YouSaid · the spoken record

Erik Allebest

lines on the record: 90
first: 2024-02-07
most recent: 2024-02-07
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Thanks for having me. It was a joy to talk with you. I appreciate your questions and many of your pushbacks and your insights. It's been great to dialogue. Thank you so much.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In some ways, I hope I don't know because I haven't thought about it in a couple years. Just kidding. I may be there in 10 years, may not. It's pretty stressful at times. So there's times where I hope that I don't think about it in 10 years. But I think chess will continue to be a big part of people's lives. And I think that in this world of exploding possibilities and a new, you know, there are dozens of game studios creating new games every single day to launch and do this and do that. We're in a world where there's more songs are being written and more content is being created and more things are being done. People go back to the classics and for a little bit of just like safety. My kids listen to music from generations past because there's something that's like classic about that. And I think that chess will be the fallback of the greatest strategy game and most.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My wife saw through that kind of asshole personality and forgave me many times early in our courtship and saw the good person that I was and gave me a lot of grace to find that over time.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh man, the future is so exciting. Don't you want to see it society's evolving? It's such a crazy rate. It's like not being able to see the end of a movie. It's like, I just want to see where it goes.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A little bit around parenting as I discussed earlier. I thought the guardrails were more important for everybody than they are. And I don't know that they are for everybody. Some kids need to just jump out of the nest, and that's okay.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, parenting is fulfilling for sure. Does it mean that you can't be as good at your job? Do you have to make choices between those? I would say some people probably do have to make choices. But I will tell you that my situation, and again, this goes back, I am home when my kids leave in the morning and I am home when they come home. That's partly working from home allows me to both put in a lot of work and hours over the week, but also be around and my kids can feel me there. I think people who have to do the grind to go out and they're traveling a ton or spend a lot of time in office, I do think that they may end up sacrificing some of their family fulfillment.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that makes, I understand that. I don't know if my dad's going to watch this, but I think my dad does that a little bit. I think he works to just not have to listen sometimes to some of the things that are maybe haunting in there. And I have that at times too for myself. Like I am a compulsive cleaner. Like if you came to my house, you'd think the housekeepers were there. I clean a lot because it puts me in a both in a zone of control, but also just being busy just helps me. So I understand what you're saying, but I do think that at some point to truly be happy, you have to be at peace with yourself as we started with. And work can cover up for that. But I think that you could slowly start to work in a practice of real self-acceptance and reflection that doesn't have to just be glossed over through work. And I say that as I'm also talking to myself as I say that.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I think people love like reality. People love vulnerability. People love self-deprecation and humor and just real. People love real. It's always been who I am. I don't have the, I haven't had the drive to do that. And I think I had a safe home where I felt like I could be myself. And I grew up that way feeling very self-assured and have had friends and people who just love me for who I am. And I'm not a perfect person and I make a lot of mistakes. And I have character flaws for sure. I try to lead with humility and with acceptance of who I am and who everybody is. And I've found that that's created really great relationships.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's not my nature, if I'm honest. I don't feel like a dark person. I feel like a needy person sometimes. I feel like a confused person.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then when you come together, then you can start possibly then or later to work on solutions to the problems. Because there can be real problems. And just validating feelings doesn't solve problems, but you have to start there.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To your point, the greatest thing you can do is validate and listen. And then when everybody feels validated and safe and heard down to baseline and safe, then and only then can you have productive conversations around policy or decisions or different things. But most people get into escalating fights and arguments about trying to feel heard and validated. And if you can be the person in your relationship when there's tension to just stop and say, I'm setting my issues aside and I'm going to listen to this person as a human and what their needs are and what's driving them and what their feelings are and listen and say, I hear you, that sounds hard. I understand. That makes sense. I feel that. You help that person then feel safe as a person. And then hopefully they'll take the time and their turn to then listen to you and do the same for you.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think there were times and periods or certain areas with each kid where you really want the best outcome for them in this thing. And so as a parent, you fixate on it and you try to, I want to fix this, I want to control this, I want to adjust this. And it turns into a lot of negativity. And you end up sometimes creating more problems than if you hadn't fixated on it and you would just.