A High School Dropout Builds $1B Startup at 23 | Vise Samir Vasavada

Summary

Samir Vasavada, co-founder and CEO of Vise, shares his journey of dropping out of high school to pursue his passion for technology. Living in the Bay Area, he and his co-founder started by building apps and later developed an AI-driven platform for investment advisors. Despite early challenges, including living on floors and facing numerous rejections, they eventually secured significant funding. Vasavada emphasizes the importance of taking risks, customer obsession, and continuous improvement. He aims to revolutionize the asset management industry with technology, driven by a strong commitment to innovation and perseverance.

Takeaways

• 🚀 Samir Vasavada is the co-founder and CEO of Vise, a company focused on helping financial advisors with personalized portfolios and investment management.
• 🏫 Samir dropped out of high school to pursue his passion for technology and entrepreneurship, moving to the Bay Area and living in the Tenderloin.
• 👨‍💻 Samir and his co-founder initially started by building apps and then pivoted to using AI for automating investment workflows for financial advisors.
• 💡 They realized the wealth and asset management space lacked proper technology for advisors, which led them to focus on independent financial advisors.
• 💰 Despite initial rejections, they secured funding from Nat Turner and Zach Weinberg of Flatiron Health, and later from Founders Fund, allowing them to officially start Vise.
• 📉 They faced challenges with hiring the wrong people who were more interested in getting rich quickly rather than solving problems, which led to a cultural shift within the company.
• 🏢 Samir emphasizes the importance of having fewer but top-performing employees, who are committed, flexible, and customer-obsessed.
• 📈 Vise grew rapidly, becoming a $1 billion company in 18 months, but they had to make hard decisions to maintain the right company culture and focus.
• 🤝 Samir believes in always talking to customers to improve the product and business, emphasizing that the more time spent with customers, the better the outcomes.
• 🛠️ The company's core values include 'burn the boats' (commitment), '1% better every day' (continuous improvement), and 'customer obsession' (putting the customer first).

Q & A

Why did Samir Vasavada drop out of high school?

Samir Vasavada dropped out of high school because he felt a strong calling and passion towards technology and entrepreneurship, which he believed was more important than formal education at that stage of his life.

What is the name of the company Samir Vasavada co-founded and what does it do?

Samir Vasavada co-founded Vise, a company that uses technology to help financial advisors build, manage, and explain personalized investment portfolios at scale.

What was Samir's initial belief about the correlation between intelligence and attending top universities?

Initially, Samir believed that the smartest people attended the best universities such as Harvard, Yale, and Stanford. However, he later realized that this was not always the case and that success in a company is more about solving customer problems and operating at the right speed.

How did Samir and his co-founder meet?

Samir and his co-founder met at a summer program at Northwestern University when they were in eighth grade. Their dorm rooms were across the hall from each other.

What was the idea behind their first startup?

Their first startup aimed to use AI to automate the process of app creation. The idea was to allow users to type in their app idea into a platform, and the system would build an iPhone app in 30 seconds.

How did Samir and his co-founder start consulting with large investment banks?

They started consulting with large investment banks after a mentor, a former investment banker, recognized their knowledge in AI and machine learning and suggested they could offer valuable insights to banks interested in these technologies for investment and efficiency decisions.

What advice did Jamie Dimon give to Samir regarding Vise's business model?

Jamie Dimon advised Samir to focus on independent financial advisors rather than large institutions, as many advisors were leaving big firms to go independent and would need technology to manage their investment workflows.

Why did Samir move to the Bay area and live in the Tenderloin?

Samir moved to the Bay area to pursue his passion for entrepreneurship and technology. He lived in the Tenderloin because he was committed to his entrepreneurial journey, even if it meant living in challenging conditions.

What was the turning point for Vise in terms of funding?

The turning point for Vise in terms of funding was when Nat Turner and Zach Weinberg, founders of Flatiron Health, agreed to be their first investors, providing them with $100,000, which allowed them to feed their employees and keep going.

What does Samir believe about taking risks and following one's passion?

