Startup Field Guide by Unusual Ventures: The Product Market Fit Podcast

Jyoti Bansal is the CEO of  @Harnessio  and  @TraceableAI . He is also a co-founder of Unusual Ventures.In a special episode of the Startup Field Guide podcast, Jyoti sits down with John Vrionis – his co-founder and friend of 20 years — to discuss the recent merger of Harness and Traceable. This merger positions Harness + Traceable to create the most advanced AI-native DevSecOps platform in the world!Join us as we discuss:00:00 Product market-fit is a journey1:38 The recent merger between Harness and Traceable3:09 The insight that led to Traceable's founding4:37 The technical inflection that Jyoti saw in 20197:46 The initial idea for Traceable11:39 Figuring out the right customer14:12 Iterating on Traceable's GTM approach16:34 Advice for early-stage founders21:54 The big vision for Traceable + Harness25:56 One book all founders should read26:26 Jyoti's advice on team-building27:55 Essential soft skill for founders28:55 Perspective on leadershipJohn Vrionis is the co-founder and CEO of Unusual Ventures.Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

Samantha Mckenna is the founder of SamSales and a leader in building go-to-market strategies. She has spent her nearly 15+ year career in enterprise sales doing two things: breaking over 13 sales records and doing so by leading with a buyer-first approach to sales. In this episode of the Startup Field Guide podcast, she shares why early stage founders should focus on solving challenges for buyers rather than selling, the need for thorough research and personalization in outbound prospecting, and the effectiveness of LinkedIn as a marketing platform. Some topics we covered with Sam include: 00:00 Preview: Importance of solving customer challenges first 00:18 Sam's early journey into sales and GTM 02:20 Common mistakes in enterprise sales process for startups 02:37 Challenges and misconceptions about enterprise sales 04:10 How technical founders can get started in sales 9:26: How founders can start doing outbound sales while building their product 14:26 Tips for effective outbound messaging 18:18 Selling to engineers 19:57 Why founders should be using LinkedIn 22:25: Strategies for marketing on LinkedIn 38:15 AI tools for outbound sales and marketing 43:01 Hiring the right sales leaders for early stage startups Samantha Mckenna is the founder and CEO of SamSales. Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

Relyance AI is a global privacy compliance and data governance platform that allows enterprises to protect customer data, avoid expensive fines, and build customer trust. It provides visibility and control over all enterprise data processing. In this episode, we chat with Abhi Sharma, CEO and co-founder of Relyance about the early days of the company, and how Relyance has recently completely transformed its sales culture. Join us as we discuss: 00:00 Preview: Culture is about what you do day-to-day 1:28 The insight behind Relyance 6:20 Early feedback from design partners 9:17 Abhi's learnings as a second-time founder 11:10 Transforming Relyance's sales culture and strategy 15:30 How Unreasonable Hospitality influence Abhi's thinking about company culture 18:18 What the hospitality industry can teach software founders 24:18 How Abhi coached his team into changing their mindsets 30:06 How Relyance's customers and team have responded to the shift in the sales culture 35:51 Advice for early-stage founders on building strong company culture Abhi Sharma is the CEO and co-founder of Relyance. Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

Clay is an AI-powered platform for sales prospecting that gathers data from over 75 sources to build lists and help growth teams send personalized outreach messages. Recently valued at over $500M, Clay has several high-profile enterprise customers, including go-to-market teams at Intercom, Ramp, Notion, Anthropic, Verkada, Vanta, and more. In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Kareem Amin, CEO and co-founder of Clay. Join us as we discuss:  00:00 Preview: Picking the right customer 1:53 Lessons learned from Kareem's first startup, Frame 4:54 Decision behind choosing acquisition for Frame 7:10 The founding insight behind Clay 9:20 Fundraising for Clay 11:52 Narrowing down the ICP for Clay 17:21 Clay's decision to focus on growth marketers 21:12 Product feedback from early adopters 22:27 Picking the right strategy to monetize 28:37 Building the early team 32:14 Integrating GPT-3 into the product  34:38 Clay's product roadmap 37:00 Advice for new founders Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc. Kareem Amin is the CEO and co-founder of Clay. Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

Scribe makes it easy to share how you do your work by creating automated documentation. Scribe raised a Series B recently and has grown to millions of users with enterprise customers like Gong, LinkedIn, and Shopify. In this episode, Scribe's co-founder and CEO, Jennifer Smith chats with Sandhya Hegde about Scribe's early days. Join us as we discuss: 00:00 Preview — capturing institutional knowledge 1:46 The insight for starting scribe 5:40 Building the Founding Team 8:10 Product Launch and Early Adopters 12:40 Launching the GA Product 15:08 Analyzing User Feedback and Customer Profiles 16:42 Early go-to-market strategy 20:18 The evolution of Scribe's GTM strategy 22:50 Leveraging AI Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at ⁠sandhya@unusual.vc⁠. Jennifer Smith is the CEO and co-founder of Scribe. Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at ⁠https://www.unusual.vc/⁠.

Eightfold AI is a talent management platform used by hundreds of large organizations like Vodafone and Activision Blizzard. It helps them leverage data to find great people with the skills they need, both internally and externally. Last valued at $2.1 billion, Eightfold was launched in 2016. In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Ashutosh Garg, co-founder and CEO of Eightfold AI. Join us as we discuss: 00:00 Why Ashustosh wanted to build a talent platform 1:47 Ashutosh Garg's early career at Google 5:09 The founding insight for Eightfold AI 7:38 Why Ashustosh decided to focus on HR tech 9:42 Challenges of selling to large enterprises 17:11 Advantages of being an "outsider" in HR tech 19:32 Ashutosh's learnings as a repeat founder 22:58 The impact of recent macro shifts on the labor market 24:50 The impact of GenAI on Eightfold's roadmap 30:16 The future of work 35:11 Advice for first-time founders Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc. Ashustosh Garg is the CEO and co-founder of Eightfold AI. Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

Monte Carlo is an end-to-end data observability platform that monitors pipelines for missing or inaccurate data. Last valued at $1.6B, Monte Carlo has over 150 customers, including data teams at companies such as CNN, JetBlue, Hubspot, PepsiCo, and Toast.  In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Barr Moses, co-founder and CEO of Monte Carlo.  Join us as we discuss: 00:00 Preview —Early feedback from a potential customer 1:37 Why Barr and Lior decided to focus on data observability 6:28 Profile of Monte Carlo's early adopters 12:27 Common pain points among early adopters 16:05 How Monte Carlo narrowed in on their ICP 21: 33 Early product feedback and surprises 26:27 Monte Carlo's current go-to-market strategy 31:22 How AI will impact the data ecosystem 35:57 Advice for founder building data platforms Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc. Barr Moses is the founder and CEO of Monte Carlo Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

Perplexity is an AI-powered search engine that answers user questions. Founded in 2022 and valued at over $1B, Perplexity recently crossed 10M monthly active users and is growing fast. In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Denis Yarats, co-founder and CTO of Perplexity. Join us as we discuss: 00:00 Reactions to Perplexity's prototype in 2022 1:33 How Arvind and Denis started working together 4:04 Building a text-to-SQL tool initially 6:34 Launch of ChatGPT and pivot to general search 9:46 Focusing on user data, and not on the foundation model 14:43 Perplexity's early adopters 16:42 Early customer feedback 18:44 Perplexity's core technical competencies 22:44 Subscription pricing and future gross margins 25:12 Perplexity's hardware partnerships  29:49 Future product vision  32:50 Advice for founders in the AI space Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc. Denis Yarats is the CTO and co-founder of Perplexity. Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

