Erik Allebest interviews

@erik seems to be doing a lot more interviews and stuff lately, which have been really interesting.

Here's one where he talks more about how he started Chess.com and on scaling to $100M revenue, 150M members and 700 people - there's even more detail than in his blog post from 2019

Only 6 minutes in. So far seems very interesting.

Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (01:12) Early Entrepreneurial Ventures (04:44) MBA Journey and Embracing Risk (09:41) The Origin of Chess.com (13:52) Reaching the First Million Users (15:54) Achieving Product-Market Fit (17:54) Boost from Queen’s Gambit & COVID (18:30) Fundraising Challenges for Chess.com (20:49) Money's Impact on Self-Worth (23:20) Transformation Through Ayahuasca Retreat (29:37) Creative Acquisitions Strategy (32:16) Leveraging Affiliates and Ambassadors (33:39) Hosting the First Live Chess Event (34:25) Social Media Expansion Strategies (35:49) Unexpected Improvements by Keith Rabois (38:13) Evolution of Retention Rates (39:56) Defining Success Beyond Metrics (47:31) Capitalizing on Momentum (52:37) Transition to Post-Investment Phase (53:48) Remote Work Dynamics (58:20) Chess.com's Salary Insights (01:00:39) Discussing Capitalism 2.0 (01:06:05) Dealing with an FBI Call Over a Threat (01:08:39) Balancing Parenthood with Entrepreneurship (01:14:16) Insights on Maintaining a Great Marriage (01:19:45) Quick-Fire Round

Is he related to Théoden and Éowyn?

Hmm. 20 questions from a person who reports on venture capital...

Erik explains how he was repeatedly rejected by venture capitalists.

How his company management has never been driven by metrics...

Why the remote office structure has worked so well for Chess.com...

How the involvement of the investor General Atlantic was not to bring in new money to Chess.com but instead to replace a previous investor who wanted to exit...

On doing an ayahuasca retreat...

I wonder how much he paid for the domain back then. It must have been $10's of thousands.

Plus hiring a programmer, if he had to. Renting a server, ISP, etc. I'm guessing he had to sink $40-60,000 to get it off the ground.

He mentioned that in the interview, starting in the Origins of Chess.com section.

When did Chess.com release the $100MM in revenue estimate? As I recall, I have seen that number as a wild guess by a forum user but I have never seen that number coming directly from Chess.com.

That video has some information in it as well as specifically starting it in the title.

Another super interesting interview from @erik

I like how Erik describes his approach to building chess.com - it was never about making as much money as he could from it. I also think he explains the evolution of AI in chess very well.

It is very interesting. I find myself wondering why he is doing these interviews with the venture capital press now.

I see @DanielGuel has posted the interview Erik did last month with the Perpetual Chess podcast in https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/this-erik-interview-is-actually-kinda-juicy

But also this one that was just posted in the last 24 hours:

Haven't watched the first one yet - just at a surface level that seems like a general chess discussion. Am watching the second one, and it's another one of these VC / Product type podcasts who have reached out to Erik to interview him about how Chess.com has gotten to where it is from a business point of view.

It seems like they're asking him for interviews: I knew that there had been some popularity surges from Puzzle Rush and the Queen's Gambit Netflix series and pandemic lockdowns, but I didn't know how big Mittens was for them after that. I suspect the growth of the platform has caught their eye and they're trying to get their heads around it (especially since they don't seem to have followed a traditional Silicon Valley venture capital path)