Samir believes that the real risk lies in not following one's passion, as it could lead to a life of regret and misery. He thinks that taking risks is especially important when young, as there is more time and a safety net to fall back on.

What is the SKQ framework Samir mentioned for hiring talent, and what does it stand for?

The SKQ framework stands for Skills, Knowledge, and Qualities. Samir emphasizes the importance of focusing on qualities such as hard work, flexibility, openness to feedback, drive, and motivation when hiring talent.

What are Vise's three core values, and how do they reflect the company's culture?

Vise's three core values are 'burn the boats', 'customer obsession', and '1% better every day'. These values reflect a culture of commitment to the mission, continuous improvement, and prioritizing customer needs above all else.

What advice does Samir give about starting a company at a young age?

Samir advises against starting a company at a young age unless it is driven by a true passion. He shares his own struggles and emphasizes that the journey can be lonely and challenging, but ultimately rewarding if one is truly committed.

What is Samir's long-term vision for Vise?

Samir's long-term vision for Vise is to build the world's largest asset manager, entirely powered by technology, transforming the traditional wealth management industry into the modern era.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Entrepreneurial Journey and Vise's Vision

Samir Vasavada, co-founder and CEO of Vise, shares his unconventional path to entrepreneurship, which began with dropping out of high school and moving to the Bay area. Despite the challenges, his passion and calling drove him to build a tech company. Vise's mission is to revolutionize investment management through technology, offering personalized portfolio building, management, and explanation services. Samir's early inspirations from Steve Jobs and the tech industry led him to his first startup idea of automating app creation with AI. After consulting with investment banks and recognizing a gap in technology for financial advisors, Vise was born. Samir's story highlights the importance of following one's passion and the ability to take risks at a young age, as well as the value of learning from failures and maintaining a customer-centric approach.

05:04

💼 Overcoming Startup Challenges and the Importance of Customer Feedback

The narrative details the struggles faced by Samir and his co-founder during the early stages of Vise. It includes their relentless efforts to secure funding, the pivotal moment when they received their first investment from Nat Turner and Zach Weinberg, and the subsequent seed round led by Founders Fund. The summary underscores the significance of learning from failures, the iterative process of product development, and the crucial role of customer feedback. Samir emphasizes the importance of maintaining a hands-on approach with customers, regardless of company size, and the pitfalls of believing that more capital and personnel inherently lead to faster business growth. He also discusses the realization that a smaller team of top performers can be more effective than a larger team with mixed performance levels.

10:05

🛠 Building a Strong Company Culture and the SKQ Hiring Framework

In this section, Samir discusses the cultural shift that Vise underwent as it transitioned from a seed-stage company to a $1 billion valuation in record time. He reflects on the initial hiring mistakes made by recruiting individuals primarily interested in quick success rather than problem-solving. The narrative describes the hard decisions taken to correct the company's trajectory, including letting go of the wrong hires and re-establishing a culture of problem-solving and commitment. Samir introduces the SKQ framework for hiring, which focuses on Skills, Knowledge, and Qualities, with an emphasis on the latter. He outlines Vise's core values—burn the boats mentality, customer obsession, and the pursuit of incremental daily improvement—and shares his personal experiences and the lessons learned from the entrepreneurial journey, including the importance of passion and resilience in the face of adversity.

Keywords

💡passion

Passion is described as a strong and barely controllable emotion. In the script, Samir Vasavada emphasizes that his decision to pursue his career in tech and investment management was driven by passion, which he describes as more than just a strong interest but a calling. This passion is portrayed as a crucial motivator for his achievements and willingness to take risks.

💡investment management

Investment management involves the handling of financial assets and other investments by professionals. Samir's company, Vise, provides technology to help financial advisors build and manage personalized portfolios for their clients. The script highlights how Vise uses AI to automate these processes, addressing a significant need within the wealth and asset management industry.

💡artificial intelligence (AI)

Artificial Intelligence refers to the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, particularly computer systems. In the context of Vise, AI is used to automate portfolio construction and management, making financial advising more efficient and personalized. Samir's journey into AI began with an interest in technology inspired by figures like Steve Jobs.

