POPULARITY
Howie Liu, founder and CEO of Airtable, was interviewed by Village Global co-founder and partner Ben Casnocha live in downtown San Francisco in front of an audience of Village Global founders and friends of the firm.Highlights:- Embracing discomfort is part of the founder's journey. Learning to tolerate and even appreciate this discomfort is important. - Making decisions when you feel "almost ready" rather than waiting for perfect readiness is often necessary.- It's crucial to understand the underlying problems customers are trying to solve, not just their feature requests. Founders should resist the temptation to become "feature checklist machines" and instead focus on core problems.- There's growing fatigue around AI hype in enterprises. Successful AI implementation requires focusing on specific, valuable use cases rather than broad promises.- Airtable spent 2.5 years building their initial product, focusing on creating a platform rather than just a simple collaboration tool. They balanced building a horizontal platform with targeted use case marketing to appeal to different users.- It's crucial to understand the context and biases of advice-givers, no matter how successful they are. Having strong conviction in your vision, while being open to feedback, is essential for success.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup
This week on Found, Dom and Becca talk with Howie Liu, the CEO and co-founder of Airtable to talk about how the Airtable team used smart UX to make app development accessible to even the least technical users. They also discuss how human-computer interaction is at the core of Airtable's mission and behind each new product they put out. And they get into early missteps, the investor advice that Liu didn't follow, and the unlikely inspiration behind Airtable's design. Found posts every Tuesday. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts to be alerted when new episodes drop. Check out the other TechCrunch podcast: Equity . Subscribe to Found to hear more stories from founders each Connect with us:On TwitterOn InstagramVia email: found@techcrunch.com
In this episode of Gradient Dissent, Howie Lou, CEO of Airtable, joins host Lukas Biewald to dive into Airtable's transformation from a no-code app builder to a platform capable of supporting complex AI-driven workflows. They discuss the strategic decisions that propelled Airtable's growth, the challenges of scaling AI in enterprise settings, and the future of AI in business operations. Discover how Airtable is reshaping digital transformation and why flexibility and innovation are key in today's tech landscape. Tune in now to learn about the evolving role of AI in business and product development.
No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Machine Learning | Technology | Startups
This week on No Priors, Sarah Guo and Elad Gil are joined by Howie Liu, the co-founder and CEO of Airtable. Howie discusses their Cobuilder launch, the evolution of Airtable from a simple productivity tool to an enterprise app platform with integrated AI capabilities. They talk about why the conventional wisdom of “app not platform” can be wrong, why there's a future for low-code in the age of AI and code generation, and where enterprises need help adopting AI. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @Howietl Show Notes: (00:00) Introduction (00:29) The Origin and Evolution of Airtable (02:31) Challenges and Successes in Building Airtable (06:09) Airtable's Transition to Enterprise Solutions (09:44) Insights on Product Management (16:23) Integrating AI into Airtable (21:55) The Future of No Code and AI (30:30) Workshops and Training for AI Adoption (36:28) The Role of Code Generation in No Code Platforms
My guest today is Howie Liu. Howie is the co-founder and CEO of Airtable, a no-code app platform that allows teams to build on top of their shared data and create productive workflows. The business began in 2013 and now has use cases built out for over 300,000 organizations. As Airtable begins to integrate AI and the latest LLMs into its product, Howie has maintained a focus on an intuitive building experience, allowing anyone to build out their workflow within minutes or hours. We discuss the future of the platform in the era of AI, his perspective on horizontal versus vertical software solutions, and his crucial moments as a leader in building a critical component to the advancement of productivity. Please enjoy this discussion with Howie Liu. Listen to Founders Podcast For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Tegus, where we're changing the game in investment research. Step away from outdated, inefficient methods and into the future with our platform, proudly hosting over 100,000 transcripts – with over 25,000 transcripts added just this year alone. Our platform grows eight times faster and adds twice as much monthly content as our competitors, putting us at the forefront of the industry. Plus, with 75% of private market transcripts available exclusively on Tegus, we offer insights you simply can't find elsewhere. See the difference a vast, quality-driven transcript library makes. Unlock your free trial at tegus.com/patrick. ----- Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com). Show Notes: (00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like the Best (00:06:49) Exploring Horizontal vs. Vertical Software in the AI Era (00:11:00) The Future of Customized Applications (00:15:28) Perspectives on AI's Future and Enterprise Adoption (00:18:13) The Evolution of LLMs and Their Impact on Software Development (00:23:33) Harnessing AI for Business Transformation and Innovation (00:27:28) Reflecting on Airtable's Founding and Evolution (00:33:23) Airtable's Approach to Customer Engagement and Innovation (00:39:59) The Impact of AI on Platform Versatility and Market Penetration (00:46:00) Achieving Product-Market Fit and Initial Monetization (00:50:23) Scaling Up and Securing the First Unicorn Round (00:51:52) Rapid Growth and Organizational Scaling Challenges (00:55:00) Reflecting on Tough Decisions in the Business (01:02:55) The Role of Capital Allocation in Expanding Airtable (01:06:55) The Kindest Thing Anyone Has Ever Done For Howie
