andrew chen @andrewchen Twitter profile

Last Seen Profiles

@otterxXx69

@themasap

@AlbertoVotante

@Hanno_koho

@Groundsman_hake

@WONDERL76016821

@cinnakillmenow

@Aurora28685545

@IsmailContech

@mconsier

@asoc_elfanal

@HenryTheDev

@FrencHMonTanA

@notkent

@Praveeeen_

@neguse_kunsan

@cherylmcarrier

@ferfercarpediem

@raspmary_

@Panspeed2go

@champon_huto

@PaulO_Donovan

@taetongas

@cxlame

@jeongwox

@uuserr69_

@SmithJane64623

@GGRobinson

@stalshek

@1869MrT

@spraggy

@donosdoleague

@tetecostylesss

@sur4js

@ChadBlue83

@SALChiefExec

andrew chen

@andrewchen

5 years

American kids want to be youtubers, and the Chinese kids want to be astronauts.

752

5K

13K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

2 years

Can anyone explain why this is happening? I assume there’s a rational reason…

1K

7K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

7 months

I am sick of chatGPT’s standard responses which are way too verbose, full of repetition and apologies for being an AI 😂 Turns out you can alleviate some of this setting up chatGPT’s custom instructions feature and googled to see the top setup on Reddit Lo and behold, there…

128

680

7K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

4 years

Lol. “Fortnite: the anti-weed, anti-sex, anti-TV, anti-alcohol, anti-smoking solution parents have been seeking for decades.” Via @reddit

122

2K

6K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

1 year

Is it just me or is twitter really really fun rn?

355

224

6K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

1 year

The dysfunctions of FAANG

126

398

5K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

5 years

made me lol. "Is Your Startup Idea Already Taken?" via @buzzfeed

97

2K

5K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

4 years

TIL that craigslist is generating $1B in annual revenue, employs 50 people, and is wholly owned by two people. Insane. (And yes, it's a for-profit even with the .org domain name) Who would have thought this single website would destroy the economics of the newspaper industry?

84

915

5K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

6 years

👇Thread. Published a new essay: The red flags and magic numbers that investors look for in your startup’s metrics – 80 slide deck included!

119

1K

5K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

5 years

The Dumb Idea Paradox. Why great ideas often start out by sounding dumb. Thread 👇

82

1K

4K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

6 years

1/ Many of the biggest implosions in recent history - especially ecommerce - have been due to startups getting addicted to paid marketing while fooling themselves on Customer Acqusition Costs. As spend scales, it always gets more expensive and harder to track - never less.

91

1K

4K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

4 months

this is one of the most important graphs that I saw in 2023 that has led to behavior change. This is in Peter Attia's book Outlive tldr: if you want to be able to climb stairs when you are 75, you need to be in the top 95th percentile of cardiovascular fitness. With this, you…

162

442

4K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

6 years

The current generation of marketplace startups has been incredibly successful. Airbnb, Lime, Uber, Lyft, Instacart, etc. I've been doing a broad survey of the best writing on this topic and wanted to share my list of 20 best links I've seen.

64

867

4K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

5 years

2019 state of tech investing: Pre-seed- Bet on the entrepreneur 👨‍💻 Seed- Bet on the team 👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 Series A- Bet on the traction 🏒 Series B- Bet on the revenue 💸 Series C- Bet on the unit economics 💰 (Had to add the emojis, I know, this tweet is social media pandering)

41

794

4K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

1 year

Using chatGPT for travel planning is 🤯🤯🤯 “Make me a detailed day by day itinerary for a road trip from X to Y emphasizing small towns and nature” “For day 2, make an hourly itinerary with breaks for meals, coffee, and sightseeing. Give multiple options for food” Try it…

125

225

4K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

2 years

anyone who thinks web3 is a passing fad or bubble isn't seeing the insane number of very legit consumer startup teams pivoting straight into the space... These folks are experts at building games, communities/social apps, creator economy, etc. 2022 is going to be wild

116

471

3K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

10 months

I’m happy that the Supreme Court is ending one of the most visible forms of structural/institutionalized racism in our society, perpetuated for decades by elite educational universities. #stopAsianHate This is a big victory for the huge number of working-class/middle-class…

The Associated Press

@AP

10 months

BREAKING: The U.S. Supreme Court rules colleges and universities must stop considering race in admissions, putting an end to affirmative action in higher education.