💡independent financial advisors

Independent financial advisors are professionals who provide financial advice and services independently, rather than being tied to a particular financial institution. Jamie Dimon's advice to Samir led to Vise focusing on this market segment, providing them with tools to manage their clients' portfolios more effectively.

💡startup

A startup is a company in the early stages of operations, typically characterized by high uncertainty and risk. Samir describes the challenges and risks involved in founding and growing Vise, from developing the initial technology to securing funding and building the right team. His story underscores the importance of persistence and adaptability in the startup world.

💡risk-taking

Risk-taking involves undertaking actions that expose one to potential loss or harm, often in pursuit of a desired goal. Samir reflects on the necessity of taking risks early in life when obligations are fewer. He illustrates how his risk-taking, such as dropping out of high school and moving to the Bay Area, was crucial for pursuing his passion and achieving his goals.

💡customer obsession

Customer obsession is a business philosophy that places the needs and satisfaction of customers at the forefront of decision-making processes. Samir mentions this as one of Vise's core values, emphasizing the importance of understanding and addressing customer needs to improve products and services continually.

💡YC (Y Combinator)

Y Combinator (YC) is a well-known startup accelerator that helps early-stage companies through funding, advice, and networking. Although not directly mentioned as part of Samir's journey, the script references a quote from YC about the importance of always talking to customers, highlighting a key lesson in building a successful startup.

💡burn the boats

Burn the boats is a phrase that means committing fully to a goal by eliminating any possibility of retreat or backup plans. Samir uses this concept to describe the level of commitment and dedication expected at Vise. It represents a mindset of overcoming obstacles and being fully dedicated to the mission.

💡grit

Grit is defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Samir's experiences of hardship and his relentless pursuit of success, despite numerous rejections and challenges, illustrate the importance of grit in his entrepreneurial journey. This quality is crucial for enduring the ups and downs of building a startup.

Highlights

Samir Vasavada dropped out of high school to pursue his passion in the tech industry.

He initially believed that attending top universities was the key to success, but later realized this was not always the case.

Vise, the company he co-founded, focuses on personalized portfolio management for advisors using technology.

Vasavada's entrepreneurial journey started with building apps and evolved into exploring AI for app automation.

As a teenager, Vasavada consulted with large investment banks on AI and machine learning, earning significant side income.

Vise's first prototype aimed to automate investment workflows for large financial institutions.

Jamie Dimon's advice led Vasavada to target independent financial advisors with Vise's technology.

Vasavada's decision to leave high school was driven by a strong calling to his entrepreneurial passion.

He emphasizes the importance of taking risks early in life due to fewer obligations and a stronger safety net.

Vise AI aims to provide tailored investment solutions where traditional methods fall short.

Vasavada's early struggles included living in the Bay area on a tight budget and facing numerous rejections from investors.

Despite initial rejections, Sequoia Capital later invested in Vise multiple times.

Vise's first funding came from Nat Turner and Zach Weinberg, founders of Flatiron Health, who believed in Vasavada's vision.

Vise's rapid growth from a seed-stage company to a $1 billion valuation in 18 months was record-fast.

Vasavada learned the importance of learning from failures and iterating quickly on product development.

He advises spending time with customers to better understand their needs and improve the product.

Vise's core values include 'burn the boats' mentality, customer obsession, and striving for 1% better every day.

Vasavada's vision is to transform the asset management industry using technology and create the world's largest tech-powered asset manager.

Transcripts

So I actually dropped out of high school and I moved to the Bay area,

and I lived in this place called the tenderloin,

But I didn't really give my parents a choice.

My decision was, this is my passion. This is the thing that drives me.

It was actually more than a passion. It was like a calling.

I used to believe the smartest people, they went to the best universities.

They went to Harvard, they went to Yale, they went to Stanford.

That's actually not true.

And oftentimes when we've hired those people, we've actually been disappointed

and we've been wrong.

The right people that are thinking about solving the right customer problems,

operating at the right speed is what makes companies grow and scale faster.