In this episode, we sit down with Howie Liu, co-founder and CEO of Airtable, to explore the incredible journey of Airtable from its early days to becoming a powerhouse in the enterprise software space. Howie provides a candid look at the challenges and learnings from transitioning Airtable from a PLG product to an enterprise platform, how companies are transforming their marketing operations with AI, and the transformative potential of AI in automating workflows and enhancing business processes. AIRTABLE Website - https://www.airtable.com/ Twitter - https://x.com/airtable Howie Liu LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/howieliu/ Twitter - https://x.com/howietl FIRSTMARK Website - https://firstmark.com Twitter - https://twitter.com/FirstMarkCap Matt Turck (Managing Director) LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/turck/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/mattturck (00:00) Intro(02:40) What is Airtable in 2024?(05:35) How does Airtable apply AI to its products?(11:56) What are the AI use cases in Airtable?(18:35) The tech behind Airtable's AI capabilities(22:22) Is Airtable going to become an AI-first company?(25:15) Will AI kill programming as we know it?(29:24) How do big enterprises think about AI?(34:46) How did Airtable go from PLG to a large enterprise product?(41:00) AI Categories(47:47) "We definitely had our hiccups"(51:20) Was PLG a ZIRP-era phenomenon?(56:29) Howie's journey as a CEO
This Week in Startups is brought to you by… Lemon.io. Get access to Lemon Hire, a platform with more than 80,000 pre-vetted engineers that you can interview within 48 hours. Get $2000 off your first hire at http://lemon.io/hire today! IntouchCX. Give your startup a boost and simplify your processes with next-level automated customer support solutions from IntouchCX. Discover your custom strategy at Intouchcx.com/twist Northwest Registered Agent. When starting your business, it's important to use a service that will actually help you. Northwest Registered Agent is that service. They'll form your company fast, give you the documents you need to open a business bank account, and even provide you with mail scanning and a business address to keep your personal privacy intact. Visit http://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist to get a 60% discount on your next LLC. * Today's show: Airtable CEO Howie Liu joins Jason to discuss his philosophy of product-led growth (1:35), the current explosion of AI (36:37), and much more! Time stamps: (0:00) Airtable CEO Howie Liu joins Jason (1:35) Howie's philosophy on product-led growth (5:05) Bridging the gap between spreadsheets and purpose-driven apps (7:12) Tweet storm referenced on the All-In podcast (13:19) Lemon.io - Get $2000 off your first hire at http://lemon.io/hire (17:13) Blitz scale hiring. (24:28) InTouchCX - Get started with a free consultation at http://intouchcx.com/twist (26:18) Charging per-seed basis and revisiting Airtable in TWiST E814 (30:36) Jason shares two successful use cases utilizing Airtable (35:32) Northwest Registered Agent - Get a 60% discount on your next LLC at http://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist (36:37) The AI boom and its potential dangers * Check out All In E146: https://youtu.be/X-Sb8sIi22g?si=fhiIi5ehFOyrMUD-&t=3673 Check out Howie in TWiST E814: https://youtu.be/55JnirJ7oHk?si=oPlNol8cotYrJTI1 * Follow Howie: https://twitter.com/howietl * Read LAUNCH Fund 4 Deal Memo: https://www.launch.co/fourApply for Funding: https://www.launch.co/applyBuy ANGEL: https://www.angelthebook.com Great 2023 interviews: Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland Check out Jason's suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis * Follow Jason: Twitter: https://twitter.com/jason Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jason LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis * Follow TWiST: Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin * Subscribe to the Founder University Podcast: https://www.founder.university/podcast