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh man, you're gonna make me emotional here. I think be really attuned to that ratio of positive versus negative. When you're a kid, you feel the negativity from authority. You feel the wrong that you do. You feel when you mess up. You feel when you disappoint. You feel, you know, you feel also heavy. And there's so much of it. You're getting so much correction in life. You're getting so many negative moments. And a lot of it's in the world. And if you're making your home also a place of negativity, a lot of kids just want to check out because they can't handle the negativity. So just trying to make home as positive as possible and have the most positivity so that when they're those corrective moments, you have a lot in the bank. And I wish you cannot do enough. There's no too much. Just do more and more.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It works well, it works well for some kids who understand that, and there's a little bit of friction and you kind of help and over time they see and do those things. And that is true for some personalities, for other personalities, sometimes the best thing is just to get out of the way and let life take its course. So I'm not trying to say either approach is best. It's very kid dependent. But the more I tried to structure for my son, the worse outcomes he had. It was counterintuitive because it worked with my other kids and didn't work for him. And so I had to change, you know, my wife and I had to change strategies there.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Going to do these things just good luck, man. Good luck. So if he misses school, he's got an Uber to school. He's got to figure it all out on his own. And that actually makes him happy rather than bumpers down the bowling lane. He wants maximum freedom with maximum consequences.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm learning still every day what it means to be a great father because it's different a little bit for each kid. And I really try to meet my kids where they are and see the best in them. Some kids are easier to parent with certain styles than others. Some kids are more compliant. Some are more willing to please. And I'm still learning about that. My older two kids were easiest in some ways, and my younger two who are still at home, I have different challenges, and I'm learning there. But like, for I'll give you an example, for my 15-year-old son, he's so incredibly bright, but he really doesn't love to have people tell him what to do. That includes, you know, but his sister's got, you know, she drives it out the door at eight o'clock to go to school, but if he doesn't want to be woken up, he doesn't want to be bothered. And so we finally said, hey, like, we're not going to set an alarm for you. We're not going to take money from your bank account if you're late.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was scared, but I was ready. I think being 23 for me as a person at that age, all that I had done in my life, honestly, you know, some people are like, oh, late to launch or whatever. I was like early. I was a very mature early, mature person doing laundry by myself when I was a very young age, shopping, grocery shopping for myself, starting companies. Like, you know, I went and lived as a Mormon missionary for two years in Argentina and washed my clothes, you know, the mud off my clothes in a bucket with my knuckles and like, you know, I was just very young. I was put in a positions of responsibility. So having a kid at 23 honestly felt like no big deal.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think a lot of people work for me think that it has a place in the workforce. We try to thread this in one way, which is to say we are not out there trying to have a stand on any particular issues. But our belief is that chess is for everyone. And that's an inclusive message. All people, all genders, all races, all religious affiliations, all everything.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Russia invading Ukraine. We have a lot of team members in Ukraine. We have a lot of team members in Russia who have mostly left. It was very hard to see. And I feel like it's one of the great evils of the last few years is to see this direct assault. I understand the hypocrisy of taking a stand here, but not taking a stand there. But this is one of the most black and white issues out there. I would say Israel, Gaza, is not a black and white issue. It's mostly just a black issue across all of it.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is all very hard, and I think you know we have not drawn very many, you know, we haven't taken a stand too many times.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was just standing at the whiteboard, like talking about something with a friend, and it was a call. It was actually the local police station, which said, hey, have you talked to the FBI yet? And I was like, no. And they said, oh, well, they reached out to us to let us know about this death threat on the internet that someone had ponied up some money to have you killed. And the reasons were because of your stance on Russia.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's possible in like my next thing. I am so overwhelmed by my current job that it's hard to think about anything else. But I have thought of that. Like, let me just try this out on you. What if there were a fund that only that invested in companies where they cap their returns and excess returns trickle down to the rest of everybody on the team? That sounds crazy because you're like, why would you cap your returns? Your whole thing is to get maximum returns. I'll tell you what I did. When our poker stars investor, you know, the Scheinberg family, when they exited to GA, I said, I'm going to block this transaction as hard as I can unless we set aside a huge percentage comparatively of the sale. Everybody is going to pay. I think it was 7% of their gains into a separate pool.