Brex Talks: How to build your second product - My takeaways

• After a long day at the office, I walked about a mile to the new Brex office near Oracle Park.
• Tonight's Brex Talks featured: Henrique Dubugras (Brex Co-Founder), William Hockey (Plaid Co-Founder and CTO), and Jules Maltz (IVP investor)
• Kate Clark from TechCrunch moderated the panel (She immediately owned the room. Very impressive.)

The place was packed

How's that for an office view

My Takeaways

• There are 70,000 startups in the U.S.
• When Kate asked Henrique how they came up with the name of their company: Brex.com as a domain name was the most modestly priced four letter domain name for sale (influenced by Paul Graham essay "Change Your Name")
• Brex was originally a VR play when they got accepted into YC
• William mentioned several times the concept of turning $1 of ad spend into $1 of revenue
• “I think of [venture] capital as a double-edge sword” [Jules Maltz]
• Brex paid $300K for three months of billboards in SF
• Raising a lot of money early allowed Brex to pay well for top talent
• Henrique started his first company at 16 in Brazil (raised $300K)
• “We really try to have a lot of empathy for entrepreneurs” [Jules]
• “How do you turn dollars into revenue?" [William Hockey]
• “Unfortunately VC is a little like heroin. Once you take it, you gotta keep taking it.” [William]
• “To a certain extent, we’re always fundraising.” [Henrique Dubugras]
• Late stage fundraising is a completely different sport from early stage.
• Using the same pitch deck for a series A pitch and a Series B is a mistake
• IVP: The average time they’ve known a founder before writing a check is 20 months
• “I want to be that financial hub in your life” [William]
• Brex monitors churn by cohort
• Brex pays for points out of their pocket
• “I personally have a special place in my heart for sales” [Henrique]
• “In Silicon Valley, we definitely overplay engineering over sales.” [William]
• “The big guys are pretty good at sales.” [Henrique]

We traded some emails in the past. I sent him some Paubox socks. First time meeting Henrique in person.