The Sachin and Adam Show Lessons from Building Seek and Square Peg with Paul Bassat
23 snips
Jun 28, 2022 
Paul Bassat shares insights on his journey building Seek, transitioning from law to tech startups, and his investments in major companies. He discusses balancing planning and serendipity, navigating uncertainty in crypto markets, and SquarePeg's high-conviction investment approach.
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Win Marketplaces By Seeding Supply
- Solve marketplace cold-starts by leveraging price and positioning as a supplementary channel to incumbents.
- Acquire initial volume aggressively, even typing in ads manually, until the platform achieves critical mass.
Obvious Bets Look Obvious Later
- The internet disrupting classifieds felt obvious to Seek's founders even if others doubted it.
- Competitors exhibited cognitive dissonance, delaying migration from print to online and creating an opening for Seek.
Crypto: Fascinating But Problem-Seeking
- Paul views crypto as intellectually fascinating but remains agnostic about its mature business models.
- He notes many crypto solutions are still searching for clear problems, similar to dot-com excesses before the washout.