Panic with Friends – Investing for Profit and Joy
I’m excited about my guest Jack Abraham today. Jack’s been doing startups for a long time and started very young. In his early twenties he founded Milo, which was acquired by eBay for approximately $80 million. Since leaving eBay he started Atmoic an investing fund and studio (startup incubator); applying the “two pizza team” principle. His dynamic teams have been busy launching innovative ideas that have scaled into billion dollar companies. Jack moved his firm to Miami during the pandemic and hasn’t looked back. Jack is a great role model for the ‘builders’.
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Guest: Jack Abraham
Profile: Founder and Managing Partner of Atomic
Where to Find Him: Twitter, LinkedIn
What’s Jack Panicked About?: Inflation.
The Takeaway:
Two big ones: First, Miami continues to attract startups. Jack was one of the first people to head east from San Francisco. He fell in love with the city – there’s a Manhattan meets LA vibe with energy, amazing food options, and a lot of diversity; both in industries and people. Multiple big name firms have been opening offices down there as well. And so far, the city has a high conversion rate. Once people give it a shot, the majority decide to stay.
Second, as a non-operator, I’m fascinated by the studio model Jack uses to create companies en masse. It is more of an art than a science, and most who deploy the studio model do struggle as they fall into into the trap of having too many ideas and spreading themselves too thin. Jack has taken a measured approach and leveraged a few ideas from Jeff Bezos. He admires Bezos’ ability to innovate and enter new spaces around the principle of the two-pizza team. No matter how big an idea becomes, whether something like AWS or FBA, the initial team tapped to build it can’t be bigger than that which could be fed by two pizzas. Starting Atomic in 2012 with his own capital, Jack began focusing on smart ideas he could execute on. His key to success has been scaling slowly. His primary concern is getting the infrastructure and the team right. He’s a huge believer in quality over quantity. There’s a sort of ‘marshmallow test’ the ideas must pass, or you’ll end up getting too far over your skis. In the end, every company Atomic builds needs to be better than the last, and with less risk.
Show Notes:
- (00:40) – Intro
- (03:35) – Welcome Jack
- (04:23) – Moving to Miami
- (08:27) – Major firms in Miami
- (13:46) – The epicenter of the startup scene
- (18:34) – Founding Milo
- (27:12) – Getting acquired by eBay
- (31:50) – Meeting and mentoring Entrepreneurs
- (32:53) – Delivery by building the last mile at scale
- (36:19) – Complexity of the studio model
- (39:20) – Innovating with “two pizza” teams
- (42:43) – Avoiding the traps of the studio model
- (44:17) – Looking for the compounders
- (44:35) – OpenStore – Liquidity drives progress
- (50:10) – Two public companies outside of FAANG
- (53:16) – Labor participation and inflation
- (53:39) – Technology improves productivity
- (57:21) – Closing thoughts
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