Category: startups
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Jason Blum, founder of Blumhouse Productions, has pioneered a revolutionary approach to filmmaking that’s both critically acclaimed and financially lucrative. With 42 movies grossing over $50 million each on modest production budgets, Blumhouse has generated $6 billion in sales. For every dollar invested in a Blumhouse movie, it has generated $8.2 in revenue.1 I spent…
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Charlie Munger, of Berkshire Hathaway fame, famously once said I want to know where I’m going to die so I will never go there. While humorously expressed, this is a profound example of inversion theory — a mental model that looks to avoid mistakes to increase the odds of success. When I was looking to…
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Data itself has no intrinsic value. Let me say that again for budding data entrepreneurs. Data itself has no intrinsic value. After my first appearance on the My First Million pod with Sam Parr and Shaan Puri, a bunch of folks reached out saying they had a dataset on X or Y (or an idea…
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When I ‘fired myself’ as CEO of CB Insights, other founders reached out asking how I knew it was time as they were considering similar Here’s how I decided. Every year, I evaluated myself on 2 dimensions: Am I excited about the type of work that lies ahead? (x-axis) Do I have what the company…
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It’s perhaps weird to say a book about sports and data changed my life. It’s even stranger when that book is about baseball — a sport I have near zero interest in watching but which I admire deeply for its relentless desire and ability to use data and technology to innovate and look for an…
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So you wanna build a data business? One of the things I didn’t understand when starting. CB Insighs was the many ways you can collect and create the information that underpins a data business. As we’ve built CBI and as I’ve studied others, I’ve realized there are 7 primary strategies employed for data collection &…
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We bootstrapped CB Insights by first building a different business involving hedge funds, too big to fail banks, and $100,000 PDFs. Data and information services nerds might enjoy this. Backstory▪ My first day of freedom from big company employment: Jan 1, 2008.▪ Bad timing: The Great Financial Crisis was about to hit, but I had…
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Founders tell lies about their success. Because success is a rigged game.
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Some data from a recent anti-trust trial Penguin Random House’s acquisition of Simon & Schuster transcripts were researched and broken down by Elle Griffin. Here’s what jumped out: 50% of books sold less than a dozen copies 50% of books couldn’t sell 12 copies Publishers like VCs are looking for unicorns The real value-add of…
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A quick market analysis We got a fast-growing and seemingly large market here with very little investment funding and deal activity Odd. I’ll dig in and suggest some reasons why that’s the case First, what market? The alternative education market This is education models like homeschooling & microschooling The market is growing quickly in the…
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🔥 💣 I’ve decided to “fire” myself after 14 years as CEO of CB Insights. [More here on my ‘fire yourself framework‘] Starting tomorrow, I’ll still be working 180% at CBI but in the role of Founder & Executive Chairman In this role, my focus shifts to customer conversations, product, content & partnerships. One area…
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