Everlaw is a legal tech company started in 2011 that helps law firms and corporations run what's called “e-discovery”— essentially a process of investigating often massive piles of documents to find the key pieces of evidence, the smoking gun, and then to construct a narrative from it. Last valued at over $2B, Everlaw has over 1,000 customers over the world.   In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with AJ Shankar, CEO and founder of Everlaw. Join us as we discuss:  00:00: The vision for Everlaw  0:36 Introduction to Everlaw 1:45 AJ Shankar's Journey to Starting Everlaw 4:43 The Vision and Early Years of Everlaw 6:41 Challenges in Fundraising and Building the Early Team 9:56 Understanding Customer Needs and Building Authenticity 11:38 Product Development and Technical Skills 16:22 Impact of Everlaw on the Legal Industry 20:36 Fundraising Challenges and Success 23:59 Adoption of Generative AI and its Implications 29:30 The Future of Everlaw and the Legal Industry 35:51 AJ Shankar's Evolution as a Founder and CEO Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc. AJ Shankar is the CEO and founder of Everlaw. Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

Deepgram is a voice AI company that has built an incredible reputation in the market for the quality of its speech recognition. Last valued at over $250M, Deepgram has over 500 customers, including NASA, Spotify, and Twilio.  In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Scott Stephenson, CEO and co-founder of Deepgram. Join us as we discuss:  00:00 Preview: Fully contextualized speech-to-speech is the future 01:07 Scott's background in particle physics and starting Deepgram 7:18 Scott's first years as a founder 13:17 How the Deepgram team gathered early customer feedback 17:38 Early use cases and product feedback 22:58 How conversational AI will impact the customer support industry 26:54 Specialized hardware in the AI Industry 30:34 How additional hardware specialization will impact Deepgram 32:14 Deepgram's product vision 36:46 Advice for Founders starting an AI company Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc. Scott Stephenson is the CEO and co-founder of Deepgram. Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

Material Security is an email security company that protects an organization's users and data particularly across Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. Last valued at $1.1B, Material has over 100 enterprise customers, including Doordash, Lyft, and Fox.  In this episode, Sandhya Hegde and Wei Lien Dang chat with Abhishek Agrawal, CEO and co-founder of Material Security. Join us as we discuss:  00:00 Preview: Seeking validation for a B2B product 1:36 Founding Material Security 5:31 Identifying the Gap in Existing Solutions 10:00 Validating the Thesis  12:41 Product Vision and Initial MVP 19:56 Go-to-Market Strategy for the First Million in ARR 25:40 Product Vision and Impact of AI 31:50 Advice for Founders Starting Companies in 2024 Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc. Wei Lien Dang is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures and leads investments in infrastructure software, security, and developer tool.  Wei was a co-founder of Stackrox, a cloud-native security company prior to its acquisition by Red Hat. He can be reached at wei@unusual.vc Abhishek Agrawal is the co-founder and CEO of Material Security Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

Hightouch is a composable customer data platform. It helps companies collect and sync user data into ad platforms, CRMs, email tools etc. Last valued at over $600M, Hightouch has over 600 customers, including the NBA, Spotify, Plaid, Calendly, and more. In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Kashish Gupta, co-CEO and co-founder of Hightouch.  Join us as we discuss:  00:00 Switching personas to find product-market fit 1:44 Evolution of the Data Integration Space 2:42 The Concept of Reverse ETL 5:41 The Origin Story of Hightouch 8:01 Exploring Different Business Ideas 12:06 Early Design Partners and Product Strategy 14:46 Transition from Founder Selling to Hiring Sales Team 16:48 Go-to-Market Motion and Marketing Strategy 18:39 Hightouch's Product Vision and Future Direction 22:55 Challenges in the Market and Building User Certainty 27:01 Co-CEO Arrangement and Founder Team Dynamic 31:04 Advice for Aspiring Founders in 2024 Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and  Twitter  LinkedIn  Kashish Gupta is the co-CEO and co-founder of HightouchUnusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

Notion is a productivity platform that blends all your workplace apps into a single platform, including team projects, wikis, and docs. Last valued at $10bn, Notion's customers include teams at Amazon, Nike, Uber, Figma, Deel, and more! In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Akshay Kothari, co-founder and COO of Notion. Join us as we discuss:  00:00 Preview: Building Notion 1.0 03:32 How Akshay met Ivan Zhao and invested in Notion 5:21 Lessons from the Pulse Journey 8:09 Building Notion's first templates 12:43 Why Akshay joined Notion full-time 16:26 Akshay's first few months at Notion 21:59 Evolution of Notion's GTM strategy and Enterprise vs SMB 26:13 Akshay's GTM learnings and challenges  34:37 Launching AI Features in Notion 38:44 Customer Feedback and Future of Notion AI Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and  Twitter  LinkedIn  Akshay Kothari is the co-founder and COO of Notion.  Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

Domino Data Lab was founded in 2013 and was one of the early innovators in the space known as MLOps. It delivers a unified platform for enterprises to build, deploy, and manage machine learning workloads and provides access to data, tools, compute, models across any environment. Domino enables ML and data teams to collaborate, ensure governance, and reduce costs at scale. In this episode, Wei Lien Dang chats with Chris Yang, co-founder and CTO of Domino Data. Join us as we discuss:  00:00 Introduction to Domino Data Lab 02:04 The Origin Story of Domino Data Lab 06:58 Balancing Authenticity and Customer Feedback 10:52  Open Communication and Collaboration Among Co-founders 14:24 The Importance of Engaging with Users 16:19  Building the First Feature: Enabling Compute Workloads in the Cloud 22:42 Discovering Unexpected Use Cases and Features 33:20 The Importance of Choosing a Target Market 35:44 The Evolution of MLOps and the Current AI Wave  Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc. Wei Lien Dang is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures and leads investments in infrastructure software, security, and developer tool.  Wei was a co-founder of StackRox, a cloud-native security company prior to its acquisition by Red Hat. He can be reached at wei@unusual.vc. Chris Yang is the co-founder and CTO of Domino Data.  Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Julianna Lamb, co-founder and CTO of Stytch. Stytch is a comprehensive tool for identity management. Its auth and fraud prevention capabilities improve both security and user experience. Last valued at $1.0B, the company now works with over 1000 customers. Join us as we discuss:  00:00 Preview: early product surprises for the Stytch team 01:53 Introduction to Stytch and identity management 05:15 The founding insight for Stytch 10:27 Validating the idea and Minimum Viable Product 12:27 Choosing a customer segment and MVP 14:33 Surprises and patterns in early customers 17:57 Lessons from Plaid and building a flexible solution 19:46 Approach to developer marketing 22:20 Approach to developer awareness and hiring 26:32 Starting a company in an unusual environment 30:53 Impact of AI on authentication and fraud prevention 34:25 Advice for developers starting a company Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and  Twitter  LinkedIn  Julianna Lamb is the co-founder and CTO of Stytch.  Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Andy Byrne, co-founder and CEO of Clari. Clari was started in 2012 and last valued at $2.6B. Its revenue platform has been helping enterprise sales teams create visibility and predictability within their organization for over a decade. It helps over 1,500 companies including Cisco and Databricks improve their entire revenue process. Join us as we discuss: 00:00 Preview: Gen AI's impact on revenue ops 1:40 Origin Story and pain points 3:27 Early challenges and customer feedback 6:00 Surprises and feedback from design partners 10:01 Building for multiple stakeholders 13:16 Go-to-Market strategy 14:56 Identifying adjacent opportunities 18:00 Clari's AI strategy 20:52 The future of sales and revenue 26:44 The evolution of CRM providers 28:34 Crowded sales tech landscape 32:59 Advice for new founders in GTM Tech Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and  Twitter  LinkedIn  Andy Byrne is the co-founder and CEO of Clari. Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/. Further reading from Unusual Ventures: Coming up with a founding insight What are design partners?

