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Lenny's Podcast / episode intelligence

The hierarchy of engagement | Sarah Tavel (Benchmark, Greylock, Pinterest)

27 Dec 2023 25 published claims 2 attributable people
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Speakers in the public record

Sarah TavelLenny Rachitsky

Claim mix

belief 9evaluation 8recommendation 2commitment 2uncertainty 2observation 1prediction 1

Evidence policy

Every row below preserves an exact excerpt. Identified speakers are linked; unresolved voices are labeled and excluded from people counts.

Claim ledger

The useful parts, with receipts.

25 published records

01 / recommendation

Recommends The Five Temptations of a CEO. Recommends The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.

“Pachinko is one of the best fictional books I've read in a while. I just loved it, and so, I highly recommend that. And then, to founders, I am a sucker for The Five Temptations of a CEO and The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. It's kind of like you imagine those books in the grocery store aisle, but they're fast reads that are incredibly insightful and I highly recommend.”
Speaker
Sarah Tavel
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

03 / belief

You as a founder then have to make a very personal decision, that what you're looking at is the context of your competitive situation. So if you're tipping a market and you have no other competitor going after that market, you're the first one to see this opportunity, then I think you have two things that you want to do at the same time to grow.

“You as a founder then have to make a very personal decision, that what you're looking at is the context of your competitive situation. So if you're tipping a market and you have no other competitor going after that market, you're the first one to see this opportunity, then I think you have two things that you want to do at the same time to grow.”
Speaker
Sarah Tavel
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

05 / belief

I always love hearing the journey people take and specifically how they've made decisions along the way, what drives them from each step. I think that's always very illuminating.

“I always love hearing the journey people take and specifically how they've made decisions along the way, what drives them from each step. I think that's always very illuminating.”
Speaker
Sarah Tavel
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

06 / evaluation

You're doing all these things that don't scale, that you've written so much about, Lenny, about kick-starting, the marketplace, all those things that you can't just keep on doing forever.

“You're doing all these things that don't scale, that you've written so much about, Lenny, about kick-starting, the marketplace, all those things that you can't just keep on doing forever.”
Speaker
Sarah Tavel
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

08 / belief

Something that you all at Benchmark are really big on, which I think would be interesting to talk about, is the TAM not being as big a deal as people think.

“Something that you all at Benchmark are really big on, which I think would be interesting to talk about, is the TAM not being as big a deal as people think.”
Speaker
Lenny Rachitsky
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

13 / belief

You go to New York City where you have an entrenched competitor of Grubhub plus Seamless Web, a different culture around delivery where the restaurants mostly have their own delivery fleets, and it's just going to be so much harder for you to tip that market. And so, I think you have to be really context aware when you're building a marketplace of what your competition's going to be so that you see if there is a path for you to actually tip the market.

“You go to New York City where you have an entrenched competitor of Grubhub plus Seamless Web, a different culture around delivery where the restaurants mostly have their own delivery fleets, and it's just going to be so much harder for you to tip that market. And so, I think you have to be really context aware when you're building a marketplace of what your competition's going to be so that you see if there is a path for you to actually tip the market.”
Speaker
Sarah Tavel
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

15 / belief

I think Grubhub is a great example of that, where they were the first really successful food delivery company, and then, even with network effects, by far, the best way to order.

“I think Grubhub is a great example of that, where they were the first really successful food delivery company, and then, even with network effects, by far, the best way to order.”
Speaker
Lenny Rachitsky
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

16 / evaluation

And with a consumer social product, you're trying to get to massive scale. But when you're building a marketplace, actually, there's a healthy amount of churn that you want on the supplier side because there are just going to be suppliers who aren't going to create a great experience for the buyer, and you can't do anything about that.

“And with a consumer social product, you're trying to get to massive scale. But when you're building a marketplace, actually, there's a healthy amount of churn that you want on the supplier side because there are just going to be suppliers who aren't going to create a great experience for the buyer, and you can't do anything about that.”
Speaker
Sarah Tavel
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

17 / commitment

It's not clear to the supply side or the demand side that you're like the main place to be. And so, it only becomes really clear once you have that dominant market position where you're just so much bigger than the number two And the only way to get to that place, to get to that moment of real dominance where you have this winner take most dynamic is that you have to tip your market, and that's the only scalable way to do that, and that's what level two is.

