Podcasts about 100m arr

Arvind Jain couldn't find his own company's data at Rubrik. So in 2019 before ChatGPT, before the AI boom, he built Glean, the first enterprise generative AI company. Now they're doubling past $100M ARR with 1,100 employees and watching tech giants copy their playbook. But Jain admits his biggest mistake: being too conservative. "We should have gone much bigger, much faster," he says, crediting his Indian upbringing for the cautious approach. Still, Glean remains years ahead as competitors scramble to build "AI that knows your company's data." His contrarian take on AI? It won't shrink workforces, it'll just raise the bar for everyone. The real edge isn't the technology; it's execution. And despite the relentless pace keeping him up at night, Jain's never been more optimistic about building a multi-billion dollar business.You can follow Swathi Moorthy on her social media: X and Linkedin Check out other interesting episodes like: How Will a Volatile ₹ Impact You in 2026?, How Quick Commerce is Triggering a Health Crisis for Gen Z, India’s Labour Law Reboot, Viral to Valuation: Building Women’s Cricket as a Brand and much more. Catch the latest episode of ‘The Morning Brief’ on The Economic Times Online, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, JioSaavn, Amazon Music and Youtube.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the holiday break we are resurfacing some of our best episodes so far. Here is the best episode of season 3.Kyle left his job as a hacker at the NSA to launch Huntress. He bootstrapped for 3 years and burned all his savings. One of his co-founders quit. He got into an accelerator program, but had to sleep in his car for 16 weeks because he couldn't afford a hotel.Finally, 3 years in he'd hit $1.5M ARR. So he pitched 60 VCs for a Series A—and got 60 'no's. He was forced to raise a small, $1M inside round. But then things changed:2018: $1.5M ARR2019: $5M ARR2020: $10M ARR2021: $20M ARR2022: $40M ARR2023: $70M ARR2024: $100M+ ARRHuntress is valued at $2B.The investors who backed his $1M bridge are up 140x. Now every VC wants to invest—and Kyle's the one saying 'no'.Why you should listen: How to know whether you should keep going or quit.What it takes to get through the first few years at a bootstrapped startup.Why revenue expansion is a huge lever for fast-growth (Huntress has 140% net revenue retention).How starting a startup can impact your personal life and relationships.How to work with partners to sell to long tail SMB customers.Keywordsentrepreneurship, cybersecurity, product market fit, startup journey, military experience, SMB market, funding challenges, automation, human expertise, business growthTimestamps:(00:00:00) Intro(00:2:01) Working at the NSA(00:6:14) A big win in counter cyber terrorism(00:10:00) What gave way to Huntress(00:14:22) Pitching to a startup accelerator(00:16:29) Adopting curiosity(00:21:04) Getting ahead of cyber criminals(00:26:00) Starting to grow(00:32:50) Cult or conviction(00:35:00) It takes grit(00:39:50) Learning from people's lessons(00:42:20) Cockroaches and underdogs(00:46:10) Three strikes, I'm out(00:52:56) Having a military background(00:56:17) One piece of adviceSend me a message to let me know what you think!

My interview with Ali Ansari the founder of micro1.ai, an AI startup that has grown revenue from $8M to $150M+ this year and is on track for a multi-billion dollar valuation. They are working with most of the AI labs and largest tech companies in the world (including Microsoft) to hire human experts to train AI. We've been investing in Ali for years now and it's been epic to see his insane growth and recent traction. Ali and micro1 are at the forefront of the AI revolution.Ali Ansari Founder of micro1.ai on X: https://x.com/aliniikkmicro1 website: https://www.micro1.ai/0:00 Forbes Article, $2.5B Valuation?1:35 Micro1: The AI Platform For Human Intelligence7:18 Micro1's Insane Growth ($8M to $100M ARR in one year)9:54 Are We In An AI Bubble?16:16 Micro1's Long Term Vision20:25 Micro1 Training Tesla Optimus25:20 Why Did You Found Micro1?29:10 The Early Days Ebay Flipping33:08 $15B Market Growing 100%+34:35 Human Demonstration Business (Teaching Robots)37:00 Micro1's Next Funding RoundMy X:   / gfilche  HyperChange Patreon :)   / hyperchange   Disclaimer: I'm an investor in micro1 personally and through my VC firm HyperGuap. This is not financial advice.

Land Life is a technology-driven nature restoration company that restores landscapes degraded by wildfire, overfarming, and urbanization. The company combines proprietary remote sensing, machine learning algorithms, and hardware solutions to deliver end-to-end restoration projects spanning 40 years, monetized through voluntary and compliance carbon markets. With seven validated project design documents on Verra, Land Life has built a business model that requires customers to believe the company will exist for decades. In a recent episode of BUILDERS, we sat down with Rebekah Braswell, CEO of Land Life, to explore how the company navigated from global pilots in Saudi Arabia and the Galapagos to focused geographic operations, evolved its customer base from experimental tech buyers to conservative insurance companies, and repositioned its entire value proposition when climate dropped off corporate priority lists in 2024. Topics Discussed: Land Life's shift from selling technology components to customer-driven A-to-Z project delivery  Remote sensing dashboard that assesses ecological, operational, and economic feasibility before land visits  Securing environmental attributes while keeping land locally owned by landowners  Machine learning algorithms for determining optimal tree species, placement, and timing  Evolution from tech company early adopters to asset managers, financial institutions, and energy providers  The 2024 market standstill: how tariffs and defense spending displaced climate on corporate agendas  Strategic repositioning from "climate" to "resilience" language that connects to infrastructure and defense  Targeting biogenic customers in timber and agriculture with supply shed restoration strategies GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Let customer requirements redefine your product scope: Land Life initially sold discrete technology—cocoon hardware and software tools—to corporations. Buyers consistently responded: "great tech, but we sell shoes online for a living. I need a full project, A to Z." Rather than insisting on their original product definition, Rebekah agreed to plant trees and hire contractors despite "knowing very little at the time what it actually took." The company evolved from a technology vendor to a full-service restoration provider because that's what buyers would actually purchase. B2B founders should recognize when customer feedback reveals a larger market opportunity than their initial product scope, even if delivery capabilities don't yet exist. Target buyers whose operational experience mirrors your delivery complexity: Land Life struggled with tech companies despite strong initial traction because these customers operated on "much shorter term economic cycles" incompatible with 40-year projects. The company found stronger fit with financial institutions, insurance companies, and energy providers—buyers Rebekah described as "familiar with asset management, familiar with physical operations" who could "identify with some of the cycles that we have to manage in terms of planting windows." She told her team: "you know you have a business when an insurance company starts buying your product. These are conservative buyers." B2B founders with long implementation cycles, physical operations, or asset-intensive models should prioritize buyers with analogous operational complexity rather than chasing early adopters who lack relevant mental models. Build transparency infrastructure as core product, not marketing: For customers committing to 40-year relationships, Land Life addressed the fundamental trust problem through systematic monitoring and data sharing. Rebekah identified the specific perception barrier: "people have this image that people are just going out and planting trees and there's no accountability." The company's response wasn't better sales materials but "a data focused and transparent process" that continuously validates project performance. B2B founders selling long-term commitments should invest in measurement and reporting systems as primary credibility drivers, recognizing that transparency infrastructure is product, not overhead. Adapt positioning to buyer priority shifts without abandoning core value: When climate investments "came to a standstill for six months" in 2024, Land Life didn't pivot its business model—it reframed its language. Climate "just dropped on the priority list" as corporations focused on "AI, defense and tariffs." The company shifted to "resilience" positioning that "doesn't use the word climate in it" but connects to infrastructure, defense, and supply chain concerns. Critically, this wasn't invented messaging—Land Life had internally called their engineers "resilience engineers" for years because "you can't bet one climate scenario." B2B founders facing external market shifts should mine existing internal frameworks for language that naturally aligns with new buyer priorities rather than forcing artificial repositions. Expand value proposition beyond primary category benefit to operational impact: Land Life evolved from pure carbon sequestration sales to showing customers how restoration addresses their core operational risks. For biogenic customers—"people who work in timber, food and agriculture"—the pitch became: "if you're surrounded by a degraded ecosystem, it will eventually encroach" on your supply chain. Rebekah explained: "it's not just enough to have a robust supply chain like your field for example. Great that things are healthy there, but if you're surrounded by a degraded ecosystem, you know it will eventually encroach." This connected restoration directly to supply shed stability and de-risking rather than relying solely on carbon credit value. B2B founders should identify how their solution protects or enhances customers' existing operations, not just deliver category-specific benefits. Pursue partnerships to reach scale thresholds faster than organic growth allows: Rebekah emphasized that achieving buyer-required scale through partnerships is now essential: "buyers are looking for scale and it is hard for us, who are in nature based solutions and physical assets, to achieve that overnight." She advocated for "constructive and innovative partnerships where you can bring that scale to buyers, whether it's organic or just through partnering" as the path to "play at a different level." The sector signal is clear: "they want bigger volumes, they want stronger suppliers, and that path goes a lot more quickly when you partner, as opposed to trying to do it alone." B2B founders in capital-intensive or operationally complex businesses should view partnerships as strategic accelerators to reach minimum viable scale, not just growth tactics. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

