing in IOI competitions(23:09) 40th employee at Spotify(27:17) Lessons from Spotify(31:17) Starting Better[dot]com(34:05) Treating hiring like a prediction problem(36:12) Erik’s favorite interview question(39:07) Sales + common design partner mistakes(42:02) Startups should solve hard problems(44:05) Evolution of Modal’s product over time(50:15) Rise in importance of inference in AI(52:07) AI development post-GPU scarcity(58:51) Building a brand in dev tools(1:04:31) Fundraising from Seed to Series B(1:07:42) More 30+ year old’s should start companies(1:10:00) Reducing developer tax, increasing productivity(1:20:37) Why Erik’s bullish and bearish on AI(1:26:17) Bubbles, downsides to inappropriate valuations(1:34:58) High CO2 levels make you dumb(1:37:38) Difference between US and European startupsReferencedModal: https://modal.comCareers at Modal: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/modalSuno: https://suno.comPlanet Scale: https://planetscale.comHow to hire smarter than the market: https://erikbern.com/2020/01/13/how-to-hire-smarter-than-the-market-a-toy-modelInterviewing is a noisy prediction problem: https://erikbern.com/2018/05/02/interviewing-is-a-noisy-prediction-problemCloud in 2030: https://erikbern.com/2021/11/30/storm-in-the-stratosphere-how-the-cloud-will-be-reshuffledFollow ErikTwitter: https://x.com/bernhardssonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erikbernFollow TurnerTwitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovakLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovakSubscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

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• Howie: The AI Secretary | Austin Petersmith, Co-founder and CEO

  Austin Petersmith is the Co-founder and CEO of Howie, the AI secretary.We talk about why AI assistants are so hard to build, why they decided to build Howie super narrow, and everything that went into their brand, name, and viral launch.Thank you to Adam D’Augelli, Sophia Amoruso and Alex Cohen for help brainstorming topics for the conversation.Thank you to Hanover Park for supporting this episode. Try the modern, AI-native fund admin at https://www.hanoverpark.com/TurnerTimestamps:(3:35) Howie: The AI Secretary(6:08) Why AI assistants are so hard to build(16:19) Why Howie started in email(20:49) Adding a human in the loop(30:48) AI software vs AI-powered humans(36:21) How a meme inspired Howie(39:29) Inside the making of Howie’s launch video(44:15) Howie’s viral launch video + Discussion(53:47) Designing the brand(1:01:37) Long-term opportunity and roadmap(1:07:53) Working for Jason Calacanis(1:12:00) Jason's media lessons(1:16:51) Getting Howie's first users(1:19:35) Pitch deck strategy that raised $6m(1:24:09) The mistake of optimizing for growth too soon(1:29:48) Building an AI company outside of SF(1:33:13) Being Superhuman’s 1st customer, Mercury’s 3rdReferencedTry Howie: https://howie.com/Jobs at Howie: https://app.dover.com/jobs/howieHowie Dewitt Meme: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/howie-dewittNewKid: https://newkid.services/Follow AustinTwitter: https://x.com/awwstnLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/awwstnFollow TurnerTwitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovakLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovakSubscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

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