In this episode, Sandhya Hegde and Wei Lien Dang chat about everything that happened in the world of AI Startups in 2023. 2023 was very much an Act 2 for Generative AI as GPT became a household name. We had a long Act 1 during Covid ending with some incredible launches in the second half of 2022 including Stable Diffusion and of course ChatGPT. We take a closer look at what the pivotal moments have been this year and more importantly what they mean for the startups ecosystem. Join us as we discuss: 00:00 Preview: Strategy to defeat incumbent software companies 3:39 January 2023 — ChatGPT's Success and Consumer Adoption 7:16 February 2023 — Controversies and Legal Issues 12:09 March 2023 — GPT-4 Launch and Multimodal AI 16:04 April and May 2023 — Large infrastructure providers' AI strategy 20:04 June 2023 — GPU Shortage and Infrastructure Challenges 22:41 July and August 2023 — Fine-Tuning and New Modalities 29:46 September 2023 — Governance and Safety Concerns 32:06 October 2023 — Revenue Generation and Open Source 33:18 November 2023 — OpenAI Leadership Changes 37:17 December 2023 — Google's Gemini and Future Predictions Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. Wei Lien Dang is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures and leads investments in infrastructure software, security, and developer tool. Wei was a co-founder of StackRox, a cloud-native security company prior to its acquisition by Red Hat. Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/. Further reading from Unusual Ventures: Whose responsibility is responsible AI? How do you navigate AI security in an evolving landscape? Autonomous AI agents could change the world, but what do they actually do well?

In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Shishir Mehrotra, CEO and co-founder of Coda. Coda is a collaborative workspace that brings together teams and tools to create organized workflows in docs. Started in 2014, Coda serves over 80% of the Fortune 100. Last valued at $1.4B,  Coda is used by over 25,000 teams including ones at Figma, The New York Times, Square, Doordash, and Toast.  00:00 Preview: Coming up with product insights 01:38 Shishir's experience at YouTube 03:32 YoutTube Shorts versus Tiktok 06:03 Product-market fit is not a binary 08:04 The founding insight behind Coda 11:16 Positioning Coda against incumbent products 18:05 Coda's alpha launch 24:36 PMF scores versus disappointment scores 29:53 Shishir's approach to product rituals 38:05 The launch of Coda 4.0 43:50 Advice for new founders in enterprise productivity Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and  Twitter  LinkedIn  Shishir Mehrotra is the CEO and co-founder of Coda. Prior to Coda, Shishir was the Vice President of Product, Engineering, and UX at YouTube.  Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/. Further reading from Unusual Ventures: Coming up with a founding insight What are design partners? How to find product-market fit

MosaicML is the developer of open source infrastructure for training LLMs. The company was acquired by Databricks for $1.3 billion in July 2023. and has gone from 0 to over $30M in revenue this year in just 6 months. In this episode, Sandhya Hegde and Wei Lien Dang chat with Naveen Rao, co-founder of MosaicML and now the head of Generative AI at Databricks Join us as we discuss: 00:00 Preview: Future of foundation model companies 2:16 How Naveen's previous experiences led to MosaicML 7:29 The core insight behind the founding of MosaicML 9:52 MosaicML's approach to building an end-to-end platform 12:09 Why MosaicML focused on open models and LLMs 14:25 Why most foundation model companies will fail 15:52 How MosaicML found early adopters 18:14 Early use cases for MosaicML's product 21:27 Impact of early feedback on MosaicML's product roadmap 25:21 Why Naveen decided to move ahead with the Databricks acquisition 31:44 How Naveen sees the AI ecosystem evolving 34:08 Regulation of AI and the importance of open source 41:15 Advice for founding building AI infrastructure Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. Wei Lien Dang is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures and leads investments in infrastructure software, security, and developer tool.  Wei was a co-founder of StackRox, a cloud-native security company prior to its acquisition by Red Hat. Naveen Rao is the co-founder of MosaicML (now a Databricks company) and currently the head of Generative AI at Databricks Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/. Further reading from Unusual Ventures: Starting an open source company Open source customer development 

Full episode transcript here: www.unusual.vc/post/sprigs-product-market-fit-journey Sprig is an AI-powered product feedback platform; it helps teams run in-product surveys and session replays with AI native analysis to help them build better products. Last valued at $330M, Sprig has hundreds of the largest and fastest growing tech companies as customers, including Notion, Figma, PayPal, Webflow, and Dropbox. In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Ryan Glasgow, the founder and CEO of Sprig.  Join us as we discuss: 01:13 Sprig's origin story 05:26 Evolution of user feedback platforms 09:26 Building Sprig's early team 12:37 Validating Sprig's product hypothesis 15:37 Building relationships with early design partners 19:15 Iterating to MVP 23:19 Ryan's approach to founder selling 29:11 Sprig's early AI strategy 33:36 Sprig AI strategy post-ChatGPT 35:37 Ryan's evolution as CEO Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and  Twitter/X LinkedIn Ryan Glasgow  is the founder and CEO of Sprig.  Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/. Further reading from Unusual Ventures: Defining your ideal customer profile (ICP) Working with design partners Validating your early product hypothesis

Solo is an open-source developer platform designed to connect applications with service meshes across any software infrastructure. Their core promise to their customer is to help them migrate from 10/20 year old legacy monolithic applications to new cloud native architectures with APIs and microservices.  Last valued at $1Bn, Solo has hundreds of enterprise customers including enterprises like TMobile, American Express, SAP, Sumo Logic, and more. In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Idit Levine, the founder and CEO of Solo.  Join us as we discuss: 1:13 Solo's origin story 6:04 Early fundraising challenges 13:45 The technical insight that led to Solo 15:00 Studying the market to refine Solo's product vision 16:49 API Gateway as a stepping stone for service mesh 21:58 Early customer acquisition efforts 24:33 Idit's conviction in the API Gateway approach 25:26 How Solo found its first paying customers 29:25 Idit's approach to founder selling  31:17 Idit's evolution as CEO 36:50 Solo's approach to open source community-building 40:50 Advice for founders building open source projects Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and  LinkedIn Twitter/X Idit Levine is the founder and CEO of Solo.  Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/. Further reading from Unusual Ventures: Starting an open source company Hiring for an open source company Building open source GTM

