In this episode of "20 minutes VC," Harry Stebbings interviews Shishir Mehrotra, founder and CEO of Coda, a startup revolutionizing document creation by combining words and data into a flexible, all-in-one doc. Mehrotra, who has raised over $140 million from top-tier investors and has a rich background with six years at Google and Microsoft each, discusses the journey of founding Coda, the importance of a clear thesis in product development, and the challenge of balancing power with simplicity in scaling his company. He shares insights from his time at YouTube, highlighting the significance of a strong, simple idea that shapes a company's direction and strategy. Mehrotra also delves into his personal operating cadence and the impact of having kids on his work, emphasizing the need for structured time and maintaining a beginner's mindset. Reflecting on his relationship with the late Bill Campbell, he stresses the value of building trust and viewing the success of others as one's own. Looking ahead, Mehrotra envisions the next five years at Coda as an exciting period of growth, aiming to transform software creation in the same way YouTube revolutionized video content.
"To date, Shashir has raised over 140,000,000 from some great names, including Greylock, Kleiner Perkins, General Catalyst, NEA and Homebrew, to name a few."
This quote highlights Mehrotra's success in fundraising for his startup Coder, indicating strong investor confidence in his vision and leadership.
"After that, I ended up joining Google and working initially on a project called Mosaic, which became a Google TV and then Chromecast, and then the Google Home team. But I spent most of my time at Google working on YouTube, responsible for sort of the tech side of YouTube."
This quote outlines Mehrotra's significant contributions to Google, particularly his role in developing YouTube into a successful platform.
"I think Google, the biggest thing Google taught me was the power of a really clear thesis."
This quote emphasizes the significance of having a clear and focused product vision, which Mehrotra learned during his time at Google.
"My whiteboard obsession is fairly deep. Every office I'm in, I spend more time designing the whiteboard layout than often any other part of the office design."
This quote demonstrates Mehrotra's deep appreciation for whiteboards as a tool for visual organization and decision-making.
"My view, the number one quality of a good decision is a decision that sticks."
This quote captures Mehrotra's philosophy on decision-making, emphasizing the importance of making decisions that are durable and do not require revisiting.## Decision Making: One-Way vs. Two-Way Doors
"One way doors versus two way doors is very helpful. When you get to those one way doors. Wallow, frame, bows close, identify the right icon questions."
The quote emphasizes the importance of recognizing the type of decision at hand (one-way or two-way) and the process of careful deliberation required for irreversible decisions (one-way doors).
"It's identifying the right eigen question... Spend enough time there to know that you have the right question before you're forced into a up down vote on a option."
This quote highlights the significance of pinpointing the core question that will guide decision making, rather than getting caught up in a multitude of options.
"One side of the team basically came to the conclusion that we should just link out... And then on the other side was a group of people... that said, wait a second, if you do that, then we're never going to get anybody to put real content on YouTube."
The quote describes the conflicting perspectives within YouTube on whether to link out to other content, highlighting the tension between user experience and business interests.
"Do we believe that the online video market is going to play out where comprehensiveness matters more or where consistency matters more?"
The quote reflects the reframing of YouTube's strategic dilemma, shifting the focus from a binary choice to a broader question of market dynamics and user experience.
"You draw kind of a quarter of an onion, and the idea is a center. And then there's a set of rings, and you have kind of two axes, and one is generally something like features or capabilities."
This quote explains the structure of The Onion exercise, which is used to map out a product's evolution and strategic direction.
"What's the center of our onion, it's just helpful for what's the true north of our business."
The quote underscores the importance of identifying the central concept of a product, which serves as a guiding principle for the business's direction.
"You have to build the environment that allows ideas to not be labeled too early... Great ideas take to grow."
This quote emphasizes the need to create a culture that nurtures ideas over time without prematurely judging them, allowing for a more open and productive debate.## Establishing Trust and Fostering Idea Growth
"I think you have to establish trust, how people either say or ignore their implied sentences. You create a culture where great ideas can thrive over a long period of time, not just over a short period of time, and create the tools and environments where people can actually express those things and remove all the natural incentives for groupthink and ganging up and so on, that lead to ideas being squashed too early."