GreenLite delivers private construction plan review as an alternative to traditional city permitting processes. After spending six months testing both sides of the construction permitting transaction, the company identified owner-developers as their ICP and built a business model around Florida's privatization legislation—legislation that has now expanded to nine additional states including Texas, Tennessee, and California. In this episode of BUILDERS, we sat down with James Gallagher, CEO and Co-Founder of GreenLite, to explore how his fifth startup leveraged regulatory shifts, rejected workflow software in favor of outcomes, and scaled by targeting chief development officers at enterprise retailers struggling with permitting delays. Topics Discussed: How GreenLite discovered architects were heavy users but wrong customers due to two-part sales dynamics Why owner-developers became the ICP after six months of customer discovery across applicants and agencies The accidental discovery of private plan review through conversations with Fort Worth and Miami-Dade agencies GreenLite's platform combining regulatory permissions, licensed AEC professionals, and AI-augmented software How natural disasters and AEC talent shortages are accelerating privatization legislation nationwide Cold email strategies that converted enterprise retailers by surfacing acute pain points GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Map two-sided markets to find where purchasing authority and pain intersect: GreenLite pitched a CTO at a major architecture firm who responded positively but said "I just need to talk to my client, my customer." This revealed architects required approval from owner-developers despite being the heaviest product users. James pivoted to owner-developers who "carry the land, carry the construction loans" and feel revenue delays most acutely. The lesson: usage intensity doesn't equal buyer authority. In complex ecosystems, systematically test which party controls budget and feels enough pain to sign contracts independently. Recognize when procurement cycles kill early-stage validation velocity: Cities explicitly told James their "crazy procurement cycles" made early partnership impractical despite genuine interest. State and local education and government sales require specialized expertise and extended timelines that prevent rapid iteration. James chose to prove the model with private sector customers first. For founders: government can be a lucrative eventual market, but unless you have sled sales expertise and 12+ month runway per deal, validate PMF elsewhere first. Capitalize on regulatory tailwinds before markets realize they exist: Only Florida permitted private plan review when GreenLite launched in July 2022. By late 2024, nine states passed enabling legislation driven by natural disaster reconstruction needs and talent shortages in city building departments. James positioned GreenLite to ride this wave rather than selling transformation to resistant agencies. Founders should monitor legislative and regulatory changes in their verticals—new compliance requirements or permissions can suddenly open massive TAMs with minimal incumbent competition. Enterprise cold email converts when you surface non-obvious acute pain: GreenLite cold emailed chief development officers at major retail chains and quick-service restaurants with "Are you missing your openings due to permitting?" The response rate validated that permitting delays—not site selection or construction costs—were a critical path blocker for store rollout velocity. James targeted CDOs rather than real estate or design teams because they own the full development timeline. For enterprise sales: identify the executive accountable for the metric your solution impacts, then lead with how you move that specific number. Validate outcome-based models before building sophisticated workflow tools: GreenLite's customers rejected "another workflow product or system of record" that required API integrations with their ERPs and construction management systems. Instead, they wanted "faster, more predictable, more transparent permits." James built a viable business delivering finished permits through licensed professionals augmented by software, with the AI sophistication coming later. The business was "super viable well before the product was" by early 2023. For founders in industries resistant to software adoption: test whether buyers want tools to operate or outcomes to purchase—outcome-based pricing can achieve PMF faster and command premium willingness-to-pay. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role.  Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Aurelius Systems is tackling one of defense's most critical challenges: cost-effective counter-drone warfare. The company builds lightweight, edge-deployed laser weapon systems with 10-million-x marginal cost advantages over traditional interceptors—shooting down drones for approximately 10 cents versus $2 million per Sea Sparrow missile. With systems priced in hundreds of thousands rather than tens of millions of dollars, Aurelius is proving that commercial manufacturing principles can revolutionize defense technology. In this episode of BUILDERS, I sat down with Michael LaFramboise, CEO and Co-Founder of Aurelius Systems, to unpack how his background spanning automotive manufacturing at Chrysler, R&D at Coherent (the largest U.S. laser manufacturer), and defense sales positioned him to build what he calls "the F150 of directed energy systems." Topics Discussed: Why Michael's unusual combination of heavy industrial manufacturing, high-power laser R&D, and directed energy sales made him one of "probably like five people under 70 in the country" positioned to build this company Aurelius's contrarian R&D thesis: build everything from commercial off-the-shelf components first, only upgrading to bespoke when field tests fail The tactical fundraising progression: first prototype to pre-seed, DIU grant in February 2025, Singapore Defense Force joint challenge, Army X-Tech competition wins Government relations as infrastructure: why Aurelius retained a lobbyist six months post-pre-seed and how Congressional support addresses 1-3 year sales cycles Navigating the DOD acquisitions reorg: 100+ technology acceleration organizations consolidating to 10-20 under new PAE structure, with goals of 90-day turnarounds replacing multi-year cycles The demonstration strategy that changed everything: earning signed memorandums from high-ranking officers after shooting down drones in Hawaii and Austin under adversarial conditions (heavy rain, 99% humidity, heat warping, night operations) Founder-led marketing ROI: why acquisitions officers, funders, and engineering talent all follow different channels (LinkedIn vs. X) and require different voices The three-stakeholder sales complexity: when your end user (warfighter), purchaser (acquisitions), and budget authorizer (Congress) are separate entities who don't communicate GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Follow proven playbooks in specialized markets, then execute obsessively: Michael explicitly followed Anduril's early-stage defense playbook, particularly around government relations: "I think it's like following the Anduril playbook for how you do an early stage defense company is probably a very appropriate thing to do." In highly specialized B2B markets (defense, healthcare, financial services), pattern-match to companies that have successfully navigated regulatory and procurement complexity rather than inventing process from scratch. The differentiation comes from execution and technology, not from reinventing go-to-market structure. Treat specialized expertise as infrastructure, not overhead: Aurelius hired a lobbyist six months after their pre-seed—before significant revenue—because defense sales involve three disconnected stakeholders. Michael explained: "your purchaser, your end user, and your authorizer for funds are all separate people that don't know each other... whenever you have these different points, it doesn't expand linearly the difficulty or the complexity of the sales cycle. It expands exponentially." B2B founders should map stakeholder complexity early and staff accordingly. If your buyer doesn't control budget, your user doesn't make purchase decisions, or your champion needs internal air cover, these aren't edge cases—they're your sales model. Demonstration beats documentation when overcoming category skepticism: After decades of directed energy failures, Aurelius spent 2024 conducting nationwide field demonstrations, culminating in adversarial drone shoot-downs in heavy rain, 99% humidity, and night conditions. Michael noted they needed to "clean up the mess that a lot of these other companies have created" with signed memorandums from high-ranking officers. When your category has a failure history, customer education isn't about better pitch decks—it's about systematic proof that eliminates objections through witnessed performance. Plan for demonstration costs and timeline in your first-year budget. Build your R&D thesis around manufacturing reality, not engineering perfection: Aurelius's core principle: build everything from commercial off-the-shelf components, upgrading only when field tests fail. Michael's insight from automotive and laser manufacturing: "you can get 80-90% physics perfection on a system for 2% of the cost" versus traditional directed energy's approach of "400 ARL and AFRL PhDs all coming together to make the most super bespoke, hyper perfect thing ever." They use material processing lasers (identical output at 1/10th the cost of directed energy lasers) and commercial components from automotive supply chains. B2B founders should define their "good enough" threshold explicitly and build cost structure around it—perfection is often the enemy of scalability and margin. Attack market dislocations where wrong-fit solutions reveal unmet needs: Aurelius doesn't compete with Sea Sparrow missiles for shooting down aircraft at 9 miles—they target the dislocation where $2M missiles designed for large ordinance are being misused against $500 drones with 30% effectiveness. Michael identified that "there isn't anything in the market that's been developed for counter drone at any significant distance." The opportunity isn't better missiles; it's purpose-built solutions for Group 1 and Group 2 drones (FPV quadcopters and small planes) where no appropriate system exists. Map where customers are forced to use expensive, inappropriate solutions—that's where new categories emerge. //  Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role.  Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

