Chris Yeh: Blitzscaling Ventures

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Chris Yeh: Blitzscaling Ventures"

Podcast Information:

• Title: The Investor With Joel Palathinkal
• Host: Dr. Joel Palathinkal
• Guest: Chris Yeh
• Episode Title: Chris Yeh: Blitzscaling Ventures
• Release Date: August 13, 2025

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1. Introduction

In this episode of The Investor With Joel Palathinkal, Dr. Joel Palathinkal engages in an in-depth conversation with Chris Yeh, co-author of Blitzscaling alongside Reid Hoffman. The discussion spans Chris's career trajectory, the development of the Blitzscaling framework, insights into venture capital trends, and the influence of popular culture on entrepreneurial mindsets.

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2. Chris Yeh’s Journey and Meeting Reid Hoffman

Chris Yeh begins by outlining his background, highlighting his education and early career:

• Early Life and Education:
  "[00:54] Chris Yeh: I was born and grew up in Santa Monica, California... studied product design, engineering, and creative writing at Stanford."

• Professional Experience:
  "[04:44] Chris Yeh: I worked at D.E. Shaw on various startup projects like Juno Online Services and Farsight Financial..."

• Transition to Entrepreneurship and Investing:
  "[05:42] Chris Yeh: After Harvard Business School, I moved back to Silicon Valley as an entrepreneur and operator, gradually shifting towards investing in the mid-2000s."

• Meeting Reid Hoffman:
  "[08:00] Chris Yeh: Reid and I met when he was starting LinkedIn. I reached out to him through Stanford's proprietary network, and we've collaborated ever since, including co-authoring Blitzscaling."

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3. The Value of an MBA in Venture Capital

Joel and Chris delve into the relevance of MBA programs for aspiring venture capitalists:

• Importance of Top-Tier MBAs:
  "[09:55] Chris Yeh: Having an MBA from Harvard or Stanford significantly aids in breaking into VC, primarily due to the powerful alumni networks."

• When an MBA Might Not Be Worth It:
  "[12:00] Chris Yeh: For individuals with clear career paths and opportunities, especially those already building businesses, the opportunity cost of an MBA may outweigh the benefits."

• Contrasting Views with Peter Thiel:
  "[14:28] Chris Yeh: While Peter Thiel advocates for skipping traditional education paths to produce outliers, I prioritize personal happiness and long-term satisfaction over mere statistical success."

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4. Developing the Blitzscaling Framework and Ventures Approach

Chris elaborates on the creation of the Blitzscaling concept and its application in venture capital:

• Origin of Blitzscaling:
  "[16:23] Chris Yeh: Reid and I sought to identify what truly sets Silicon Valley apart. We concluded that winning in 'winner-takes-most' markets rapidly is key."

• Blitzscaling Ventures' Unique Strategy:
  "[21:49] Chris Yeh: We developed a scoring system to evaluate companies based on their blitzscaling potential, allowing us to focus deeply on a select few each month rather than spreading thin."

• Selective Investment Process:
  "[22:19] Chris Yeh: Unlike traditional VCs who meet numerous entrepreneurs daily, we rigorously analyze and select around five to six high-potential companies each month for in-depth evaluation."

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5. Impact of Crossover Funds on Traditional VC

The conversation shifts to how large funds like Tiger Global are reshaping the venture capital landscape:

• Blitzscaling vs. Traditional VC Models:
  "[25:02] Joel Palathinkal: With funds like Tiger Global adopting high-velocity investment strategies, how will traditional VCs adapt?"

• Chris's Insights:
  "[27:07] Chris Yeh: Crossover funds are optimizing for capital deployment into undervalued asset classes, making it harder for traditional growth-stage investors to compete. Traditional VCs may need to pivot to early-stage or high-velocity models to stay relevant."

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6. Verticalized Retail Investment Platforms

Discussion on the rise of specialized platforms enabling retail investors to focus on specific sectors:

• Emerging Platforms:
  "[30:09] Joel Palathinkal: Platforms are becoming more verticalized, allowing investments in niche areas like space tech or healthcare."

• Chris's Perspective:
  "[30:09] Chris Yeh: This trend is likely to continue, especially in later investment stages where specialized expertise can significantly impact outcomes."

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7. Traits of Successful Founders

Joel inquires about the characteristics that drive founder success, both culturally and in terms of metrics:

• Learning Ability and Humility:
  "[37:37] Chris Yeh: We value founders who are eager to learn, humble enough to acknowledge what they don't know, and willing to unlearn past lessons if necessary."

• Thoughtfulness Over Arrogance:
  "[38:51] Chris Yeh: Successful entrepreneurs often possess a thoughtful and soft-spoken demeanor, exemplified by leaders like Patrick Collison."

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8. Lasso Con and the Influence of Ted Lasso

The conversation takes a cultural turn as Chris shares his passion for the TV show Ted Lasso and its impact on his community-building efforts:

• Inception of Lasso Con:
  "[48:16] Chris Yeh: Inspired by the positive themes of Ted Lasso, I launched LassoCon in early 2020 as a virtual conference to foster community and personal growth."

• Community Engagement:
  "[50:52] Chris Yeh: The first LassoCon attracted 200 participants, with plans to double or triple in the next edition. The event features discussions with mental health professionals and cast members."

• Personal Reflections on Ted Lasso:
  "[56:39] Joel Palathinkal: Emphasizes the importance of having a good coach and addressing mental health, drawing parallels to Ted Lasso's themes."

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9. Q&A Highlights

Question from John Robinson: Offensive and Defensive Blitzscaling Strategies

• "[39:19] John Robinson: Blitzscaling can be both an offensive and defensive strategy. How does taking the market by surprise contribute to hyper-scaling?"

• Chris's Response:
  "[39:39] Chris Yeh: Being contrarian is crucial. By avoiding overcrowded markets and focusing on areas where competition is less fierce, companies can rapidly gain market share and achieve exponential growth."

Question on Applying Blitzscaling to SocialNet's Challenges

• "[41:47] John Robinson: How would applying the Blitzscaling framework have changed the outcome for SocialNet?"

• Chris's Analysis:
  "[43:32] Chris Yeh: SocialNet failed primarily due to lack of product-market fit and an unfocused approach. Blitzscaling emphasizes early feedback and market focus, which could have steered SocialNet towards better alignment with user needs."

Additional Questions:

• Competitive vs. Unfair Advantage:
  "[43:41] Chris Yeh: Unfair advantage is an extreme form of competitive advantage, where a company holds a distinct edge that competitors cannot easily replicate."

• Protecting Ideas in a Competitive Market:
  "[60:54] Chris Yeh: Advocates for patent protection as a defensive measure but emphasizes the importance of gaining market traction over overly restricting idea dissemination."

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10. Final Advice and Conclusion

As the episode wraps up, Chris shares key pieces of advice for emerging entrepreneurs and fund managers:

• Network Building:
  "[57:59] Chris Yeh: 'You can never meet enough smart and interesting people. Building a strong network is crucial for success.'"

• Patience and Persistence:
  "[58:30] Chris Yeh: 'Be patient. Daily progress may seem slow, but yearly advancements can be remarkable. Embrace the power of compounding.'"

• Articulating Competitive Advantage:
  "[37:19] Chris Yeh: First-time fund managers must clearly express their unique competitive advantages to attract investors and differentiate themselves in a crowded market."

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Notable Quotes

1. On Networking:
   "[57:59] Chris Yeh: 'You can never meet enough smart and interesting people and you don't know where things are going to go. Building a network around you is in general one of the most important ways to succeed in life.'"

2. On Blitzscaling Philosophy:
   "[16:23] Chris Yeh: 'The objective should be to find one of those markets and then prioritize speed to scale above everything else, beat the competition to scale, and become the market leader that dominates for decades.'"