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Howie Liu is the Founder and CEO @ Airtable, the fastest way to build apps for your business. To date, Howie has raised over $1BN with Airtable with the last round valuing the company at $11BN and an investor base including Benchmark, Thrive, Caffeinated, Greenoaks and Coatue to name a few. In Todays Episode with Howie Liu We Discuss: 1. Scaling into Enterprise: What are the single biggest challenges when moving from PLG to enterprise? Why does Howie believe you have only truly hit enterprise when you sign $1M contracts? How long did it take for Airtable to sign their first $1M ARR contract? How can founders know when is the right time to scale into enterprise? How does the product need to change with the scaling? 2. Enterprises: Do They Really Love AI: Why does Howie believe that enterprises are not jumping on AI yet? When does enterprise interest turn into enterprise buying and purchasing? What are the single biggest barriers to enterprises buying AI solutions today? Post-purchase, what are the biggest implementation challenges for enterprises with AI? 3. The Changing Sales Process: Are we seeing the bundling of tools within large enterprises today? Which categories and vendors are most vulnerable? Which will survive the cuts? What do vendors need to do to prove to CFOs that they need to remain in their budget? How has the customer success process changed over the last year with tightening budgets? 4. Howie Liu: AMA: Airtable famously got Benchmark to lead their Series C, how did this come to be when they famously always only do Series A? Why does Howie believe that it is total BS to suggest post-PMF, everything is good? What does Howie know now that he wishes he had known when he started Airtable?
Ryan Delk is the Co-Founder and CEO of Primer, a startup helping ambitious kids unlock their potential by empowering teachers to launch and run their own micro-schools. Primer's supported by investors like Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Village Global, Susa Ventures, Sam Altman, Naval, Ryan Peterson, Amjad Masad, Julie Zhuo, Tobias Lutke, Lachy Groom, Howie Liu, Dylan Field, Packy McCormick, and many more. Before Primer, Ryan was the COO at peer-to-peer rental marketplace Omni (sold to Coinbase), and prior to that led Growth and Partnerships at Gumroad from $10,000 to $50 million in GMV. Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts: https://secureframe.com/request-demo-4?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=062023-thesplit Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/turning-techers-into-superheroes In this episode, we discuss: - How the $1 trillion US K-12 education system works - The broken incentive structures in education - Why teachers are superheroes - How to double a teacher's income - Primer's origin story - How to open a school - If online school works - Why founders make the best employees - How the US government wastes billions of dollars - Why everyone should care more about local politics Where to find Ryan: Twitter https://twitter.com/delk LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/delk/ Where to find Turner: Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak Timestamps: (3:42) The state of K-12 education in the US (6:35) The structural problem causing a radical misallocation of resources (8:00) The importance of teachers (9:34) The “totally flipped” incentive structure for teachers (12:22) The problem of bureaucracy in education (13:38) Primer's thesis (14:52) How to start a school (16:00) How Primer helps teachers start their own schools (18:20) Using underutilized real estate to host micro-schools (20:05) Ryan's take on digital vs in-person learning (21:59) How Primer supports teachers (23:21) Inspirational stories from Primer users (28:00) The underestimated entrepreneurship of teachers (29:12) How Primer stays affordable for all users (30:26) How Primer gets teachers on board (32:04) The role of after-school activities (33:07) How Primer sets its Curriculum (35:14) Ryan's unique education and how it inspired Primer (38:39) Why someone hadn't solved this problem yet (40:24) Primer's initial strategy (41:30) The breakfast that changed everything (42:09) The concept of “Barrels” from Keith Rabois (42:36) Finding and recruiting Ian Bravo (43:31) How Primer recruits ex-founders (44:52) The 3 things Primer screens for in teachers (46:27) What Primer messed up when launching (48:19) Re-thinking school admissions from first principles (51:03) How they convinced the very first teachers to try Primer (51:59) The ineffective usage of education spending (53:28) Policymakers prioritizing “signal over outcomes” (57:21) The worst public schools are worse than you think (59:08) How the Government wastes billions of dollars and Ryan's idea for solving this (61:31) The importance of increasing engagement with local politics (63:37) The vision for Primer Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/turning-techers-into-superheroes Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io/ For sponsorship inquiries: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform
In this week's IA40 spotlight episode of Founded & Funded, Investor Sabrina Wu talks with Airtable Co-founder and CEO Howie Liu. Airtable is a low-code platform that enables teams to easily build workflows that modernize their business processes. The company launched in 2012 and has been on a product-led journey since then. Last year, Airtable ranked number three in the growth stage section of the intelligent applications 40. And just in May, the company announced new embedded AI capabilities to make it possible for teams to integrate powerful AI into their data and workflows. In this episode, learn about Howie's transition from a first-time founder to a second-time founder, the lessons he took with him from that journey, and how he decided to go up against the dominant forces in the low-code productivity tools space when he was only a few years out of school. As Howie explains it, to be a founder, you really have to have the perfect balance of naivety and pragmatism, but you'll have to listen to hear his explanation.
