Reevaluating conventional startup advice

Chris Hladczuk is the Co-founder and CEO of Hanover Park, the AI-native fund administrator, vertically integrating fund administration, portfolio management, and LP experience for finance and investment teams.

Chris is the 2nd ever returning guest of the show, and is fresh off announcing Hanover’s $27m Series A. We go inside the round, their explosive growth, why they built their own general ledger from scratch, and how that enabled them to build incredible AI products for investment firms that touch over $100 trillion in assets.

Thanks to Sahil Bloom, and Chad + Pratyush at Susa for help brainstorming topics for this conversation.

Thank you to Numeral and Flex for supporting this episode.

Try Numeral, the end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance: https://www.numeral.com

Sign-up for Flex Elite with code TURNER, get $1,000: https://form.typeform.com/to/Rx9rTjFz

Timestamps:

(0:37) Financial infrastructure for investment firms

(1:35) Hanover Park’s $27m Series A

(5:30) AI-enabled services businesses

(9:07) Productizing the service layer

(11:30) Helping CFO’s and investors use AI

(13:46) Building a general ledger from scratch

(18:03) Compete against companies with IT departments

(19:55) Hiring in an unsexy industry

(21:30) Live in constant paranoia of your customers

(25:19) Gongs, music in the office, blizzard commutes

(28:54) Friday night hackathons

(30:54) Automating onboarding and manual admin work

(35:05) Real-time visibility on all data

(38:07) Always get on the plane

(40:36) Turning customers into raving fans

(43:45) Using polite persistence in sales

(47:36) How to master founder-led content

(51:29) 99% of advice is wrong in AI era

(54:21) Importance of one-way vs two-way doors

(56:11) Growing from VC into PE and Private Credit

(1:00:36) When to turn down new customers

(1:02:22) Becoming a customers most important vendor

(1:04:00) Chris’ personal AI stack

(1:07:41) Hanover Park’s MCP

Referenced

Try Hanover Park: https://www.hanoverpark.com/

Careers at Hanover Park: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/hanover-park

First episode with Chris: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lomqcrFNv8

Artie: https://www.artie.com/

Episode with Jacqueline @ Artie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fd1YKsBaq0

Granola: https://www.granola.ai/

Claude Cowork: https://claude.com/product/cowork

HubSpot: https://www.hubspot.com/

Attio: https://attio.com/

Monaco: https://www.monaco.com/

Follow Chris

Twitter: https://x.com/chrishlad

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-hladczuk-b09204153

Follow Turner

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak

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