20VC: Hims & Hers: $4.3BN Market Cap on $2.3BN of Revenue: The Comeback | Why Being Public is 10x Better | The Death of the "Strategy" Hire | Why Performance Marketing is Worse than Brand Marketing with Andrew Dudum
episode
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
59 min
2 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 3 months ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Why is being a public company better than being private?
One of the things I learned earliest in my career is if you can't hire people that are smarter than you, you will fail. You know, I think what you gain confidence in with brand marketing over time is that consistency is required. Yeah, the whole thing is totally fucked, right?
What advice would you give to the Collisons about taking Stripe public?
If you look at the existing system in the US. This is 20VC with me, Harry Stebbings. Now, I am so excited for the show today. We have Andrew Dudham, founder and CEO of HIMS on the show.
How do you hire for grit and resilience in your team?
HIMS are reinventing healthcare, but... Wow, it's been a tough six months. They are down 66%.
How is AI reshaping customer acquisition strategies?
They've got a market cap of 4.35 billion as of today, but they do over 2.3 billion in revenue. It's nuts. I'm so excited to sit down with Andrew today where we discuss this and so much more. This was so much fun to do. But before we dive into the show today, you're in back-to-back meetings all day.
What mistakes did Hims and Hers make that Andrew regrets?
You're trying to stay present, but you're also worried you'll forget the decision, the action item, the important next step. That's where Granola comes in. Granola is an AI-powered notepad for meetings. You jot down rough notes like you always do, and in the background, Granola transcribes and turns them into really clear, useful notes when the meeting ends. No bots joining your call, no distractions, just a clean notepad that helps you focus.
What is the least profitable but most crucial product for Hims?
During or after the call, you can chat with your notes, ask Granola to pull out action items, help you negotiate, write a follow-up email even, or coach you using recipes, which are pre-made prompts. It's actually the same technology we use to create our podcast notes. Once you try it on a first meeting, it's really hard to go back. Head to granola.ai forward slash 20VC, that's granola.ai forward slash 20VC, and get three months free with the code 20VC, that's 20VC. Once Granola turns the conversation into clear notes, Finn turns that clarity into better customer support. If you're looking for a way to transform your customer service, let me introduce you to Finn, baby. Finn is the number one AI agent for customer service, resolving up to 93% of customer queries automatically.
Why did Hims acquire Eucalyptus for $1.5 billion?
There is no other agent that can do that. Not 93% of customer queries, okay? No other agent can do that. So why choose Finn? Finn is the best performing AI agent for CS. Finn doesn't just answer questions, it takes actions.
How does brand marketing outperform performance marketing?
It automates the most complex customer queries like refunds, transaction disputes, technical troubleshooting with speed and reliability. I wish my team was speedy and reliable. Beats every competitor in every head-to-head bake-off. Completely configurable and code optional setup. My word. I mean, the benefits just go on and on. It's easy and efficient implementation. It works on any help desk with no tedious migration needs. It's trusted by over 6,000 customer service leaders, including top AI companies like Anthropic, Lovable, Synthesia, Clay, Vanta. So if you're ready to transform your customer service team, scale your support, and give team members time to focus on the really high-level strategic work, learn more about FIN at fin.ai forward slash 20VC.
You have now arrived at your destination. Andrew, it's been like six, seven years. I was young and fresh when we last spoke.
I was a lot younger. We looked a lot better back then. But I'd say we're pretty good right now.
Listen, I think life's been pretty kind to both of us. Can I start with a super weird one? And you might be like, dude, I thought we were buddies. But I speak to so many public company CEOs today, and I can't find a happy one.
I might be the only person that believes this, but I think running the company in the public markets is more fun than being private.
Why? You get shit on every day, dude. I see it. And I'm like, oh, poor Andrew. And I so remember our dinner with your lovely wife. And I'm like, oh, he's so nice. And I see the shit on Twitter.
I love it for a few reasons. One, if you're a highly competitive person, you get to put out high benchmarks every 90 days. and see if you can actually deliver on it. And you can build a high performance team to say, hey, we put this out and it's a big stretch.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why is being a public company better than being private?
0:00–0:13
2
What advice would you give to the Collisons about taking Stripe public?
0:13–0:23
3
How do you hire for grit and resilience in your team?
0:23–0:31
4
How is AI reshaping customer acquisition strategies?
0:31–0:49
5
What mistakes did Hims and Hers make that Andrew regrets?
0:49–1:13
6
What is the least profitable but most crucial product for Hims?
1:13–2:03
7
Why did Hims acquire Eucalyptus for $1.5 billion?
2:03–2:17
8
How does brand marketing outperform performance marketing?
2:17–59:17
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
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