“It's not clear to the supply side or the demand side that you're like the main place to be. And so, it only becomes really clear once you have that dominant market position where you're just so much bigger than the number two And the only way to get to that place, to get to that moment of real dominance where you have this winner take most dynamic is that you have to tip your market, and that's the only scalable way to do that, and that's what level two is.”
Speaker
Sarah Tavel
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

18 / observation

When I started to meet with all these really talented consumer founders building consumer social products, this was during a time when everybody was getting excited about growth hacking.

“When I started to meet with all these really talented consumer founders building consumer social products, this was during a time when everybody was getting excited about growth hacking.”
Speaker
Sarah Tavel
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

19 / prediction

The incumbents aren't going to lean in on your marketplace, they're already fat and happy, but you want to have these hungry suppliers who lean in. But if there's already concentration in your marketplace, in the ecosystem, the market that you're playing in, then you're not going to have sellers lean in, and you're not going to be able to create a flywheel that spins where the more sellers you bring on, the better the pricing or experiences on the demand side because the sellers are happy and there's nobody that's hungry or fighting.

“The incumbents aren't going to lean in on your marketplace, they're already fat and happy, but you want to have these hungry suppliers who lean in. But if there's already concentration in your marketplace, in the ecosystem, the market that you're playing in, then you're not going to have sellers lean in, and you're not going to be able to create a flywheel that spins where the more sellers you bring on, the better the pricing or experiences on the demand side because the sellers are happy and there's nobody that's hungry or fighting.”
Speaker
Sarah Tavel
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

20 / evaluation

They were going beyond what they actually stood for, and they ended up having a real reaction from the sellers that were making handmade goods and the buyers. It was this big erosion of trust, and they ended up, I don't know if it was related, but it ended up precipitating, I think, a CEO change, to the CEO that is there now and who has obviously done an incredible job building Etsy from there.

“They were going beyond what they actually stood for, and they ended up having a real reaction from the sellers that were making handmade goods and the buyers. It was this big erosion of trust, and they ended up, I don't know if it was related, but it ended up precipitating, I think, a CEO change, to the CEO that is there now and who has obviously done an incredible job building Etsy from there.”
Speaker
Sarah Tavel
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

21 / evaluation

Then, the more you pinned, you also had more to lose by leaving Pinterest because, all of a sudden, you had all your favorite books, articles you wanted to remember, the recipes that you were planning on cooking one day, the holiday planning that you were doing.

“Then, the more you pinned, you also had more to lose by leaving Pinterest because, all of a sudden, you had all your favorite books, articles you wanted to remember, the recipes that you were planning on cooking one day, the holiday planning that you were doing.”
Speaker
Sarah Tavel
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

22 / evaluation

ng after a market that other people weren't focused on, it let them get to a place where they were able to really make the customers on both sides of their marketplace happy enough that they retained. And this word happy I use, I should expand on it a little bit because the realization I had as I reflected on this kind of feeling that GMV is really actually a vanity metric, it doesn't get at the core of whether you're building enduring value.

“ng after a market that other people weren't focused on, it let them get to a place where they were able to really make the customers on both sides of their marketplace happy enough that they retained. And this word happy I use, I should expand on it a little bit because the realization I had as I reflected on this kind of feeling that GMV is really actually a vanity metric, it doesn't get at the core of whether you're building enduring value.”
Speaker
Sarah Tavel
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

23 / evaluation

Because it was a realtime product, that you had to use push noti cations to know the moment to join the product, but when you had so many push notifications because the more people you followed, the more notifications you had, you just get to this point where you start ignoring them.

“Because it was a realtime product, that you had to use push noti cations to know the moment to join the product, but when you had so many push notifications because the more people you followed, the more notifications you had, you just get to this point where you start ignoring them.”
Speaker
Sarah Tavel
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

24 / evaluation

You have the creators uploading content and the viewers who are watching it, supply and demand. And so then, the subscribe button is also very interesting because then from the demand side, the viewer, why would I come back to YouTube consistently versus, again, all the other places I could spend time on if it weren't for me having found creators for whom their content really resonates with me so much so that I subscribe to their content?

“You have the creators uploading content and the viewers who are watching it, supply and demand. And so then, the subscribe button is also very interesting because then from the demand side, the viewer, why would I come back to YouTube consistently versus, again, all the other places I could spend time on if it weren't for me having found creators for whom their content really resonates with me so much so that I subscribe to their content?”
Speaker
Sarah Tavel
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast
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