Howie Liu is the co-founder and CEO of tech decacorn Airtable, a connected apps platform that lets users build and customize apps using shared data. As a no code platform, Airtable has iterated and innovated their product by combining the features of a relational database by using an interface that looks like a spreadsheet. Since it's founding in 2012, the company has raised nearly $1.4B in funding and is currently valued at $11B. In this episode, Howie talks about starting his first company, taking part in the Y Combinator accelerator, and how selling his company Etacts to Salesforce led him to innovating and creating products with enterprise clients in mind. Liu is a graduate of Duke University.
Airplane, a San Francisco, CA-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) development platform, closed a $32 million Series B funding round led by Thrive Capital with participation from Benchmark, bringing the startup's total raised to $40.5 million. I interviewed Ravi Parikh, Co-Founder at Airplane. He is also the former co-founder of Heap. Ravi is on a mission to automate the harder part of admin tools in applications. This is the behind-the-scenes code necessary to run your applications. Airplane has a sales and PLG led motion. His former founder background helped with current capital raises. Segment co-founder Calvin French-Owen, Confluent co-founder Neha Narkhede, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch, Airtable co-founders Howie Liu and Andrew Ofstad, Allison Pickens from The New Normal Fund, Behance founder Scott Belsky, Jaren Glover, Gokul Rajaram, Liu Jiang, Comma Capital, and several others also participated in the round. The funds will be put toward growing Airplane's team while expanding its product to new markets. Founded in December 2020 Staff of 20 $40.5M Raised Sub 10M ARR SLG + PLG Developer Tools Ravi Parikh's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raviparikh2/ SaaS Fundraising Story: https://www.thesaasnews.com/news/airplane-raises-32-million-in-series-b Join my SaaS community here: https://www.thesaasacademy.com/offers/ivNjwYDx/checkout Follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benrmurray
For many SaaS companies, serving the world's largest businesses requires evolving some of its most critical business strategies and operations. In this session, Airtable's Howie Liu sits down with Coatue's Caryn Marooney to share the lessons he's learned from scaling Airtable. From how to think about competitors and categories, to the importance of building the right organizational culture, Howie and Caryn reveal what SaaS leaders need to consider as they move upmarket. Video: https://youtu.be/if4nKnNMl4s Want to join the SaaStr community? We're the
Taught himself to code C plus plus at the age of 13 in a matter of weeks. After finding a book on C plus plus programming in his dad's office. I attended duke university at the age of 16 and their new degree in mechanical engineering. He founded his first startup in 2009. Which was acquired by Salesforce in 2011. Left Salesforce and founded his next startup in 2012. Today. That company has a post-money valuation in the range of $11.7 billion. This is the story of air table and how co-founder and CEO, Howie Liu set out to redefine spreadsheets. Host Twitter: @fannin_seth | Web: https://mynocodestory.com/ Music: RYYZN Follow the pod on Twitter @MyNoCodeStory for more updates! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynocodestory/message
Airtable CEO Howie Liu sits down with Axios reporter Kia Kokalitcheva to discuss the makings of Airtable, the company's long-term vision, thoughts on the competitive landscape, and pandemic learnings from working remotely. Recorded at the Upfront Summit on March 2, 2022.