3K

8K

25K

177

298

3K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

2 years

Whoa. This morning, I received the first real copy of The Cold Start Problem, a book I’ve been working on for the past 3 years Feels so good to hold it in my hand Comes out in a few weeks - December 7, preorder here:

163

140

3K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

5 years

The iPhone comes out in 2007 and changes the camera industry. Amazing to see a 90% decline in just 10 years after growth for decades Amazing that something can go from peak to trough in exact 10 Makes you ask- What’s the next product where this will happen?

182

980

3K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 years

👇 Some news: I've led a16z's new investment in Clubhouse and have joined the board. Essay below that covers: - how I know founders @pdavison @rohanseth - why we're excited to invest - how we think Clubhouse is unique - particularly for creators!

Investing in Clubhouse | Andreessen Horowitz

When I first met Paul Davison, it took about 10 seconds to realize he was one of the most charismatic, energetic founders I’d met in a long time. He told me about a new startup he was building—a...

a16z.com

110

356

3K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 years

Elon: "Fear is not the mind killer, context switching is the mind killer" via @joinClubhouse

41

332

3K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 years

Big milestone this week: Turned in the final draft of a book I've been writing for 3 (!!!) years. An ultramarathon of writing - no ghost writing, all orig ideas. Topic? Network effects, growing users, for marketplaces, social apps, etc. Preorder:

The Cold Start Problem by Andrew Chen

www.coldstart.com

178

140

2K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

5 years

Magic metrics indicating a startup probably has product/market fit: 1) cohort retention curves that flatten (stickiness) 2) actives/reg > 25% (validates TAM) 3) power user curve showing a smile -- with a big concentration of engaged users (you grow out from this strong core)

19

389

2K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 years

Wonderful quote on startups on @joinClubhouse tonight... Elon Musk: "Doing a startup is like eating glass and staring into the abyss for a long period of time"

41

353

2K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

4 years

all the people rushing to their keyboards to type in their "i told you so" hot takes on Quibi: It's gross. Building a company is hard, why celebrate a fail? Go build something instead of using your energy to let twitter know how smart you are the say the consensus thing.

138

163

2K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

5 years

entry level software engineers in the bay area are getting paid! This looks right if you count cash and equity comp.

80

566

2K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 years

Remember when everyone thought Instagram stories killed Snapchat? SNAP now > $100B. Amazing.

52

158

2K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

2 years

Today is a big day After 3 years of research, interviews, and writing, MY FIRST BOOK IS OUT!!! At midnight, I obsessively hit refresh on my Kindle and Audible until - it felt like magic - it appeared. I hit play on the audiobook, and it was a “holy shit” moment Here’s the pic

222

113

2K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 months

Every time you ask the user click you lose half of them. (AKA why tutorials, splash screens, and lengthy signup flows are a bad idea) If you’ve been building apps for a long time and have seen the results of a lot of A/B tests, you quickly realize that people are a flighty…

96

189

2K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

4 years

👇Thread: Marketplace 100. Here's a16z's list of the largest and fastest-growing consumer-facing marketplace startups and private companies -- using credit card data from our friends at Second Measure.

50

466

2K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

4 years

Guy on the right is a Growth PM

18

272

2K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 months

How to break into Silicon Valley. If you work in tech, you'll never regret spending 3-5 years in the Bay Area. ^^ this is advice I've been giving to people for years, and it's shaped by my own experience -- after all, I moved to the Bay Area in 2007 and it completely changed my…

94

208

2K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

2 months

This is true

33

212

2K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

5 years

We've done it SF! We're #1 ! We're #1 ! 😂

88

417

2K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

4 years

Cool: “The most common last name in every country.” Via Reddit.

39

501

2K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 months

Here's a common startup situation. A team busts their ass for months building the first version of their product. It's almost done. Now a big question emerges -- how do you get the first people to use your product? Hmm... If you find yourself at this moment, then you are already…

85

220

2K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

5 years

Question on Quora: Which commonly-discussed growth metrics in consumer tech businesses are the most meaningless and/or misleading? Here's my thread 👇

37

476

2K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

4 years

Zoom setup after 6 months straight of hardcore videoconferencing #b2binfluencer 😂

131

48

2K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

6 years

new post: I’m joining Andreessen Horowitz!

182

87

2K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

5 years

1/ The internet culture supply chain works like this: Asia ➡️ US teens ➡️ Adults ➡️ B2B. Multiple data points on this already: Emojis, video streaming, esports...

37

400

2K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

4 years

Dashboard clutter - the addition of more KPIs over time - leads to strategy clutter. The more you add, the less you (and your team!) understands your business. Then people go back to making decisions on intuition not data. Via this 😂 comic by @tomfishburne below!