Full episode transcript: https://www.unusual.vc/post/writers-product-market-fit-journey Started in 2020, Writer is an enterprise-grade generative AI platform for larger, security-conscious companies. Writer has over 150 customers, including teams at UnitedHealthcare, Uber and Accenture. Last valued at over $500M, Writer makes it easy for enterprises to build internal apps that generate a variety of content from sales enablement to blog posts.  In this episode, Sandhya Hegde joins Writer's co-founder and CEO May Habib to discuss the company's path to product-market fit. Join us as we discuss: 1: 30 The origin story behind the founding of Writer 5:11 The early product vision for Writer 10:02 The transformation of the enterprise AI buyer 14:49 Security and compliance in AI models 17:27 Writer's approach to addressing hallucinations  21:35 Why May and the Writer team had deep conviction in Enterprise AI 24:43 The next big horizon for Gen AI and Writer 27:50 May Habib's journey as a CEO 29:18 Building a culture of curiosity at Writer Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and  May Habib is the CEO and co-founder of Writer, a generative AI platform for the enterprise. Before Writer, she co-founded Qordoba.  Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.Further reading from Unusual Ventures: Build conviction in an early stage startup Understanding the enterprise buyer LLMs in security

Open source AI models have become key drivers of innovation and collaboration. An increasing number of developers and end users are leveraging open source technologies. There is immense potential in the long-term impact of open source AI.  In this episode, we are releasing a conversation on the future of open source AI between Wei Lien Dang (Unusual Ventures), and Reynold Xin (Databricks) and Vipul Ved Prakash (Together). Join us as we discuss:3:16: The rise of open source LLMs and foundation models 7:23  Building open source AI platforms to serve customers 10:35 Why Together and Databricks decided to build with open source 13:33 LLMs and the need for standardization 21:09 The role of academia in AI research and innovation 26:57 Innovations in training data 30:55 Making the decision to choose open source models 36:52 Growing Accessibility of Machine Learning with LLMs 40:31 How the open source ecosystem will evolve in the future 47:18 Best practices for parameterizing LLMs over timeWei Lien Dang is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures and leads investments in infrastructure software, security, and developer tool.  Wei was a co-founder of StackRox, a cloud-native security company prior to its acquisition by Red Hat. He can be reached at wei@unusual.vc and Twitter LinkedIn Vipul Ved Prakash is the co-founder and CEO of Together. He was also the founder of Topsy and Cloudmark. Reynold Xin is the co-founder of Databricks. Last valued at $43B, Databricks has been a juggernaut data infrastructure business built on Apache Spark analytics engine. They recently launched multiple AI products including Lakehouse AI and their own open source LLM — Dolly. Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.Further reading from Unusual Ventures: Why the future of AI-native infrastructure will be open How good is your LLM? Nobody know yet What AI builders should know about data protection and privacy

Started in 2017, Deliverr is an E-commerce fulfillment company that integrates with marketplaces such as Shopify and Walmart. The company offers a two-day shipping service to small merchants selling on these online marketplaces helping them compete with Amazon Prime. Co-founded by Harish Abbott and Michael Krakaris, the company was acquired by Shopify for US$ 2.1 bn in May 2022. In this episode, Sandhya Hegde joins Michael Krakaris and Sarah Leary (GP at Unusual) to discuss Deliverr's path to product-market fit. Join us as we discuss: 01:00 The insight that led to Deliverr's founding 04:20 Why E-commerce fulfillment needed to be democratized 08:18 The value of understanding customers to achieve product-market fit 15:11 Early product-market fit signals for Deliverr 20:15 Pivoting Deliverr's business model to drive revenue 26:23 How Deliverr built and scaled its sales team 29:33 Deliverr's breakthrough with Walmart 33:06 Deliverr's expansion: From Walmart partnership to multichannel integration 35:11 Managing E-commerce during the pandemic 40:36 Overcoming crisis through innovation 44:12 E-commerce tech post-pandemic Find the transcript for this episode and all past episodes at:⁠ https://www.unusual.vc/podcast⁠ Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and  Twitter LinkedIn Sarah Leary is a Venture Partner at Unusual Ventures, with a focus on Unusual's consumer practice. Prior to joining Unusual, Sarah co-founded Nextdoor, the free and private social network for neighborhoods. She can be reached at sarah@unusual.vc and LinkedIn Michael Krakaris is the co-founder of Deliverr. Prior to starting Deliverr, Michael was a product marketing manager at Symphony Commerce. Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/. Further reading from the Startup Field Guide: Customer Discovery Building a sales team Developing your founding insight

Forward is an AI-based healthcare unicorn that combines private doctors with technology to enable data-driven, insurance-free primary care. Forward is now present in 14 cities in the US. In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Adrian Aoun, the founder and CEO of Forward about building a transparent and incentive-driven healthcare system. Join us as we discuss: 01:47: Forward's origin story and why Adrian saw the need to reimagine healthcare 04:44: Build an incentive-driven healthcare system 10:05: Approach to building an “MVP”/early clinics  13:51: How Forward thinks about its product roadmap and innovating in healthcare 17:11: How Adrian and his team iterated on early user feedback  20:39: Forward's approach to productizing healthcare  24:29: The future of AI in healthcare 27:55 How Adrian approached building the early team at Forward 30:51: Advice for founders who are building products with AI Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and  Twitter  LinkedIn  Adrian Aoun is the founder and CEO of Forward. Prior to starting Forward, he founded Wavii, a natural language processing startup acquired by Google. He also worked on special projects for Larry Page at Google.  Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/. Further reading from the Startup Field Guide: Starting a company Iterating to MVP for consumer products

Sysdig is a cloud native application protection platform that helps stop cloud and container security attacks. In this episode, Sysdig's founder and CTO, Loris Degioanni chats with Wei Lien Dang about why he founded Sysdig and how he leveraged the power of open source for growth and industry disruption. Join us as we discuss: (1:39) How Loris leveraged market and tech stack changes to build Sysdig (7:46) Sysdig's journey as an early pioneer in containerization technology (12:16) Sysdig's pivot from monitoring to cybersecurity (17:48) The power of open source in building Sysdig (21:48) The nuances and commitment necessary for a successful open source project: (28:33) Finding product-market fit in an open source context (30:42) The role of an open-source project as a brand, marketing tool, and source of lead generation (31:45) Balancing community involvement and establishing a solid business model (33:34) Commercializing an open source project (37:32) Advice for founders building open source companies Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and  Twitter LinkedIn Wei Lien Dang is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures and leads investments in infrastructure software, security, and developer tools.  Wei was a co-founder of StackRox, a cloud-native security company prior to its acquisition by Red Hat. He can be reached at wei@unusual.vc and Twitter Linkedin Loris Degioanni is the founder and CTO of Sysdig. Prior to founding Sysdig, Loris co-created Wireshark, an open source network analyzer. Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/. Further reading from the Startup Field Guide: Starting an open source company Developing open-source software customers Building GTM for an open source company

Gretel is a synthetic data platform that allows developers to generate artificial data sets with the same characteristics as real data so they can test AI models without compromising sensitive customer information or privacy. Gretel has a community of over 75,000 developers working with accurate, synthetic data.  In this episode, Sandhya Hegde and Weil Lien Dang chat with Ali Golshan, CEO and co-founder of Gretel about the company's path to product-market fit.  Join us as we discuss: (1:48) Ali's background in US Intelligence and how it shaped his approach as a founder (3:17) The founding insight that led to the creation of Gretel (6:35) Ali and his co-founders' “why now” for building a privacy engineering product (8:15) Why Gretel decided to focus on developers  (10:47) How Ali and his co-founders narrowed in on early use cases (15:55) The industries where Gretel found early adopters (20:20) How Gretel anticipated and adapted to increasingly popular AI models  (27:24) Why Gretel decided to create a multimodal platform for synthetic data (29:18) The reasoning behind building Gretel GPT (31:48) How Gretel's co-founders work together to adapt to the changing tech landscape (38:05) What Ali sees as the key drivers for adoption within traditional enterprise companies (40:19) Why they built their ICP around the developer cloud stack (45:45) Advice for early-stage founders currently building in AI Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and  Twitter LinkedIn Wei Lien Dang is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures and leads investments in infrastructure software, security, and developer tool.  Wei was a co-founder of StackRox, a cloud-native security company prior to its acquisition by Red Hat. He can be reached at wei@unusual.vc and Twitter Linkedin Ali Golshan is the CEO and co-founder of Gretel. Prior to Gretel, Ali was the Co-founder and CTO at StackRox (acquired by Red Hat), and previously the Founder & CTO of Cyphort (acquired by Juniper Networks). Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.Further reading from the Startup Field Guide: Defining your ICP Finding early adopters Finding co-founders