My name is Samir Vasavada. I'm co founder and CEO of Vise.

So Vise does three things.

We help advisors build personalized portfolios.

We help them manage those portfolios, and then we help explain the portfolio

We're technology enables investment management at scale.

So it's funny because I've looked back to like a very young age.

My like the drivers, like the things that brought me fulfillment in life

was always like building something like I love to build.

And then the iPhone had come out.

I had seen Steve Jobs and I had read his book by Walter Isaacson,

and I had just been inspired by tech.

And it's funny because I come from a very traditional family.

My parents were Indian immigrants. We grew up in a relatively small town.

The concept of being a builder, of running a tech company

was kind of a foreign concept,

and the way I actually started with this

was pretty interesting, pretty random.

I had met my co-founder at a summer program in eighth grade.

My parents had sent us to a summer program at northwestern,

and we had met because our dorm rooms were across the hall from each other.

And when we finished the program, we wondered to ourselves,

we have all this time on our hands.

School is not too difficult. Let's let's make money.

And apps at the time were really, really hot.

Every small business wanted an app and we thought we could build those apps.

So we learned how to program. We built our first couple of apps,

and then my co-founder got a research opportunity at a notable university in artificial intelligence research.

And we decided, what if we use AI to automate those apps?

What if you could type in your app idea into a platform

and we could build you an iPhone app in 30s?

And that was our first startup.

It turned out to be too much of a technical challenge at the time,

suited for two 13-14 year olds.

But one of the guys who was mentoring us was a former investment banker,

and he said, you guys know so much about AI and machine learning now

You should consult with large investment banks

because large investment banks want to learn about AI and machine learning

for investment decisions and efficiency decisions within their firms.

So we started consulting with a lot of the largest investment banks in the country,

and we were charging a lot of money 500 to $1000 an hour,

which was a great, great side income for that age.

And as we were consulting with a lot of these firms,

we realized that the wealth and asset management space is a really big part of revenues.

For a lot of these institutions. It was 50% of revenue for Morgan Stanley.

But financial advisors at these institutions, we had believed

where money management gurus, they were investment management experts,

and they didn't necessarily have the tools or technology to be successful

with investment management.

So we saw an opportunity.

What if we build technology to help automate the investment workflows

for these large investment institutions?

We built our first prototype at 15,

and the goal was to sell it to big financial institutions.

Now, we didn't know how hard that would be at the time.

And Jamie Dimon was speaking at a Detroit Startup Week.

There was a local school field trip, and runic had gone

down to to go see Jamie Dimon speak.

And Jamie got off stage and we rushed him on stage and we we asked Jamie,

What JP Morgan be interested in leveraging artificial intelligence

to automate their investment workloads for their financial advisors.

And he basically said to us, no, JP Morgan has lots of technology,

lots of investment workflows.

But you should look at independent financial advisors,

because what's happening is a lot of advisors are leaving big institutions

and they're going independent.

And you guys could provide the tech, the software to power them.

So we discovered this massive market of independent financial advisors.

And Vise could be the first company to really deliver this.

So I actually dropped out of high school, but I basically left high school

after partially through 11th grade, and I moved to the Bay area,

and I lived in this place called the tenderloin,

But like, I didn't really give my parents a choice.

My decision was this is my passion. This is the thing that drives me.

It was actually more than a passion. It was like a calling.

Oftentimes when people say that there's you're taking on risk

to follow your passion.

You know, the actual risk you're taking is is not doing that right,

because you're taking the risk of, am I going to be miserable in life

if I don't actually follow my passion?

I think it gets really challenging to take risk.

When you have a family and you have kids and like you have obligations

and responsibilities, and that's when most people really regret not having taken risk

earlier on in their lives.

And when you're doing at a young age, it's actually even more important

because, like you have the time and ability to take risk.

I'm 16, 17, 18 years old.

Now is the time in my life where I should take the most risk because

I have a safety net to fall back on.

So the question is, do I listen to my parents or do I not?

And oftentimes you just kind of listen to your gut.

There are over 400,000 investment advisors in the United States.