14

458

2K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

4 years

So many kids googling to figure out what an Oracle is

57

190

2K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 years

Has Instagram made it so that everyone just all go to the same places now - mykonos - tulum - iceland - Dubai? What else is on this list…

266

56

2K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

6 years

1/ A few years ago a ton of “Uber for X” startups got funded, but very few of them - maybe none? - worked out. It sounds good but ultimately most failed on the supply side. Let’s explore why.

47

420

2K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

2 months

The Rise of Dopamine Culture You’ll know that everything on the left is real and offline. whereas everything on the right is virtual and online. Perhaps obvious but it seems like the endpoint for digital experiences is the give people what they want. And coupled with an…

69

235

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

4 years

Growth teams be like... Metrics randomly go up: Our users really love our new features! But metrics mysteriously drop: - analytics bug - seasonality - holiday - bug in the last release - fixed now! - Facebook ad system hiccup - last week's KPIs were wrong. This is right 😂

29

172

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

5 years

Did you know: 61% of all food delivery is pizza 🍕. The average American eats 23 pounds of pizza per year. 93% of americans eat pizza every month. Omg right? This was definitely the most fun fact I learned while at @uber from the @ubereats business!

73

472

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

4 years

the LA consumer startup ecosystem is coming into its own -- Honey, Snap, Riot Games, Tinder, Bird, Dollar Shave Club. The most $1B+ consumer startups outside of the Bay Area? A few years back, I might have guessed that NYC would be the emerging leader. But pretty clear it's LA.

47

162

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

7 months

The worst things on the internet - GDPR cookie pop ups - old media pay walled articles - embedded videos that won’t full screen - web links to the App Store not the actual app - video that auto plays, especially with audio - big dumb ads between blocks of text … what else?

338

70

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

6 years

What is your least popular but deeply held opinion on tech/startups?

519

225

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

5 years

Marie Kondo, but for analytics dashboards

36

224

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 years

Growth tips/tricks are like "Get rich fast" schemes- they promise instant results, but they don't work The real answer is painstaking iteration to get p/m fit, nailing a single growth channel, layering on over time, hiring teams and building repeatable systems Get rich slow

25

161

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

6 months

Why are Thiel fellows so successful relative to “30 under 30” people?

189

53

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 years

Here’s why it’s so dangerous to scale a product with questionable product/market fit: The Traction Treadmill It’ll kill your company. Let me explain why it happens.

36

215

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 months

You have to be an optimist about your own product, your own startup, and yourself. That's why when you pitch -- whether to investors, to prospective employees, or partners, it's important to talk about what might happen, not what you are doing today. There's a whole style to…

61

148

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

1 month

BIG NEWS: i'm investing $30M in the next 45 days via the a16z SPEEDRUN program 😎 Yes, $750k per startup that joins the SPEEDRUN program plus obv it'll be a great way to work together on something. So come work with me at a16z's SPEEDRUN program -- we'll invest, work with you,…

198

267

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 months

The people you attract with referral programs, free trials, coupons, and gamification — folks who are “incentivized” as a broad umbrella category — are usually MUCH WORSE than organic ones. Worse LTVs, worse conversion, less engaged, and so on. In a previous life, I headed up…

115

164

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

5 years

My order of operations when I sit down with a startup to figure out how to grow their new product. 1) first, is it working? Usually the answer is no :) I look at retention rates, DAU/MAU, session lengths, how many visits are driven via push notifs, etc etc. Lots of benchmarking

12

181

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

5 years

What’s your biggest miss so far in tech? In terms of a totally wrong / bad prediction

492

266

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

4 years

👇🏼pro tip: switch NYT payment to PayPal, then cancel from the PayPal side.

Paul Graham

@paulg

4 years

All the people planning to cancel their NYT subscriptions over the doxxing of Scott Alexander are going to get another dose of NYT ethics when they try to do it. To make it harder for you to cancel, they make you do it by phone or chat.

267

533

4K

25

163

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

1 year

We've hit the 1 year mark!!!! 🥳🥳🥳 A year ago, we raised GAMES FUND ONE, our first $660M fund focused on games. 25 investments and 10 new hires later, we’ve learned so much. To celebrate, I'm going to share some slides we used to raise the fund. Yes, even VCs have to pitch :)

74

205

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

6 years

1/ The Startup Brand Fallacy. Brand marketing is mostly useless for consumer startups. Startups build a great brand by being successful, finding product market fit and scaling traction, etc. But it’s not a real lever. Let’s not mix up correlation with causation!