Instabase is an enterprise-focused application platform that allows businesses to automate document processing from unstructured data sources such as bank statements, pay stubs, and tax documents. They use a number of tools including generative AI to summarize and analyze data instantly. Over 50 large enterprises, mostly Fortune 100, use Instabase today. Recently valued at $2B, the company was founded by Anant Bhardwaj in 2015. In this episode, he chats with Sandhya Hegde about Instabase's path to product-market fit.  Join us as we discuss: -Anant's founding insight for starting Instabase -How Anant dropped out of MIT to start the company -The first set of use cases for the platform -How Instabase landed Standard Chartered as its first enterprise customer -How Instabase experimented its way toward product-market fit -Early go-to-market mistakes as he scaled the company -Identifying early champions for landing key sales -Enterprise customers' responses to Instabase's technology -Scaling sales and hiring a sales leader after raising a Series B -The benefits and challenges from raising their Series B at a high valuation -Advice for early-stage founders working in AI Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and  -Twitter - https://twitter.com/sandhya -LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/ Anant Bharadwaj is the CEO and founder of Instabase. Prior to starting Instabase, he was a Ph.D. student at MIT. Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/. Further reading from the Startup Field Guide: Hiring your first sales leader: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/hiring-your-first-sales-leaderThe Unusual guide to to raising Seed and Series A capital: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/raising-seed-and-series-a-capital Starting a company: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/guide-to-pre-seed-funding Hiring and building a team: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/an-end-to-hiring-process

In this episode, we are debuting “Bright and Early” — an Unusual Ventures interview series with early hires at iconic tech companies. You will often hear successful founders share how crucial their first few hires are. These early employees help define the company's culture. They need to be both doers and leaders who can prioritize ruthlessly. They often have an outsized impact on the company and wear multiple hats as the company grows. Finding them and empowering them to be successful is hard.  In this episode, co-hosted by Chris Marty and Rachel Star from Unusual Ventures, we hear from Naveen Gavini, employee #10 at Pinterest who joined the company 11 years ago as a mobile engineer and went on a career-defining journey to become their head of product.  This conversation covers (2:06) Why Naveen wanted to join Pinterest and how he got connected to the team (4:38) What his interview process looked like (7:07) The key drivers that motivated him to accept the offer (9:37) Naveen's first year as an engineer at Pinterest (12:41) How Naveen brought the team together to build Pinterest's mobile app (15:09) How he thought about managing his career path within the company (18:06) His approach to team-building (21:04) Pinterest's interdisciplinary culture of “knitting” (24:15) Interviewing early hires, specifically for culture fit To get notified for new interviews in the Bright and Early series, subscribe to our newsletter: https://bit.ly/2VKvTTD To stay up to date, follow us on:  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/unusualventures/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Unusual_VC Chris Marty is an Operating Partner at Unusual Ventures and partners with founders to build high-performing early teams. He can be reached at chris@unusual.vc and LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christhomasmarty/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/_chrismarty Rachel Star is Principal at Unusual helping to build and support the firm's consumer investments. She can be reached at rachel@unusual.vc and  Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-star-2948b288/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/rachel_a_star Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to help founders find product-market fit and build iconic software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

Weights & Biases is a developer-focused MLOps platform last valued at over $1 billion. Their platform helps developers streamline their ML workflow from end to end. Weights & Biases currently has over 700 customers using their product to manage their ML models.  In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Lukas Biewald, the CEO and co-founder of Weights & Biases about the company's path to product-market fit. Join us as we discuss: (2:09) Lukas's inspiration for starting the company (8:02) Early design partners for Weights & Biases (13:32) Early use cases for the Weights & Biases platform (16:13) The founders' early strategies for finding users and getting feedback (22:47) Finding product-market fit by focusing on a specific user persona (ML practitioner) (29:14) Growth tactics to increase awareness and expand their user base (34:13) Positive surprises in user feedback, and how it informed the company's product roadmap (40:14) Lukas's approach to leadership and building a strong, connected culture (43:16) Advice for aspiring founders building AI-native products Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and  Twitter - https://twitter.com/sandhya LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/ Lukas Biewald is the CEO and the co-founder of Weights & Biases. Previously, Biewald was the founder and CEO of Figure Eight Inc. (formerly CrowdFlower). Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/. Further reading from the Startup Field Guide: Define your Ideal Customer Profile: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/ideal-customer-profile-and-personas Introduction to product-led growth:https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/introduction-to-plg Introduction to design partners:https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/what-are-design-partners

6sense is an AI-powered ABM platform that is focused on arming revenue teams with the right information to engage with the right accounts. It aggregates buying signals like website visits, email opens, and product review hits. It then leverages machine learning to help revenue teams automate their workflows.  In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with 6Sense's CEO Jason Zintak about their path to product-market fit. Join us as we discuss: (1:26) Jason's background and he made the decision to join 6sense (5:32) How early customer conversations informed the 6Sense product strategy (8:15) 6sense's early GTM strategy that got them to $5M ARR (9:11) Jason's first 90 days at 6sense as a new CEO (10:56) 6sense's early product-market fit signals (16:12) How the advent of generative AI has impacted the product (18:22) How 6Sense is thinking about building self-serve experiences (24:06) How the recessionary macro-environment impacts the company's GTM strategy  Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and  Twitter - https://twitter.com/sandhya LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/ Jason Zintak is the CEO of 6sense. Previously, Jason was the CEO and president at Platfora.  Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/. Further reading from the Startup Field Guide: What is a self-serve PLG experience? https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/nail-your-self-serve-product Defining a GTM framework https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/define-a-gtm-framework-early Building a product roadmap: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/building-a-product-roadmap

Hex is a data platform that allows teams to streamline their entire workflow using collaborative notebooks, BI, and docs. Hex offers data scientists the ability to work together to deliver their insights and empowers both business users and data analysts to quickly find the answers they need to do their jobs. Today, the company has over 500 enterprise customers.  In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Hex's co-founder and CEO Barry McCardel about their path to product-market fit.  Join us as we discuss: (1:51) How Barry and his co-founders came up with the idea for Hex  (5:37) Why Hex's co-founders saw the need for a collaborative data platform (7:42) How the early team picked a beachhead around sharing and communicating work (12:01) How “commitment engineering” became key to validating Hex's early assumptions (16:03) How the team identified early users and personas (20:41) How early users informed Hex's product roadmap (28:34) Hex's approach to early team-building (32:33) How Hex sees its user profile evolving, and its impact on their product roadmap (38:39) Hex's AI strategy to empower people to do creative work with data (43:29) Advice to founders thinking about building data startups Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and  Twitter - https://twitter.com/sandhya LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/ Barry McCardel is the co-founder and CEO of Hex Technologies. Prior to starting Hex, Barry worked at Palantir and TrialSpark. Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/. Further reading from the Startup Field Guide: Identifying early adopters: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/segmenting-early-markets Building a product roadmap: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/building-a-product-roadmap Hiring an early-stage team: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/three-traits-in-early-stage-hires