3. On Founder Traits:
   "[37:37] Chris Yeh: 'The number one thing we look for is founders who are able to learn, who have the humility to know that they don't know the answers and that they're going to go and find those answers.'"

4. On Patience:
   "[58:30] Chris Yeh: 'Be patient. On a day-to-day basis, it seems like you're never making progress. But when you look at things on a yearly basis, it's insane how much progress you make.'"

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Conclusion

This episode offers a comprehensive exploration of Chris Yeh's insights into venture capital, the importance of strategic scaling, and the personal philosophies that drive successful entrepreneurs. From dissecting the value of education to embracing contrarian strategies in a saturated market, listeners gain valuable perspectives on navigating and excelling in the ever-evolving landscape of institutional investment and startup growth.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Chris Yeh]

We're amazing. Killing it all the time. All the kind, all the time types. I mean, if you think about some of the greatest entrepreneurs that are out there, somebody like a Patrick Collison, who we had the privilege of visiting our classroom when we taught at Stanford. I mean, that dude runs the most valuable privately held startup in the world. And he is a soft spoken, really thoughtful kind of guy. And I love seeing things like that.

[Joel Palathinkel]

Yeah, no, it's awful. John, you got two questions. You want to just rattle them off? Welcome to the Investor, a podcast where I, Joel Palathinkel, your host, dives deep into the minds of the world's most influential institutional investors. In each episode, we sit down with an investor to hear about their journeys and how global markets are driving capital allocation. So join us on this journey as we explore these insights.

[Chris Yeh]

People obviously love it. You can tell that. And it's, it's really impressive. And again, I'm like, I always admire people who go out and actually make things happen. I mean, all the time people are complaining. Emerging managers, oh, we don't know what to do. Oh, it's so mysterious. And you said, you know what, screw it, I'm creating a course. I'm going to get people to come in and talk. And I love that last update where one of the emerging managers might be getting an anchor LP out of it. It's incredible.

[Joel Palathinkel]

Yeah, no, it's been amazing. And you know, you do it on the premise of just kind of building community and getting people together, you know, So, I mean, if you can do it that way and you have a little bit of fun and you learn and look, I mean, I get feedback as well. So like, for me, you know, you know all about this, I come from a product background, right? So stuff that, the feedback that I get, I have to take it with a grain of salt. And then, you know, it's like what, you know, Henry Ford and Steve Jobs said, right? It's kind of like if you keep, if you just ask your customers what they tell you, you're just going to build faster horses versus, you know, building a car, right? So that's, that's kind of what we, what we got to, you know, strive for. We got to kind of use our, we got to use our judgment and then we got to take inputs. And there's so many different personalities, right? There's, there's late stage VCs, there's early stage VCs. Each people, each Persona has a different workflow and requirement, but you got to synthesize all that and make it something that everybody could use. I mean, think about LinkedIn, right? So LinkedIn, there's job seekers, there's people that are marketing, there are people that are like influencers, right? But there's only one LinkedIn, right? There's like different apps, but you know, so that, those are things that I'm really excited to talk to you about. But anyways, I'm going to, you know, probably send another blast to some of the students here. So some of these people are emerging managers, also aspiring VCs. We'll probably have some more people pop in. But guys, we've got Chris Yeh here from Blitzscaling Ventures. So he's the author, co author with Reid Hoffman on Blitzscaling. So I want to get deep into it, just learn all about you. Because normally when you and I chat, we're like with 40 other funds, right? So tell me about you. Tell me about where you grew up and how did you meet Reid Hoffman. You guys are like together all the time, like teaching courses and stuff. I think you guys are on YouTube and I saw something where you guys are doing like a Blitzscaling course. So just, let's start from the beginning. I want to just go deep and then we can talk about Ted Lasso if we want and you know, whatever else, wherever else the conversation goes.

[Chris Yeh]

Listen, Joel, whatever you like, whatever you want, we're happy to cover. If you want me to sing, I'll do it. You just got to make sure that you pick something that's with my vocal register. So the funny thing is, right before this, as a matter of fact, Reid and I were recording a fireside chat with the dean of the business school at the Tech of Monterey for a Mexican startup festival. So we're trying to make sure that we bring the gospel of Blitzscaling everywhere. So just to give you a quick recap, the short version of the life story is I was born and grew up in Santa Monica, California, went up to Stanford at a young age to go to college there. I studied product design, engineering and creative writing. And then when I graduated, I went to Cambridge, Massachusetts to work for D.E. shaw on startup Internet startup projects. And I worked there for three years. Then I went to Harvard Business School, graduated.

[Joel Palathinkel]

Was that a PE role? Like, is D.E. shaw just for knowledge for the audience here? That's a large, massive private equity and hedge fund, right?

[Chris Yeh]

Yeah. So D.E. shaw is one of the world's largest and most successful hedge funds. It also does a lot of private equity, does its own investing and the like in a Lot of different areas. So I was working at D.E. shaw, not in a PE role, but in an operating role on their various startup projects. So D.E. shaw was doing internal Internet startups. One of them was Juno Online Services, which was a free email service that went public and eventually merged with Net Zero. And I also worked on our Farsight Financial project, which was an online brokerage, which eventually was purchased by Merrill lynch. And Merrill lynch, as well as, I think, one other company I don't remember which. So I was working on startup stuff, but I did. That was my sort of first exposure to the financial world. And obviously I picked up a few things about how hedge funds worked along the way.

[Joel Palathinkel]

Okay, and then tell me what happened after that. So you're at D.E. shaw. You have a really unique role. And tell me what happened after that.

[Chris Yeh]

Well, after I left D.E. shaw, I left to go to business school because the thing about being at De Shaw was we kind of had infinite money. And I figured that that was not a situation that was always going to apply. And so I should learn a little bit more about how the rest of the world worked. And that's what going to business school was for. It was a great opportunity to learn the conventions of business and had a great couple of years at hbs. And then after hbs, I moved out back to Silicon Valley, as it were, as an entrepreneur and as an operator, and been doing that ever since. I started making the shift to being more of an investor sort of in the mid 2000s, 2010s or sort of, and then shifted full time to being an author around 2014, 2015. So Reid and I met actually back when he was starting LinkedIn. So we both went to Stanford. And I, in fact, met Peter Thiel, his friend, back when Peter was in law school at Stanford and I was a freshman. So Peter Thiel and I overlapped for exactly one year. And I remember meeting him. So not classmates. So I'm five years after Reed and Peter. And it just happened to be that since Peter stuck around for law school, he was around during my very first freshman year. But by the time I got to Stanford as a freshman, Reid was ready off at Oxford studying philosophy as a Marshall Scholar. But we had similar experiences then. We did finally run into each other when he was starting LinkedIn. So when LinkedIn first came out, I said, wow, this is exactly the right kind of service for me. I'm one of those weirdos who, before this, I had my Microsoft Outlook file and I actually record notes on the people I met because I wanted to remember the details about what they had done in their lives. And along comes LinkedIn and Facebook to take care of that for me. So, of course, I was very excited about them. And the founders of LinkedIn were all Stanford, so I went ahead and reached out to them. Stanford at the time had a proprietary online social network, and that let me reach any Stanford alum. And I said, hey, I really like what you guys are doing. I got to know Reed, had him come speak at events back when LinkedIn was not very famous. And it was actually useful for Reid to go speak at events and just had stayed in touch ever since. Co invested in a couple deals, and then we ended up working together on the book starting in 2011.

[Joel Palathinkel]

Tell me about, you know, your interactions with Peter Thiel. I guess. How was, you know, what did you guys talk about? Did you guys work on anything together? Or was he just kind of a someone that you met? And. And was he someone that. Was he working on PayPal? No, this is. This is.

