💬 Q&A: Dissecting Unicorns
💬 Q&A: Dissecting Unicorns
Ethan & Arek (Cofounders of Unicorner)
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Hi curious minds 🧠,
Want a 2 minute rundown of one hot startup a week to your inbox? Then subscribe to 🦄 Unicorner 🦄 — It’s one of the newsletters I read top to bottom…every…single…time.
And that’s why I want you to meet the co-founders (aka the folks behind the newsletter).
Let’s dive deep.
Meet Ethan & Arek.
Guests: Ethan Keshishian & Arek Der-Sarkissian. Hi! We’re Ethan and Arek, the cofounders of Unicorner. We’re both second-year computer science students at UCLA (as well as roommates). Besides Unicorner and classes, Arek works as a program manager at SmartGateVC, a seed-stage venture firm based in Armenia. Ethan also works with SmartGateVC as a UCLA ambassador and has been a copy editor for the Daily Bruin since 2019.
Fun Fact:
Ethan: I love playing piano and guitar. I’ve also recently learned to play an Armenian woodwind instrument called the Shvi.
Arek: My first exposure to startups was back in high school. I was a fan of the video game Minecraft and built a few websites surrounding it—the largest is still around today with nearly 30 thousand users!
Q&A Time.
Question #1: You’ve featured a variety of exciting startups, what is one that you are particularly interested in?
Ethan: To be completely honest, all of them are pretty cool.
Arek: Yeah, it’s hard to decide.
Both: If we had to choose one, it would probably be Kalshi. They let you bet on yes-no questions through “contracts.” For example, you’ll have a question like “Will US natural gas production increase this month?” where you can buy contracts for either “yes” or “no.” Depending on what the actual answer to the question ends up being, winning contracts gain value, and losing contracts go to zero (similar to options).
Question #2: How do you go from zero to one in a new space, where do you start?
Both: We try to read as much outside content as possible on spaces we’re covering for the first time. A really good example is our cover on TechPrefab. One of our contributors had heard about them and wanted to write a cover. We had never heard about the prefabricated house industry before, let alone the supply chain aspect of building those types of houses. A big part of what we do at Unicorner is simplifying what a startup is doing so that any reader can understand its mission. We had to do some independent research before editing that cover so we could accomplish that goal. After all, if we’re going to simplify what a company is doing, we have to understand what they’re doing first.
Ethan: Since our readers like learning about interesting companies, we like taking companies like TechPrefab, which might be difficult to understand, and making them understandable. That way, our readers can hear about a new company and potentially a new industry, which they may have been unaware of or uninterested in otherwise.
Question #3: Is there a common thread you’ve noticed from the startups you analyzed?
Ethan: It might seem obvious, but companies we cover all have a well-developed vision. A question we enjoy asking each company is “Where do you see the company in five years from now?” Typically, these answers reveal that the company has bold plans within its industry. It’s basically a prerequisite for survival as an early-stage startup.
Arek: Having a TechCrunch article written about your company is a rite of passage for most startups. There are a lot of founders who see it as the difference between being a side-project and an actual business. Of course, that’s not really true, but the coverage does substantially boost the presence of a lot of startups.
Both: For the most part though, each company is unique and they build differently. For example, one of the companies we covered, CopyAI, is “building in public.” The founders share most internal updates on Twitter, which is something other companies have started adopting now. Every company has something it’s doing differently, and we like to highlight those aspects when we analyze them.
Question #4: How do you decide which startups to feature, where do you start?
Both: Startups come to us in different ways. We may read about them on a source like Crunchbase or TechCrunch, or one of our contributors might put it on our radar. We generally cover startups that have raised a pre-seed, seed, or Series A round within the past few months. In any case, we’ll usually do research into the companies we come across and pick the startup we think our community would most enjoy and find the most valuable learning about.
Question #5: What do you think sets Unicorner apart from other startup newsletters?
