The Anti-Hype Founder: Why TBH's Anjali Menon Rejects Silicon Valley's Growth Playbook

Why this Silicon Valley veteran chose sustainable growth over hypergrowth and what founders can learn from her contrarian approach to company building.

Watch the full conversation between Amit Matani and Anjali Menon on Youtube here or Spotify here.

Why Work Here is a series in which Amit Matani, CEO of Wellfound, has honest, behind-the-scenes conversations with founders, executives, and employees about why their companies are worth joining.

After years in Silicon Valley working at Twitter, TaskRabbit, and eventually leading an acquisition by MasterCard, Anjali Menon thought she understood how to build companies. Then she started tbh, a virtual mental health platform for students, and discovered that everything she'd learned about "the right way" to scale might actually be wrong.

"I think that founders that fall into this trap actually don't do themselves a service. I think that they actually end up fielding a lot of mental health insecurities and issues because they've gone out and raised massive rounds and then are like, well, now I gotta prove myself."

In a refreshingly honest conversation with Amit Matani, CEO of Wellfound, Menon challenges Silicon Valley orthodoxy while sharing hard-won insights about building sustainable companies that prioritize mission over metrics.

The Challenge of Dual Audiences: Building for Users Who Don't Pay

One of tbh's most fundamental challenges illustrates a reality many B2B2C companies face: your buyers aren't your users. tbh sells to school administrators but serves students, a dynamic that requires careful balancing.

"The hardest part when we first started out to build this company was how do we build our website? Are we building a website that speaks to students or are we building a website that speaks to university administrators and K through 12 districts? It was the hardest experiment of our lives."

Her solution? Do both, but prioritize the end user.

"If I have to pick though, we service our students. We're a B2C company that just happens to be a B2B2C company. So that is sort of the DNA that we have."

This approach has shaped everything from their Warby Parker-style aesthetic for students to their data dashboards for administrators. The key insight: while you need to satisfy your buyers, never lose sight of who you're ultimately serving.

For founders: When facing similar dual-audience challenges, establish clear priorities early. Determine which audience drives your core mission and let that guide your company's DNA, even while you serve both constituencies.

The Resilience Factor: What Really Matters in Hiring

While many companies focus on technical skills and experience, Menon has identified a different top priority: resilience.

"Resilience is number one. We need people who can navigate through tough times when there will be 30 million things coming at you that go wrong. How resilient can you be, and how committed can you be to this cause?"

Her approach to identifying resilience goes beyond standard interview questions. She asks candidates to share specific examples of persistence through challenges.

"Talk to me about a project that was really hard. How did you navigate through that? ... Understanding a project that somebody went through, the steps they took, the roadblocks and how they navigated it, is a good proxy for understanding how long somebody is willing to be here."

Combating Interview Bias Through Structure

Menon has implemented specific strategies to counter unconscious bias in hiring, recognizing that factors like attractiveness and personability can influence decisions in ways that don't predict job performance.

"Always, always make sure that the role that you are interviewing somebody for, there is actual real world examples of you testing them for a scenario they might end up in. So with every single role that we have, whether it's an engineering role, whether it's an operations role, they're always going to role play and we're always going to give them an exercise to do that would be something that they would experience in their first, let's say, month of being on the job."

Her evaluation process is deliberately structured with rigid rubrics and cross-functional input to counter individual biases.

"We actually have a very rigid rubric here where everybody is rating and ranking. So everybody goes in and we total these. We do this very, very rigidly."

To counter individual biases, she requires cross-functional input:

"Part of it is making sure different teams have input in an interview process. So even if it's just the marketing team that is hiring this person, engineering needs to talk to them, because you don't want biases."

Going Beyond the Ask: The Power of Work Samples

Menon has little patience for traditional application materials, preferring candidates who demonstrate their thinking through actual work.

"If somebody reaches out to me and is like, hey, I know your job description was for an operations lead to manage therapists. I already put together a playbook for how I would do this. Take a look at my Notion doc. If you are already showing me the work that you are going to do on day one, it's already a game changer."

Her priorities in evaluation are clear:

"I don't need to see how nice your resume is and I certainly don't need to see a cover letter. Those things feel very like archaic to me now. And similarly, I don't need to talk to you for 20 minutes to get a sense of like your worldview. I actually just want to see how you might handle and think about the problem."

