Valley Nordic

Send us Fan Mail We discuss a topic that is in the news and is on everybody's mind - Sustainability. What does it mean? How should startups think about it? Why now is the right time to do a startup focused on sustainability? Useful Links: 1. United Nations sustainability goals (2030) 2. Larry Fink (BlackRock Chairman and CEO) letter to investors on sustainability 

Send us Fan Mail Arne and I discuss what marketplaces businesses are. What are the attributes of a good marketplace. And, what not to do when starting a marketplace business. Useful Links 1. Friend in Cloud marketplace product requirements (2013) 2. GMV 

Send a text We are lucky to have Howie Mandel as our guest of honor on this episode. Currently, Howie stars is America's Got Talent Champions which airs on NBC (in the US). He is an author, producer, comedian and many other things. Chander and Howie talk about business, compare Hollywood and Silicon Valley, and the role of technology.  What it takes to make a movie or a TV Show. And, Howie&ap...

Send us Fan Mail We discuss a universal framework of why people people buy things. Chander came up with the framework after founding his first startup. Useful Links: Why do we buy things? 

Send us Fan Mail Happy New Year! Welcome to Season 2 of Valley Nordic. We start off the year with discussing the business highlights from the last six weeks, cover Consumer Electronics Show (CES) highlights, and discuss upcoming tech IPOs ( Casper and One Medical ) and 2020 tech trends. Useful links: 1. 20 Trends to observe in 2020 2. Tink (Nordic equivalent of Plaid ) 3. Visa's justification...

Send us Fan Mail We discuss five tech business themes from 2019:  IPO market Crypto market  Facebook - regulatory issues and Libra plan  Big tech (mainly Google and Apple) going fintech  Trade war roller coaster affecting tech (semiconductor, big tech, etc.) In addition, we share 19 observations and trends from 2019 on how technology is affecting society.  Happy Holidays!  See you next year! 

Send us Fan Mail How does a company keep growing when it is big? There is a growth framework used by big corporations. The framework has seven growth strategies and most of them are pursued in parallel. We discuss pros and cons of each. Furthermore, we talk about he Magnet Strategy which is used by tech companies to get into non-tech businesses. Useful links: 1. The Magnet Strategy 

Send us Fan Mail How do you put a dollar value on an idea? Venture Capitalists have to do that regularly. The startup valuation becomes relatively easier starting with Series A funding round when the idea has become a product and it is in the market. How do founders negotiate valuation and other terms with Venture Capitalists? Useful links: 1. Startup Tools  (for Nordic Startups) 2. Startup docume...

Send us Fan Mail Google [Nasdaq: GOOGL] announced its third quarter 2019 earnings a few days ago. We review the quarterly earnings. And, we discuss Google's R&D (Research and Development), its culture, and Google Cloud business. We debate the difference between a platform and a product. How Google is good at building platforms and not so good at building products. Useful Links: 1. The Mag...

Send us Fan Mail Apple [Nasdaq: AAPL] announced its fourth quarter 2019 earnings last week. We review the FY 2019 earnings. And, we discuss what is Apple doing well to scale so fast. In FY 2019, Apple generated revenues of over $260B. Twenty years ago, Apple FY1999 revenue was $6.1B.  And, iPhone, which generates more than half of Apple's revenue today and is mainly responsible for ~47B in se...

Send us Fan Mail Amazon [Nasdaq: AMZN] announced its third quarter 2019 earnings earlier this week. We review the earnings. And, we discuss what is Amazon doing well to scale so fast. In the trailing twelve months, Amazon generated revenues of over $265B and their revenues are still growing ~20% YoY. And, Amazon has successfully diversified from eCommerce to Cloud to advertising. Useful Links 1. N...

Send us Fan Mail Arne and Chander discuss an important and unpopular topic i.e. how do markets behave differently in an economic downturn, how do startups prepare for a downturn, and how do startups have to operate in a downturn. How the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) change from growth to cash. We also talk about how startup operations differ in early and late stage during downturn. Finally, w...

