Canva & Hinge Investor: Why "0 to $2M in 10 Days" Is Just A Vanity Metric (Footwork VC’s Nikhil Basu Trivedi)
Timestamps are as accurate as they can be but may be slightly off. We encourage you to listen to the full context.
Podcast Summary
Silicon Valley investor Nikhil Basu Trivedi shares insights on building category-creating companies and the patterns that separate unicorns from truly durable businesses. (00:00) The conversation explores his journey from Artsy co-founder to general partner at Footwork VC, where he's invested in companies like Canva, Hinge, and The Farmer's Dog. Nikhil challenges conventional wisdom about rapid growth, arguing that "fundamental genetics" matter more than vanity metrics like "zero to 2 million in ten days." (10:30) He emphasizes how the best companies create entirely new markets rather than competing in existing ones, and why consumer-enterprise hybrids represent the future of building billion-dollar businesses. The discussion covers everything from prioritization as a founder's superpower to why being "the only" matters more than being "the best." (31:52)
- Main Theme: Building durable, category-creating businesses that prioritize long-term value over short-term growth metrics
Speakers
Nikhil Basu Trivedi
Co-founder and General Partner at Footwork VC, where he focuses on early-stage investments in category-creating companies. Previously worked at Shasta Ventures and was part of the founding team at Artsy, helping digitize the art world before mobile became ubiquitous. He's invested in billion-dollar companies including Canva, Hinge, and The Farmer's Dog, and writes "The Next Big Thing" newsletter sharing insights on venture capital and company building.
Key Takeaways
Focus on Business Genetics Over Growth Metrics
Nikhil reveals that some businesses have "fundamental genetics" that create natural durability advantages. (07:07) He contrasts The Farmer's Dog, where dogs eat the same food three times daily for life creating incredible retention, with Hinge, where success actually means customer churn. While both companies reached billions in revenue, their underlying business models create vastly different retention profiles. This insight suggests entrepreneurs should carefully consider the inherent characteristics of their market and product when evaluating long-term potential, rather than just focusing on initial growth rates.
Create Markets Rather Than Compete in Existing Ones
The most successful companies don't capture market share - they create entirely new markets. (11:05) Nikhil points to ChatGPT as a prime example, noting it didn't steal spend from existing products but created a completely new category of expenditure. The signal that market creation is possible comes from a "magical product experience that is blowing people away" and attracts customers who wouldn't have spent on this type of product before. This approach requires building something so compelling that it expands the total addressable market rather than redistributing existing spend.
Extreme Prioritization Drives Billion-Dollar Outcomes
The Farmer's Dog maintained just three SKUs for nine years while scaling to billions in revenue. (18:59) Despite consistent board pressure to expand, founders Jonathan and Brett focused relentlessly on perfecting their core offering. This extreme prioritization allowed them to "crush everyone in the space" from both product and marketing standpoints. The lesson is that founders often underestimate how large their initial market can become, and premature diversification can prevent achieving dominance in that core market.
Consumer-Enterprise Hybrids Represent the Future
The most powerful companies serve both consumers and enterprises, following the model of tech giants like Nvidia, Alphabet, and Microsoft. (15:52) Canva exemplifies this approach, growing organically among consumers and prosumers before infiltrating enterprise, now generating over $3 billion annually with roughly half from each segment. The key signal is broad usage across different personas and use cases from early days. Companies that resist being put in a box often have the versatility to serve multiple market segments effectively.
Being "The Only" Matters More Than Being "The Best"
Rather than fixating on being the best investor, Nikhil focuses on being "the only" - a more input-driven approach that emphasizes differentiation over competition. (31:52) This philosophy extends to company building, where exceptional businesses are built by people who "don't follow traditional patterns and norms" and "take a different path." (27:07) This mindset encourages authentic differentiation rather than incremental improvement, leading to breakthrough innovations that create new categories rather than compete in existing ones.
Statistics & Facts
- The Farmer's Dog scaled to billions in revenue while maintaining just three SKUs for nine years. (19:21) This demonstrates the power of extreme focus and prioritization in building massive businesses.
- Canva generates over $3 billion in annual revenue, with approximately half coming from consumers/prosumers and half from enterprise customers. (17:09) This validates the consumer-enterprise hybrid model for building category-creating companies.
- One in ten marriages in the US today started with a match on Hinge. (08:37) This statistic illustrates how successful products can achieve massive scale while actually succeeding through customer churn (people finding relationships and leaving the platform).