David Stifter spent 20 years as head of technology at Colony Capital, managing systems for a $60 billion private equity real estate firm. When a longtime AP specialist retired, the company lost its institutional knowledge for coding complex invoices across thousands of entities and tenant relationships. After a year evaluating RPA, template-based approaches, and early OCR solutions, David recognized that structured historical data—invoices paired with their coding—could train AI models to capture implicit business rules. Five years ago, at 40 with young children, he left his executive role to build PredictAP. The company now processes tens of thousands of invoices monthly for firms including Bridge Investment Group, demonstrating how operational expertise combined with AI can solve problems that pure technology approaches miss. Topics Discussed Identifying AI use cases with structured annotated data and human feedback loops  Moving from CTO buyer to vendor founder and discovering which networks actually convert  Building repeatable sales motion after exhausting warm introductions  Technology adoption barriers in real estate and the domain expertise requirement for vertical SaaS  Hiring sales leadership to scale from founder-led to systematic pipeline generation  Solving complete workflow integration challenges beyond isolated technical problems GTM Lessons For B2B Founders Match technical approach to problem structure, not trend: David identified three critical elements for his AI application: structured annotated data from historical invoice coding, recognizable patterns in implicit business rules, and human review as a feedback mechanism. He notes many founders "try to shove AI, the AI hammer to smash any nail, but they're not always the best use case." Six years ago, before modern LLMs, he used historical invoice-coding pairs as training data—solving the annotation problem that plagued early machine learning. Founders should evaluate whether their problem has the structural characteristics that make a given technology approach viable, rather than applying trending solutions to force market fit. Network quality reveals itself when you need something: David contrasts two early investors: a former acquisitions executive who promised extensive connections but delivered "not a single callback" after leaving their role, versus an asset manager who generated "hundreds" of leads through genuine relationships. The acquisitions person experienced "an existential crisis" realizing "my network was based upon my ability to have a massive checkbook behind me." Founders should recognize that network strength isn't tested until you're asking rather than giving—those who built relationships through consistent helpfulness rather than transactional power will see different response rates when they launch. Architect the founder-led to systematic sales transition: After two years of founder-led sales, David "hit that wall" and brought in Steve Farrell, prioritizing experience scaling from $3-5M to $20M ARR over industry-specific expertise. He notes warm intro calls are "very to the point" while cold outreach "starts hostile or skeptical"—requiring entirely different trust-building approaches. The shift required adding BDRs, AEs, and systematic content generation. Founders should hire sales leadership with specific stage experience before network depletion forces reactive hiring, and expect to rebuild positioning for skeptical buyers who lack pre-existing trust. Integrate solutions into existing workflow infrastructure: David emphasizes the failure mode of optimized point solutions: "They have a perfect solution from the technical problem but it's not going to work for this firm because it's not going to fit into their workflow." He maps the complete experience including integration with existing systems, training requirements, user experience, consistency, and speed. Technical superiority in isolation leads to "problems with adoption and retention." Founders should map every system, process, and stakeholder their solution touches, designing for workflow integration rather than isolated problem-solving. Sequence customer sophistication as you scale beyond innovators: David's initial customers were "leading edge folks" from his technology network who understood AI potential. As PredictAP matured, sales cycles became "much longer" with more conservative firms requiring higher proof thresholds. He learned that "initial sales have to be very successful and you have to have customers that advocate for you" because mainstream buyers need extensive social proof. Founders should recognize that early adopter ICP differs fundamentally from mainstream buyers—what closes innovators (technology potential) differs from what closes pragmatists (proven ROI and references), requiring distinct positioning and sales approaches for each segment. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Datawizz is pioneering continuous reinforcement learning infrastructure for AI systems that need to evolve in production, not ossify after deployment. After building and exiting RapidAPI—which served 10 million developers and had at least one team at 75% of Fortune 500 companies using and paying for the platform—Founder and CEO Iddo Gino returned to building when he noticed a pattern: nearly every AI agent pitch he reviewed as an angel investor assumed models would simultaneously get orders of magnitude better and cheaper. In a recent episode of BUILDERS, we sat down with Iddo to explore why that dual assumption breaks most AI economics, how traditional ML training approaches fail in the LLM era, and why specialized models will capture 50-60% of AI inference by 2030. Topics Discussed Why running two distinct businesses under one roof—RapidAPI's developer marketplace and enterprise API hub—ultimately capped scale despite compelling synergy narratives The "Big Short moment" reviewing AI pitches: every business model assumed simultaneous 1-2 order of magnitude improvements in accuracy and cost Why companies spending 2-3 months on fine-tuning repeatedly saw frontier models (GPT-4, Claude 3) obsolete their custom work The continuous learning flywheel: online evaluation → suspect inference queuing → human validation → daily/weekly RL batches → deployment How human evaluation companies like Scale AI shift from offline batch labeling to real-time inference correction queues Early GTM through LinkedIn DMs to founders running serious agent production volume, working backward through less mature adopters ICP discovery: qualifying on whether 20% accuracy gains or 10x cost reductions would be transformational versus incremental The integration layer approach: orchestrating the continuous learning loop across observability, evaluation, training, and inference tools Why the first $10M is about selling to believers in continuous learning, not evangelizing the category GTM Lessons For B2B Founders Recognize when distribution narratives mask structural incompatibility: RapidAPI had 10 million developers and teams at 75% of Fortune 500 paying for the platform—massive distribution that theoretically fed enterprise sales. The problem: Iddo could always find anecdotes where POC teams had used RapidAPI, creating a compelling story about grassroots adoption. The critical question he should have asked earlier: "Is self-service really the driver for why we're winning deals, or is it a nice-to-have contributor?" When two businesses have fundamentally different product roadmaps, cultures, and buying journeys, distribution overlap doesn't create a sustainable single company. Stop asking if synergies exist—ask if they're causal. Qualify on whether improvements cross phase-transition thresholds: Datawizz disqualifies prospects who acknowledge value but lack acute pain. The diagnostic questions: "If we improved model accuracy by 20%, how impactful is that?" and "If we cut your costs 10x, what does that mean?" Companies already automating human labor often respond that inference costs are rounding errors compared to savings. The ideal customers hit differently: "We need accuracy at X% to fully automate this process and remove humans from the loop. Until then, it's just AI-assisted. Getting over that line is a step-function change in how we deploy this agent." Qualify on whether your improvement crosses a threshold that changes what's possible, not just what's better. Use discovery to map market structure, not just validate hypotheses: Iddo validated that the most mature companies run specialized, fine-tuned models in production. The surprise: "The chasm between them and everybody else was a lot wider than I thought." This insight reshaped their entire strategy—the tooling gap, approaches to model development, and timeline to maturity differed dramatically across segments. Most founders use discovery to confirm their assumptions. Better founders use it to understand where different cohorts sit on the maturity curve, what bridges or blocks their progression, and which segments can buy versus which need multi-year evangelism. Target spend thresholds that indicate real commitment: Datawizz focuses on companies spending "at a minimum five to six figures a month on AI and specifically on LLM inference, using the APIs directly"—meaning they're building on top of OpenAI/Anthropic/etc., not just using ChatGPT. This filters for companies with skin in the game. Below that threshold, AI is an experiment. Above it, unit economics and quality bars matter operationally. For infrastructure plays, find the spend level that indicates your problem is a daily operational reality, not a future consideration. Structure discovery to extract insight, not close deals: Iddo's framework: "If I could run [a call where] 29 of 30 minutes could be us just asking questions and learning, that would be the perfect call in my mind." He compared it to "the dentist with the probe trying to touch everything and see where it hurts." The most valuable calls weren't those that converted to POCs—they came from people who approached the problem differently or had conflicting considerations. In hot markets with abundant budgets, founders easily collect false positives by selling when they should be learning. The discipline: exhaust your question list before explaining what you build. If they don't eventually ask "What do you do?" you're not surfacing real pain. Avoid the false-positive trap in well-funded categories: Iddo identified a specific risk in AI: "You can very easily run these calls, you think you're doing discovery, really you're doing sales, you end up getting a bunch of POCs and maybe some paying customers. So you get really good initial signs but you've never done any actual discovery. You have all the wrong indications—you're getting a lot of false positive feedback while building the completely wrong thing." When capital is abundant and your space is hot, early revenue can mask product-market misalignment. Good initial signs aren't validation if you skipped the work to understand why people bought. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Sam Liang worked on the team that built the "blue dot" for Google Maps and now he's transforming how we think about meetings with Otter.ai. Fresh off crossing $100M in ARR with a lean team of less than 200, Sam joins us to discuss how Otter evolved from passive transcription to active AI agents that participate in your meetings. Learn practical strategies for building reliable voice AI, implementing enterprise knowledge bases, and deploying AI agents that actually deliver ROI.Resources mentioned:• Otter.ai $100M ARR announcement: https://otter.ai/blog/otter-ai-breaks-100m-arr-barrier• HIPAA compliance: https://otter.ai/blog/otter-ai-achieves-hipaa-complianceSubscribe to The Neuron newsletter: https://theneuron.ai

Dexory builds data intelligence platforms for logistics, using autonomous robots to create digital twins of warehouse operations. With over $280 million raised through a recent preemptive Series C, the company has scaled from a bootstrapped startup to a full-stack robotics operation expanding across Europe and the US. In this episode of Category Visionaries, I sat down with Andrei Danescu, Founder and CEO of Dexory, to unpack how the company navigated early product-market misalignment, cracked the messaging for a category-creating technology, and maintained execution velocity as a capital-intensive business. Topics Discussed: Building in logistics after observing parts tracking failures in Formula One operations The costly mistake: spending years on public space robots before committing to warehouse logistics Why bootstrapping for five to six years forced product discipline before venture funding Messaging shift from autonomous robot capabilities to inventory visibility pain points Zero infrastructure change as a strategic product constraint for live warehouse deployments Geographic expansion strategy using multinational customers for internal reference selling How the convergence of AI adoption, sensor cost reduction, and industry data appetite created market timing Maintaining commercial velocity as the primary metric for Series C readiness in full-stack businesses GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Message to the problem, not the technology stack: When Dexory led with "world's tallest autonomous robots" and "scan 10,000+ pallets per hour," prospects responded with "what does it actually do?" The shift to leading with inventory visibility and stock control—a pain point customers immediately recognized—unlocked early traction. For category-creating products, customers need to map your solution to existing problems before they can appreciate technical differentiation. Andrei's insight: start with the problem customers know they have, then layer in technical superiority once you've established relevance. Turn operational constraints into product requirements: Dexory designed around the reality that warehouses operate as "live businesses" that cannot pause for infrastructure overhauls. Zero infrastructure change became a core product spec, not a nice-to-have feature. This required autonomous navigation in complex, dynamic environments rather than controlled spaces. Founders building for established industries should identify non-negotiable operational constraints early and architect solutions that respect them rather than requiring customers to adapt their operations. Build value expansion mechanisms before closing your first customer: Dexory established infrastructure for continuous product improvement from day one, treating early deployments as ongoing collaborations rather than transactions. Customers influenced roadmap priorities while Dexory delivered incremental value increases over time. This transformed buyers into advocates who took "point of pride" in the technology. The tactical approach: structure customer agreements and product architecture to support continuous delivery cycles that compound value rather than one-time implementations. Use multinational customers as geographic expansion infrastructure: Instead of opening regional offices across territories, Dexory targeted global companies where a European deployment could generate US interest through internal reference calls. Andrei noted this creates "a lot stronger" references "because they're already part of the same company." The expansion velocity this enabled—UK to Europe to US without massive regional buildout—proved critical for a capital-intensive business. Founders should prioritize customers with multi-region operations who can accelerate geographic reach through internal advocacy networks. Treat post-raise execution velocity as your next round metric: After Dexory's Series B, investors returned a month later to find the company "already ahead of plan." This consistent over-delivery on growth targets set up their preemptive Series C. For full-stack businesses where each dollar deployed takes longer to show returns, maintaining commercial momentum signals execution capability that justifies higher valuations. Andrei's warning: the temptation to slow down and "invest a bit more in product" after raising capital is exactly when founders need to double down on commercial traction as the North Star. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Is the $400 billion currently being poured into AI infrastructure a visionary bet or a massive bubble waiting to burst? Vijay Rajendran explains why we are seeing the biggest investment in fixed capital since the railroads, and what could cause it all to come crashing down. In this interview, Vijay and Sean discuss the new velocity of fundraising, where startups hit $100M ARR in months, and the rise of "seed-strapping" (raising once, then profiting). They also debate why VCs are obsessed with "founder pedigree," the structural reasons why European startups struggle to scale compared to the US, and the geopolitical shocks (food and fuel prices) that could abruptly end the AI party. Check out the company: https://gai.ventures

Episode 407 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Seth Rosen, Founder & CEO of CustomMade. A common theme that you'll hear throughout this interview is the importance of resiliency. Sure - the media loves the story of the latest company that has achieved $100M ARR in a month (I'm obviously kidding), but the overwhelming majority of businesses are a grind. It's about taking a bunch of punches, getting back up and figuring it all out. It's not all rainbows and butterflies, which is why I was excited to interview Seth. The story of CustomMade has lots of twists and turns… from rapid growth… to later salvaging the company by structuring a deal with Wayfair to acqui-hire their employee base… to the insanely successful reboot! Today, CustomMade is a leading online custom jeweler that specializes in creating personalized, one-of-a-kind jewelry pieces, such as engagement rings, wedding bands, and more. The platform simplifies the entire custom process, helping buyers create their vision and working with master jewelers to bring it to life. Chapters: 00:00 Intro 00:11 Importance of Resiliency 01:20 The Right Business Model: Subscription vs Marketplace 02:52 Seth's Background 06:24 Meeting Mike Salguero While Working in Real Estate 12:51 Background Story of CustomMade 20:55 Raising Venture Capital for CustomMade 24:58 Building & Running an Online Marketplace 27:30 The Challenges of Running an Online Marketplace 29:24 Making a Deal with Wayfair 31:33 CustomMade Reboot 36:38 CustomMade Today - The World's Largest Online Custom Jeweler 40:10 What are Lab Grown Diamonds 44:24 SEO & GEO 49:20 Seth's Other Initiatives in the Gem Industry 50:46 Seth's Role as a Venture Partner at WTI

