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Building Meter for decades, not an exit | Anil Varanasi (Co-founder and CEO)

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Manage episode 523568215 series 2815222
Content provided by First Round. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by First Round or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.

Anil Varanasi is the co-founder and CEO of Meter, which provides full-stack networking infrastructure as a service for businesses. Since founding Meter with his brother Sunil in 2015, Anil has been playing a distinctly long game in one of the most entrenched markets in technology, betting on vertical integration, business model innovation, and a multi-decade time horizon. In this conversation, he unpacks Meter’s origin story, from four-plus years of heads-down R&D, and shares how his unconventional approach to planning, management, and pace keeps him excited to run the company for decades.

In today’s episode, we discuss:

  • Why Anil thinks in 25-year horizons
  • How operating in a monopolistic market shaped Meter’s approach
  • Why Meter scrapped a year of OS work during the R&D phase
  • How Meter is rethinking networking’s business model
  • Surviving COVID, Apple’s M1 transition, and “a thousand bad days”
  • Anil’s contrarian views on planning, OKRs, and management
  • How founders can build companies they’ll want to run for decades

Where to find Anil:

Where to find Brett:

Where to find First Round Capital:

References:

Timestamps:

(01:27) Meter’s unusual timeframes

(04:06) “We don’t do OKRs”

(06:32) How to plan without planning

(08:31) Track your unhappy customers

(11:43) How Meter’s journey began

(15:02) Dissecting the 2010s SaaS boom

(17:06) The networking industry trap

(21:44) Meter’s first roadblock

(22:07) Why Shenzhen accelerated Meter’s progress

(26:29) The process to get a sales-ready product

(31:02) Why you should own the full stack

(32:45) The surprising thing you should innovate

(35:03) Avoiding the one-trick pony trap

(37:39) The secret to finding an excellent market

(43:48) How COVID’s constraints propelled growth

(48:25) Why founders need to know their customers

(49:34) Why Meter didn’t sell via traditional channels

(51:44) You need “seller-market fit”

(54:51) The danger of meta-work

(56:25) Decoupling management from authority

(1:02:17) When the person is the problem

(1:05:05) The inherent value of going slowly

(1:09:41) Running a company for as long as possible

  continue reading

166 episodes

Artwork
iconShare
 
Manage episode 523568215 series 2815222
Content provided by First Round. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by First Round or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.

Anil Varanasi is the co-founder and CEO of Meter, which provides full-stack networking infrastructure as a service for businesses. Since founding Meter with his brother Sunil in 2015, Anil has been playing a distinctly long game in one of the most entrenched markets in technology, betting on vertical integration, business model innovation, and a multi-decade time horizon. In this conversation, he unpacks Meter’s origin story, from four-plus years of heads-down R&D, and shares how his unconventional approach to planning, management, and pace keeps him excited to run the company for decades.

In today’s episode, we discuss:

  • Why Anil thinks in 25-year horizons
  • How operating in a monopolistic market shaped Meter’s approach
  • Why Meter scrapped a year of OS work during the R&D phase
  • How Meter is rethinking networking’s business model
  • Surviving COVID, Apple’s M1 transition, and “a thousand bad days”
  • Anil’s contrarian views on planning, OKRs, and management
  • How founders can build companies they’ll want to run for decades

Where to find Anil:

Where to find Brett:

Where to find First Round Capital:

References:

Timestamps:

(01:27) Meter’s unusual timeframes

(04:06) “We don’t do OKRs”

(06:32) How to plan without planning

(08:31) Track your unhappy customers

(11:43) How Meter’s journey began

(15:02) Dissecting the 2010s SaaS boom

(17:06) The networking industry trap

(21:44) Meter’s first roadblock

(22:07) Why Shenzhen accelerated Meter’s progress

(26:29) The process to get a sales-ready product

(31:02) Why you should own the full stack

(32:45) The surprising thing you should innovate

(35:03) Avoiding the one-trick pony trap

(37:39) The secret to finding an excellent market

(43:48) How COVID’s constraints propelled growth

(48:25) Why founders need to know their customers

(49:34) Why Meter didn’t sell via traditional channels

(51:44) You need “seller-market fit”

(54:51) The danger of meta-work

(56:25) Decoupling management from authority

(1:02:17) When the person is the problem

(1:05:05) The inherent value of going slowly

(1:09:41) Running a company for as long as possible

  continue reading

166 episodes

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