The space of enterprise search and knowledge management is on the cusp of being dramatically transformed by AI-native tools that can find, analyze and synthesize information instantly for knowledge workers. An emerging leader in this category is Glean. Valued at $1B and serving over a hundred enterprise customers today, Glean leverages an enterprise-grade knowledge graph and LLMs (large language models) to help companies find and use their institutional knowledge across hundreds of internal tools and SaaS applications.   In this episode, Sandhya Hegde (GP at Unusual Ventures) interviews Glean CEO and co-founder Arvind Jain on their path to product-market fit. Join us as we cover: (1:49) The technological shifts Arvind has observed throughout his career (5:11) How Modern AI is forcing us to rethink how we build products (8:00) Arvind's inspiration for starting Glean (17:10) How Glean pinpointed their early “desperate” customer and built their MVP (20:14) The difference between consumer search and enterprise search (24:45) How Glean uses LLMs within its core product (30:40) The impact of AI on knowledge management systems  (34:41) How Glean's solves for “hallucination” by constraining their model with the right knowledge (38:41) How Glean is scaling its go-to-market strategy using an enterprise sales model (40:51) Advice for founders about navigating the shift to AI Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and  Twitter - https://twitter.com/sandhya LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/ Arvind Jain is the CEO of Glean. Prior to Glean, Arvind co-founded Rubrik, one the fastest growing companies in cloud data management, and worked at Google, where he spent over a decade leading various teams in Search, Maps, and YouTube. Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/. Further reading from the Startup Field Guide: Starting the sales process: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/qualification-before-discovery How founders can shape the future of Generative AI: https://www.unusual.vc/post/how-startup-founders-can-shape-the-future-of-generative-ai

Vercel is an open-source platform that helps front-end developers build and ship dynamic web applications leveraging Jamstack (https://jamstack.org/). Last valued at $2.5B, Vercel was founded in 2015 by CEO Guillermo Rauch and now serves over 30,000 companies.  In this episode, guest host Wei Lien Dang (General Partner at Unusual Ventures) interviews Vercel CEO and Founder Guillermo Rauch about their path to product-market fit. Join us as we cover: (1:24) How Guillermo came up with idea for creating Vercel (7:31) How Guillermo identified the opportunity for dynamic front-end development by analyzing gaps within the existing technology and infrastructure (12:43) Why he decided to pursue the open source path for Vercel (17:16) How Vercel drove adoption and built an early enthusiastic user base  (24:25) The use cases and aha! moments for early adopters using Vercel (30:18) How Vercel built a go-to-market strategy aimed at developers (33:31) Vercel's content marketing strategy for developers which includes details about how their technology works (34:56) Guillermo's perspective on the current open source ecosystem and market (36:45) How to build a commercially viable business using open source technologies Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and  Twitter: https://twitter.com/sandhya LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/ Wei Lien Dang is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in open source software, developer tools and cybersecurity. Previously the co-founder of Stackrox, Wei can be reached at wei@unusual.vc and  Twitter: https://twitter.com/weiliendang  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weiliendang/ Guillermo Rauch is the CEO and founder of Vercel. He was the CTO and co-founder of LearnBoost and Cloudup, acquired by Automattic in 2013. He's the creator of several popular Node.JS open-source libraries like socket.io, mongoose and slackin.  Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/. Further reading from the Startup Field Guide: Starting an open-source company: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/start-an-open-source-software-company Developing open-source customers: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/developing-open-source-customers Building open-source GTM: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/open-source-gtm

Amplitude is the world's #1 product analytics platform, currently trading at $1.6B. Launched in 2014, Amplitude started out as a mobile analytics tool, and eventually expanded to include all digital analytics, experimentation and personalization. The company now serves over 1900 customers. In this episode, CTO Curtis Liu shares the story of how Amplitude was created after he and his co-founder, Spenser Skates, decided to pivot when their initial product idea didn't find traction. They explored several options before landing on mobile analytics. Curtis walks us through their early prototyping and discovery process, as well as his approach to company-building as a technical leader and founder. Join us as we discuss: 1:06: How Curtis and Spenser arrived at their first startup idea, Sonalight 4: 01: How they came to the conclusion that they need to pivot 6: 15: How they explored different options before landing on mobile analytics 9: 17: Their prototyping process which included doing interviews and creating mockups 15: 44: What Curtis's learning process looked like as he was building Amplitude 22: 23: Curtis's approach to doing research through both self-directed exploration and reaching out to experts 25: 15: How he approached his role as a founder and technical leader 36: 12: Amplitude's core values and how the founders thought about creating a positive culture 38: 01: How Amplitude is expanding it's product suite to support different types of datasets 41: 10: Curtis's advice to new founders who are trying to find problems to solve Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and Twitter - https://twitter.com/sandhya LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/ Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/. Further reading from the Startup Field Guide: Customer validation: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/customer-validation-going-from-idea-to-sellable-product Tracking the user/buyer journeyhttps://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/self-serve-user-buyer-journey CEO/founder prioritization:https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/ceo-founder-prioritization

In this highlights episode, host Sandhya Hegde shares her framework for the three modes of product-led growth and how some iconic companies pursuing PLG found product-market fit: Snyk, Webflow and Nextdoor. Join us as we discuss: 3.02: The three modes of PLG—fast-working (Snyk),  paradigm-shifting (Webflow), and habit-forming (Nextdoor) 6: 30: How Snyk challenged the way security products were traditionally adopted by focusing on developers 14: 47: How Nextdoor executed early interviews with users to build their first prototype 19: 05: How Webflow built for its initial beachhead persona and differentiated itself from other existing website builders 23:13: How Snyk added specific capabilities to their product to enable CISO buyers to embrace their dev-first solutions 27: 51: How Nextdoor recruited founding members who would become evangelists for the platform within their neighborhoods 31: 41: How Webflow engaged with customer feedback to build a first-of-its kind visual CMS 37: 33: How Webflow's CTO led growth engineering to build organic and viral awareness for their product 41: 18: Lessons from how Nextdoor leveraged and cultivated community, and how to build successful communities organically 45: 30: How the Snyk team was oriented around growth and evolved with their product offerings Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and Twitter - https://twitter.com/sandhya LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/ Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/. Further reading from the Startup Field Guide: -Introduction to Product-Led Growth: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/introduction-to-plg -Nail your self-serve product: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/nail-your-self-serve-product -Free plan vs. free trial in PLG https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/free-plan-vs-trial-plan

