How This Billionaire Founder Finds +$20B Business Ideas
About This Episode
Serial entrepreneur Kevin Ryan, the founder of MongoDB, Business Insider, and DoubleClick, discusses his 'startup studio' model at AlleyCorp. He breaks down how he identifies massive 10-year trends, the importance of aggressive scaling once product-market fit is found, and his current bets on healthcare, maritime logistics, and automation.
Episode Description
Show Notes
- 0:00Intro
- 3:15Selling DoubleClick to Google for ~$3B
- 5:20Starting Business Insider, MongoDB and Gilt
- 11:00What led Kevin to start Business Insider
- 15:00Why Kevin hired Henry Blodget to run Business Insider
- 16:45What did Buzzfeed get wrong?
- 18:45Why has AlleyCorp been such a success compared to other venture studios?
- 29:20What businesses Kevin’s excited about right now
- 39:00Thoughts on buy vs. build vs. bootstrap
- 41:00What business has been the easiest and most profitable?
- 42:50Thoughts on AI
- 44:50Launching 8 companies a year
- 47:40Why Kevin isn’t on social media
- 50:20Starting companies in the recruiting space
- 54:20The benefit of being emotionally stable
- 56:20Kevin’s investment portfolio
Links
- Kevin’s Linkedin
- AlleyCorp
- Business Insider
- Henry Blodget
- MongoDB
- Gilt
- The Ladders
- RippleMatch
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Key Takeaways
Evaluate investment opportunities by asking if $1 of capital will increase the company's valuation by more than the dilution it causes over an 18-month period.
Target 'one-chart businesses' where a single, undeniable macro trend—such as the rising cost of labor or the shift to unstructured data—guarantees a massive future market.
When entering a mature industry, win by executing on 'obvious' digital-first strategies that incumbents ignore, such as real-time content updates and aggressive A/B testing.