[Chris Yeh]

This was prior to. This is. No, this is prior to PayPal. So Peter at the time was actually in law school. And most people know before he started payp, he actually went and did a stint as a corporate lawyer for a while. Realized very quickly it was a terrible idea. And that's when he started a hedge fund called Clarium Capital. And along the way, he met Max Levchin. And they ended up starting a company called Confinity, which eventually became PayPal. So I didn't know Peter super duper well. We'd met a couple of times. I just knew he was sort of a minor campus celebrity because he was renowned as this contrarian conservative thinker on campus. Right. In a college environment, he was the guy swimming all the way to the right, as Reid likes to put it. You know, people put them together because they're like, they're really interested how these two smart guys would get along when one of them's to the right of Attila the Hun, the other one's a bleeding heart liberal, but turns out, you know, being a genius mean that they had a lot in common. And it was even apparent to me back then that Peter was a really smart guy. But again, my relationship was just. I met him a couple of times.

[Joel Palathinkel]

Yeah. And, you know, we've got a few people here that are breaking into vc, right? We've got some people that have tech consulting, banking backgrounds, some people have backgrounds that are none of the above. But you did an mba, right? So tell me. You know, and everybody has different opinions, you know, I think you, you were at a point where, you know, it was mandatory, you know, to kind of get that pedigree to break in. And I feel it's changed. But I just want to get your, your unbiased opinion on what you think of MBAs for people that are trying to break into VC and if it helps. And that might be helpful for the audience too.

[Chris Yeh]

Absolutely. So I think that it is still the case that having an MBA helps when breaking into vc, especially if that MBA is from either Harvard Business School or the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Because it's a ridiculous thing where about 30 to 40% of the industry has a degree from one of those two business schools. It's absolutely insane. So it helps largely just because you have this incredible alumni network that you can draw. Now I will say that I often tell people, because I'm the owner of very expensive degrees from Stanford and Harvard Business School, I feel qualified and I have enough distance. I can actually say there are times when it doesn't make sense to pursue those degrees. And I've had various friends who I've given advice to over the years. Some of them are pretty well known. So my friend Ben Kaznoka, who co authored the startup of you with Reed and was our co author for the alliance and is now a very successful VC at Village Global. Back when I met Ben, when He was a 15 year old high school student and we were commenting on the same blogs and when it came time for him to decide what he was going to do after graduating high school, you know, he had all sorts of people telling him things like, oh, you have to go to college if you go to college, if you don't go to college, you'll regret it the rest of your life. And there are other people saying, why would you go to college? College is a waste of time. And what I told Ben was very simple. I said, read, sorry, assess Ben, you know, going to college is not going to significantly improve your standing in life. You already have a great set of relationships. You're going to be able to succeed regardless of whether you go to college or not. What you should do is you should go to college for a year and then drop out. Because if you don't, I predict that you'll spend the rest of your life wondering if you missed out on something. But if you go for a year and then drop out, you won't have that worry, but you'll be able to get on with your life. Now he ended up going for 18 months, three semesters, and we had dinner about a month ago and he admitted to me, you know, that last semester was a mistake. I should have listened to you and dropped out after freshman year. But. And then my friend Ramit Sethi, who's a very famous personal finance guru, he had this amazing scholarship that would pay for any school he wanted to. And he said, you know, Chris, should I go get an mba? And I said, ramit, you know that I have an mba. I value it very highly. I'm very glad I went to Harvard Business School. But, but you would be insane to go to business school. It's not the, I mean, think about it. You're, you're a finance guru. You talk about money, psychology. The cost of an MBA is not the tuition, though that is significant. It's the opportunity cost. Two years out of the prime of your career, right now you have a, you have a best selling book that's going to come out. You have a business that you're building. Why would you take two years away from that to get a degree that ultimately won't make that big a difference in your life? So there are people who, I tell you, but on the other hand, the circumstances under which you should go get an MBA are a, you should have an idea of what you want to get out of the process. Like I went in saying, I want to learn what conventional wisdom is in the business world because I don't know any of it. I've been operating in wonderland this whole time. And so I went in with a specific plan of what I wanted to do. I stuck with that plan. I achieved my goals and had a great time and a wonderful lot of fun and great relationships along the way. But in contrast, if you went to business school because you weren't sure what to do, well, it's not going to change. Change that. The other thing about business school is there's certain types of people for whom it makes more sense. So I call business school the great source of career laundry. So we have money laundering, where you take, you know, money of some kind and you, you wash it off. Well, career, A business school like HBS is career laundering. Whatever you happen to do before that captain in the U.S. army, ran a nonprofit organization, was in the Peace Corps. Guess what? At the end of it, you're a Harvard MBA and McKinsey or Goldman Sachs is going to hire you. You. And so the people who probably benefited the most out of the experience were friends of mine who are coming from very radically different things. I mean, when I said, you know, captain in the military or Peace Corps volunteer. I'm not kidding. These were the backgrounds of the people who probably got the most out of it. Whereas I had other friends who had worked at McKinsey before they went to business school. And when they were at hbs, they were just bored out of their minds because they already knew all this stuff.

[Joel Palathinkel]

Yeah, no, it's helpful. Yeah. And, I mean, Peter Thiel has a different contrarian view, too, on school as a whole. Right. Doesn't he have the Thiel fellow? So, you know, what I have to say to that is, look, I mean, you're gonna. And we've just talked about this when I was kicking off the call, like, there's gonna be a bunch of insights and feedback and different perspectives and, you know, you gotta synthesize it your own way.

[Chris Yeh]

Let me also comment on that just for a second. So Peter Thiel doesn't care what happens to you? Peter Thiel cares what happens in the big picture. In the big picture, encouraging people to not go to college produces more outlier outcomes. However, those outlier outcomes are far outnumbered by the number of people who actually would have benefited from taking a more conventional route. So he's fine with everyone going contrarian if there are a few winners. But the problem is, if you're the person who is not the lucky contrarian who actually succeeds, your life has been made significantly worse. Now, again, if you look at it from the big picture and you're able to say, you know, this is all about expected value, and if I happen to end up in a bad place, that's okay, because, you know, overall, the world did better, that's great. But I only have one life to live, and so I tend to focus on giving people advice that's going to optimize their happiness rather than some sort of objective function across the entire race of humanity.

[Joel Palathinkel]

I totally agree. I mean, I think. Look, I truly believe that. I feel like if you're happy, then you're successful. Right. Because there's people that are successful that are unhappy. So I think if you can find happiness, that's a good point. But again, you know, I'm just one of the other people that have an opinion. Okay, so let's talk a little more about Reid. So you met Reed. So tell me the story of how you met Reed. You met him in college. He was a couple years ahead of you.

[Chris Yeh]

So I did not meet Reed in college. Here's how we met. So what happened? Now, I knew of Reed, so, oddly enough, I was interested in social networking before it became hip. And as was Reid. So he had a previous company called SocialNet, that was his first startup that failed. And I was one of the few people who actually signed up for it because I was interested potentially in creating my own social network. It would have been a great idea. But you know what? It was too early. And in fact, LinkedIn and Facebook, those were the companies that finally came around at the right time.

[Joel Palathinkel]

And did SocialNet happen after PayPal?

[Chris Yeh]

No, before.

[Joel Palathinkel]

Okay. Oh, okay, got it. So Reed. So when did Reed. And so reed got into PayPal? A little later then, I guess.

[Chris Yeh]

Yeah. So here's what happened. So Reed started. Reid started Social Net. So he had worked for Fujitsu and Apple, and then. And then socialnet was his very first startup. Now, while he was doing Social Net, and towards the end of it, event, he. He actually ended up on PayPal's board. Because what Peter and Max agreed to do was to invite. Each of them agreed to invite their smartest startup friend onto the board with them because they wanted to have their smartest friends around to help them figure out how they're going to make this a business. And Peter invited Reid, and Max invited Scott Bannister, who, of course, is also an incredibly successful guy and brilliant, brilliant dude. And so that's how Reed got involved in PayPal. And then after Socialnet, after he left Socialnet, it was going nowhere. Peter was like, come on, I need your help at PayPal. Come join me here. And so that's when Reid became the, I think, executive vice president of strategy, which actually meant, you know, do whatever it. Do whatever is most important at any given time.