This episode goes deep into the mechanics of scaling a company from steady growth to breakout velocity. Peter shares how Spreedly quadrupled ARR growth in his first year without increasing OPEX, why the “right people pointed at the right problems” is everything, and how to decide which problems are existential versus learn-as-you-go.We dissect how go-to-market organizations evolve from $20M to $100M ARR, the power of focus and role separation, and how to keep silos aligned around one customer story.Peter also explains the shift from “payments orchestration” to “open payments” and how Spreedly's position as the original player in the space gives them unique leverage. We walk through the future of agentic commerce, Google's new agent-to-agent payments protocol, and what it means when agents can transact faster than any human could ever shop.We close out with the Dodgeball acquisition, a primer on fraud orchestration, and a wild story about working an entire night shift at a nightclub during a meltdown launch.Topics Covered:How Peter defines the journey to presidencyThe “right person, right problem” frameworkOne-way vs two-way doors for staffing big problemsHow to scale a GTM org from $20M to $100MWhy open payments replaces orchestrationSpreedly's unique market position and 15-year head startAgent to agent commerce and Google's new payments protocolHow AI changes the velocity of money movementFraud orchestration and Spreedly's acquisition of DodgeballBalancing profitable growth vs growth at all costsPerception vs reality in leadershipPeter's wildest “I never thought I'd see that” story 

If you've spent any time with founders or investors in São Paulo this year, you know the questions filling every conversation.Can Brazil still generate breakout winners? Is AI killing SaaS? Are IPOs even realistic? Is global expansion from LATAM something founders should still aspire to?This episode answers all of them.You'll hear why Brazil went from six $100M ARR companies to more than thirty in just a few years.Why global products that scale across Mexico and Colombia simply break in Brazil.Why AI is both the biggest threat and the biggest tailwind for incumbents with real moats.Why growth investors are underwriting M&A far more seriously than IPOs.Why “right to win” — not the story — determines whether a Brazilian company should ever go global.And what founders must understand now about valuation, exits, efficiency, and investor relationships in a world transformed by AI.And toward the end, you'll hear me bring in the questions our audience asked live — in the room as we recorded this session.This is the episode you'll want to send to your co-founder, your board, and the WhatsApp group where everyone is not fundraising just yet. Comment BRAZIL and I'll send you the link to the full conversation.Dileep Thazhmon from Jeeves and Bruno Maimone from Warburg Pincus sit down with me to map the truths behind the narratives the ecosystem has been circling for months. Join The J Curve Community:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Weekly deep dives into LATAM's hottest deals, emerging trends, and market intelligence⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Daily market insights and exclusive founder updates⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Behind-the-scenes podcast moments and quick industry takes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Hit subscribe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and share this episode with fellow entrepreneurs and investors

This Week In Startups is made possible by:Sentry - http://sentry.io/twistLinkedIn Ads - http://linkedin.com/thisweekinstartupsPipedrive - pipedrive.com/twistToday's show:Netflix wants to gobble up Warner Bros. Do they just want to own Batman and Harry Potter, or is this secretly about destroying movie theaters?Sure, this is usually a startup show, but news THIS BIG warrants attention! So Lon stops by to tell Jason and Alex about the big Netflix acquisition news, why so many theatrical movie fans are terrified for the future, and why this might face particular regulatory scrutiny both at home and abroad.PLUS… are Googlers gaming Polymarket? This is one scenario in which prediction markets are NOT exactly like stocks.THEN we're looking at some of our favorite startups from the Fall ‘25 Y Combinator cohort (and asking Producer Claude for his picks)… Considering why Perplexity keeps getting sued and how they can stop it… and doing a victory lap for Jason's early investment in breakout AI training project Micro1.Timestamps:(02:05) Netflix buying Warner Bros! Jason, Lon and Alex react.(05:04) Jaytrade Update: J kind of missed the boat on this one(05:36) What does this mean for theatrical cinema?(08:42) Sentry - New users get 3 months free of the Business plan (covers 150k errors). Go to http://sentry.io/twist and use code TWIST(09:52) Jason's pitch to Disney CEO Bob Iger (please send this to him!)(19:36) LinkedIn Ads: Start converting your B2B audience into high quality leads today. Launch your first campaign and get $250 FREE when you spend at least $250. Go to http://linkedin.com/thisweekinstartups to claim your credit.(23:29) Is this deal going to get approval, at home and abroad?(25:52) Are Googlers gaming Polymarket?(28:02) Can you do “insider trading” on a prediction market?(29:23) Pipedrive - Bring your entire sales process into one elegant space. Get started with a 30 day free trial at pipedrive.com/twist(37:00) How accelerators like Y Combinator serve as “finishing schools” for startups(37:52) A Quick Look at some of our fav companies from YC's Fall '25 cohort(39:01) Why startups need to “skate to where the puck is going”(40:08) Why sometimes old ideas (like solar-powered aircraft) are often worth revisiting(45:29) Jason's advice for founders (and investors) in the “feel good” or activist space(50:48) Why Lon, Alex, and Claude ALL thought Hyperspell sounds like a hot startup(52:58) Perplexity getting sued again! Why can't they make friends!(57:51) Meanwhile, Meta's signing AI deals with news publications.(59:21) Micro1, which Jason helped to fund, has hit $100M ARR! Why do AI companies need so many experts?Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.comCheck out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.comSubscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcpFollow Lon:X: https://x.com/lonsFollow Alex:X: https://x.com/alexLinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelmFollow Jason:X: https://twitter.com/JasonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanisThank you to our partners:(8:42) Sentry - New users get 3 months free of the Business plan (covers 150k errors). Go to http://sentry.io/twist and use code TWIST(19:36) LinkedIn Ads: Start converting your B2B audience into high quality leads today. Launch your first campaign and get $250 FREE when you spend at least $250. Go to http://linkedin.com/thisweekinstartups to claim your credit.(29:23) Pipedrive - Bring your entire sales process into one elegant space. Get started with a 30 day free trial at pipedrive.com/twist