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is very problematic. I think that is where the answer needs to happen, but there's so much regulatory and legal and global stuff to fix around that before we can really get to that.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I love this. I wish that it were easier to do. For example, the system of legality is so hard and painful. The moment you are an equity owner, you have a K1 in 37 states and 12 countries. And the tax bill alone for managing the equity tiny equity stake you have can be worth more than the equity itself. And it depends on your structures and your countries, but like ownership is so hard to do. And it's a real barrier to doing that. The other challenge is vesting schedules. So maybe someone owns, but someone comes in, works early, bails out. Now they have a bunch of ownership, but then they participate in all the upside of when they weren't there. And so there's a whole bunch of things around maybe the valuation when they joined versus when they left and they can capture that value, but there's a lot of problems. You dilute out and then, so ownership structure in general.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look at the work that's being done by the people who are doing it. Look at the people who are managing those people. And then look at the people who invest in there, in the finance industry, and look at where the value flows versus where the work is being done. And it's just disproportionate. And I understand that capital returns and a healthy market where people can invest their dollars to get returns is great for everybody's wealth creation who has money. I understand that people having money creates jobs. I understand that money does flow down even if trickle-down economics isn't totally, you know, whatever. I understand a lot of these things, but I also understand that like there's a driving human greed that makes it so that money doesn't flow in some ways to the people who need it or deserve it. And I don't know how to solve for this yet.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I probably hired the first 300 to 400 people myself who worked with the company. And I would just say to them, how much money do you need to do this job? And if we can make that, we'll do it. And if not, I'll let you know. But really, what do you need to do this? Because I'm not going to make you an offer because I don't know your life. I don't know how much the average person makes around you. I don't know what your expectations are. So tell me what you need. And if I can meet that, great. And if I can't, hey, we part ways and we understand. And that's what we did. And people would say, hey, I can do this. And I would say, oh, that's great. Or, oh, I can't do that. This is probably my max here. It's a take it or leave it. It's a little bit like that. But what's been great is to see globalizing people, wages have gone up because someone who used to in Serbia worked for $9 an hour. Now they have a global marketplace to work. So their wages have gone up a ton. That's great for them and I'm happy and we've tried to adjust and do all that we can. But again, some people just frankly”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, it's definitely nationally regulated. It's very hard to do. Compensation planning for a completely global company is super hard to do.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think treating people like kind of like assets kind of treating people like workers who are supposed to do a job rather than like teammates who are on a mission to do something. Everybody wants to be respected and everybody wants to feel like what they're doing has meaning when people feel that it's like I'm task oriented to do this thing that generates this, that makes money. I know that's what a business is and I know that's what work is. But when deep down, when you feel that I think it's hard to show up when you feel that that's what you're doing. I think when you show up to work and feel like there are people that I care about who are relying on me or there's a community that cares about what I do, it's very easy to show up for those people.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sometimes they say money doesn't matter or they're, you know, and then later it becomes, you know, oh, I had a kid. I need this, you know, or a crazy offer comes in. We're always like, hey, we're super happy for you. If that's now the important for you, go do that thing. That's great. We're happy for you. It's usually a life circumstance will change. Occasionally we'll get like a bullshitter who will come through and suddenly they come in. They seem like the nicest person. Then they come in and they're like kingdom building and, you know, backstabbing and stuff. And we're just like, get out. like immediately get out.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Being super mission driven and having people who really are consumers of your own product, they live the chess world and life. So they get to participate in that thing. And the other crazy thing is that we are nobody's highest paying job. We immediately filter for highest pay. Like if you are looking for your highest paying job, it will not be chess.com. And so anyone who's hoping for that will go take a job somewhere else and they are here for passion. We pay as well as we can, but they're never going to leave for money. They stay here for lifestyle. They stay here for mission. They stay here because we care about them and take care of them. But we don't churn people who are just constantly looking for the next most money they can make. Those people don't take jobs at chess.com.