[Joel Palathinkel]

And, yeah, so that, you know, that was that. And then tell me about how you guys started brainstorming on the Blitzscaling concept and then the book. Right, because then at that point, you know, you were helping them and, you know, working on these other projects, and then. Right, tell me the. Tell me the origin story of the Blitzkit. Because you guys have a whole rubric and a framework, and I love how that's kind of carried on into your. Your investment thesis as well. But tell me about that and then tell me the book process. Because you, you know, you guys have blown up. I actually mentioned you to somebody, and the person actually showed the book, like, I love it. So I was like, okay.

[Chris Yeh]

No, it's. It's fantastic. And I often joke and I tell people, as an author, you know, you've succeeded when people use a term that you created, that you created for your book without. And they use it incorrectly because that means it's so important and so famous, they have to use it even if they didn't read the book. So when you got to the point where people who didn't read the book are citing it, then you really made it. So that's where we finally got to with blitzkaling. So the way it happened is back in 20, Reid and I were like, okay, we finished our previous book, the alliance, that came out in 2014. Now it's time to think about the next book. And we're playing around with a couple of different ideas. One idea was really understanding truly the role of the CEO, because we often, you know, our opinion is people haven't done a good job of writing it. Most CEOs, when they talk about it, they have their, their, their PR people are there. It's a bunch of bs. And whereas Reid knows them all personally, so we can get the real story from them. So we were thinking about doing that, but then Reid came back from a trip to the UK and said, I've got an idea. I'm like, oh, wow, I'd like to hear this. And he said he'd been on a panel where they were talking about the secret of Silicon Valley and he heard all these answers which were, oh, it's a culture that accepts failure. It's great research universities, it's venture capitalists. And he's like, those are all bullshit answers because those things are now true all over the world. So why does Silicon Valley still succeed where other places don't? What makes it special? And we said, okay, let's try to figure out what the secret of Silicon Valley is. We don't like those answers. Let's figure it out. And being, you know, intellectual ties, we said, okay, we're going to take the Plato's Republic approach. For those of you who remember Plato's Republic, Plato's Republic is about the concept of justice. And the approach that Socrates eventually takes in that dialogue is to say if we look at a well functioning society and we eliminate all the other elements of it, whatever remains must be justice. So that's kind of what we did with Blitzkilling. So let's pull aside all the things that we don't think account for this. And whatever is left is the thing that really matters. And what we ended up concluding was, of course, that we live in a world where there are more and more winner take most markets, where if you win the market, you then get to print money for decades. And that's why these companies are growing so fast and becoming so valuable. And the objective should be Find one of those markets and then prioritize speed to scale above everything else, beat the competition to scale, become the market leader that just dominates for decades. And that's where the idea of blitzkaling came about. And so the way we did it was the way we typically work on a book, which we spent a bunch of time talking about ideas. As those ideas began to emerge, what would happen is I'd be doing most of the typing, but one of the things that Reid is probably the best in the world at is he actually literally thinks in frameworks. You talked about frameworks and rubrics before. These are things that just come straight from Reed's brain. He'll just come up with a framework on the spot, and we'll refine it a little bit after that. But oftentimes it's pretty close to what he just came up with or cooked up while he was walking. While he was walking or taking a shower or something. So we had the ideas behind blitzscaling. We then converted it into a book. We knew we wanted to come up with a new word, because if you come up with a new word, then you can trademark it and make more money. And also you can do a Google search and know when people are talking about you. And we actually do not remember now which of us came up with the term blitzscaling. We cannot actually figure out the attribution. So we'll just say it must have just come to both of us at roughly the same time.

[Joel Palathinkel]

Sure. Yep. No, it's helpful. And. And tell me how you use that framework for evaluating companies. Right. Because, you know, when we've kind of collaborated together, you know, you've. And I'm sure this is probably in the book, but there is some scoring matrix to evaluate, you know, and you had some. You know, I don't remember, but I remember seeing a graph. But, you know, there's some characteristics that prove that it is blitzscaling or blitzscaling worthy. So can you. Can you unpack that for us a little bit?

[Chris Yeh]

Absolutely. And this is part of where building a venture firm goes beyond what you do in the book. So in the book, what we did is we identified the series of elements of blitzscaling, but we didn't prioritize, and we just threw out there. There was this list of these elements, and that was fine for the book, but then when it came time to do the fund, and my partner, Scott Johnson, was basically like, well, this is all fine and dandy, but we can't invest just on feel. Right. How are we going to actually instantiate this in a way that is a little more rigorous. And that's when we said, okay, well, let's start thinking about how we actually do this. And so we did things like, first of all, we just like, okay, well, what if we just assign them a 1 or a 0 or a score of 1 to 10 and added it up? And then we're like, well, actually, when we apply these scores, the scores don't look right. And we're like, okay, well, maybe we should weight it so that certain factors are more important than others. And we're like, well, that still doesn't look right. So we just kept fiddling with it, including adding an exponential factor into the formula, until we finally arrived at something that seemed to spit out scores that made sense for companies in the past. And it's basically an exercise in what we call curve fitting. And what we did after that is start applying it to companies, then tracking what happened with it to make sure that the scoring mechanism actually made sense, that it actually identified companies that did in fact, grow very rapidly, raised vastly more money, and become enormously valuable. And fortunately, it did. So that's what we do. At blitzscaling Ventures, we do something really different from almost every other VC firm. Because most VC firms, the goal is you meet with a bunch of entrepreneurs, like five a day. They come to your office, or rather they come to your Zoom account, You hear them pitch and you decide, okay, do I think this is going to work or not? And what we do instead is we just track the deals that are done by the top VCs. We look at each of them through the lens of Blitz scalability. And that means they're about five to six a month to actually qualify. And those are the companies where we then do a deeper study. And so instead of having to do five meetings a day, I have five or six companies I can really do some in depth work on each month. And then the goal, if we like, what we find, is to then reach out to the CEO and begin building a relationship. So the way we actually get our access to the deals, because these are typically companies are doing super well and everyone wants in, is through the CEOs themselves. So the CEOs are like, wow, this is so helpful. What you've taught me about my company. I want to have your help as I grow this company. And our answer is, well, you know, you don't have to pay me money and you don't have to give me any free shares. You just have to let Blitzkilling Ventures invest 1 to $2 million. And the answer then is, yeah, sure, absolutely, I can definitely get my investors to sign off on that.

[Joel Palathinkel]

And usually what you're saying too is usually that one to $2 million, that's a super, super exclusive company that's usually impossible to get into. But because you're able to connect with them in your network with the bigger funds. Right. That's kind of how you get that unique edge compared to the.

[Chris Yeh]

Although I'll tell people. So we know GPS at, we have 30 funds that we track. We know GPS, I think 28 personal. We have personal friends with GPS at 28 of them. There's the other two. We're going to get there in time within the first couple of co investments. We're pretty sure that's not going to be a problem. But we don't go to those VCs at the outset. A lot of people do this. They want to run a co invest fund. They're like, okay, I have a great relationship with Sequoia, I have a great relationship with Greylock and they give me deals. I'm like, yeah, okay, they give you the best deals. I'm pretty sure that's not the case because the best deals I know for a fact they keep for themselves. I mean, Sequoia, notoriously, WhatsApp, Sequoia is the only investor in that deal. It made them quite a pile of money. I mean they're incredible investors. Why would they take their best deals and give up slices of them? And so they're not worried about, they're.

