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  • 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.)

 


Brex Talks: How to Build your Second Product The place was packed

 


Brex Talks: How to Build your Second Product How's that for an office view

 


My Takeaways

Here are my takeaways from tonight's panel:
  • 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]

 


Henrique Dubugras, Hoala Greevy selfie We traded some emails in the past. I sent him some Paubox socks. First time meeting Henrique in person.

 

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