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Mission. And so we have really smart people who are passionate about what we do, who come from everywhere. And the other thing is, is they feel respected in their lives. They can show up to work when they want. They can do the work that they want. They can walk their dog in the middle of the day. They can take time off. They can do what they need to do. It is a joy for them to work. They don't feel trapped in the office. They don't feel like they have to show up early to do FaceTime. They don't feel like they have to be the last one to leave. They don't have to pretend like they're busy. It's so life-enabling to them that they're grateful to have the job and they give everything to it. And that includes me. I love my life. I love the fact that I'm sitting in a room and that there's no one around to bother me and that I'm doing this and I don't have to worry about if someone is judging me for how I'm spending my time or what's going on. It's freeing.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, first of all, talent is all over the world. And if you are geographically confined on talent, you have a smaller hiring pool and you are now competing, it's hard to compete against these massive dangled comp packages in certain areas and things. It's very hard. It's been amazing to have an international team where we have people in India working with people in Serbia, working with people in Argentina, working with people in New York. And it's just a beautiful thing. I don't know how to tell you. It is so beautiful. And because it's mission driven and because I always say the weight of our mission crushes egos. If you have an ego, this is the wrong place for you. Get out and go find somewhere you can serve yourself. The weight of our mission will crush you. It crushes politics. It crushes bullshit. It crushes egos. And so we're all there to serve the mission. And when all that other stuff is gone, you're now collaborating and serving each other to serve them.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of course, it changed, but the mission didn't change. And I know you're like, ah, mission driven, maybe that's BS. It's not BS for us because chess is like, it's a stewardship for us and we really do feel the mission. I don't know how to do a mission driven insurance arbitrage business, but you can do a mission-driven chess business. But their view is drive maximum shareholder value, but you do that through serving your community and growing your game and building a great product. And our view is build a great product to serve the community. Okay, fine. It's going to create shareholder value. We're looking at the same thing, but just opposite of each other.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I like tanzine and I like Anton, and I like Jesse, and I like the people I work with. I have to say I do like the people at GA. I don't want them to know that. So please cut that out. Just kidding, you can leave it. But I do like them a lot”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, it's not a great thought. I don't like it. We're here now. And so I have to believe that the best things happen and the universe will take care of it all.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's going well. So then he's like, nope, I got to sell. And he's like, either I'm going to sell to who I want to, or you guys can choose who I sell to and you guys can do that. So now I start running this process where I start talking to all these people and private equity this and different venture firm there and all these different things because I got to buy him out. That's when we met GA. But again, it was to buy out existing equity. It was not to raise money. There was no primary money put in whatsoever. It was all just buying founders equity and equal ownership.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Will invest same terms as everybody, no preference, nothing, no guaranteed returns. I just want to own equity. Okay, great. Now we're all on the same level. He invests 10%. He's like, I love chess. I'm going to be an investor forever. Okay, great. Fast forward a couple years. He's like, hey, I got to get out. I got some LPs that need some money. I'm like, LPs, I didn't even know about this. Like you told me you were going to be in forever. He's like, no, no, no, I got to exit, but I got this other guy who loves chess. His name is Isa Scheinberg, founder of poker stars. He loves chess. He wants to meet you. I meet with him. He's like, hey, I want to buy in. I want 50% of the company. We're like, get out of here. We're like, no chance, no way. And he's like, okay, I'll do less, but we want these terms. And we're like, get out of here. No chance, no way. He's finally, he's like, all right. So we come to terms and he buys like, you know, a little more than 20, some percent. And like, okay, we took a little money off the table. But he's like, hey, I love chess. I'm going to be here forever. A couple years go by. He's like, hey, I got to get out. I'm like, get out. Why? You love chess.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not totally accurate. After we were rebuffed by all investors early on, we kind of said we don't want to take any money. We're going to do this ourselves. Because before we had no success and no one wanted to invest later, we had success and everyone wants to invest. And we're like, no, thank you. I have a lot of no thank you emails out there. I'm sure many people watching this program have gotten those no thank you emails from me. But someone came along and said, hey, I really love chess. Yes, I'm an investor, but I want to put my own money in and I want to just, I want to be, I want to invest. And I was like, okay, I live in Silicon Valley. One day I want to buy a house. Like maybe some of us want to take some money off the table and we'll sell some, you know, some secondary and we'll do a little bit of a liquidity internally. We sold a small amount of, you know, 10% of the company early on. And that guy was like, you know, and he's like, okay, well, I need this preference and I need this thing. And we're like, nope, no deal. Go away. You're on the same terms as all of us or get out. And he's like, okay, okay, okay, fine.