[Joel Palathinkel]

Not worried about not filling out the round. Right. Because I mean they will just fill it themselves, swallow up the whole term sheet or just get two or three of the people that they know that, that are going to be strategic on the cap table for that company to already be oversubscribed even before you even know about it.

[Chris Yeh]

Right, exactly. And so our goal is not access it to the vc, it's access it through the CEO. And then when the CEO says, hey, I want to bake these guys into the next round, that's when we spring into action and we talk with the VC firm and everything like that. But that allows us to not have this sort of adverse selection of oh, which deals are you bringing us? It's, we go out and find the deals ourselves. And then we rely on those relationships to make sure that they say, okay, when the CEO proposes it, what do.

[Joel Palathinkel]

You think is going to happen now with all the stuff that's going on with the crossover funds? Right. So the co Twos and the Tiger Globals, how is that going to impact venture in the next few years?

[Chris Yeh]

So again this is recorded, but I'm happy to go on the record saying this. I mean, people often during the process of raising money for Blitzscaling Ventures said, well, it's ironic that you have this artisanal approach. You're investing small amounts of money into these companies. Can you blitz scale this approach? I said, yes, somebody is blitzscaling the approach and it's called Tiger Global and to a lesser extent CO2. And what they've done is they've ripped the mask off of venture capital. Because what it's revealed is at the later stages of investments there's less of that sort of hands on value add from the VCs. The money becomes more of a commodity. And so being able to offer a quick decision, a higher valuation and zero interference is a winning formula. And as long as you're able to correctly identify which companies to invest in and you're able to go to them with that offer, you can deploy a lot more capital a lot more quickly than the traditional model would allow. And so what they've determined is they're optimizing for the deployment of capital into an asset class that they think is undervalued. And I think it's brilliant. Now I think that what that means is that if you are a traditional growth stage investor, it's going to become harder and harder because you're going to have to win deals against these guys. It's not like the successful companies are any secret. Right. It's pretty obvious who's doing well and you can bet that Tiger or CO2 or somebody's going to go to them at some point in time. In the past, sometimes it was the big mutual fund companies like a T row or something like that, but Tiger goes even a little earlier than that. And so as a result they're going to have to adjust. If you're not adding value at the later stages, you may have to go back towards being more of a series A, Series B fund where you're actually working closely with the entrepreneurs. Or you may need to go and become more like tiger or CO2 and say, look, we're going to take a high velocity approach that focuses on the deployment of capital as opposed to applying the traditional Series A, Series B model to later stages.

[Joel Palathinkel]

Yeah, And I'm starting to see, you know, seed rounds be the size of a Series A. Right. So I feel like the, the round sizes are getting bigger. The question is, do you think that's going to continue. And then yeah, you know, what I've been seeing now is there's a lot of verticalized platforms for retail. So there's a, you know, I saw you know, a space company that allows you to invest in space tech with, you know, kind of a retail platform. And then there's also healthcare companies now I think we were looking at one a couple, a couple weeks ago where there's, you know, now, now, now ways for you to invest in healthcare focused or they already have Republic and Seed invest where you can invest in startups, you know, as a reggae. But yeah, you know, do you see that getting more verticalized into different sectors? Maybe there's a quantum computing Republic. Right. We can just get into quantum deals. So then how do you think that's going to play into the capital stack and just people investing more into these startups?

[Chris Yeh]

So I think that's absolutely the case. Again, it makes more sense at the later stages than the earlier stages because the later stages there's not as much value add to having traditional investors. And one of the things I've always said is an issue with crowdfunding at the earlier stages. That is what happens if something goes wrong. How do you get more money out of people? People is not as critical at the later stages. So I think it could very much easily happen more at the later stages. And by the way, I mean I was just talking with someone the other day who's going to be an LP in Blitzkilling Ventures. They have a model where they are actually looking to fund specialists, highly specialized early stage funds because their thesis is that things are going to be much more verticalized and they're going to put hundreds of millions of dollars behind this thesis. We weren't a part of their thesis. They were just like, you guys are so cool. We still want to put some money in like, okay, well, far be it for me to object. By the way, there was a question from Peter who said, did I understand Krista say he's performing due diligence and deep dives on companies first before contacting him and then contacting the CEO. Yes. So obviously the deepest dive is going to come after you start talking with the CEO and getting information. And by the way, we actually have a significant advantage there because the nature of our investments are that we're just going along for the round. We don't really affect whether there's going to be a round or not. The CEOs tend to be very candid with us because the incentive for them is to share their biggest challenges and get my help fixing them as opposed to trying to spin me and make me feel like, oh, this is the greatest investment ever, I should just put money in. No, they come out and say, here's our problems. And so that helps us on the due diligence side. But we do do a certain amount of due diligence with as many information sources as we can before we contact the CEOs. And especially if it's a product driven company and it'll often include my working with the product itself. Sometimes I could do that without talking to the CEO, sometimes I have to talk to the CEO in order to experience the product. But either way, we believe that assessing product market fit personally is a really important part of it.

[Joel Palathinkel]

I want to go back to a point that you were talking about with LPs investing in specialist funds. So I think that's, I resonate with that and I've actually seen that firsthand. Going a step further, further. I've seen people who are not LPs, I've converted a few people into being LPs, they've only done direct. And I'm like, well, have you heard about what I'm doing here? And did you know about these emerging managers? Because again, I mean, especially with these new funds that are Gen Zs, people that are doing NFT stuff, the typical high net worth individual, they're going to these family office dinners at Italian restaurants and they're talking about opportunity zones, right? So getting exposure I think is a really great opportunity to invest in these nano funds. And then also it's quite easy to offer kind of like how you're thinking about it, co investing. So that way you can also get into the underlying asset, but you're also learning and getting that knowledge from that subject matter expertise. And they're doing all the work, they're doing all the sourcing. So you get Expo, you kind of get a diversified exposure. If it's a Quantum fund, right? Like you can get exposure to all of the segments of Quantum, so you're kind of spread out. But then if there's a, if there's a company that you just have a lot of conviction on, you can go, you can actually just directly invest into that deal as well.

[Chris Yeh]

Absolutely. And again, the thing to remember, I mean, it's crazy, right? I sometimes relate things to what it's like being a retail investor because I just find it relatable. I'm an ordinary guy and I remember this is the same cycle I went through when I first learned about stocks and Stock markets and things like that. I'm like, wow, I know so much, I'm going to invest in these companies. Then later I realized, holy shit, there's somebody who spends all day doing nothing but thinking about this. And I'm an idiot for thinking that I could do better than them. It's the same thing that happens for professional allocators. At first they think to themselves, wow, you know, I'm so smart, I'm going to do a much better job. And eventually they realize I holy shit. These managers spent every day, all day thinking about this one area. How the hell do I expect to compete with them? I should actually be backing them instead.

[Joel Palathinkel]

Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, when you think about Quantum, I mean, I'm just going a little deep on Quantum because I just spoke with the manager and I was really intrigued. And I mean this person is, this person is in academia. You know, he's going to the universities, they're looking, they're at labs, you know, there's heart, you know, there's hardware infrastructure in place and you know, just a typical LP just number one does not know that that's the case. And then they just don't know who to contact. Right. So there's just that the deep networks and the academia sometimes, or even if it's not academia, it's just the sector expertise, you know. So it looks like Ash has a question. Yeah, this could be a very loaded question, but what's your best advice for a first time fund manager? I'm still trying to figure that one out.