Sparrow automates employee leave management—a compliance nightmare that consumes thousands of HR hours annually at companies with distributed workforces. With $64 million in total funding through their recent Series B, Sparrow has achieved 14x revenue growth between their Series A and Series B by solving what became an "insurmountable problem" as states, counties, and cities each passed conflicting paid leave regulations over the past decade. In this episode of BUILDERS, Deborah Hanus shares how she scaled from $1.2 million in her first year while running everything part-time by discovering that the path to enterprise adoption wasn't solving employee frustration—it was quantifying the hidden costs of compliance risk, payroll errors, and retention that director-level HR leaders were desperately trying to contain. Topics Discussed: The regulatory explosion that made leave management unsolvable in-house: overlapping federal, state, county, and city requirements across distributed teams How Sparrow pivoted from a $50-per-leave consumer product to enterprise software after discovering director-level buyers saw a fundamentally different problem than employees Why Sparrow's biggest competitor is internal management rather than other vendors, and how this shaped their entire go-to-market strategy The 4-10x ROI framework: how preventing paperwork errors that cost customers $1 million+ justifies $100K platform investments Scaling from founder-led sales with zero sales background through systematic hiring processes—including reaching out to 100+ candidates for their first sales hire Customer qualification strategy: vetting prospects not just for current pain, but for alignment with the product roadmap 2-3 years forward   GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Map pain perception across org levels to find economic buyers: Employees experienced leave management as "taking me a lot of time"—roughly 20 hours of taxes-level complicated paperwork. Director-level HR leaders, CFOs, and employment lawyers saw something entirely different: retention problems from employees leaving after bad leave experiences, litigation risk from compliance gaps across jurisdictions, thousands spent on employment lawyers for each leave event, and payroll calculation errors when state programs cover partial wages. Deborah's initial consumer product hypothesis failed because employees would only pay TurboTax pricing (~$50), requiring massive volume. The enterprise motion succeeded because strategic buyers owned the full cost stack. Map how pain manifests at each organizational level, then build your ICP around whoever owns the aggregate business impact rather than the tactical workflow friction. Build ROI models around error prevention, not efficiency gains: Sparrow doesn't sell time savings—they sell payroll accuracy. Their typical customer sees 4-10x financial ROI because the platform prevents mistakes that cost significantly more than the subscription. When paperwork is filed incorrectly, employees miss 60-70% of pay for 12-20 weeks, and with 70% of Americans living paycheck-to-paycheck, employers often make up the difference to prevent attrition. A $100K Sparrow investment typically saves $1M+ in payroll corrections alone, before counting the thousands in hours HR spends with employment lawyers for each leave event. Calculate the true cost of the status quo—including error correction, compliance penalties, and retention impact—not just the labor hours your product eliminates. Design qualification frameworks for roadmap fit, not just current pain: Deborah emphasizes that "everyone has this problem, but not everyone is going to be a fit for the product today and where it's going to be two years from now." Sparrow deliberately vets whether prospects will be excited about their product evolution 3-4 years forward, not just whether they have leave management pain today. This drives retention and customer advocacy as capabilities expand. Build qualification criteria that assess prospect-product alignment across the entire customer lifecycle—including future module adoption, integration depth, and use case expansion—rather than optimizing only for closing deals on current functionality. Treat hiring as systematic sourcing, not urgent gap-filling: Despite being in "back-to-back calls all day" unable to "send order forms fast enough," Deborah took time to reach out to approximately 100 candidates to make their first sales hire. She emphasizes defining what each role should accomplish 5-10 years out, then building sourcing strategies to achieve 50% confidence in that long-term outcome. This intentional approach—coupled with her value of "scaling intentionally"—enabled efficient growth without typical scaling chaos. Resist the startup default of "just hire someone fast." Instead, invest upfront in role definition (including the 5-year trajectory), source systematically rather than opportunistically, and accept lower short-term velocity for higher long-term scaling efficiency. Recognize emotional volatility as statistical artifact, not signal: Deborah reframes the classic startup "highs and lows" through a data science lens: with sparse early data, founders overfit to individual signals. One person saying "your product is stupid" triggers existential doubt; one saying "everyone should use it" creates irrational exuberance. As companies scale and data accumulates, the noise averages out—70% neutral-to-good outcomes with 30% fires becomes manageable rather than anxiety-inducing. She found scaling "much easier than that first year" because "you can sort of plot out your trend line and you can see where you're going." Build systems to accumulate data points faster (more customer conversations, more experiments, more leading indicators), recognize that early-stage emotional swings reflect sample size rather than reality, and make decisions based on trend lines rather than individual data points. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Alex is an AI recruiter that autonomously handles phone screens, video interviews, and candidate communications at scale for enterprise talent teams and staffing firms. The company rebranded from Apriora after acquiring alex.com for over half a million dollars—a brand investment that immediately increased word-of-mouth referrals and inbound pipeline. In this episode of BUILDERS, we sat down with Aaron Wang, Co-Founder & CEO of Alex, to discuss achieving seven figures in revenue through founder-led sales in staffing, their "respectful zagging" approach to standing out in a crowded AI agent market, and building toward network effects that could fundamentally reshape talent matching. Topics Discussed Justifying a $500K+ domain acquisition to co-founders and investors Building candidate experience that drives engagement rather than rejection Design decisions around AI avatars versus voice-only interactions Differentiation strategy in marketing: zagging without rage baiting Hiring framework based on incentive understanding and first-principles thinking Market segmentation between staffing firms and corporate TA teams Long-term platform vision leveraging cross-company recruiting data GTM Lessons For B2B Founders Quantify intangible asset ROI through pipeline metrics, not brand sentiment: Aaron defended the $500K+ alex.com purchase by tracking "huge increase in word of mouth and inbound, which is obviously directly measurable." The previous name Apriora created friction in sharing and referrals. With enterprise contract sizes, removing pronunciation and memorability barriers has concrete pipeline impact. The domain also functions as a balance sheet asset. Founders should evaluate premium domains against customer acquisition cost and deal velocity, not abstract brand value. Extract vertical-specific insights before horizontal expansion: Alex reached seven figures in staffing revenue exclusively through founder-led sales before entering corporate TA. Aaron noted they had "a few key insights into what made staffing particularly relevant as a market." This concentrated approach allowed them to refine product-market fit and build referenceable customers in one segment. Only after achieving clear traction did they expand strategically to corporate TA. Founders should resist premature market expansion—depth in one vertical provides the learnings needed for successful adjacency moves. Structure interviews to surface first-principles thinking across functions: Aaron described having A-player marketers conduct first rounds, then A-player engineers conduct second rounds for the same candidate. This cross-functional approach tests whether candidates can operate from first principles rather than just applying domain playbooks. The key insight: "A players want to work with A players and A players can identify A players. A B player can't identify an A player." Founders should design interview loops that reveal foundational reasoning ability, not just functional competence. Hire for incentive mapping ability over category experience: Exceptional marketers understand "what is incentivizing someone to share or post or like" and how to create mindshare. Aaron emphasized this matters more than HR tech background, citing Vinod Khosla's gene pool engineering concept. You need domain expertise somewhere in the company, but hiring everyone for it dilutes your ability to think differently. Founders should prioritize candidates who demonstrate deep understanding of human incentives and can identify non-obvious differentiation opportunities. Align brand aesthetic with product philosophy to reinforce positioning: Alex deliberately avoided human avatars, choosing nature imagery and green color schemes to make AI feel "grounded" rather than "abstract." This extends their product belief that "bad AI is worse than no AI"—the brand needed to signal reliability and familiarity. Aaron explicitly contrasted this with rage baiting tactics: "not something we're interested in doing." Founders should ensure visual identity and messaging tactics authentically reflect product values rather than chasing engagement metrics that misalign with positioning. Map product roadmap by studying adjacent verticals with faster adoption curves: When discussing category, Aaron compared Alex to Harvey rather than interview intelligence tools. He noted HR tech "tends to lag others" in technology uptake, making legal AI a better predictive model. Just as Harvey expanded from document review to email automation to client portals, Alex views phone screening as "one important, but only one portion of what a recruiter does today." Founders in slower-adopting categories should analyze product evolution in faster-moving verticals to anticipate feature expansion and avoid getting boxed into point solution positioning. //   Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Sure built the technology infrastructure enabling the world's biggest consumer brands to embed complex insurance products directly into their core transactions—from auto purchases to home loans. In this episode of BUILDERS, Wayne Slavin shares how Sure pivoted from a consumer mobile app to B2B infrastructure after insurance executives kept pulling engineers into boardrooms to see the backend, why prospects who choose to build end up on Sure's "wall of shame" after their attempts fail, and the vertical integration strategy that could make legacy carriers obsolete within 20 years. Topics Discussed Sure's founding: turbulence on a Vegas flight led to a prototype that converted 15.91% from ad click to insurance purchase The accidental pivot to B2B infrastructure when insurance C-suites started calling people into boardrooms to see Sure's backend system How Sure became "chameleons" matching each partner's corner radius, modal behavior, and loader effects to avoid breaking product experiences The three failed paths that create Sure's best customers: DIY builds, direct carrier partnerships, and naive marketplace strategies Why buy-versus-build objections signal misaligned incentives—enterprise buyers trading career-safe "buy" budgets for execution-risk "build" projects The vertical integration roadmap: from collaborative carrier partnerships toward turnkey solutions backed by sovereign wealth funds AppleCare as the embedded insurance template: multi-decabillion dollar business now integrated into device selection, storage, color, and financing flows GTM Lessons For B2B Founders Run weekend demand tests before year-long regulatory builds: Wayne built a prototype over a long weekend and drove traffic through Google and Facebook ads to test first principles—do people want to buy insurance online, how soon before travel, how much coverage? The 15.91% conversion rate justified committing a full year to regulatory partnerships before bringing on a team. For founders in regulated spaces, creative demand validation derisks the compliance investment required before launch. Watch what gets pulled into the boardroom: Sure pitched their mobile app to insurance C-suites who responded with polite interest. Then executives started calling colleagues into meetings specifically to see Sure's backend operations system—the infrastructure they'd spent hundreds of millions trying to build. After three or four meetings with the same pattern, Wayne realized the backend was the product. Pay attention when prospects ignore your intended offering but get animated about something else entirely. Target solution-aware buyers who've already failed: Sure's most successful customers fall into three categories: those who tried building themselves and lost institutional knowledge when engineers left, those who partnered directly with carriers who took customers away and sold them competing products, or those who naively tried offering 50 insurance options when California markets now have two viable carriers. Wayne explicitly doesn't consider prospects choosing to build as their ICP—they lack awareness of execution risk and will waste Sure's time before returning years later. Treat build decisions as pipeline, not losses: A prospect from 2020 called yesterday after their DIY attempt resulted in three people leaving the company with nobody understanding how their cobbled system works. Sure maintains a "wall of shame" tracking decision-makers who chose to build and no longer work at those companies. For infrastructure plays with 18-36 month sales cycles, maintain relationships with build-path prospects—they're future pipeline once reality hits. Product integration depth wins embedded deals: Sure's differentiation isn't database speed—it's becoming invisible within partners' products. Wayne describes matching exact corner radius, modal patterns, and loader effects so product teams don't fight the insurance insertion. This requires deep product expertise across partners' stacks. For embedded solutions, technical flexibility that respects existing UX decisions matters more than raw performance metrics. Sure enables complex insurance purchases without customers touching their keyboard—everything pre-filled from partner data. Map internal buyer incentives in enterprise deals: Wayne observed that enterprise buyers face perverse incentives: requesting more budget and resources for build projects looks good internally, but they're unknowingly trading stable "buy" expenditures for career-ending execution risk. Large companies will pay "a bajillion dollars to Salesforce" because it works and removes risk, not because anyone loves it. Help champions articulate how buying derisks their execution versus the alternative—it's not about your product superiority, it's about their job security. //   Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role.   Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

AGENDA: 04:06 Anthropic's $30BN Investment from Microsoft and NVIDIA 07:01 Google vs. OpenAI: Sam Altman's "War Mode" Memo 15:27 NVIDIA's Customer Concentration: Bull or Bear 22:12 Is "War Mode" BS: Does Hyper-Aggressive Ever Work? 36:12 Sierra Hits $100M ARR: Justify $10BN Price? 46:14 Implementation is the Biggest Barrier to Enterprise AI Growth 01:04:04 Is LLM Search Optimisation (GEO) Selling Snake Oil? What AI is a Fraud vs Real? 01:14:27 Figma Market Cap: Is the IPO Market F****** for 2026    

In this episode of Inside the Network, we sit down with Dean Sysman, co-founder and CEO of Axonius, one of the fastest-growing cybersecurity companies in the world. From struggling with his first startup to building a category-defining unicorn valued at $2.6 billion, Dean's journey is a raw, insightful, and unfiltered look into what it really takes to build in security.Before founding Axonius, Dean co-founded Cymmetria, a Y Combinator-backed deception startup that despite all the efforts, didn't end up leading to a successful outcome. That experience didn't stop him; it made him more grounded, more strategic, and more deliberate. Dean 2.0 didn't enter a hot market. Instead, he went after a boring but foundational problem everyone had, but no one wanted to touch - cyber asset visibility. In just under five years, Axonius surpassed $100M in ARR and raised over $600 million to fund growth and acquisitions.Dean's path has been unconventional from the start. He taught himself to code at 12, won an international robotics competition at 15, and led a team in Unit 8200 by 21. In the military, he learned responsibility the hard way: “If you fail, no one else is coming to help.” That mindset became the core of his entrepreneurial approach. In this conversation, Dean opens up about what most people get wrong about Unit 8200, why the army's bureaucracy actually helped him understand enterprise sales, and how he turned a failed venture into the insight that led to Axonius.We talk about the early days of building Axonius, the decision to go deep into a “Toyota Camry” problem, and how he convinced two close friends from Unit 8200 to bet on a boring idea that became a unicorn. Dean breaks down the evolution of cyber asset management, what it took to define a new category, and why timing and value communication matter more than tech novelty. He also shares lessons from Axonius' first acquisition, Cynerio, and what founders need to understand about getting M&A right: culture, timing, and strategic alignment matter far more than valuation spreadsheets.

