The Logan Bartlett Show

EP 71: TJ Parker (Founder, PillPack) on Selling to Amazon for $1B and Going to War with Big Pharma


Listen Later

TJ Parker is the Founder of PillPack, one of the first-ever DTC Pharmacy companies that sold to Amazon in 2018 for $1B. Prior to founding PillPack TJ worked odd jobs in retail, pharmacy, and real estate and has a deep background in design which informed much of what he built at PillPack. In this episode, TJ shares stories from fighting off Big Pharma institutions that threatened to take his business, advice to founders for managing through a crisis, and why he's recently decided to become a VC at Matrix Partners.

(0:00) Intro

(1:18) Welcome TJ Parker

(7:22) Odd jobs growing up

(16:24) Near-death with Pillpack

(28:09) Getting approval

(32:24) Why sell vs being independent?

(40:53) What makes Amazon great

(46:12) Keeping the executive team small

(52:08) Making decisions as CEO

(56:59) Advice if you were to start another company

(1:00:49) Transition into venture capital

(1:05:01) Requests from startups

(1:09:38) Insights on the venture industry

 

Mixed and edited: Justin Hrabovsky

Produced: Rashad Assir

Executive Producer: Josh Machiz

Music: Griff Lawson

 

🎙 Listen to the show

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/three-cartoon-avatars/id1606770839

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5WqBqDb4br3LlyVrdqOYYb?si=3076e6c1b5c94d63&nd=1

Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9zb0hJZkhWbg

 

🎥 Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugS0jD5IAdoqzjaNYzns7w?sub_confirmation=1

 

Follow on Socials

📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theloganbartlettshow

🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/loganbartshow

🎬 Clips on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@theloganbartlettshow

 

About the Show

Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode, Logan goes behind the scenes with world-class entrepreneurs and investors. If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every Friday for new episodes.

Executive Producer: Rashad Assir

Producer: Leah Clapper

Mixing and editing: Justin Hrabovsky

 

Check out Unsupervised Learning, Redpoint's AI Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCUl-s_Vp-Kkk_XVyDylNwLA

 

🎥 Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugS0jD5IAdoqzjaNYzns7w?sub_confirmation=1

 

Follow on Socials

 

📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theloganbartlettshow

📱 X - https://twitter.com/loganbartshow

🎬 Clips on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@theloganbartlettshow

 

About the Show

Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode of The Logan Bartlett Show, we sit down with the people behind today’s most important startups and extract the tactics, lessons, and frameworks they’ve learned the hard way. Conversations span hiring to GTM, product, growth, fundraising and everything in between - collectively forming the ultimate playbook to make you a better CEO, investor or board member.

Tap follow and enable notifications to stay ahead of the game.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

The Logan Bartlett ShowBy by Redpoint Ventures

  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8

4.8

186 ratings


More shows like The Logan Bartlett Show

View all
This Week in Startups by Jason Calacanis

This Week in Startups

1,270 Listeners

a16z Podcast by Andreessen Horowitz

a16z Podcast

997 Listeners

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch by Harry Stebbings

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

510 Listeners

The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors by SaaStr

The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors

174 Listeners

Capital Allocators – Inside the Institutional Investment Industry by Ted Seides – Allocator and Asset Management Expert

Capital Allocators – Inside the Institutional Investment Industry

814 Listeners

Y Combinator Startup Podcast by Y Combinator

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

210 Listeners

Grit by Joubin Mirzadegan

Grit

187 Listeners

Dwarkesh Podcast by Dwarkesh Patel

Dwarkesh Podcast

329 Listeners

ACQ2 by Acquired by Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

ACQ2 by Acquired

189 Listeners

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups by Conviction

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

121 Listeners

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast by swyx + Alessio

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast

63 Listeners

The Social Radars by Jessica Livingston

The Social Radars

98 Listeners

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley by BG2Pod

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley

432 Listeners

AI + a16z by a16z

AI + a16z

25 Listeners

Training Data by Sequoia Capital

Training Data

30 Listeners