[Chris Yeh]

Well, so first of all, let me just point out that I am also a first time fund manager. I'm in the same boat as you guys. I may have been raising money for a little longer, so I feel a little more comfortable with it, but I'm still very much learning in this process. But what I'll say is this, it's be able to really succinctly express your competitive advantage. This was rammed home for me today. I was talking with potential lp, a guy who runs billions of dollars for a billionaire family that also owns a large business. And he runs their PENS funds as well. And he's like, listen, you know, what I want to know is what's your competitive advantage? And if you can't articulate your source of competitive advantage, you're going to be in trouble. Now again, the thing that I've heard over and over again from manager, from Allocators is that I talk to them and they say, I like what you're doing. They don't always invest, but a good number of them have. We like what you're doing because at least we can tell that it's different. It sounds unique. The vast majority of emerging managers sound like the following. Hey, I'm a successful entrepreneur or successful executive at a major company, and I have an incredible network of people in this particular space. And I'm going to pick some amazing companies. And here's my track record as an angel investor, and I've done really well for myself. And now I'm stepping up to being a vc. And look, that is incredible. That's great success. But when somebody hears that a thousand times, eventually they're like, well, I don't know which of these people to pick. And so you have to be able to articulate that competitive advantage and say, oh, and by the way, I'm a former professional basketball player and I'm doing sports tech. Oh, okay, great. All right, fantastic. Right. So there has to be some sort of focus. And this is the classic notion of focus, right? So if you just sort of, if you just put your hand down on something, that's one thing. If you concentrate the weight of your hand on the head of, on the head of a nail, that's another. Right. One of them is just going to sit there on the table, the other one is going to penetrate the board or something like that. So being able to focus your effort on a smaller and smaller area. And again, it doesn't have to be sector focused, Right? With blitzkaling Ventures, we're not sector focused. We're business model focused. We focus on a particular stage. But the key is we're focused. We're not trying to be everything to everyone.

[Joel Palathinkel]

You know, outside of the blitzscaling framework, what are some traits that you've seen in successful founders? You know, just culture, fit wise. And then also just, you know, when you, when you look at the metrics or KPIs, you know, what, what are the patterns that you've seen consistently?

[Chris Yeh]

So the number one thing we look for is founders who are able to learn, who have the humility to know that they don't know the answers and that they're going to go and find those answers. And that also means being willing to unlearn the lessons of the past. So often. I mean, we've seen this that they call it the sophomore slump. Right? We see an entrepreneur who is really successful and they go and they start a second company and for some reason it doesn't work as well. Well, why is that? Because they learned a bunch of lessons with the first company and they're like, wow, now I know how it works. And then they try to apply those lessons to the second company and meanwhile it's like five years later and guess what? The world has entirely changed. And so being able to unlearn those things and having the humility to say, you know what, I don't know all the answers just because I've done this before is probably the thing we look for most. And I love founders who are thoughtful. They don't have to be this beat on their chest. We're amazing. Killing it all the time. All the kind, all the time types. I mean, if you think about some of the greatest entrepreneurs that are out there, somebody like a Patrick Collison, who we had the privilege of visiting our classroom when we taught at Stanford. I mean, that dude runs the most valuable privately held startup in the world. And he is a soft spoken, really thoughtful kind of guy. And I love seeing things like that.

[Joel Palathinkel]

Yeah, no, it's helpful. John, you got two questions. You want to just rattle them off?

[John Robinson]

Yes. So first thing I, you know, it's an honor having you, Chris, as part of this forum and giving us such great insights. I really appreciate it. And Joe, thank you for connecting us with such a great thought leader. I believe that blitzscaling is an offensive strategy. It can be also a defensive strategy.

[Chris Yeh]

Right.

[John Robinson]

So one of the things that I have reviewed is taking the market by surprise. Can you expand on this? This is really critical because this will bring you to the next level very quickly. That's where the hyperscale ability happens. Right. So please expand on those steps.

[Chris Yeh]

Absolutely. So this. And you bring up a really important and valuable point, John. So oftentimes people, whether they're entrepreneurs or managers, seek comfort in conventional wisdom and they're like, oh, this is a hot space. I'm going to go after this hot space. The problem is they're looking at things without considering the overall competitive landscape and what else is going on. Right. This is why. And this is not something we invented. It's something we took from Peter Thiel and Peter Thiel that probably took it from elsewhere. But being contrarian and right is so important because when you are going after the thing that everyone agrees is valuable and everyone wants to go after, you're competing with the entire rest of the world. And no matter how brilliant you are, the fact is you're competing with so many other brilliant people that your chances of success have just gone down, down, down, down, down, down, down. And so what's really important is taking the market by surprise. Which is why I tend to prefer, even when I was an entrepreneur, I tended to prefer not going out there and trying to make the biggest splash immediately. I prefer to build up the momentum, even if it was happening more behind the scenes, and then be able to announce and declare victory as opposed to trying to declare victory up front, then desperately try to make it stick. So I think that taking a market surprise is great. I think that being stealth works as long as it's not interfering with your gaining customers. And oftentimes the most important thing is to gain those customers early on to prove that you have the product market fit. Because if you have great product market fit, I'm pretty sure you can find ways to reach the market and expand the number of users. But if you have shitty product market fit, even if you've got a great go to market, I'm pretty sure you're not going to be able to make it stick.

[John Robinson]

Great answer. Second question that I have. If we were to apply the same framework from Blitzscaling to the Social Net concept that had a lot of challenges back then, how we would have succeeded?

[Chris Yeh]

So here's what it and we've done postmortems on Social Net, right? So why did SocialNet fail? Because it wasn't. Because Reid wasn't a smart guy, obviously. He's a brilliant, brilliant guy. He was inexperienced and there were some mistakes he made along the way. We talk about them in the book. Probably the biggest mistake he made was on the product side. And this is what it sort of boiled down to with socialnet. They didn't achieve product market fit. There were several reasons for that. One of them was that as Reid put it, he was inexperienced and so he focused on like polishing and polishing and polishing without any real world feedback, which meant building stuff that people didn't actually use and then discovering after you launch there's a whole bunch of stuff that people actually want, but you can't build it because you've spent all your money building other stuff that nobody gives a crap about. So that's where the Reid Hoffman principle of if you're not embarrassed by your first product launch, you've launched too late comes from. In other words, you have to have a bias towards getting out into the real market it with real users and getting their feedback and then improving your product as quickly as possible. So there's that. But the other reason is that Social Net, and this speaks back to the point of focus, SocialNet was too unfocused. And what SocialNet did was it tried to be everything to everyone. And it was like, if you want to do business, go to SocialNet. If you want to socialize, go to social. If you want to have a club, go to SocialNet. And the idea was, well, we want to serve everything and we're not really sure what's going to work, but when you do that, you don't succeed at anything. And obviously you look at LinkedIn. LinkedIn was very different. Really tightly focused on a particular area. Facebook, even though we think of it as being for everyone, started off hyper, focused on college students. Starting off with a focus that you could actually generate product, market fit and generate momentum is one of the most important things to do.

[John Robinson]

I see. And would you considered competitive advantage versus unfair advantage two different things or one of the same?

[Chris Yeh]

They're pretty much similar. Unfair advantage is just extreme competitive advantage. I do, I will, I will say this. I mean, I think that people like the term unfair advantage because it kind of sounds cool and scary and everything like that. I mean, it just means it's a big competitive advantage that people compete with you on a level playing field and you have this advantage. They can never win. And that's great. You should definitely try to do that. And this is actually one of the principles I give to my kids. I've told them over and over again, listen, if the world is rigged, if the world is unfair, why don't you make sure it's unfair in your favor?

[John Robinson]

Okay. And can we apply the same framework with blitz scaling into taking by surprise the VC industry so you might be.

