Auren Hoffman Quotes

things rich people do not want you to know: they are actually very happy

Data businesses are generally misunderstood. DaaS has different metrics than SaaS.

While there has been a lot written about SaaS businesses (how they operate, what metrics to watch, etc.), there has been surprisingly little written about data businesses.

the two most important factors that make data valuable:
1. temporal (as real time as your industry is)
2. has a dollar sign next to it (pricing data)
the best place to be as a data business is to be the *benchmark* for your industry – when the customer’s product can’t exist without you

One of the big ways that data becomes useful is when it is tied to other data.

The reason for this is simple: data is only as useful as the questions it can help answer. Joining, linking, and graphing datasets together allows one to ask more and different kinds of questions.

things rich people do not want you to know: they are actually very normal and do not have any more emotional issues than anyone else.

have ever you noticed that the rich people have the least comfortable couches?
wealth and couch comfort are inversely correlated

EQ is SUPER important if you want to climb the corporate ladder.
EQ is much less important if you want to found a company.

The total number of salespeople in the world will never, ever, be greater than it was in 2021 (the peak)

2021 was the high point for people employed in sales around the world. since then layoffs and now AI mean the total number of sales people going forward will ALWAYS be lower than 2021

biggest problem in marketing is doing too many things. try to do fewer things better.

change Growth Marketing to: Shrink Marketing!

Whenever a company calls itself “the leader in X” in a press release, it is never actually the leader

From running a data company and investing in dozens of data companies, here are some learnings about data businesses that I wish I knew 6 years ago:

Data businesses are MUCH harder than I thought
* There are often only a small number of buyers
* Data businesses can be SUPER competitive
* Can take a lot of dev infrastructure which can be costly — it is a fixed cost but costly nevertheless
* If you are a horizontal data business (selling to many industries), you never are great for any one industry
* Just because you get to $10M ARR, doesn’t meant mean you have REAL product-market-fit

Being too religious is only good when you are right
If you are right, you get to go to heaven. But if you are wrong, you need to jettison your old beliefs.

the most well-known start-up winners do one very big thing right.
but, in actuality, a huge number of start-up winners just do a little of little things right.

there are MANY ways to win.

the easiest way to increase data’s value is by linking it together.

disavow anything you don't like about your past self. you are barely related to you from 10 years ago (it is like a cousin that looks a lot like you)

Low-EQ people don’t give off many non-verbal cues themselves — at least not on purpose. And one of the frustrating things about being low-EQ is that you often get misunderstood by others. People might think you are unhappy when you are actually very happy.