Harness is an emerging leader in the CICD (continuous development) space. Last valued at $3.7B in a 2022 fundraise, this is Jyoti Bansal's second enterprise software unicorn. His first startup Appdynamics was acquired by Cisco the night before their IPO in 2017. In this episode, Harness CEO Jyoti Bansal and Unusual founder John Vrionis take us back 15 years to when Appdynamics first got started. They walk us through their learnings around customer discovery and the journey from having a unique product insight to finding product market fit. With stories from the early days of Harness, we cover: (1:45) How Jyoti arrived at his original insight for Harness (3:27) John and Jyoti on the Unusual Method — a rigorous playbook that they co-teach at Unusual Ventures to help founders find product-market fit (6:33) Why cold outreach - and not friendly conversations - is the best way to validate early assumptions (12:11) How Jyoti looked for early adopters outside Silicon Valley during the customer discovery phase (14:08) Why doing your own cold outreach as a founder is an irreplaceable activity (19:40) How to articulate the business value of your solution so prospects have a reason to buy (23:28) Iterating on your messaging and ICP If you are not seeing similar patterns around the pain (24:42) How Jyoti constructs messaging and defines the “minimum sellable product” (29:15) The surprises Jyoti encountered during customer discovery for Harness (31:55) Why and how exactly founders should focus on efficiency during an economic downturn Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and Twitter - https://twitter.com/sandhya LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/ Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/. Further reading from the Startup Field Guide: Customer Discovery: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/outreach-playbook Early customer outreach: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/outreach-playbook What are design partners?: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/what-are-design-partners

LaunchDarkly is a pioneer in the feature management space. Founded in 2014, while the agile and cloud movements were still relatively nascent, LaunchDarkly was ahead of its time. They have now scaled to a $3 billion company, serving over 4,000 customers. In this episode, LaunchDarkly Co-Founder and CEO Edith Harbaugh takes us back to her initial insight as an engineering manager and product leader at TripIt, deeply versed in the value of systematic feature flagging, and keenly aware of how underutilized it was by many other dev teams. She shares the conviction required to build a product that most buyers in Silicon Valley weren't yet looking for, and how she engaged her network to gain initial design partners for the product that would come to define the feature management space. Join us as we discuss: Honing a founder insight and being early vs late to an emerging sector Hypothesis testing and building with design partners Community-building and marketing a movement Fundraising when VCs are skeptical of a new sector About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun. About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/). Further reading: Identifying initial customers — https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/ideal-customer-profile-and-personas Early-stage pricing — https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/pricing-your-product TOOL: Founder prioritization heatmap — https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/ceo-founder-prioritization Building a self-serve motion  — https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/self-serve-user-buyer-journey

Jasper is a leading AI-driven content platform with over 80,000 customers. Going from launch to unicorn status in 18 months, they have been one of the fastest companies to cross $1M in MRR with a new product. In this episode, Jasper Co-Founder Dave Rogenmoser shares his story of persistence, pivots, and market validation as he and his co-founders went from building a digital marketing agency to a hypergrowth AI unicorn. Join us as we discuss: External and internal signals that it's time to pivot Validating startup ideas and how to let the user shape product decisions Product-led GTM and getting users to buy a product before it exists Building AI products and how to partner with foundation AI companies About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun. About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).

Aurora Solar is a solar design platform that has accelerated small business growth in the solar energy industry. Through it, vendors and homeowners have instant access to crucial data about home solar projects. In this episode, Co-founder at Aurora Solar Chris Hopper shares how he went from installing solar panels to managing a $4B climate tech unicorn that has powered over 10 million solar projects. Join us as we discuss: Building a product around ignored customer needs Bootstrapping growth with SMBs for momentum Expanding up-market in a concentrated enterprise segment    About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun. About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/). Further reading: How to raise Seed and Series A capital: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/fundraising-milestones-valuations Building a product roadmap: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/pmf-product-roadmap Unusual Ventures video series: the guide to fundraising: https://www.unusual.vc/post/unusual-founders-video-series-the-guide-to-fundraising

Before Webflow, creating a website required both a designer and a coder. Now, designers can build websites without code or sacrificing their artistic vision. Listen, as Co-Founder of Webflow, Bryant Chou talks about his journey turning a simple idea of simplifying website-creation into a $4 billion dollar company. Join us as we discuss: Webflow's organic marketing strategies Lessons learned from Webflow's private beta How Bryant discovered the product-market fit for Webflow Webflow's product roadmap positioning Building a team that amplified Webflow's vision     About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun. About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya ) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).  Further reading: Creating a product roadmap: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/pmf-creating-product-roadmap  Fixing Seed-Stage sales for enterprise businesses: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/sales-fixing-seed-stage-sales  Define your ideal customer profile (ICP) and personas: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/sales-intro-to-icp 

SOC2 certification is a daunting process for startup founders but increasingly necessary to land customers. Our guest today was among the first to understand how startup founders thought about security and compliance and set out to create the automated compliance category. Listen in as Christina Cacioppo, CEO and co-found er of Vanta talks about her journey to creating the leading automated security and compliance platform that is valued at $1.6B today. Join us as we discuss: How Christina approached finding product-market fit for Vanta What productivity looks like for the sales team at Vanta with $10-20k ACVs How Christina has invested in her own evolution as a leader and CEO Christina's best advice for seed stage founders just starting out on their journey    About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun. About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).  Further reading: CEO/Founder prioritization tool: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/leadership-ceo-and-founder-prioritization Modern GTM: Scale your sales team to win the early majority: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/the-modern-gtm-scaling-your-sales-team-to-win-the-early-majority  Product testing process: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/product-testing-overview 

The SQL database that sits under most applications in the world is old technology that was not built with the Cloud in mind. Now we live in a Cloud-Native world and it's important for developers to have a database that offers the same guarantees as legacy SQL database technology while also taking advantage of life in the cloud. Listen in as Peter Mattis Co-founder and CTO at Cockroach Labs talks about the cloud-native, distributed SQL database that provides next-level consistency, ultra-resilience, data locality, and massive scale to modern cloud applications. Join us as we discuss: What were the unique insights that Peter and his team felt that drove them to creating a new database Why open source was a sensible approach for Peter and his team to take in terms of strategy Who were the early adopters of the open source project and Peter's advice to first time founders to be able to engage and foster a small community of users How Peter built his team early on to answer the technical problems that came with building a database     About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun. About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).  Further reading: How to stand out in an established open-source community: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/stand-out-in-an-open-source-community  How to pick the right GTM motion to reach $100M ARR: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/picking-a-gtm-motion  How Cockroach Labs leveraged open source to find product-market fit: https://www.unusual.vc/post/cockroach-event  Free plan vs. free trial in PLG: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/free-plan-vs-free-trial 

In today's episode, we hear from Andy Rachleff, who coined the term “product-market fit” which served as the inspiration for this podcast. Andy Rachleff is a legendary Venture Capitalist who originally coined the term "product-market fit." Andy has had an incredibly accomplished career in the tech industry, co-founding Benchmark Capital in 1995 and Wealthfront in 2008. Andy has mentored and guided hundreds of founders and investors, and in this episode talks about why understanding product-market fit is the only thing that matters and all the pitfalls founders face along the way. Join us as we discuss: How Andy got into venture capital and ended up starting Benchmark Who and what inspired Andy to coin the term product-market fit The core concepts behind product-market fit and why it's the only things that matters for founders and investors What truly defines an MVP and how it should test the desperation hypothesis About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, 
and Vivun. About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/). Further reading: Building conviction in a startup: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/building-conviction Customer validation: going from idea to sellable product: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/pmf-customer-validation What are design partners, and how do you acquire the right ones? https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/picking-design-partners 12 tips to improve your MVP with early adopters: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/shape-your-mvp-with-design-partners