[Chris Yeh]

Able to write, listen, it's happening. Like I said, Tiger Global is upsetting the apple card of the VC industry. And they're really essentially taking a blitzscaling approach. Their inefficiency is that they're willing to accept lower returns. I mean, when you pay double the price that other people are willing to pay, it means that you're going to take lower returns. But when you pay double the price, you can do a lot more deals. This is very similar to one of the things we talk about in the book, which was the rise of Chesapeake Energy. Chesapeake Energy succeeded because they recognized before other people did that fracking made shale oil and gas formations valuable. Whereas before, people thought they were worthless. And what they did to generate value is they went out and they bought up the mineral rights to as much land as possible. And unlike other people who were very careful, they went, they surveyed the land. They figured out if there's oil there or not. Chesapeake told their people, go out, pay Whatever it takes. Don't bother with the geological survey. If we have to throw away some of the lots, it doesn't matter, because there is so much undervalued stuff out there. We just want to get as much of it as possible. That's essentially what Tiger Global is doing. They're like the entire asset class is undervalued. Things are growing faster than ever before. It doesn't matter if we pay double the price and therefore we have lower returns. We can deploy 100 times as much capital as a conventional fund. And even if our returns are only 50% as good as. But guess what? To carry on, 50% of the returns multiplied by 100 times the capital is a lot bigger.

[John Robinson]

Thank you very much, Chris. It's been a pleasure hearing your feedback. I have put things in a much better perspective now. Thank you.

[Chris Yeh]

My pleasure. Thank you for participating.

[Joel Palathinkel]

So, John, you've got a question on identifying VC funds. Is this identifying VC funds for co investing, or are you saying from an LP perspective, John Robinson.

[Chris Yeh]

Oh, I think John had to drop off.

[Joel Palathinkel]

Oh, he did?

[Chris Yeh]

Okay, so we'll have to make it up. We have to decide which one. We can actually answer both. So, I mean, when it comes to the VC funds by their portfolios, you shall know them. Right? And this is the point I make. Joel very kindly said earlier on that I'm really old. Which is true. And what that means is that once upon a time, the land was dominated by certain VC firms that everyone knew about. Kleiner Perkins was the most prominent, and Sequoia was around even then. But there were also firms like Seven, Rosen and Brentwood that were huge, important venture capital firms that obviously are no longer around. And the point is, those companies didn't die off because the reason the VC firms are no longer as prominent is because they no longer do good deals. Deals. And that's the thing. If a VC firm does good deals, it's a good VC firm, and eventually the market will recognize it. And if a VC firm stops doing good deals, eventually the market will recognize that as well.

[Joel Palathinkel]

Yeah, no, I totally resonate with that. Well, guys, keep. Keep pinging. Any questions you got. We got about 15 minutes. So I want to spend a little time talking about this lasso conference that you put together. And that just came across my feed somehow because I was watching the show, and then I was like, what the hell is this? Like, there's a. There's like a lasso fan conference, and, like, you were giving, like, some keynote speech on Twitter. So tell me all about that. And Then, you know, you had this whole thing called lassoisms. And you and I pinged each other like after every Friday, because I think there's. There was a new episode every Friday, so we would fanboy a little bit. But. But tell me about that whole thing and tell me just kind of your perspectives and just how that came about.

[Chris Yeh]

Absolutely. So I came across Ted Lasso the same way most people did. People were starting to write articles about it. It's not like I was like, oh yeah, Apple tv, I'm going to be watching whatever comes on there. And by the way, Apple TV had no idea what they had on their hands either. They just kept promoting the morning show. And see, they never promoted Ted Lasso, but it became a word of mouth hit. People watched and were like, wow, this show is actually incredible. I can't believe it. And they started telling their friends. By the time I got there this first season, it was already fully out. So I was able to binge watch it. I basically, for the sake of sanity, had to limit myself to watching one episode per day. I had other friends who I turned onto the show and they literally watched the entire first season in one day and stayed up until 4am to finish it. And it was just a show that was both incredibly well executed, but also did something that was very important in this day and age, which is talk about the importance of. Well, it depends on how you say. A lot of people said it was about kindness. I tend to think it's less about kindness and more about acceptance, more about accepting who you are and accepting others for whom they are. But, you know, whatever it is, it's a positive side. Now there are a lot of great television shows that have come out recently, prestige television shows that focus on anti heroes. And some of my favorite shows I've also watched a lot of are HBO shows, ironically enough. Right. So if you think about a show like Succession, which is actively releasing new episodes now, phenomenal show. That show is about the worst human beings imaginable. Or a show like Veep, which was a great show, absolutely hilarious. Everyone on that show was a monster. Or you think about a show like Silicon Valley, again, not quite as bad, but you know, most of the people there are not good people. And so what do we take away from these shows? And we're entertained, we enjoy it, we like watching them, but it doesn't make us feel better about life. And especially when I came across Ted Lasso towards the end of 2020, that was something where I'm like, you know what? Here's something where if I watch it, I feel better, I feel inspired. It makes me want to be a better person. That's something I need more of in my life. And so it's actually funny because what led to Lasso Con is the testing of product market fit. So back in early 2020 started Lasso Con. So I started it.

[Joel Palathinkel]

You started it. Okay.

[Chris Yeh]

Yeah.

[Joel Palathinkel]

So how many people were at the conference?

[Chris Yeh]

So the first LassoCon conference had 200 people. And we're going to do Lasso Con 2 in early December. We're expecting to double or triple that.

[Joel Palathinkel]

And is this one going to be in person?

[Chris Yeh]

This one is still not going to be in person. It's still not safe. It'll still be virtual, but we're probably going to expand it. Lasso Con one was four hours, two hours each day on two weekend days. And there's so many people want to participate in Lasso Con 2. We're probably going to increase to three hours each day.

[Joel Palathinkel]

And again, do we have speakers that talk about their takeaways on Lasso?

[Chris Yeh]

Absolutely. And so this. These are members of the TED Lasso community, the TED Lasso podcasters, the TED Lasso columnists and authors and whatnot. I actually need to set up a call with. There's a woman who is a mental health professional, a therapist who wants to talk about the portrayal of therapy in TED Lasso. So we're going to have all these things. We're going to have a couple cast members show up.

[Joel Palathinkel]

That's amazing. You're going to have cast members. I would love to be involved or at least attend, because I'm a fan myself.

[Chris Yeh]

Well, go to lasso con.com or follow Lasso Con on Twitter. You'll make sure anyone can attend. And it's free. We're inclusive, right? The whole idea is to get people together. The whole experience of Laska was incredible. And everybody sees.

[Joel Palathinkel]

I think everybody sees Lasso. So I. My takeaway from Lasso was the importance of having a good coach. Right? Because, you know, the team, they're. They're all good athletes. They're. They're the rock stars, right? But if you don't have the right coach, that is. And this goes back to your life, right? If you don't have coaches, people that are cheering you on, people that are supporting you, it's tough to get through life. And the problem was, you know, what I took away from that, too, is he was also behind the scenes dealing with anxiety, dealing with a lot of mental health issues. So my two takeaways is like the importance of mental health. And then the, and the coaching thing. And then not to ruin it for everybody, but it was the, the, the guy that became the coach. I forgot his name and I talked. I messaged you about this too. But, you know, just the, just the importance of, you know, realizing that now you are a coach, right? You used to be a player. You know, when you, when you work in corporate America, they have this whole concept of being, you know, if you work in tech, right, if you're a product manager, like, like I was right, you can be just a coach where you're the director of product and you've got some product managers behind you and, and you're just kind of like. And that's. That was my role. I was almost like a therapist therapist. Like the product managers are coming to me. There'd be some drama with some designers and I'm kind of like schmoozing the head of design and we're getting coffee, right? But then there's also player coaches where you're a coach, but then you're. You also are shipping product at the same time. So everybody's an individual contributor. So my takeaway was, you know, just kind of holistically looking at the whole thing. I think it's kind of like have. If you have an amazing coach, you know that your team will be an all star team. And the guy came from Texas, right? So he was like kind of a country guy from Texas. And that was a huge, huge thing. People were rooting for him to lose. And then he comes in and, you know, just game changer, right?

