$100T is managed by “human duct tape” | E2308 – This Week in Startups

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Today’s show:

*There are $100 trillion in global assets sitting on top of what Hanover Park co-founder/CEO Chris Hladczuk calls “human duct tape”: armies of accountants in offices patching together work from various legacy tools (QuickBooks, Excel) that are holding funds’ own data hostage. Can all of this be replaced with AI? Find out how their startup went from overseeing $1B to $20B in assets in just 15 months.

PLUS, we flash back to March 2020, when Jason and Figma co-founder/CEO Dylan Field broke down the design tool’s initial go-to-market strategy, made some WILDLY inaccurate COVID predictions, and considered anxiety about “SaaS burnout” years before the category went full apocalyptic.

Guests:

Chris Hladczuk on X: https://x.com/chrishlad

Hanover Park: https://www.hanoverpark.com/

Dylan Field: https://x.com/zoink

Figma: https://www.figma.com/

Relevant Links:

Turner Novak on X: https://x.com/TurnerNovak

Banana Capital: https://www.bananacapital.vc/

Emergence Capital: https://www.emcap.com/

Lux Capital: https://www.luxcapital.com/

Susa Ventures: https://susaventures.com/

Bill.com: https://www.bill.com/

METR: https://metr.org/

Granola AI note taker: https://www.granola.ai/

Vanta: https://www.vanta.com/

Foo Camp on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/foocamp

TechCrunch Mahalo coverage: https://techcrunch.com/2014/01/27/inside-mobile-news-launch/

Timestamps:

0:00 Hanover Park & the fund admin problem

3:32 Why funds outsource instead of building

5:44 Why fund accounting is so complex

10:38 The "one-click migration" goal

10:48 Northwest Registered Agent - Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity — Learn more at https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist

13:51 Context vs. intelligence gaps

16:11 No PMs, No Designers

20:46 Vanta - Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://www.vanta.com/twist

23:18 This is a $100T opportunity

25:36 Flashback w/ Dylan Field of Figma

29:15 Sentry - Your team should be focused on shipping features — not chasing down bugs. New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to https://sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST

31:22 Pre-AI enterprise security worries

36:30 SaaS overload and SaaS burnout

37:30 The evolution of Figma pricing

42:38 The rise and fall of Mahalo dot com

51:38 The work-from-home revolution begins

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X: https://x.com/lons

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