In this episode,  Adam Torres and Danny Yeung, CEO and Co-Founder of Prenetics and IM8. Danny walks through his journey from early ventures in F&B and furniture to leading Groupon East Asia, then building Prenetics into Hong Kong's largest COVID PCR testing provider with over $800M USD in revenue. He then explains how IM8, a science-backed daily essentials drink co-founded with David Beckham, reached over $100M ARR in just 11 months. Danny also breaks down his Bitcoin treasury strategy and why he's pairing high-growth health products with long-term digital asset accumulation to build both health and wealth. Follow Adam on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/askadamtorres/ for up to date information on book releases and tour schedule. Apply to be a guest on our podcast: https://missionmatters.lpages.co/podcastguest/ Visit our website: https://missionmatters.com/ More FREE content from Mission Matters here: https://linktr.ee/missionmattersmedia Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sophos represents one of cybersecurity's most vulnerable companies, founded in 1985 as an antivirus provider and now operating at massive scale with $1.5 billion in ARR and 5,700 global employees. Under CEO Joe Levy's leadership, the company has undergone a fundamental transformation from a traditional product-focused vendor to a services-driven platform that addresses core market failures in cybersecurity. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, we sat down with Joe Levy to learn about the company's pivot to managed detection and response (MDR) services, their $860 million SecureWorks acquisition, and their vision for democratizing cybersecurity strategy across millions of organizations worldwide. Topics Discussed:  Sophos's evolution from antivirus origins through multiple business model reinventions over four decades  The strategic pivot to managed detection and response (MDR) services starting in 2018-2019 Building organizational support for major business model changes through experimental frameworks  Managing channel partner relationships during service transformation with 25,000 global partners  The $860 million SecureWorks acquisition and integration strategy to achieve category leadership  Scale as a competitive advantage in cybersecurity platform operations  The future vision of democratizing cybersecurity through "virtual CISO" services at massive scale GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Address systemic market failures through business model innovation: Joe identified that cybersecurity's core problem wasn't technology quality but post-sale execution. "As an industry we have been really good at buying and selling products, but we've never been good. In fact, we've been terrible at their implementation and their lifecycle management." This insight led to Sophos's services transformation. B2B founders should look beyond surface-level customer complaints to identify fundamental market failures that create opportunities for entirely new business models. Structure major strategic pivots as controlled experiments: When proposing the MDR services pivot, Joe framed it as a measurable experiment rather than a leap of faith. "The conversation primarily consisted of, I want to run an experiment. Here are the parameters of the experiment that I would like to run... This is the investment that I think that we need to make in order to bootstrap it." This approach included specific cost models, growth projections, and profitability targets. B2B founders can reduce organizational resistance to major changes by presenting them as structured experiments with clear success metrics and defined risk parameters. Invest heavily in stakeholder alignment during business model transitions: The most challenging aspect wasn't technical but maintaining relationships with 25,000 channel partners who might view new services as competitive threats. Joe spent a full year ensuring partners viewed MDR as "augmentation and greater opportunity and an opportunity for them to offer tiering to the kinds of services that they're doing." B2B founders making significant business model changes must prioritize extensive stakeholder communication and alignment, especially when changes could affect existing revenue streams or partner relationships. Shift sales focus from product features to guaranteed outcomes: Sophos had to retrain their sales organization for services selling. "The fundamental difference between selling a product and selling a service is... what the expectations of the outcome that service is going to provide for them." Instead of selling technology specifications with implementation uncertainty, they began guaranteeing predictable business results. B2B founders transitioning to services models must fundamentally change their sales approach from feature-based selling to outcome-based value propositions. Use strategic M&A to achieve immediate category leadership: Rather than relying solely on organic growth, Sophos accelerated their MDR strategy through the $860 million SecureWorks acquisition. "It technically makes us the largest MDR operator, pure play cybersecurity MDR operator... on the planet today." The acquisition instantly provided market positioning that organic growth might have taken years to achieve. B2B founders should consider strategic acquisitions not just for technology or customers, but for category leadership and competitive positioning that enables further market expansion. Build scale as a defensible competitive advantage: Joe argues that scale is "an often overlooked but a critically important element when it comes to the selection of information technology vendors." In platform businesses handling massive data volumes and real-time operations, the ability to operate at scale becomes a key differentiator. "The customer should be asking them, what are your strategies in order to be able to scale?" B2B founders in platform businesses should explicitly communicate their scaling strategies to customers and position their ability to handle growth as a core competitive advantage, especially when competing against smaller vendors.   //  Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role.  Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Limelight is building the infrastructure layer for B2B creator marketing, processing payments and managing campaigns for companies spending six figures monthly on creator partnerships. With $2.1 million in funding from Signal to Noise Ratio, Ascend Ventures, Savion Ventures, and strategic angels including the head of AI at Amazon and the former Chief Product Officer at Lyft, Limelight powers creator programs for Clay, Webflow, ZoomInfo, and Bill.com. In this episode of BUILDERS, we sat down with David Walsh, Founder and CEO of Limelight, to learn how he validated the market by interviewing 100+ creators, why he deliberately chose not to build an agency despite customer demand, and how his platform tracks engagement data at scale to prove ROI for performance-focused buyers. Topics Discussed: The pivot from referral software to B2B creator infrastructure after 100+ creator interviews How creator attitudes shifted from refusing brand partnerships to actively monetizing Clay's playbook: building custom Clay tables for creators before asking them to post Why Limelight chose to power agencies rather than compete with them The data infrastructure required to justify $100K+ monthly creator budgets Tracking organic engagement, converting content to paid ads, and attributing pipeline The split between brand/social buyers and performance/demand gen buyers Launching social listening to challenge legacy social media management platforms GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Validate with 100+ user interviews before pivoting: David didn't just chat with a handful of potential users—he conducted and recorded over 100 interviews with B2B creators, asking detailed questions about monetization interest, partnership preferences, and content strategies. He then repeated this process with marketing leaders. This level of research rigor before committing to a pivot is rare but critical when entering emerging categories. The depth of qualitative research gave him conviction to make a contrarian bet when most creators were still refusing brand partnerships. Build where network effects are structural, not hoped for: David specifically chose a creator marketplace after a previous marketplace failure because the unit economics included built-in virality. When Limelight pays a creator $10,000, that creator has tens of thousands of followers who see the transaction result (the sponsored content). Every payment notification becomes inbound interest. He understood that in consumer marketplaces you compete on supply quality, but in creator marketplaces the supply actively markets your platform. Founders should identify whether their marketplace has structural network effects in the transaction itself, not just theoretical ones. Target micro-creators with niche audiences over vanity metrics: The counterintuitive insight: creators with 10,000-25,000 followers often outperform those with 100,000+ in B2B because deal sizes are $25K-$50K, not $100 sunglasses. Smaller creators have higher engagement rates, unsaturated audiences, authentic expertise in specific domains, and haven't been "bought and sold for" yet. When brands face the choice between a 100K-follower creator at $2,000 per post with 200 likes versus a 25K-follower creator at $1,000 per post with 300 likes, they irrationally choose the larger following. Founders should educate buyers that in B2B, targeted influence within specific buyer committees matters more than reach. Build data infrastructure to win performance buyers, not just brand buyers: Limelight tracks every piece of content in real-time (not waiting weeks for creator screenshots), monitors all engagement and segments it by ICP fit, provides self-reported attribution from demo forms, tracks website traffic spikes correlated to posting schedules, and generates qualified lead lists from content engagement. This comprehensive data layer is what allows demand gen leaders to reallocate spend from paid channels. The market is splitting 50/50 between brand/social buyers and performance/demand gen buyers—the latter has larger budgets and treats creator spend like paid media that requires attribution. Founders entering new marketing channels should build attribution infrastructure from day one, not as an afterthought. Deliberately choose infrastructure over services even when customers ask for help: Despite customers like Webflow, ZoomInfo, and Bill.com spending $100K+ monthly and requesting more hands-on support, David chose to build product and enable agencies rather than hire account managers and become a service business. His reasoning: people have tried to replace agencies in recruiting for decades and failed because buyers want the human in the middle. The bigger opportunity is being the infrastructure that powers all agencies, not competing with them. This fork-in-the-road decision—hire CSMs and influencer marketing managers versus build more product—defines whether you're building a scalable platform or a services business disguised as SaaS. Use your first customer to custom-build product, then scale it: Clay became Limelight's first customer when the platform was early. David essentially custom-built features for Clay's creator program, learning their workflow for building Clay tables for creators, their onboarding process, and their approach to creative freedom. This deep partnership gave Limelight the product foundation to scale from managing 20 creators to 200+ for Clay within nine months, then apply those learnings to other customers. Rather than building in a vacuum, founders should find a sophisticated first customer willing to co-develop the product, even if it means initially building something custom. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here:  https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Jane Technologies built real-time inventory streaming technology that connects cannabis dispensary point-of-sale systems to online ordering platforms—solving a technical problem that hadn't been cracked before in the space. As a West Point graduate and Apache helicopter pilot who found cannabis instrumental in his transition from military service, Socrates co-founded Jane with his brother (a computer scientist) in 2014-2015, deliberately choosing the "pick and shovel" software play over plant-touching operations. Operating in a market where major VCs won't invest, credit card networks won't process payments, NASDAQ won't list your stock, and regulatory missteps can mean federal charges, Jane developed an extreme discipline around capital efficiency and risk management that offers tactical lessons for any founder building in constrained or emerging markets. Topics Discussed: Jane's technical innovation: streaming real-time physical inventory from store shelves to online platforms Regulatory timing: the Cole Memo, state-by-state legalization momentum, and using adjacent players as risk indicators Risk taxonomy: creating frameworks to convert market uncertainty into scored, calculable risk decisions Strategic positioning as infrastructure provider versus licensed operator to manage legal exposure Customer evolution: illicit market operators meeting institutional players in the middle, and what survives Capital structure constraints driving operational discipline: no traditional payment rails, no public markets, limited institutional capital Competitive moat building through regulatory complexity rather than despite it Jane's decision framework on legal gray areas and why "maybe" always means "no" GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Use adjacent players as regulatory canaries, then move decisively: Jane launched after observing the 2013 Cole Memo and early state legalization in Colorado and Oregon, but critically didn't move until seeing Weedmaps and Leafly operate without legal consequences. Socrates explains: "We also didn't want to be the first...No one seemed to be getting thrown in jail at that time. And so we said, okay, let's get some good lawyers. Let's be able to understand our left and right limits, but let's go do this now." This isn't about being first-mover or fast-follower—it's about identifying specific de-risking events that signal the inflection point. Jane watched for: (1) regulatory clarity documents, (2) expansion velocity across state markets, (3) other operators achieving scale without enforcement action. Founders in emerging categories should map these trigger events explicitly rather than relying on intuition about timing. Build compliance infrastructure as a moat, not overhead: Jane deliberately avoided "touching the plant" to stay outside the highest-risk licensing category, positioning as B2B infrastructure rather than a licensed operator. While competitors took shortcuts on compliance to move faster, Jane developed the internal discipline to work within state regulatory frameworks and alongside regulators themselves. The company's philosophy: "go where it's hard." When regulatory complexity is high and shortcuts are tempting, building the compliant solution that becomes the standard creates a defendable position. As markets mature and enforcement tightens, shortcut companies fail while compliant infrastructure survives. The tactical implication: in regulated markets, treat compliance work as product moat-building, not cost center overhead. Structure legal and compliance as core product development. Convert uncertainty into scored risk through systematic information gathering: Socrates articulates the critical distinction: "There's a real difference between risk and uncertainty. Uncertainty is unknown...you try to position yourself to make uncertainty known so that you can decide and score it. Hey, is this a reward or is this a risk?" Jane's framework: (1) identify the unknown factors, (2) gather information to convert unknowns into knowns, (3) score both upside and downside explicitly, (4) decide whether the scored risk justifies action. The company wouldn't cross lines even when competitors did because certain risks (federal charges, business termination) represented non-recoverable outcomes regardless of upside. Implementation: maintain a risk register where each strategic decision explicitly documents what's uncertain versus what's a calculated risk, with clear go/no-go thresholds based on downside scenarios. Capital constraints create competitive advantages through forced discipline: Operating without access to Sequoia checks, IPO paths, or Visa processing meant Jane had to master unit economics and profitability early. Socrates reflects: "This is stuff that traditionally, you go public, you raise billions of dollars, and then you decide how to get profitable. Then you decide what your cost of capital is and free cash flow, man, we had to learn that at a very young age." The result: "really good fundamentals" that scale as the business grows. While competitors in less constrained markets can mask poor unit economics with cheap capital, Jane built sustainable business mechanics from day one. The tactical approach: "ruthlessly prioritize what you do and do not build" and "scrutinize every dollar that comes in and out of the business." For founders with capital access, consider artificially constraining spend to force the same discipline rather than optimizing for growth at any cost. Optimize for survival duration, not growth velocity: Jane's entire strategy centers on outlasting competitors in a market where shortcuts eventually kill companies. Socrates: "This is not a game of speed. This is not a game of size. This is a game of endurance. And you want to just last...if we make a fatal decision and we get arrested or we do a felony or something like that, then the business is probably over." The company explicitly embraced being early, knowing they'd face years before the market fully matured, but positioned to compound advantages while others burned out. Their decision framework: if a strategic choice risks ending the game entirely (legal exposure, existential financial risk, fundamental trust violation), it's off the table regardless of upside. For markets with long regulatory or adoption cycles, model scenarios for 10+ year timelines and ensure your burn rate and strategic decisions support that duration rather than optimizing for 18-month milestones. //  Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM  

