Framework
Richard Barton's one thesis: 'information wants to be free'
Shaan reverse-engineers how Richard Barton started Zillow, Expedia, and Glassdoor off a single thesis: bring transparency to opaque industries. Zillow freed the MLS listings that agents had gatekept.
“And when I looked at this guy, the one thing that stood out to me was he had a very simple thesis that he used to start all these companies, which was information wants to be free. So, okay, what does information wants to be free mean? So he was basically like, I'm going to bring transparency to industries that are not transparent.”
Steal thisFind an industry where one party hoards the data customers want, then build the tool that sets that information free.
Idea
The transparency playbook: which opaque industry can you pry open next?
Shaan frames Barton's repeatable move as the real lesson: don't ask how he built Expedia, ask how he got the idea. The generative question is 'what other industries today lack transparency where I can open them up?' which is a billion-dollar idea machine.
“It wasn't, oh, how did he build Expedia? How did he build Zillow? It was, how did he even get this idea? Oh, okay. What other industries today lack transparency where I can open them up? Okay. What are they? Oh dude, well, if now that's a billion-dollar idea I need to have.”
Steal thisList industries where pricing, salaries, or quality are still hidden behind gatekeepers, and build the search bar that exposes them.
Idea
Second Measure: read any company's revenue from credit-card spending data
Shaan explains Second Measure, which analyzes aggregate credit-card spending to estimate how much money a company is making, even private ones, and to see which player is winning in a category (e.g. which food delivery app leads).
“so Second Measure takes credit card spending data and can tell you essentially like how much money something is making just by analyzing how many people are charging Spotify per month. And then they're like, okay, cool, right? Imagine Spotify was not a public company. You'd be able to see here's how much revenue that they're making.”
Steal thisUse a proprietary 'source of truth' dataset (card spend, web traffic, SEC filings) to sell visibility into numbers companies want hidden.