The quote emphasizes the importance of trust in a team and the need for a culture that allows ideas to develop without being prematurely dismissed due to group dynamics.
"In terms of that kind of maturation phase of ideas, I'm really interested because I totally understand that's important, but it also seems to kind of go in the face of fast decision making and speed and iteration."
This quote introduces the tension between the need for quick decisions and allowing ideas to develop fully, highlighting the importance of finding a balance.
"And instead of running a quarterly planning cycle, we ran a cycle that was every 26 weeks or twice a year. You would do what we called h one and h two planning, and you'd spend some time looking far out and where should we really be headed?"
The quote explains the decision to move away from quarterly planning cycles to a biannual and six-week cycle, allowing for both long-term vision and short-term commitments.
"Design your meetings and design your cadence like you design your apps."
This quote suggests that meetings should be thoughtfully structured with clear objectives and participant engagement in mind, much like how one would design an app.
"Your email is what others think you should work on. Your to do list is what you think you should work on, and your calendar is usually what you actually work on."
The quote from Des Traynor highlights the importance of aligning what others expect, personal goals, and actual work done, which is crucial for personal cadence management.
"The spirit of how OKR started at Google were a really good attempt at it... A lot of it comes out of the example that gets set."
This quote reflects on the initial success of OKRs at Google and the importance of leadership in setting the right example for goal setting.
"So for YouTube to get up in November of 2012, and I made the statement that our goal will be to get to a billion hours a day of watch time in a four year period."
The quote describes the ambitious goal set by YouTube to reach a billion hours of daily watch time, illustrating the concept of setting a clear and challenging long-term goal.## Growth and Motivation at YouTube
"Quick math says that if we're going to get from 100 million hour to a billion hours of watch time in that four year period, we're going to use up more bandwidth than the entire Internet times two."
This quote emphasizes the scale of YouTube's ambition and the challenge faced by the infrastructure team, which had to consider the growth of the entire Internet to achieve the company's goals.
"It was incredibly motivational inside the company and outside."
This quote highlights the motivational impact that setting and achieving such a bold goal had within YouTube and the broader community, inspiring both employees and onlookers.
"How to pick goals that are inspirational, that articulate what really matters, articulate the size of the prize that you're going after, are aspirational enough to motivate, but practical enough that you're actually going to hit them."
This quote provides insight into the thought process behind setting effective goals—those that inspire and motivate while remaining within the realm of achievability.
"His funeral was simultaneously one of the saddest and one of the happiest memories I have."
This quote reflects the deep emotional impact Bill Campbell had on those he worked with and the dichotomy of mourning his loss while celebrating his impact.
"Bill's view, the whole world started with getting the right people in the right spots, with the right motivation, and building the right level of trust."
This quote highlights Bill Campbell's philosophy on the importance of team dynamics, trust, and motivation in achieving success.
"His ability to view other people's success as his success is something that was so obvious to him, and that's just not how most people think."
This quote underscores Campbell's unique perspective on success, where he measured his achievements by the accomplishments of those he mentored and coached.
"It's about how to change things when change is hard."
This quote succinctly describes the core concept of the book "Switch," which is about overcoming the challenges associated with making changes.
"Being comfortable with that is really important because sometimes you're going to be surprised in a very positive way."
This quote emphasizes the need for adaptability and openness when managing a platform, as user behavior can lead to unforeseen outcomes.
"Balancing power with simplicity, but developing that perfect team is, I think, what you spend most of your day doing."
This quote captures the dual nature of the challenge in scaling Coda—creating a powerful yet simple product and simultaneously cultivating a strong team.
"It forces structure in your life... and then the other thing I think you learn from kids is you remember what a beginner's mindset is like and what it's like to learn a new thing."
This quote highlights how parenthood can positively influence professional life by enforcing discipline and reviving the experience of learning from scratch.
"We're just getting started on. I think the interesting parts of that are still to come."
This quote expresses optimism for the future of Coda, indicating that the most exciting developments are yet to be seen.