Clients expect personalized portfolios tailored to their needs,

but instead are getting dumped into generic buckets of mutual funds and ETFs.

Vise AI is an artificial intelligence platform tailored to investment advisors

so they can automate portfolio construction and management.

When we started, it was incredibly difficult.

I had cold called cold, emailed hundreds of investors

between the ages of 16 and 19, and no one would give us money

while I was living in the Bay area, sleeping on floors.

My co-founder actually decided to go to U-Penn and do a year of college,

which could have destroyed our business,

but I actually moved onto Renick's dorm room floor and I said, I'm not leaving until you drop out.

And he said, okay, to drop out. We need to raise a million bucks.

His parents had said, if you want to drop out or take a leave of absence,

you need to raise $1 million.

So we decided we're going to go out and raise $1 million.

We don't know who's going to give us $1 million, but we set out to do it.

And it's funny because we cold called so many people.

One of the people we'd cold called was Jim Goetz, a very famous partner at Sequoia,

and I found his number online somehow.

And I'd called him and I'd said, Jim, this is the business we're working on.

But I was so nervous the first time I hung up.

And then I called him back and he chewed me out on the phone

for like ten minutes and said, Sequoia is never going to fund you.

And ironically, a couple of years later, they funded us three times over.

But when we were in this process, we kept coming against all these road

bumps and people just kept rejecting us.

What are you kids going to be able to do in the wealth management space?

Go find a real job or come back to this.

And we ended up meeting these two guys, Nat Turner and Zach Weinberg

who started a company called Flatiron Health.

And they said, okay, we'll be your first investors.

Even if the thing goes to zero, it's okay. We think you'll be successful.

And they gave us our first 100 K

and one, we could afford to feed our employees because everyone was working

on equity at that point in time.

And two, it was enough momentum for us to kind of get excited and keep going.

And then we ended up meeting Founders Fund and Founders Fund co-led a seed round

and we raised $2 million, which was pretty exciting at the time.

And Rounick had dropped out, moved to the Bay area,

and we had started the company officially.

The way I think about it is there's just you have individual successes

and you have individual failures, and we've had lots and lots of failures,

but you never learn from your successes.

You always learn from your failures.

So our goal is to have as many failures as fast as possible.

So before we had a launch ready product for Vise, we had rebuilt the platform

something like 5 to 7 times.

So we'd gone from a full platform build to like scratching it all and restarting.

And I think my one big lesson in this whole thing,

there's a Reid Hoffman quote you should be embarrassed about your first product.

We were always embarrassed about our product,

but we never actually launched it.

We just kept scrubbing it and restarting.

If I had to redo it all over again, I would have.

I would have given it to users, even though I was so desperately

embarrassed about the product.

Because you're going to learn, right?

And even if something is imperfect, a little bit more feedback

will continue your iteration cycle to keep learning, keep getting better.

So a lot of my early days, every day after school,

I would sit in financial advisors offices and I would just watch them use our

product or watch them use other product.

And then it builds a really strong mental model and understanding of how do

they think, how do they make decisions, why do they make decisions?

So a lot of my learnings came from just simply watching them do the work

or doing the work with them.

And that best way to learn is just to do so.

YC has this quote always be talking to your customers,

and it couldn't be more true

As you grow, the hard thing is, as you grow and you become larger and larger,

you have salespeople, you have product managers, you have people that will talk

to the customer on your behalf.

And that's actually the wrong thing to do as a CEO as a founder

You want to always be talking to your customers, whether you're

a multi-billion dollar company or you're a five person company,

because the more time you spend with your customers, the better your product gets.

The better your story gets, the better you get at sales.

There is nothing more important than talking to customers.

Actually make it a key part of my week.

How much time did I spend talking to prospective customers

or existing customers

Because the amount of learnings you get improve your business tenfold.

There is a belief in Silicon Valley that more people and more capital

builds businesses faster, and that's actually a fallacy.

That's not true.

The right people that are thinking about solving the right customer problems,

operating at the right speed, is what makes companies grow and scale faster.