The art of customer service.
Most investors didn't understand the concept. Most non-technical entrepreneurs at the time didn't get it either. But Howie Liu, Co-Founder and CEO of multi-billion dollar tech juggernaut Airtable, had the conviction to bet the next 10 years of his life on it. “I didn't come up with Airtable as an idea, on a lark, it was informed by a lot of the research I did, a lot of the observations I had of the enterprise software landscape, of looking back at other companies that did similar things. I then came to this gut decision that this was a big opportunity.” Airtable is a low-code relational database, a highly versatile platform that's grown massively since its founding almost 10 years ago. In the interim, Howie has learnt how to articulate a unique product to a huge customer base, and grow it from the ground up to become a category defining piece of software. But how did a home-brew startup become a Silicon Valley darling? Howie shares his story from lifeguarding, ghosting Accenture on the first day of his new job, joining the Y Combinator, founding Etacts and his subsequent decision to sell it to Salesforce less than a year later: “We felt woefully ill prepared to go and try to build a larger and more ambitious company from the starting point that we had set out with. And a few acquisition offers did come around, including Salesforce, we felt like they would be great learning opportunities.” Find out what Howie did next on his way to a near $6b valuation.
Howie Liu is the co-founder and CEO of Airtable. Inspired by his own experiences learning to code and building customized business apps, he co-founded the company in 2013 to democratize software creation. Prior to that, he was the founder of Etacts, an intelligent CRM tool that was acquired by Salesforce. While Etacts was a furious one-year sprint to acquisition, Liu followed a very deliberate, long-term approach with his second startup. In this conversation with Stanford lecturer Ravi Belani, he offers advice to innovators who seek to create complex products that can't be prototyped in a week-long hacking session.
Howie Liu is the co-founder and CEO of Airtable. Inspired by his own experiences learning to code and building customized business apps, he co-founded the company in 2013 to democratize software creation. Prior to that, he was the founder of Etacts, an intelligent CRM tool that was acquired by Salesforce. While Etacts was a furious one-year sprint to acquisition, Liu followed a very deliberate, long-term approach with his second startup. In this conversation with Stanford lecturer Ravi Belani, he offers advice to innovators who seek to create complex products that can’t be prototyped in a week-long hacking session.
We're (almost) back in session! The Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series returns on April 14, with a brand new lineup that includes Ulu Ventures managing director Miriam Rivera; Cloudflare co-founder, president and COO Michelle Zatlyn; and the Miami Heat’s Andre Iguodala.
Success Unscrambled | Blog Traffic Tips | Business Success Stories
The Easiest Way to Set Up an Airtable Content Calendar for Social Media Are you thinking of using an Airtable Content Calendar to help you plan your social media content? If yes, then this is the Airtable tutorial that you need. A few years ago I came across Airtable and I remember thinking that it looks so flexible. I even felt a little bit apprehensive because I thought that it will take me a long time to learn how to use it. Looking back I can see why many entrepreneurs and side hustlers may think twice about using Airtable for social media. While it does look like a regular spreadsheet, Airtable has so much more flexibility and charm built in. Imagine having a tool that feels pretty much like play doh when you want to customise it. In this post, you will learn how to use Airtable as a content calendar for social media. You will also learn how to make it your own by mastering as many features as possible so that it is customised to your needs. Airtable Background If you are brand new to Airtable you can think of it as a collaboration tool that has a combination of spreadsheet and database features. Airtable was founded back in 2012 by three people; Howie Liu, Andrew Ofstad, and Emmett Nicholas. Since then they have managed to go through several funding rounds raising a total of $347.6 million between 2015 and 2020. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, USA, Airtable is used by over 200,000 companies globally. With the help of Zapier, you can integrate Airtable with over 450 other applications including Instagram. According to co-founder Howie Liu, they are not trying to make a replacement for Google Sheets or Excel. They are building the next Apple or Microsoft which he says is the next billion dollar opportunity. You can take a look at Howie's video here. Airtable Components While reading up about the background of Airtable, I noticed that Howie mentioned that it has Lego-like features. To help you appreciate this even more let me introduce you to the building blocks of Airtable. In total, Airtable is made up of 6 components. These include; WorkspacesBasesTablesFieldsViewsRecords 1. Workspaces You can think of a workspace as a home for one of your departments or if you have clients, it is a place to store the bases related to a specific client. 