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Our 225th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!Recorded on 11/16/2025Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov and co-hosted by Michelle LeeFeel free to email us your questions and feedback at contact@lastweekinai.com and/or hello@gladstone.aiRead out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/In this episode:New AI model releases include GPT-5.1 from OpenAI and Ernie 5.0 from Baidu, each with updated features and capabilities.Self-driving technology advancements from Baidu's Apollo Go and Pony AI's IPO highlight significant progress in the automotive sector.Startup funding updates include Incept taking $50M for diffusion models, while Cursor and Gamma secure significant valuations for coding and presentation tools respectively.AI-generated content is gaining traction with songs topping charts and new marketplaces for AI-generated voices, indicating evolving trends in synthetic media.Timestamps:(00:01:19) News PreviewTools & Apps(00:02:13) OpenAI says the brand-new GPT-5.1 is ‘warmer' and has more ‘personality' options | The Verge(00:04:51) Baidu Unveils ERNIE 5.0 and a Series of AI Applications at Baidu World 2025, Ramps Up Global Push(00:07:00) ByteDance's Volcano Engine debuts coding agent at $1.3 promo price(00:08:04) Google will let users call stores, browse products, and check out using AI | The Verge(00:10:41) Fei-Fei Li's World Labs speeds up the world model race with Marble, its first commercial product | TechCrunch(00:13:30) OpenAI says it's fixed ChatGPT's em dash problem | TechCrunchApplications & Business(00:16:01) Anthropic announces $50 billion data center plan | TechCrunch(00:18:06) Baidu teases next-gen AI training, inference accelerators • The Register(00:20:50) Meta chief AI scientist Yann LeCun plans to exit and launch own start-up(00:24:41) Amazon Demands Perplexity Stop AI Tool From Making Purchases - Bloomberg(00:27:32) AI PowerPoint-killer Gamma hits $2.1B valuation, $100M ARR, founder says | TechCrunch(00:29:33) Inception raises $50 million to build diffusion models for code and text | TechCrunch(00:31:14) Coding assistant Cursor raises $2.3B 5 months after its previous round | TechCrunch(00:33:56) China's Baidu says it's running 250,000 robotaxi rides a week — same as Alphabet's Waymo(00:35:26) Driverless Tech Firm Pony AI Raises $863 Million in HK ListingProjects & Open Source(00:36:30) Moonshot's Kimi K2 Thinking emerges as leading open source AIResearch & Advancements(00:39:22) [2510.26787] Remote Labor Index: Measuring AI Automation of Remote Work(00:45:21) OpenAI Researchers Train Weight Sparse Transformers to Expose Interpretable Circuits - MarkTechPost(00:49:34) Kimi Linear: An Expressive, Efficient Attention Architecture(00:53:33) Watch Google DeepMind's new AI agent learn to play video games | The Verge(00:57:34) arXiv Changes Rules After Getting Spammed With AI-Generated 'Research' PapersPolicy & Safety(00:59:35) Stability AI largely wins UK court battle against Getty Images over copyright and trademark | AP News(01:01:48) Court rules that OpenAI violated German copyright law; orders it to pay damages | TechCrunch(01:03:48) Microsoft's $15.2B UAE investment turns Gulf State into test case for US AI diplomacy | TechCrunchSynthetic Media & Art(01:06:39) An AI-Generated Country Song Is Topping A Billboard Chart, And That Should Infuriate Us All | Whiskey Riff(01:10:59) Xania Monet is the first AI-powered artist to debut on a Billboard airplay chart, but she likely won't be the last | CNN(01:13:34) ElevenLabs' new AI marketplace lets brands use famous voices for ads | The VergeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