Send us Fan Mail We try something new in this episode i.e. look into a market where we don't have expertise. And, that market is Food Tech. How we think about it? Also, we analyze Beyond Meat's business and discuss what are the parallels and differences between a tech startup and Beyond Meat (and Impossible Foods). Useful Links: 1. Environmental Impact of Meat Production 2. Beyond Meat S...

Send us Fan Mail We define the Direct To Consumer (D2C) category and discuss the value chain of Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies and how D2C startups are disrupting that value chain. Also, how D2C category includes products beyond CPG. What made it possible for D2C companies to come to life and differences between US and European D2C markets. Useful links: 1. D2C landscape (2017) 2. Analysi...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we discuss market segmentation, business model innovation, and scaling. How and why Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) focus is the best way to build sustainable businesses. We also discuss, after a startup has achieved Product Market Fit (PMF), how you scale a business and  what do you do differently in the post PMF phase.   Useful links: 1. Customer Facing Devices  2....

Send us Fan Mail We are doing something new and different in this episode. Instead of the episode being a conversation between an entrepreneur and a venture capitalist, we have a conversation between a product/business person i.e Chander, your regular host, and a software developer/technologist i.e. David Krieger, Principal Software Engineer at Pivotal . You will still get two different perspectiv...

Send us Fan Mail Softbank has changed the late stage venture industry. After the recent delay of the WeWork IPO, Softbank's strategy of injecting a lot of capital in startups at high valuations is being questioned. In this episode, we discuss the structure of Softbank Vision Fund and how Softbank is influencing startup founders and smaller venture capitalists.  Useful Links: 1. Softbank visio...

Send us Fan Mail We get deeper into startup operations, specifically how to develop and market products. How do you prioritize things in pre product launch and post product launch stages of the startup? What are the boundaries between product and marketing? Furthermore, we discuss frameworks that can be applied to product development and marketing.  This episode also touches upon the current state...

Send us Fan Mail In our latest episode, Arne and I talk about the streaming video market. The history, the current state, and how we think the market will evolve. Streaming video is a very diverse and deep area so we could not include everything we wanted to discuss like the current value chain of cable tv channels. However, you will get a good idea about the current state of streaming.  Correctio...

Send us Fan Mail Peloton filed its S1 earlier this week. Arne and Chander discuss the complexity of the Peloton business which is a combination of technology (hardware and software), media (production and distribution), and fitness (managing instructors and retail sales). We also talk about their interesting business model and the challenges Peloton might face in continuing its growth. We could no...

Send us Fan Mail Although one of the charms of our podcast is that Arne and Chander have different perspectives on almost everything, today both of us share the view that WeWork (officially, The We Company) is overvalued and its governance practices are questionable. Last week, WeWork filed its S1 with the SEC for its Initial Public Offering (IPO). In this podcast episode, we analyze WeWork's...

Send us Fan Mail As a follow up to the last episode which was about how to think about moving your startup to Silicon Valley (SV), this episode is about how to raise capital in SV if you are a Nordic or a non SV startup. Arne and I discuss:  1. Why an international startup should think about raising money in SV? 2. What rounds ( Seed , Series A , Series B , and so on ) are easier to raise in SV? ...

Send us Fan Mail This episode was recorded in response to audience feedback from Norway. Many startups outside the San Francisco Bay Area are attracted by Silicon Valley and wonder if they should move (or open an office) here. Arne and I discuss the following:  1. Why a startup should move to Silicon Valley? When it makes sense and when it does not.  2. Who from the startup should move? 3. When is...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Arne and I discuss The RealReal [Nasdaq: REAL], its business model, IPO, and challenges. How the valuation of an eCommerce startup differs from a subscription-based B2B SaaS (Software as a Service) company.  In our hot or not section, we discuss Edge Computing. We had a debate on what it is. Why is it important and how it works with AI, 5G, and IoT.  Useful links:...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Arne and I discuss Medallia [NYSE: MDLA] IPO which went public last week. Their business model and how it compares with other SaaS IPOs.  We discuss 5G and in our hot or not section.  Useful links 1. Medallia S1 2. Direct Listing IPO 3. Applications and Bandwidth