2. Bases Each workspace can have an unlimited number of bases. The only restriction on the free plan is the total number of records per base which is 1200. You can think of each base as a group of related tables nested together. As you can see in the screenshot above all the bases related to marketing are stored in the marketing workspace. 3. Tables This is where the terminology becomes a little more familiar to you because tables are basically a spreadsheet on steroids. You can have as many tables as you want in that base. As you can see in the screenshot above this Airtable base has 5 tables. What I really like is that you can cross-link records in Airtable. Here's a screenshot where there is a link to another table in this column. 4. Fields Everything that you place in Airtable goes into a field which is also known as a cell in Excel and Google Sheets. What is super unique about Airtable is that it actually allows for over 25 different types of fields. These include: Single line text Long textAttachmentCheckboxMultiple selectSingle selectCollaboratorDatePhone numberEmailURLNumberCurrencyPer centDurationRatingFormulaRollupCountLookupCreated timeLast modified byAutonumberBarcodeButton 5. Views Another cool feature that comes as standard in Airtable is something called views. Think of it as various ways of viewing and processing data. There are 5 views in total including grid, calendar, kanban, gallery and form. 6. Records Last but not least there are records which are essentially rows of data.
As one of the early champions of "low-code”, Howie Liu shares the lessons he's learned building and scaling a company in an entirely new category. He'll discuss how Airtable focuses on solving customers' increasingly complex needs, all with products that are easily adoptable.
Howie Liu is co-founder and CEO of Airtable, the platform democratizing software creation. Over 60,000 organizations, including half of the Fortune 1000, currently use Airtable to power their most ambitious operations. Launched in 2015, Airtable has raised over $70M in venture funding, and was recently added to Forbes’ “Cloud 100” list of the private companies leading cloud computing in 2018. Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by Alexa von Tobel, CFP® is the Founder and Managing Partner of Inspired Capital ).
Howie Liu is the co-founder and CEO of Airtable, a low-code platform for building collaborative apps. The company has taken the world by storm since its creation and has recently raised $185 million in a Series D round, reaching a valuation of $2.585 billion. However, even as the company’s valuation soars, Howie has clearly expressed no interest in exiting. In this episode, Howie walks us through his entrepreneurial journey – from building his first company Etacts (acquired by Salesforce) to launching Airtable. We talk about Airtable’s beginnings, ambition to take on some of the biggest industry players, and its long term vision to democratize software creation. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
In this episode Airtable's Co-Founder and CEO Howie Liu unpacks the hype and substance of the low-code/no-code movement, the challenges of building a mass market platform with a hugely diverse customer base and how to nail a self-serve strategy in the enterprise. All of that and more in this episode of the OV BUILD podcast.
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Howie Liu is the Founder & CEO @ Airtable, the all in one collaboration platform that has taken so much of our ecosystem by storm. To date, Howie has raised over $170M from some of the best in the business including Benchmark, Thrive, Coatue, Caffeinated Capital, Founder Collective, CRV and Freestyle to name a few. Prior to founding Airtable, Howie was the Co-Founder @ Etacts, an automated intelligent CRM that was acquired by Salesforce just 9 months after creation. Howie then led the social CRM product at Salesforce. Fun fact, Howie started his career as an intern at Freestyle Ventures. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Howie made his way from founding Etacts to changing the way we think about databases and spreadsheets today with Airtable? How did Salesforce acquiring Etacts impact Howie's operating mentality with Airtable? 2.) With the rise of remote work, what have been Howie's core observations from the last month of the world going WFH? What does it take to succeed? What mistakes have Airtable made in their process of work from home? Why did it not work? What lessons did Howie take from that? 3.) How does Howie think about Airtable's transition from an application to a platform? What does he perceive as the core challenges in making the transition? What lessons has he learned from studying others who have done it? Why did Howie choose Peter Fenton @ Benchmark to work with? 4.) How has Howie seen himself evolve and scale as a leader over the last few years? What have been the most challenging elements? How does Howie think about which individuals he would like as mentors? How does he determine which advice to ingest vs to reject? 5.) How does Howie analyse the remote work/collaboration tools environment today? Does Howie believe we will enter a period of consolidation with the proliferation of new tools created? Does Howie believe we will see an unbundling in collaboration tools? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Howie’s Fave Book: Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire, Spying on Whales As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Airtable founder Howie Liu and Azeem Azhar discuss what it means to create a new $100 billion market category.