45

357

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 years

🔥 My first book is dropping late 2021! THE COLD START PROBLEM - Five-part theory for products like Social networks, chat apps, marketplaces, workplace collab - Interviews w CEOs/teams: Slack, Clubhouse, Zoom, Twitch, Tinder, Reddit, Uber, Airbnb, PayPal

The Cold Start Problem by Andrew Chen

www.coldstart.com

63

110

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

7 years

1/ After 10+ years of publishing professional writing at , I have a couple opinions on how to get your stuff read

22

254

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 years

The past generation of social apps won the market through a playbook: - building big networks with feeds for discovery - creating a followers/status competition for engagement - bringing together creators and audiences - monetizing with ads - supporting photo, text, video

31

198

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

4 months

Wow - unemployment rates for top-tier MBA programs Thoughts?

170

106

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

5 years

Every blog post / book on business processes — OKRs, hiring, PRDs, launching, etc., etc., almost need a label to describe the stage of co the ideas are for. The workflows that are effective in the big co stages are simply not appropriate for early stage startups with <10 ppl

35

170

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

5 years

Fascinating infographic: Top grossing media franchises of all time. Pokémon, Hello Kitty, Mickey Mouse, Star Wars, etc Observations: - most of the money has been made in merchandise and video games - so many Japanese brands! 5 out of the top 10 - many created in the past decade

35

379

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

10 months

Big news in my personal life! I’m so lucky to have @EmmaBWaldron and Fro (yes, she’s a shar-pei pug) in my life ❤️

Emma Waldron Chen

@EmmaBWaldron

10 months

we’ve been keeping a little secret 💍💙we’re getting married 👰‍♀️🤵🏻‍♂️💍

181

33

2K

175

7

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 years

OH: Clubhouse is the new Silicon Valley, not Miami or Austin 😂

43

103

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

2 years

Personal update: Today, I'm excited to be part of a16z's newest fund - a project that's taken years of teamwork to put together A16Z GAMES FUND ONE: A new $600M fund to build the future of games ... and we're dropping a hype vid. ... and blog: 🚀🚀🚀

190

75

813

andrew chen

@andrewchen

4 years

My go-to interview question when talking to folks on growth teams: How would you 10x the growth of Product X? It's sort of an infinite depth question that really shows the expertise level of the person answering

23

126

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 years

New post: Announcing my first book, Clubhouse, and more. It’s 2021, and I’m back!

71

86

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 months

The “Dinner Party Asshole” test is a solution to a common problem: Startups often struggle at pitching their team, even though for the earliest stage companies, it’s incredibly important to do it well to raise capital — as I’ve described it below Pre-seed- Bet on the team 👨‍💻…

59

110

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

4 years

Dear lazyweb, Reddit in its early days famously had fake users posting content to make it seem like there was more activity than there really was - as a means of solving the chicken and egg problem in building a network Know if any other examples like this?

190

124

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

5 years

Teams often use bad metrics to hype themselves up to investors, yes, but they also use them to lie to themselves. 👇 Thread.

19

262

1K

andrew chen

@andrewchen

2 years

What if zoom was the metaverse company all along?

90

58

996

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 years

The new battleground for startups targeting creators: "Link in bio" It's now some of the most valuable real estate in the digital world Whoever controls the link controls the business model for the new economy that's being built

63

96

987

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 years

Something big is happening at the intersection of tech and entertainment - of SF and LA From LA, you see celebs angel investing, and promoting tech And SF startups are actively courting creators, both mainstream and digital native, as the anchors in their new social products

47

115

982

andrew chen

@andrewchen

1 year

who are the best new/early angel investors and seed funds?

300

82

948

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 years

There's a lot of hype around the "Creator Economy" but I actually find it limited in scope. Not everyone can/wants to make TikToks for a living or take pictures or plug brands. Not everyone is obsessed with social media like the folks reading this tweet -- yes, I'm talking you!

29

93

963

andrew chen

@andrewchen

4 years

Which funnels growth teams should be targeting, by stage: - seed: None - worry about P/M fit! - series A: Signup/Invite/sharing funnels - B: Activation funnel - C+: Monetization funnel - Big co: Reactivation and cross-sell flow to new products

21

114

967

andrew chen

@andrewchen

5 years

What is your least popular but deeply held opinion on personal productivity?

286

132

956

andrew chen

@andrewchen

4 years

Me: Why aren't there more @benthompson and @stratechery -like newsletters in the world, at that scale? Seems like a great gig. Friend: Don't you know there's a severe lack of really talented people in the world? Think about what that guy has to write every day!

