Alex MacCaw is the founder of Clearbit and Reflect, and his journey with each company has been wildly different. Clearbit took more of a “classic” startup approach — raising VC money, hiring hundreds of people, and working from an office in SF.
In 2020, he charted a new course by replacing himself as CEO at Clearbit, selling all his possessions and living full-time on a sailboat in the Atlantic. And now he’s building his new company Reflect in with a totally different approach — building a fully remote & asynchronous “lifestyle” company that decidedly eschews VC money and the other common hallmarks of a tech startup.
Alex shares everything he’s learned as a founder and why he believes building startups should not be one-size-fits-all.
Blake and Alex talk through:
(7:07) Pros/Cons of being asynchronous by design
(09:01) Why Alex doesn’t believe in remote work for large companies
(10:11) Remote work pitfalls
(14:24) When to replace yourself as CEO
(15:41) How to find your zone of genius
(18:32) When do startups hire a CFO or COO?
(21:16) #1 piece of advice for founders
(24:15) Things to know before you found a startup (B2B vs. B2C)
(27:29) Why build an indie software company
(28:28) When startups should (or shouldn’t) raise venture capital
(29:40) How Reflect started crowdfunding
(39:15) What AI and ChatGPT is good for
(44:09) Best time to start a company
(51:45) Not all startups need VC funding
(52:51) Advice for VCs from a founder
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Alex MacCaw, CEO and Founder of Reflect
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