Both: We put an emphasis on accessibility and organization. Our articles are easy to read, even if you have minimal exposure to startups. They’re also broken down into sections such that you can find a specific piece of information you’re looking for with ease. It helps cater to our diverse audience; for example, a venture capitalist might be interested in learning about the most recent funding round for the startup we’re covering, whereas a recent grad might be looking for job opportunities. In terms of accessibility, we know being subscribed to multiple newsletters means it can be difficult to find the time to read them all. By keeping our issues short and to the point, we hope our readers can get the information they want without feeling overwhelmed, or that their time has been wasted.
Question #6: One of the appealing characteristics of Unicorner is the simplicity of knowing what will arrive in the inbox. What are your future plans for Unicorner?
Both: No matter what we do, we’d want to be consistent with that focus on simplicity. Our main goal is to build an engaged audience around startups. Beyond the newsletter, there are a number of ways we can accomplish this goal: interviewing founding teams on a podcast, collaborating with venture capitalists on pitch competitions, and building a way for our readers to meet each other. There are a lot of possibilities, and we’re excited to explore as many of them as we can.
Question #7: What has been the most surprising or delightful customer response you’ve seen for Unicorner?
Ethan: When we hosted an event with Ladder on how to build a newsletter, I really enjoyed meeting our readers. That’s also why I really like reading responses to our emails, through which we meet so many interesting people who enjoy our content.
Arek: My favorite interactions are ones where Unicorner is brought up in a conversation having nothing to do with it. I was on a call recently with a bunch of students who were interested in startups. We had breakout rooms opened where I got paired up with a few others, and someone happened to recognize my name from the newsletter. I thought that was pretty cool!
Both: We just really enjoy meeting new people, and learning more about what people are doing. Our inbox is always open to replies from readers.
Question #8: What are your thoughts on the future of work for startups?
Arek: Fully remote teams are becoming more and more common, especially with startups. No doubt, that trend will continue beyond the pandemic. The only problem is that fully remote teams come with unique challenges of remote work (time zone differences, communication problems, etc.) which can be difficult to deal with for a fast-paced company like a startup.
Ethan: [Bonus Content] Just to illustrate how important remote work is to some people, there was a recent poll conducted showing employees at some of America’s biggest companies would be willing to turn down a $30K raise for the option to work remotely.
Question #9: What customer pain points do you see as opportunities for startups to reinvent?
Ethan: Well, for one thing, a company should really invent a button that subscribes you to Unicorner ;)
Arek: I agree with Ethan. Research has shown people who subscribe to Unicorner are 20% happier (according to Unicorner).
Ethan: I think the pandemic has made companies focus more on making their products feel more personal. An example of this is FigJam, which is an online whiteboard. Users can react to each other by sticking reactions on the board. Figma must have made the choice to use multiple stickers instead of a counter of people who used that same reaction. It feels much more personal and the number isn’t really that important.
Question #10: What topic are you diving deep into now?
Both: In terms of industries, we try to cover as many different kinds of sectors as possible to give our readers a taste of everything. In general, though, we try to learn more about the startup world as a whole. Last summer, we dove deep into this subject by reading about 100 essays from a number of venture capitalists. We might do something similar this summer though we don’t have a topic yet, and try to pass on the knowledge we gain through the newsletter.
Question #11: Any asks for the Curious Expeditions community?
Ethan: First, we’d love it if you subscribed to the newsletter. You can follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn as well for more updates on what we’re doing.
Arek: Also, we want to hear from you! What are some interesting startups that have caught your eye recently? Many of our covers start from articles or names sent to us by our readers. Additionally, if you’d like to contribute to or sponsor Unicorner, feel free to reach out to us. You can reach out to us with your answers (as well as any comments or questions) at newsletter@unicorner.news
Thanks for the breakdown Ethan and Arek. It is energizing to see your obsession with the reader experience by focusing on simplicity, accessibility, and creating an open line of communication. Look forward to the next unicorn analysis. Keep raising the bar!
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