46

32

929

andrew chen

@andrewchen

5 years

1/ Hypothesis: The primary way that techy bicoastal millennials interact with the vast underclass of millions of hourly workers is in Uber cars. Riders talking to drivers. Uber is creating the forum for folks to learn about each other, and what we’re learning disappoints us

62

211

914

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 years

👇 big news from a16z. we've raised $4.5B in new funds across an early stage and growth fund. Boom! investing it in seed/A/B/C/D/.... all the stages! But for me, the earlier the better the firm's 185 people now, supporting all of our startups

a16z

@a16z

3 years

"The future remains bright and we look forward to the privilege of seeing new entrepreneurs make that future a reality." @skupor announces Fund VII and Growth Fund II

9

38

314

28

47

923

andrew chen

@andrewchen

5 years

Yes, OKRs are almost certainly harmful for pre-P/M fit startups because it causes teams to optimize towards goals as opposed to constantly asking if the goal is even the right one to begin with? Plus the OKR cycles are typically quarters when iteration should be happening weekly

Sriram Krishnan - sriramk.eth

@sriramk

5 years

@andrewchen Can’t find the original src but remember reading recently something along the lines of - Exporting the culture of OKRs is Google’s secret strategy to decimate the rest of the tech industry 😏 (might have been a @rabois endorsed tweet)

6

24

199

31

153

916

andrew chen

@andrewchen

29 days

WHY INVESTORS DON'T FUND AI STARTUPS you might know A16Z is running a seed-stage startup accelerator called SPEEDRUN where we're funding 40+ companies in the next 2 months with $750k per company. (apply here: ). As part of running this accelerator, we get…

62

102

902

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 years

Coinbase - Seed Round Pitch Deck

Coinbase: A Hosted Bitcoin Wallet for Easy Bitcoin Payments

Coinbase: A Hosted Bitcoin Wallet for Easy Bitcoin Payments - Download as a PDF or view online for free

www.slideshare.net

21

107

889

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 years

Break the internet.

Elon Musk

@elonmusk

3 years

Just agree to do Clubhouse with @kanyewest

11K

19K

290K

33

57

883

andrew chen

@andrewchen

5 years

product ideas that sound good but rarely A/B test well - multi-step tutorials that teach you how to use the product - asking users to pay *only* after they've fully experienced the product - (same on referrals - upfront is better!)

25

133

890

andrew chen

@andrewchen

5 years

The Law of Shitty Cohorts. It's not unusual for a startup to have "meh" retention. But then usually, team says it will improve retention via better activation, lifecycle marketing, improving product features, etc. But the law of shitty cohorts says this is unlikely to happen.

22

191

886

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 years

The new metrics of the creator economy: 1) % creator-led user acquisition 2) Top decile $ earnings per creator - particularly % over $35k/year 4) M12 retention rate of creators versus consumers 5) Growth rate year-over-year Here's why 👇

30

148

862

andrew chen

@andrewchen

6 years

🏓 Pong 2.0 in AR. No running around to pick up the ball afterwards. 👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼 via @reddit

13

254

877

andrew chen

@andrewchen

6 years

1/ The scooter startups are way more important than you think, or in emoji-speak: 🛴+📱=🤖🚗🚁. Let me explain.

30

261

864

andrew chen

@andrewchen

1 month

dear followers, who do I need to meet who's just starting out / working on something cool in: - AI/agents - gamified consumer apps - 3D tools - B2B/infra - AR/VR/spatial - avatars - game studios Please @ mention them in the replies! a16z is investing in dozens of startups in…

400

60

818

andrew chen

@andrewchen

6 years

There’s a TON of new startups coming from Uber alumni - I know of a half dozen in stealth, and Bird is already a breakout. It’s obv that the creativity and hustle required to make Uber work in its early years has trained hundreds of entrepreneurs. Very bullish on this group

18

132

840

andrew chen

@andrewchen

3 years

Weekend unveiling! 😎 I want to share, for the first time, the full table of contents for my debut book The Cold Start Problem Preorder: I had a blast interviewing founders/teams from Slack, Clubhouse, Zoom, Twitch, Tinder, Reddit, Airbnb, PayPal, etc

35

86

838

andrew chen

@andrewchen

5 years

👇Thread on the perfect "Growth Hack." Finding a "growth hack" is generally associated with small/clever tricks that move growth metrics quickly. "Turn your buttons orange and you'll get a +5% the next day." However, sometime's they are extremely powerful and make the company

12

195

834

andrew chen

@andrewchen

5 years

One of my lessons for 2018 is that slide decks are many times more engaging than long-form essays. On average people spend 200-300% more time on a deck than an essay. Funny. Y’all are just daring me to exclusive create and publish content in slide deck format?

61

68

807