And the problem when you have a lot of employees, less work actually gets done

because you have more people that are managing

more problems that you're managing with more people.

So we actually realize having less people and the top performers

would actually lead to better results.

Because what you realize as a company is that the top 20% of performers

drive the top 80% of results,

so why do you want the other 80%?

You want only the top performers at the company, and you want to make sure those

top performers are properly incentivized, structured properly, and they have

the resources they need to be successful.

I used to believe the smartest people, they went to the best universities,

they went to Harvard, they went to Yale, they went to Stanford.

That's actually not true.

And oftentimes when we've hired those people, we've actually been disappointed

and we've been wrong.

We wanted everyone to think about being kind of the day zero,

day one employees that were building, that were solving problems.

And what happened was Vise had gone from a seed stage company

to $1 billion company in 18 months.

It was record fast timing.

It was the youngest person in history to have $1 billion company.

And what happened was we started to recruit a lot of the wrong people.

We recruited people that were here to to kind of get rich.

They were mercenaries.

They wanted to join Vise and expected it to be a rocket ship, and expected them not

to have to solve problems, when in reality we were still an early stage startup

and we needed to do a major shift.

We had built the wrong culture, we had hired the wrong people,

and we had to make hard decisions to let a lot of those people go, and

to change the mental model internally to, we're not a big company that's made it.

We are a company that is figuring it out.

That's going to win because we are all problem solvers,

we're all thinkers, and we're all hustling to make it happen, just like we did

in the early days of the company.

The way to actually think about talent and hiring the best talent

is to think about, like a framework I call SKQ, Skills, Knowledge and Qualities.

Really focusing on qualities.

Is this person willing to work super duper hard?

Are they someone who can learn? Are they flexible?

Are they open to taking feedback? Are they driven?

Are they motivated?

At Vise, we have three core values burn the boats, customer obsession,

and 1% better every day.

Number one, we want people that are committed.

They're all in on the mission.

They're willing to go through any walls, run through any walls,

go through any challenges to be successful in the business.

They're truly kind of they have this burn the boats mentality

Two, 1% better every day.

You're 1% better every day.

You're far, far better at the end of the year.

And it's those little changes you make every single day to constantly evolve.

It's not about the big change.

It's about the little changes and those learnings compound and your organization

compounds as a result of those learnings.

And the last and probably one of the most important values is customer obsession,

making the customer truly embedded as part of our entire organization.

Everyone in every decision is thinking about how is the customer impacted,

how are we going to drive more value to the customer,

putting the customer ahead of everyone, even if it comes out at a personal cost to to our company?

I don't recommend starting a company at a young age

unless it is your true driving passion.

I think a lot of people think, wow, it's really cool to start a company and

like it's the hot thing to be doing and oftentimes you shouldn't do the hot thing.

You should do the thing that you're passionate about,

that you're excited about.

I think I've had times where we were at the top of the world,

and I was feeling kind of lonely and misunderstood and just miserable,

and I was like, feeding for scraps, basically.

I would like go to the Whole Foods and steal from the buffet because,

I had no money and I needed food.

And I think that was like some of the hardest moments of my life.

But it was also really important because one, it built grit

and two, it built this kind of sense of drive and purpose

that if I didn't figure it out, I was kind of screwed and I had to figure it out.

Like it was like a burn the boats like mentality.

But if you truly love it and it's truly the thing that makes you happy,

I would say it's a no brainer opportunity to be a founder.

It's a no brainer opportunity to start a company,

and you'll learn so much more in the process about yourself, about the world.

And it's important to know that you're not alone.

And that's just kind of what entrepreneurial journey is like.

And it's important to just constantly realize that the next day is going to get

better, and your job is just to move to the next day and just get a little better.

And as long as you don't quit, as long as you don't give up like you will get there.

I think my vision is to build the world's largest asset manager,

entirely powered by technology.

How do we transform this legacy archaic age old industry into the modern era?

And I think that we have a very great shot at doing that,

and I think it's going to take a while, but I think it's going to be a lot of fun.

As long as you keep going, you will eventually get there.

Right? So in many ways that is that is my vision.