Rejecting the Hype Game: A Silicon Valley Insider's Contrarian Take

Having navigated acquisitions, worked at unicorns, and seen the startup game from the inside, Menon brings credibility to her critique of Silicon Valley's growth-at-all-costs mentality.

"There is so much smoke and mirrors in this game of fundraising and there is so much more into this game of building hype than I ever imagined. I really do think there's this rat race in Silicon Valley of like, I gotta be this type of company with this type of investor, and I've gotta do that, and I've gotta double, & triple every year."

The problem isn't just that this approach is stressful—it fundamentally misaligns founders with what actually matters.

"You don't need to get your whole self-worth off of that, and I think a lot of people think that they do."

"You can build a company with like profitable margins, for example, go figure. You don't have to go raise $50 million and then like struggle and like be very stressed when like your valuations don't really meet the rounds that you raised."

Her alternative philosophy is deceptively simple: Build the company you want to build.

"My contrarian take is you can actually just build a company the way you want to build a company. And that's actually how I'm building tbh."

Bucking Trends: From Remote Work to Company Culture

Menon's contrarian approach extends beyond fundraising to operational decisions that put substance over trends. While Silicon Valley largely moved back to in-person work, tbh doubled down on virtual-first operations.

"I don't really care what Silicon Valley companies do. I care about what my teammates want to be doing."

This isn't just about flexibility—it's about building a company that serves its people rather than conforming to external expectations.

"A lot of my teammates, they have families. They have kids. They need to drop their kids off at 3 PM. It's fine by me."

The result is a more sustainable work environment that aligns with tbh's mission of supporting mental health. But Menon is quick to clarify that bucking trends doesn't mean ignoring what works. tbh invests heavily in virtual culture through custom Slack integrations and team-building activities.

"We like to buck trends, but we don't buck effectiveness."

The Future of Mental Health Technology

Looking ahead, Menon sees immense opportunity in the mental health space, despite the challenges that remain.

"There hasn't been like an Uber of mental health. Even though there have been thousands and thousands of mental health applications that have come in, there's still such an opportunity, even though it feels brownfield, to actually make a change in this space."

Her excitement centers on precision technology approaches that could fundamentally transform mental health treatment. She points to groundbreaking research like Stanford's work on "mapping kind of the cells in your brain to figure out if they can reverse course on some of the neural networks... If they can actually change the way your brain is wired and can make legitimate progress through precision technology on changing course on depression in a way that we couldn't previously with just giving you antidepressants."

What Anti-Hype Actually Looks Like

Menon's approach offers a practical alternative across multiple dimensions:

Fundraising: Raise what you need, not what impresses investors

Team Building: Focus on profitable margins and revenue per employee rather than headcount as a status symbol

Culture: Build based on what works for your team and mission, not what's trending

Hiring: Prioritize qualities like resilience and mission alignment over credentials and polish

"Too many founders believe that there is only one path to success, and that's just incorrect, and it causes way too much mental friction for young founders."

This mission-driven approach creates what Menon calls a natural retention strategy. When your company's success isn't dependent on meeting impossible growth targets, you can focus on building something that actually matters to the people you serve.

"Almost everyone has a personal story for why they're working for us. People already come in with their own stories, with their own motivations. People are just motivated by the cause of what we're trying to do."

Key Takeaways

For Founders:

• Question whether venture capital's timeline and expectations align with your personal goals and company mission
• Sometimes the "less glamorous" path of sustainable growth leads to better outcomes for both founders and users
• Consider whether the traditional Silicon Valley playbook aligns with your vision

For Job Seekers:

• Create work samples that demonstrate how you'd approach specific challenges mentioned in job descriptions
• Prepare stories that showcase your ability to navigate through difficult projects over time
• Research company culture deeply to understand what working style the company truly embodies
• Focus on finding a place where you can do your best work while contributing to something meaningful

For Recruiters:

• Implement structured evaluation processes with cross-team input and standardized scoring rubrics
• Focus on real-world scenario testing rather than general conversation
• Consider adding resilience-focused questions to your interview process

Anjali Menon is the co-founder and CEO of tbh, a virtual mental health platform for students from K-12 through college. Previously, she held executive roles at companies including If Only (acquired by MasterCard), Magic (Y Combinator), TaskRabbit, and Twitter.