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Immad Akhund is the Founder & CEO @ Mercury, the startup that makes bank accounts that help tech companies scale. To date, Immad has raised funding from some of the best in the business including a16z and CRV on the fund side and then individuals including Elad Gil, Airtable's Howie Liu, Plaid's Zach Perret, Naval Ravikant, Justin Kan and OpenDoor's Eric Wu. Prior to founding Mercury, Immad held enjoyed numerous different roles including being a part-time partner at Y Combinator and then also founding HeyZap, building developer tools for mobile game developers, ultimately acquired in 2016. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Immad made his way from studying in the UK to being a YC Partner in 2017 and building one of the valley's hottest startups today in the form of Mercury? 2.) What does Immad want to do differently this time around with Mercury vs his time with HeyZap? What 1-2 mistakes that he made the first time round is Immad looking to avoid? How does being a serial founder impact one's ability to acquire the best talent? What does Immad think is harder the second time around? How has becoming a parent changed the way that Immad thinks about founding and building companies? 3.) How does Immad approach the process of picking the idea? What was the specific process with Mercury, step by step? Why does Immad believe it is an advantage to not have a background or prior career in the space you are looking to innovate in? What advice does Immad have for founders looking to move into highly regulated industries? 4.) How does Immad approach and assess the element of competition? What is the right way for founders to present competition when pitching to investors? Why is a 2x2 matrix the wrong approach? What does Immad advise portfolio founders he has invested in with regards to competition and the landscape in front of them? 5.) What have been some of Immad's biggest learnings from making over 120 angel investments? How has angel investing specifically helped certain parts of how he thinks about operating and being a founder today? What advice does Immad give with regards to investor updates? What makes the best ones? What makes the worst? How often should they be? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Immad’s Fave Book: The Accidental Superpower: The Next Generation of American Preeminence and the Coming Global Disaster As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Immad on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Howie Liu, cofounder and CEO of Airtable, the slick and elastic database-spreadsheet hybrid, speaks with Steve about the impact his first successful business had on his entrepreneurial outlook, his aspirations for Airtable and the Silicon Valley ethos that massive sleep loss is a sign of success. In fact, Liu eschewed the high-stress approach to building and now running Airtable. Can less stress mean more success?
Software engineering is harder than it should be. There are many people who have an app idea that they are not sure how to build. Some of these people are highly technical professionals like real estate agents, scientists, and accountants. These professionals learn to use spreadsheets in their day-to-day work. Spreadsheets are also used widely The post Airtable with Howie Liu appeared first on Software Engineering Daily.
Software engineering is harder than it should be. There are many people who have an app idea that they are not sure how to build. Some of these people are highly technical professionals like real estate agents, scientists, and accountants. These professionals learn to use spreadsheets in their day-to-day work. Spreadsheets are also used widely The post Airtable with Howie Liu appeared first on Software Engineering Daily.
Founder of Airtable, Howie Liu, built his first company at age 20 and sold it to Salesforce just a year later. The second time around, he's built a new platform that's already valued at over a billion dollars, putting Airtable in the rarified group of unicorn tech companies. Liu shares how he's found success via a slow and steady approach, his aspirations to become the next great tech company, and why he prefers farming metaphors to the wartime ones so often used by entrepreneurs.
The post E814: Airtable Co-founder Howie Liu raises $52m Series B for his smart spreadsheets, launches “Blocks” customizable apps to supercharge database insights, shares lessons as a 2nd-time founder & vision for the ultimate workflow appeared first on This Week In Startups.
The post E814: Airtable Co-founder Howie Liu raises $52m Series B for his smart spreadsheets, launches “Blocks” customizable apps to supercharge database insights, shares lessons as a 2nd-time founder & vision for the ultimate workflow appeared first on This Week In Startups.