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Be in the right place, man. Be paddling. We always say that we're in the boat and we are paddling and our sail is up, but we're also rowing when the wind comes. We're already ready and we're steering and we're doing the best we can. But we're not in charge of when the wind comes. You can try to find the current and do different things, but it's stuff outside your control that, you know, makes a massive impact in a business. And, you know, we've had several Black Swan moments compounding, and it's been pretty phenomenal.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So they subscribe at a higher rate, but then retained at a lower rate, to your point. And that kind of, we swallowed that. But it's not like it went up and back down. It went up and stayed up significantly. So yes, it was net massive growth, but yes, they later retained at a lower rate. But then we went to 2023 where the cheating scandal and mittens, the chess bot and short form content blew up. And then we also just exploded in schools. But now you have a whole bunch of high schools.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The percentage of people who became subscribers was higher than our previous kind of steady state cohorts. They wanted to learn and get better and Beth Harmon made them feel like they could be world champions”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't have the exact numbers, but I'm just saying it's very high. That changed. I sent you our numbers. We got some interesting graphs where it's kind of grew and then it had a Queens Gambit bump. And then it had a more recent 2023 bump. The Queens Gambit cohort, people saw the show, they saw chess pieces moving on the ceiling. And they're like, I want to learn chess and get better. Those people subscribe at a higher rate than normal baseline.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Most people pay yearly. I don't have the exact numbers because, again, I'm not metrics driven, it's not what I look at. But the majority of people put pay yearly and most people do tend toward our highest paid product because they get the most access. And our retention on paid users is really good. Another one of my Stanford classmates, Cottie Johnson, worked at Activision and he's like, wow, I thought I had seen amazing retention numbers with World of Warcraft. You guys are up there as like very sticky subscriber base.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Got about 150, a little over 150, 160 million registered members. Take a weekly active users is probably around 10% of that, around 15 million. About 10% of that are active subscribers.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, one of the ones that we're focusing more on now is a percentage of learners over players. The majority of people come and play, but not everybody turns into a learner. Our business is funded by learners. Playing is free, learning is behind the paywall, and so the percentage of people who want to learn and improve as a percentage of players is something that helps us understand that people are getting greater value out of our product than just playing.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What it helps you see is not just like I logged in 30 days later, but that I made a habit out of it and am coming back regularly each week. It's not just, hey, I sent you a push notification on day 30 so you came back and did something. But it's like, no, you made this a part of what you do.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Daily active user is a big deal for me because it's very easy to just see how many people today are logging in to enjoy chess. That's very simple. You know, more though, I would say we're starting to Duolingo, you know, their metric was super valuable. So we're now looking at that as a primary. So that says your retention rate of your active users, which means if somebody on week one was active and was again active in week two, what's the likelihood that they come back in week three? And so it's somebody who has shown a bit of a habit or they've shown that they're invested, they like the product, what's the chances that they'll continue to like it?”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, individually at the company, I think people don't think of success. I think they think of fulfillment. I think they think of effort. I think they think of mission and serving. And so if they do something that is well received by the community or helps us grow the game, they feel good about that. And so then how would that manifest in numbers? We track active users. We track subscribers. We track usage of different things. And people kind of, you know, they know how many members we have and how that's going. And so it's just kind of a general happy-go-lucky feel.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know what to tell you. We've always guided things through what we wanted to do and what felt right and what was in our guts and what was on mission and what sounded cool. And, you know, we've always done that. I think that was really healthy for us at the start. I think now having a blended balance of understanding those things is helpful to us.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They knew who we were when they married us, but they've been very patient and helpful to, they understand where we're at. That's a whole other topic. But we've had a very good coming together and seeing things. We started on different sides of the mountain and we've come together to really understand each other. It's been actually really awesome.”
2024-02-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source