In Depth

Building a 4 billion dollar data platform: Inside dbt Labs’ unconventional path | Tristan Handy (Co-founder and CEO, ex-RJMetrics, Squarespace)

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Tristan Handy is the Founder and CEO at dbt Labs, a cloud-based data management platform that has raised over $400M to date, and was last valued at $4.2B in 2022. Dbt Labs has grown from just three companies using its free tool in 2016 to an ecosystem of 30,000+ enterprise users. Before founding dbt Labs, Tristan was the VP of Marketing at RJMetrics and the Director of Operations at Squarespace.

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In today’s episode, we discuss:

  • Dbt’s explosive growth
  • The strategic pivot from consulting to a software company
  • Unexpected strategies for building a tech category from scratch
  • The critical moment: Why and when dbt Labs sought venture funding
  • How to drive commercial adoption after open-sourcing
  • Two things every founder CEO should do
  • Much more

    • –

    Referenced:

    • Amazon Redshift: https://aws.amazon.com/redshift/
    • Bob Moore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertjmoore/
    • Crossbeam: https://www.crossbeam.com/
    • dbt Labs: https://www.getdbt.com/
    • Drew Banin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drewbanin/
    • Jerry Colonna: https://www.reboot.io/team/jerry-colonna/
    • RJMetrics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RJMetrics
    • SeatGeek: https://seatgeek.com/
    • Steve Ritter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-ritter-69495210/
    • Squarespace: https://www.squarespace.com/

      • –

      Where to find Tristan:

      • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tristanhandy/
      • Twitter/X: https://x.com/jthandy

        • –

        Where to find Brett:

        • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/
        • Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson

          • –

          Where to find First Round Capital:

          • Website: https://firstround.com/
          • First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
          • Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround
          • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
          • This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast

            • –

            Timestamps:

            (00:00) Introduction

            (02:56) The critical oversight in data analysis

            (05:41) Becoming an “accidental founder”

            (07:04) Inside the unique decision to start a consultancy

            (08:17) The game-changing principle behind dbt Labs’ rapid growth

            (11:20) Finding dbt Labs’ first customers

            (15:52) Consulting's hidden scalability

            (17:25) How dbt Labs created a new category

            (21:03) The anti-demo strategy

            (23:59) Community hacking: the Slack group that changed everything

            (26:00) The open source philosophy

            (27:39) When growth went exponential

            (28:49) How consulting engagements shaped the roadmap

            (30:02) Fundraising only when “things started to break”

            (32:40) Consultancy superpowers: the hidden advantages

            (34:04) Pivoting from consulting to software

            (40:00) Key monetization strategies

            (48:56) Why “begrudging” CEOs can be successful

            (51:02) Advice for finding PMF: “It’s not a playbook”

            (51:59) Lowering your standards is a hack

            (53:30) Navigating emotional overwhelm

            (54:25) Every CEO needs a coach

            ...more
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