Benchmark’s Eric Vishria on Going Zero to $100M ARR in 12 Months, Archetypes of Top AI Founders, Why Storytelling is a Superpower, How Benchmark Makes New Investments

**Eric Vishria** (0:00)
The number of companies that we're working with, sub 100 people, and started selling, say, I don't know, 12 to 18 months ago, and are over 100 million in run rate, it's just insane. It's not like twice as fast as SaaS companies, it's not three times, it's like five to ten times as fast. It's not exactly the same, run rate's different than ARR, a lot of it could go away, a lot of it's experimental, like, etc.,

**Turner Novak** (0:31)
etc.

**Eric Vishria** (0:32)
Like, all the caveats aside, it's still insanely impressive, both from a human efficiency perspective and from a rate of growth perspective. And part of that's AI, like a huge part of that's AI.

**Turner Novak** (0:45)
I think you actually tweeted this a couple months ago, there's that rule of, you know, in SaaS, you get to a million in revenue in ARR, and then you go triple, triple, triple, double, double, whatever, I don't know, some student. And then you can go public, and you get like 100 million in revenue the next year.

**Eric Vishria** (0:58)
All of that, every part of that is broken now, every single, literally every single element of that is broken.

**Turner Novak** (1:05)
Yeah.

**Eric Vishria** (1:06)
And especially the going public part.

**Turner Novak** (1:07)
Welcome to The Peel, I'm your host, Turner Novak, founder of Banana Capital. Today's guest is Eric Vishria, general partner at Benchmark.

**Eric Vishria** (1:15)
And then an entrepreneur like says something, they have an insight, they have something that like, just makes it like quick for you. And you're like, huh, nobody's ever said that. No one's ever made me think that way.

**Turner Novak** (1:28)
Our conversation gets to how Eric makes new investments, startups going to 100 million ARR in 12 months, and how AI is changing company building and quality of revenue.

**Eric Vishria** (1:35)
The one thing we can conclude is that customers are finding the product experience to be magical, and therefore they're willing to spend more money. Right now, with a bunch of the AI companies that are growing really fast, the motes are pretty thin, but there is a speed mode. Peter Till has said this, NVIDIA has like 125% of the profits of AI so far.

**Turner Novak** (1:58)
Because everyone else is negative.

**Eric Vishria** (2:01)
That's probably understated.

**Turner Novak** (2:02)
We get into the risk rewards of Series A's today, how Benchmark competes to work with the best founders, and why the best storytellers win.

**Eric Vishria** (2:09)
It matters so, so much in all of these different contexts, and the people who can do it the best consistently win. Like they consistently do better.

**Turner Novak** (2:19)
We also talk about parallels between the 90s, 2000s and today, and how the archetype of successful founders is changing.

**Eric Vishria** (2:24)
The world doesn't want startups to exist. The world doesn't want new startups to succeed. The world's indifferent to them. And so the very act of existence or growing is just, it's like an act of will. And like will requires spikes. It requires like fight and grit.

**Turner Novak** (2:42)
A quick thank you to Saji at BenchLink and Spencer Skates and Amplitude for helping brainstorm topics for Eric. A reminder, I publish new episodes of The Peel every week, exploring the world's greatest dark stories just like this one. Now, a quick word from Bolt before talking to Eric. This episode is brought to you by Bolt. That's Bolt.new, the easiest way to turn a text prop into a full stack web and mobile app. Bolt is one of the fastest growing software products ever, hitting 50 million in ARR five months after launching. And regular users of the show might remember when I had Eric Simons on, where we went deep into their seven-year journey to overnight success, including almost shutting down a few weeks before launching Bolt. They're now hosting the world's largest hackathon with over a million dollars in prizes kicking off May 30th. Over 30,000 people have already signed up to build apps with AI, no coding required, 50 IRL meetups worldwide, and over a million dollars in prizes. Whether you're a founder, creator, student, or anyone sitting on an idea, this is the moment to try it. It's free to join and you can win real prizes like best one-shot prompt, top built-in public journey, and most likely to get funded. Sign up now at hackathon.dev. Tap the link in the description or head to h-a-c-k-a-t-h-o-n.dev.
This episode is brought to you by Numeral. Numeral is the end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance. They handle registration, ongoing filings, and their API provides sales tax rates wherever you need them with all the integration you need. Numeral sports over a thousand customers in both the US and globally, and they pride themselves on white glove, high touch customer service. Plus, they guarantee their work and they'll cover the difference if they mess anything up. The Fresh Apple Fundraise raising an $18 million Series A from my friend, Chetan Putaganta at Benchmark. If you want to put your sales tax on autopilot, check out Numeral at numeralhq.com. That's numeralhq.com for the end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance. Thank you both in Numeral. And now let's talk to Eric. Eric, welcome to the show.