[Chris Yeh]

So, yeah, no, it's a wonderful show. Kansas as opposed to Texas. Kansas City Barbecue is a key factor in the plot. A couple people asked, how do we register for lasso Con? Just go to Lassocon and it redirects to the registration page. We're going to be using Crowdcast and, you know, we've got now more professional event people involved and donating their time. So we're very excited about it. But the way that I ended up getting involved in the lasso world and becoming a lasso global influencer and getting like swag from Apple sent to me in the mail and stuff is that you remember, I said, you know, I thought it was really important to figure out production could fit personally. Well, back at the beginning of 2020, when Clubhouse first started getting a lot of attention, one of the questions we had to ask ourselves is, is this a company that we're going to invest in? And I said, well, you know if they in fact do create a new social network in a new medium and dominate it, that could be worth an incalculable amount of money. But I have to go figure out if I think they're going to do that or not. So I signed up for Clubhouse, and since I wasn't sure what else to do, I'm like, well, I got to start a club. And I was talking with a friend of mine who I said, you know, he was also curious about Clubhouse to say, join me at this time. I'll ping you in. And I just created a room. This is before clubs even existed on Clubhouse. I just created a room called Ted Lasso is awesome. Just created a room. It was just for my friend Tim and I to chat and understand the features of TED Lasso. Sorry, of Clubhouse, but just by naming it TED Lasso is awesome. People started streaming it because they wanted to talk about how much the show meant to them. I was like, wow, that's incredible. And so we ended up doing these TED Lasso Clubhouse sessions every week. They're on Sundays at 1pm Pacific. There's a club called this is awesome, and it's always TED Lasso oriented. And after Lasso Con, even more people started coming in. So people come in every week and we just talk about Ted Lasso and the other things in our lives. And there's so many incredible things, so many incredible people we've met. People support each other. People are going through divorces, people are going through cancer. People are going through all these transitions in their lives. Maybe they're changing their gender identity. And through it all, Ted Lasso helps everyone get through it and helps everyone appreciate each other.

[Joel Palathinkel]

Yeah. So, you know, part of that is thinking through, you know, kudos to Apple. Right. But, you know, part of storytelling and, you know, this goes back to fund management as well, like, you know, ideating your story. And I think they really nailed, you know, like you said, right. It was critical that Ted came from, you know, from Kansas City, so that, you know, just how do you just the creativity of coming up with these Personas and really developing these characters and then. And then casting the right person that would make sense. Right. If you had somebody else, it probably wouldn't have provided the same effect.

[Chris Yeh]

And what's interesting is I think it, you know, for those of you who are familiar with the career of Jason Sudeikis, the character of Ted Lasso is actually big departure for him. And he's best known in movies like Horrible Bosses and Horrible Bosses, where the Millers, those are all very successful. It's a totally different character, totally different Persona. If I would describe Jason Sudeikis, his comic Persona is basically Chevy Chase light, right? You know, not quite as much of an asshole as Chevy Chase, but still a wise ass kind of asshole. And Ted Lasso is exactly the opposite. And you know, we've seen, it's interesting, we've seen in sort of his actions in the real world and everything that in many ways Ted Lasso is true or closer to his true character than his comedic Persona was. And he's been unleashed on the world, so to speak.

[Joel Palathinkel]

Yeah, no, that's definitely excited for that. You know, I know we got three minutes left, so any final questions, guys? Chris, this is amazing. I mean, we covered so many great topics. But I'll, you know, guys, feel free to, to ping any questions here. I'll ping the link on our post on LinkedIn. But you know, maybe you can share with all of this stuff, right? All the Lassoisms and all the lessons you've learned in your career. Any general advice that you'd like to share from a mentor or a family member that you want us to take back with us?

[Chris Yeh]

So there's a couple of pieces of advice, a few pieces of advice that I give to everyone as much as possible. The first one is you can never meet enough smart and interesting people and you don't know where things are going to go. People, you can't be instrumental about it. In other words, you can't say, well, every meeting has a purpose. Just meet smart and interesting people and incredible things will happen out of it. And you know, a lot of the things that have happened with blitzkaling ventures or the rest of my career, those have all happened. Just because I was open to meeting smart and interesting people doesn't mean you have to devote equal time to all of them. It doesn't mean that you have to stay in touch with every single person you meet meet. But building a network around you is in general one of the most important ways to succeed in life. And the other is to be patient. Right. I would say that in general, on a day to day basis, it seems like you're never making progress. But then when you look at things on a yearly basis, it's insane how much progress you make. And so being able to take the long term view and to be persistent over time and understand the incredible power of compounding is something that I think everyone should appreciate in their career.

[Joel Palathinkel]

Super amazing.

[John Robinson]

I have, if I may, I have two more questions, if possible. Unless, Joel, you want to step in and you have your final.

[Chris Yeh]

Go ahead. We got about a minute, John.

[John Robinson]

So the first question is, do you also, as a venture, guide those founders to follow your framework, which you feel that it's. And you believe that is very successful? Because I think that a lot of companies, if they had the right framework, they could have succeeded instead of failed. Do you actually cater to that need and you embrace those founders and help them scale as they supposed to?

[Chris Yeh]

Absolutely. And that's one of the reasons why they bring us in. They explicitly bring us in so that I can help them use the framework at their companies. And we also give them access to something we call the Blue Scaling Academy, which is just an online community full of courses and other people in the community who are interested in Blitzscaling. So we try to provide support. But then, of course, the difference with Blitzscaling Ventures is they actually get me personally. So that is a big part of what we do.

[John Robinson]

Okay, and the last question that I have is, right now, the market is extremely competitive. And if somebody has an idea and he wants to create a SaaS product or a different type of service or social media platform, for instance, how would they protect the idea? Because they want to take the market by surprise. But how do they simultaneously protect their idea, their IP or their concept before somebody else who has more funding can actually scale up very quickly, copy it, and expand and surpass that original concept?

[Chris Yeh]

Well, here's the beauty of it. Probably people don't believe in your idea because otherwise everyone else would already be doing it. So it's unlikely. In fact, you would probably have to pay people to do what you were doing, at least until you're successful. Now, what I do encourage people to do is I tell them, listen, it makes sense to go ahead and get patent protection. If you really got something that's super innovative, you have to view that as defensive, not offensive. Offensive, right. It's defensive just to be able to keep people from directly cloning you. But it's unlikely to have much offensive value. Don't expect your investors to really value your having a patent. It's just something you should do as a matter of course, to defend yourself as best you can. But the fact remains, you know, getting people to sign NDAs, being super secretive, I don't think those things really help. I think that you're far more likely to need to, you know, it's far more likely you're going to be like, I wish more people knew about us. I wish more people were talking about. About it. So I wouldn't worry too much about that if you need to get a patent. But other than that, it's a much harder to get attention than it is to worry about other people trying to steal your ideas.

[John Robinson]

And that's the same approach that you will follow if you are a fund manager. You should follow the same approach and strategy.

[Chris Yeh]

Yes. Although again, so things like, let's say you find a great, let's say you find a great company. You should not say, well, before I invest, let me tell everyone else how great the company you should go ahead and invest. But if you're talking about like, here's our competitive advantage and here's why we think we help portfolio companies, you should be trumpeting that. You shouldn't be hiding that because what you want is you want the founders out there to hear your story and say, hey, you know what, I like what John is saying. I think he could help me, let me reach out to him. Because you want to be somebody that people go inbound to as well.

[John Robinson]

Thank you, Chris. Perfect feedback. Thank you very much.

[Chris Yeh]

My pleasure. Joel, thank you so much for having me on. Thank you everyone for coming in tonight.

[Joel Palathinkel]

Yeah, thank you. And sorry we ran over a couple minutes. So appreciate your patience. And everyone else, thanks for engaging and adding good questions. So Chris, probably see you next week and good luck with everything and catch up with.

[Chris Yeh]

Sa.