20VC: Calm Founder Alex Tew on What It Takes To Build Viral Products Today, The Current State of Customer Acquisition Costs, What Makes The Best Brands

Alex Tew is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO @ Calm, the #1 App for Meditation and Sleep allowing you to find your calm, sleep more, stress less and live better. To date, the company has raised over $143M in funding from some of the best including Lightspeed, Insight, TPG and then some very cool names such as Ashton Kutcher, Harry Styles, Brad Feld and Jason Calacanis. Prior to Calm Alex founded numerous other startups including PopJam, Pixelotto and most famously rose to internet fame with his founding of The Million Dollar Homepage.

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In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Alex went from playing Fifa with Michael Acton Smith in Berwick St, London to founding one of the hottest startups in the valley, Calm?

2.) What does Alex believe the very best brands do today? How do they message? How do they present? How do they divide opinion? How did Alex think about the early Calm brand? How has it changed? How does Alex advise others looking to build a company brand?

3.) Does Alex agree with Peter Fenton, “there is a lack of free and open distribution”? How does Alex analyse the economics for customer acquisition costs today? What is a good paid vs organic ratio? How do CACS change over time in Alex’s experience?

4.) What have been Alex’s biggest learnings on what it takes to build a viral product? Where do many people go wrong? Why does Alex believe pressure is the enemy of creativity? Does Alex believe people should create time for creative thought? What does Alex do to stimulate idea creation?

5.) How has Alex seen himself evolve and develop as a leader over the last 5 years? What have been the hardest elements to scale? How does Alex think about effective delegation? What have been Alex’s biggest lessons on what it takes to hire A* people consistently?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Alex’s Fave Book: Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

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