M&A, competition, pricing, and investing | Julia Schottenstein (dbt Labs)

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Julia Schottenstein is a product lead at dbt Labs, a data transformation company, and an active angel investor in data and infrastructure startups. She first got excited about dbt in 2019 when she was a VC at NEA and decided to make the leap from investor to operator by joining dbt Labs. She also co-hosts the dbt Labs Analytics Engineering Podcast, a show about data trends that impact analytics engineers’ work. In today’s episode, we discuss:

• Advice for founders hoping to improve their M&A outcome

• How to strategically think about competition

• How to determine your paid features and have willingness-to-pay conversations

• Why Julia lives by “worse is better” and “tech debt is a champagne problem”

• Lessons from dbt Labs

• What PMs can learn from investors

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Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/m-and-a-competition-pricing-and-investing

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Where to find Julia Schottenstein:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/j_schottenstein

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julia-schottenstein-25424318/

• Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4BKMMeVXk4jJnAQSqGSJvE

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Julia’s background

(04:15) How Julia went from VC to working in product at dbt Labs

(08:24) Four things Julia uses to evaluate a company’s potential

(11:10) How to identify whether or not you have product-market fit

(12:05) Distribution strategies

(13:11) M&A strategies

(15:54) Lessons from the Transform acquisition

(18:01) Competitive values at dbt

(20:25) Keys to dbt’s success

(26:35) An offsite exercise Julia used to help her team internalize upcoming changes

(29:32) Determining what features are included in open source

(31:56) Pricing and willingness to pay

(33:34) Lessons from dbt Labs’s first pricing change

(36:33) Whether or not to be public about selling your startup

(40:08) How to utilize connections during acquisitions

(44:57) How to communicate selling your company

(46:33) M&A market forecast

(47:28) Values at dbt Labs

(50:14) Lessons from working with strongly opinionated users

(52:02) The importance of shipping, learning, and iterating

(54:08) How VC skills translate into product

(57:03) Lightning round

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Referenced:

• dbt Labs: https://www.getdbt.com/

• Tristan Handy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tristanhandy/

• dbt Labs acquires Transform to enhance Semantic Layer tool: https://www.techtarget.com/searchbusinessanalytics/news/365530993/DBT-Labs-acquires-Transform-to-enhance-Semantic-Layer-tool

• Snowflake: https://www.snowflake.com/en/

• Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid: https://www.amazon.com/G%C3%B6del-Escher-Bach-Eternal-Golden/dp/0465026567

• Red strings training clip from Ted Lasso: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVe3Iwy10MA

• Monetizing Innovation: https://www.amazon.com/Monetizing-Innovation-Companies-Design-Product/dp/1119240867

• Madhavan Ramanujam on Lenny’s Podcast: