20VC: Conor White-Sullivan on Roam Research

The Twenty Minute VC’s episode with Conor White-Sullivan on Roam’s product design, team-building, collaboration tools, and a Tesla-style go-to-market.

Why it was kept

Three notes Kyle took: Excel as Roam’s working model (simple or incredibly complex uses), Tesla’s go-to-market of building something specialized and expensive first so it could then build something simpler, and ‘low floor and high ceiling’.

As Kyle captured it

• Listened to 20VC: HOW ROAM RESEARCH ANALYSE PRODUCT DESIGN, TEAM-BUILDING, THE FUTURE OF COLLABORATION TOOLS & APPLYING TESLA GO-TO-MARKET TO ROAM WITH CONOR WHITE-SULLIVAN, FOUNDER & CEO @ ROAM RESEARCH
  • “Excel is our working model. 750M users, and people can use it for simple things, or incredibly complex things.”
  • Tesla go-to-market was to build something really specialized and expensive to enable them to build something more and more simple
  • “Low floor and high ceiling.” - tool should be easy to start using, but have the capability to get more power out of it (e.g. Excel)