Early revenue can sometimes fool you into thinking that you have product-market fit. Startups begin to focus on growth without having solved the core problem their customers are playing them to address. In this episode, we are joined by Lars Albright, a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, where he leads investments in vertical SaaS and fintech startups. Lars is a three-time founder of enterprise software companies, having sold two of his companies to Apple and Mastercard. Today, Lars joins us to talk about his last startup SessionM, a pioneer in mobile loyalty, and even today, powers the loyalty infrastructure for Fortune 1000 brands. Join us as we discuss: How SessionM needed to find product-market fit with 3 different customer stakeholders The launch of mPlus Rewards and early traction Why Lars and his team decided to pivot from coalition loyalty programs to enterprise software despite the revenue traction The challenges of working with fortune 500 companies as a small startup and the lessons Lars took from that time Lars' advice to founders who have revenue but not product-market fit   About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, 
and Vivun. About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/). Further reading: Customer validation: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/pmf-customer-validation Lars' core fintech themes and advice for founders in today's market: https://www.unusual.vc/post/core-fintech-themes-and-advice-for-founders-in-todays-market Loyalty 3.0: Where consumers become owners: https://www.unusual.vc/post/loyalty-in-a-web3-world

Successful startups need to solve a problem, but there is a big difference between a founder knowing a problem exists in the abstract and a founder experiencing the pain points firsthand and developing ways to solve it. Laura Behrens Wu is the Founder and CEO of Shippo, a shipping platform designed to give every merchant access to the best-in-class tools and technology reserved for retail giants. Over 100k brands trust Shippo to ensure their customers love how their products are delivered. In this episode, Laura takes us through the product-market fit journey of Shippo and her journey of evolving as its CEO. Join us as we discuss: The origin story of Shippo when Laura first launched the company in 2014 How Laura approached the path to find product-market fit Shopify app vs API company - solving the chicken and egg shipping problem How the pandemic affected Shippo and what it was like making decisions amid all the chaos happening in the logistics and supply chain industry How Laura invested in herself as a founder and CEO About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, 
and Vivun. About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/). Further reading: Customer validation: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/pmf-customer-validation The Unusual Guide to pre-seed: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/building-conviction CEO/founder prioritization template: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/leadership-ceo-and-founder-prioritization Leading through uncertainty: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/leadership-through-crisis

Since the rise of COVID-19, every company has adopted remote work, and our guest's mission is to create a more equal world by making it possible for talented professionals to work from any country they choose to. Tony Jamous is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of Oyster, a global employment unicorn that helps companies hire employees and contractors anywhere in the world. Before Oyster, Tony was the founder of Nexmo (2010), a Twilio competitor that was acquired by Vonage in 2016 for $230M. In this episode, Tony takes us through the product-market fit journey of Oyster. Join us as we discuss: The origins of Oyster in April 2020 as world implemented lockdowns Tony's approach to product-market fit and the milestones and key metrics that gave them confidence that they found it The learnings that Tony took from his first company Nexmo, to help him build Oyster The challenges of creating connection across a remote team and how Oyster uses Kona Tony's best advice for seed stage founders just starting out on their journey  About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services.  Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, 
and Vivun. About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/). Further reading: Managing remote teams: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/leadership-managing-remote-teams Key metrics for product-led SaaS (from SaaStr 2022): https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1CT34wM2QSVhNErZ_5tB-VMv_OCREwM4vdJ20PfbLIIo/edit#slide=id.g13acbf38164_0_86  Leading through uncertainty: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/leadership-through-crisis

While some startups experiment and pivot their way into product-market fit, others have founders with a unique insight that needs persistence. After a rough  6 year start as a company between 2012-2018, Arctic Wolf hit a tipping point driven by market awareness. In the past 4 years, the growth rate of the business has been phenomenal. Founder Brian NeSmith joins us to discuss his conviction to keep going and how he kept his talented team together even when results weren't what they expected. Brian NeSmith is a cybersecurity industry veteran, having led three successful companies - the latest of which is Arctic Wolf Networks. Last valued at over $6BN, Arctic Wolf is the leader in the cybersecurity category known as MDR - Managed Detection and Response, provided as a service. In this episode, Sandhya is joined by co-host John Vrionis, her partner and founder of Unusual Ventures. John led the first venture investment in Arctic Wolf, a $7.5M round by Lightspeed when Brian first started the company. Join us as we discuss: The origin story of Arctic Wolf and why John backed Brian Brian's framework for evaluating market demand and product-market fit Brian's approach to fundraising in 2017-18, when the 150+ investorshe pitched were concerned by AWN's story as well as a market crash, and how John supported Brian during this time How Brian handled tough board conversations when times were hard, and what John saw Brian do well as a CEO managing the board Brian's advice for founders on quitting or pivoting away from an idea   To learn some of the skills Brian and John discussed, explore the Field Guide modules on: Raising a Seed or Series A round Managing a Series A board meeting CEO/Founder prioritization Leading through uncertainty   About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, 
and Vivun. About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).

StackRox is a security startup born in 2015. After many initial setbacks, StackRox went on to become a leader in container security, riding the Kubernetes wave and helping cloud-native companies secure their software. Wei Lien Dang joins us today to discuss how StackRox found product-market fit.   Wei Lien Dang is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures. Before joining the venture capital firm, Wei was the Co-Founder of StackRox. StackRox became one of the first startups in the container security world to offer a Kubernetes-native solution and in 2021, was acquired by Red Hat.   Join us as we discuss: What drew Wei to StackRox and his transition from being a product executive to a founder? StackRox's product-market fit journey and the indicators that they had found product-market fit after their pivot.  How did StackRox define its product strategy? How StackRox leveraged open source as a critical part of its go-to-market strategy and Wei's advice for founders going open source. About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, 
and Vivun. About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).

Henry Ward joins us to talk about how his team of fewer than 20 employees scaled their startup, then known as eShares, to product-market fit and eventually became a household name in equity management software. Henry Ward is the Co-Founder and CEO of Carta. This $7.4B business has created a new category of software in equity management by helping companies and investors manage their cap tables, valuations, investments, and equity plans. Henry gives us insight into the early stages of Carta: the initial products that Carta built, gaining validation through investor networks, closing their first 100 customers, and how they found product-market fit on their way to acquiring 28,000 customers. Join us as we discuss: How Carta built products designed to get distribution The early go-to-market lessons that Carta learned about when to focus on sales vs when to start marketing Why Carta didn't start with a self-serve experience How Carta changed its pricing model at scale without upsetting customers         Go further: Learn how Carta won their first 100 customers: https://www.unusual.vc/post/how-carta-won-their-first-100-customers Learn about early customer identification and collaboration in our module: What are design partners: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/picking-design-partners   About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, 
and Vivun.   About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).

How do you know when an early-stage startup idea is working, and what do you do if it isn't?  Today we talk with Sarah Leary, the Co-Founder of Nextdoor, the iconic neighborhood network that enables local communities to receive trusted information, give and get help, get things done, and build real-world connections with those nearby. Sarah gives us insight into the early days of Nextdoor: the pivots they made, community-building strategies they used, and how they found product-market fit on their path to being adopted by over 250,000 communities in 11 countries.  Join us as we discuss:  How Nextdoor found product-market fit.   The early days of Nextdoor and the founding team's decision to pivot from a sports community to what became Nextdoor.  How successful community products empower users by helping them replicate their real-life workflows online easier and faster.             For more resources from Sarah on how to validate your startup idea and start your company, check out the Unusual Ventures Field Guide module here: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/building-conviction About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services.    Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, 
and Vivun.  About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).