ClearCOGS is creating a new category in restaurant technology by bringing predictive analytics to an industry that operates almost entirely on retrospective data. With $3.8 million raised, the company analyzes 100 million data points daily per restaurant to forecast demand and optimize prep decisions. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, we sat down with Matt Wampler, CEO and Co-Founder of ClearCOGS, to explore how his experience turning around failing Jimmy John's franchises led him to build forecasting software that's fundamentally changing how restaurants operate—and how he's defining a category that doesn't yet exist. Topics Discussed: Matt's transition from 21-year-old Jimmy John's franchisee working 110-hour weeks to identifying systematic inefficiencies in food prep decisions across five locations Why restaurants remain stuck in reactive mode while sports betting and fantasy football have sophisticated predictive analytics ClearCOGS's data infrastructure processing 100 million variables daily—from 15-minute POS intervals and weather patterns to dew point and local events The product discovery process where Matt's co-founder kept asking "why" until every feature request collapsed into one core problem: uncertainty about tomorrow's demand Category creation through the Restaurant AI podcast despite no clear attribution model Building in public on LinkedIn as an enterprise lead generation channel that landed major brands within six weeks The ICP evolution from enterprise fast-casual chains (15-1,000 locations) to a freemium Toast integration targeting independents GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Let outsiders interrogate your domain expertise: Matt wanted to build dashboards restaurant operators requested. His technical co-founder repeatedly asked "why do you want that dashboard?" then "why do you need to see that?" Every answer eventually reached the same root cause: operators didn't know who would walk in tomorrow, making food prep, ordering, and staffing decisions inefficient. This pattern held across dozens of restaurant brands. The yin-yang of insider knowledge plus relentless outside questioning revealed the actual problem worth solving versus building a feature graveyard of requested tools. Reframe category education through familiar high-stakes analogies: "Predictive analytics" meant nothing to restaurant operators. Matt's breakthrough was pointing out the cognitive dissonance in their lives: they studied dozens of variables and probabilistic forecasts for fantasy football lineups but ran six-figure businesses on Excel sheets and gut instinct. This wasn't explaining predictive analytics—it was exposing the absurdity of having better forecasting tools for fantasy sports than for their livelihood, making the gap visceral and the solution obvious. Convert forecast errors into customer intelligence touchpoints: When ClearCOGS's predictions missed, the team initially spent weeks reoptimizing algorithms. The pivot: immediately call the customer, acknowledge the miss, and say "we're on it." Customers didn't expect perfection from a system replacing Excel and guesswork—they valued having someone actually watching their operation. In a software landscape where vendors disappear post-sale, proactive error acknowledgment became relationship acceleration. Every miss became an opportunity to demonstrate attentiveness that competitors couldn't match. Segment messaging by incentive structure, not org chart: ClearCOGS discovered the messaging split wasn't finance versus operations—it was franchisors versus franchisees. Franchisors earning royalties on top-line revenue needed consistency and scalability messaging. Franchisees and on-ground operators living on bottom-line profitability needed waste reduction and margin improvement messaging. The same product solving the same problem required different value propositions based on how buyers were compensated, not what department they sat in. Test public vulnerability as enterprise sales acceleration: Matt had zero social media presence before ClearCOGS. He started posting about struggles and failures on LinkedIn. Within six weeks, a major restaurant brand reached out for partnership discussions. Later, he posted their first website draft asking for brutal feedback—50 people responded with detailed reviews, video walkthroughs, and unsolicited legal advice. When he launched the Restaurant AI podcast with unclear ROI, he treated it as category education infrastructure. In oversaturated B2B markets, authentic struggle documentation cuts through polished competitor noise and creates asymmetric enterprise access that paid channels can't replicate. //  Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role.  Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Defense technology has shifted from a social liability in Silicon Valley to commanding 35-40% of venture capital allocation—up from a historical 10%. This isn't just trend-following; it reflects fundamental market dynamics as SaaS becomes hypercompetitive and AI lowers barriers to entry, pushing capital toward deep tech where moats still exist. Blacklake, a defense holdco based in Austin, helps emerging defense companies navigate government procurement and expand into Europe, Asia-Pacific, and allied markets. In this episode, Jeff Crusey, EVP of Technology & Acquisition at Blacklake, reveals the emerging defense tech playbook, explains why lobbying ROI dwarfs traditional GTM spending, and details what actually matters when hardware meets government procurement. Topics Discussed: Why VC capital is rotating from SaaS to deep tech and defense The defense tech go-to-market playbook versus enterprise SaaS mechanics SBIR grant programs as non-dilutive capital for hardware development Lobbying and appropriations as core revenue drivers, not nice-to-haves Field deployment and operator feedback as the only viable iteration strategy Investor evaluation criteria for hardware-intensive defense businesses Emerging threat vectors in Arctic defense and orbital domain awareness GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Launch lobbying concurrent with SBIR Phase 1 applications: Companies initiating lobbying and appropriations work at the moment they apply for SBIR grants hit revenue milestones materially faster than those treating government affairs as a later-stage function. This means seed-stage companies maintain Capitol Hill presence—a pattern that didn't exist five years ago. The talent profile matters: government affairs hires need proven relationships within specific congressional committees and appropriations staff. Initial engagements typically involve external lobbying advisors with established networks, transitioning in-house at Series A when contract pipeline justifies dedicated headcount. This is consistently the highest-ROI channel in defense GTM. Optimize for deployment speed over system perfection: Modern conflict operates as continuous technological adaptation where capabilities become obsolete within weeks, not years. Companies achieving persistent field presence with operators—not laboratory perfection—win iterative cycles. The tactical approach: deploy minimum viable hardware to operational environments, capture real-world performance data and failure modes, then rapidly incorporate feedback into next iterations. This contradicts traditional defense procurement assumptions about "exquisite systems" and requires founders to resist over-engineering before battlefield validation. Solve the prototype funding problem through non-dilutive capital: Defense investors require working prototypes before capital deployment due to hardware risk profiles—fundamentally different from software's low marginal cost of iteration. This creates a chicken-and-egg problem: prototypes require capital, but capital requires prototypes. The solution path combines bootstrapping to early proof-of-concept, then leveraging SBIR Phase 1 grants (tens of thousands) to reach demonstrable prototype stage. Phase 2 awards (single-digit millions) fund production validation. Strategic founders pursue direct-to-Phase-2 pathways when possible, compressing the timeline from concept to validated demand signal. Strip technical complexity from investor communications: Defense founders with deep domain expertise consistently over-index on technical sophistication during fundraising conversations, losing investor attention before reaching commercial traction narratives. VCs evaluate market timing, defensibility, and path to scale—not engineering elegance. The correction: communicate technology at middle-school comprehension levels. This isn't condescension; it's recognizing that capital allocators optimize for portfolio construction, not technical peer review. Founders often feel they're "dumbing down" their innovations, but clarity on problem-solution fit and market size matters infinitely more than technical specifications during early fundraising stages. Treat SBIR phases as progressive demand validation, not just funding: The phased SBIR structure functions as government-backed demand signaling: Phase 1 validates concept feasibility, Phase 2 confirms development viability, Phase 3 demonstrates production readiness for potential program of record status. Investors decode these phases as risk reduction milestones. Phase 1 awards indicate government interest; Phase 2 awards (especially direct-to-Phase-2 or enhanced Phase 2) signal validated customer pull; Phase 3 contracts position companies for program of record awards worth hundreds of millions annually. Beyond capital, SBIR progression provides founder-market fit evidence and customer commitment that traditional LOIs cannot match in defense contexts. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Wultra provides post-quantum authentication for banks, fintechs, and governments—protecting digital identities from emerging quantum computing threats. In this episode, Peter Dvorak shares how he broke into the notoriously closed banking ecosystem by leveraging his early experience in mobile banking development. From navigating multi-stakeholder enterprise sales to positioning quantum-safe cryptography when the threat timeline remains uncertain (consensus: 2035, but could accelerate), Peter reveals the specific strategies required to sell mission-critical security infrastructure to regulated financial institutions. Topics Discussed How post-quantum cryptography runs on classical computers while protecting against quantum threats Why European banking regulation drives global authentication standards The multi-stakeholder sales process: quantum threat teams, CISOs, CTOs, and digital product owners Conference strategy and analyst relationships (Gartner, KuppingerCole) for category positioning Banking budget cycles and why June/July approaches fail Breaking the "who else is using this?" barrier with banking-specific proof points Positioning as the only post-quantum cryptography provider for digital identity in banking GTM Lessons For B2B Founders Layer future-proofing onto immediate ROI: Post-quantum cryptography doesn't require quantum computers to function—it runs on classical infrastructure while providing superior security. Peter sells banks on moving from SMS OTP to mobile app authentication (tangible, immediate benefit) while positioning quantum resistance as migration insurance: "You won't have to rip-and-replace in three years." For emerging tech, anchor value in today's operational wins, not future scenarios. Give struggling departments concrete wins: Large banks have quantum threat teams tasked with replacing every piece of software by 2030-2035. Peter gives them measurable progress: "We move you from 5% to 10% completion on authentication and digital identity." These teams need defensible projects to justify their existence. Identify which internal groups are fighting for relevance and deliver projects they can report upward. Banking references are binary gatekeepers: Every bank asks "who else is using this?" Non-banking customers (telcos, gaming, lottery) don't count—banking regulation and systems are fundamentally different. The first banking customer is the hardest barrier. Once cleared, subsequent conversations become tractable. Budget aggressively to land that first bank, even at unfavorable terms. Respect the annual budget cycle: Banks allocate resources 12 months ahead. Approaching in Q2/Q3 means budgets are locked—even free POCs fail because internal resources are committed. Peter's pipeline strategy: build relationships and maintain visibility throughout the year, then activate when budget windows open. Don't confuse market education with active pipeline. Map and sequence multi-stakeholder buys: Authentication purchases require alignment across quantum threat teams (if they exist), cybersecurity/compliance, CTO/CIO (infrastructure acceptance), and digital product owners (UX concerns affecting their KPIs). Start at director level—board executives are too removed from technical details. Research each bank's org structure before engaging, then tailor sequencing. EU regulatory leadership creates expansion vectors: European regulations like PSD2 and strong authentication requirements get replicated in Southeast Asia, MENA, and other regions. Peter benefits from solving EU compliance first, then riding regulatory diffusion. The US remains fragmented with smaller regional banks still using username/password. Founders should analyze which geographies lead regulatory adoption in their category. Maintain composure through 18+ month cycles: Peter's regret: losing his temper during negotiations cost him time. Banking doesn't buy impulsively—sales require patience through lengthy security reviews, compliance checks, and committee approvals. Incremental progress and rational positioning matter more than aggressive closing. Emotional control is operational discipline. // Sponsors:  Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role.  Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Continuum is solving the multi-party return problem in B2B supply chain—a transaction involving distributors, manufacturers, and end users that previously took 30-45 days and now completes in 30-45 seconds. In this episode of Category Visionaries, we sat down with Alex Witcpalek, CEO and Founder of Continuum, to unpack how he's building what he calls "reverse EDI" in a market of 1.5 million distribution and manufacturing companies across North America. After 13 years selling technology into this space, Alex is now growing 8x year-over-year by turning customers into the primary acquisition channel through network effects. Topics Discussed: Why multi-party returns require replicating order management, warehouse management, and procurement systems simultaneously The tactical sequencing of building network businesses: solving for independent value, achieving critical mass, then activating network effects How Continuum navigates deep ERP integrations (SAP, Oracle, NetSuite, Epicor) plus bespoke business logic across multiple supply chain tiers Facebook retargeting, BDR outbound, events, and customer referrals as the four channels driving growth in a non-PLG market Why business model differentiation is the only remaining moat when technical barriers collapse Building domain expertise distribution systems using AI-powered LMS fed by sales call recordings GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Choose problems where you can capture 100% of addressable market, not fractional share: Alex deliberately avoided competing in CRM, sales order automation, or accounts payable—categories where even dominant players cap at 25-30% market penetration. Instead, he targeted multi-party reverse logistics, a greenfield problem no one else was solving. This strategic choice eliminates competitive displacement risk and allows every prospect conversation to focus on change management rather than competitive differentiation. Founders should map their TAM against competitive saturation: markets where you can own the entire category create fundamentally different growth trajectories than fighting for fragments. Sequence network businesses: independent value → critical mass → network activation: Alex was told by investors 18 months in that network effects "weren't going to work." His insight: "When you don't have a network, you don't sell the network. It's just in your plans and how you're building." Continuum sold P&L impact, manual labor reduction, and customer experience improvements to early adopters while building network infrastructure invisibly. Only after achieving density in specific verticals (HVAC, electrical, plumbing) did they surface the network value proposition. This sequencing prevents the cold-start problem—founders building marketplace or network businesses must design standalone value that makes the first 100 customers successful independent of network density. Exploit high pain thresholds in legacy industries as competitive barriers: Supply chain companies accept 30-45 day return cycles, manual warranty claims on paper, and playing "guess who" by phone to find inventory across distributor branches. Alex notes they have "extremely high pain threshold" from living with broken systems for decades. While this creates longer education cycles, it also means competitors won't enter (too hard) and once you prove ROI, switching costs become prohibitive. Founders should reframe customer inertia: industries tolerating obvious inefficiencies offer category creation opportunities with built-in moats, not just sales friction. Business model architecture is the only defensible moat—technical differentiation is dead: Alex is building his own e-signature platform (Continue Sign) and AI LMS using vibe coding to prove technical moats no longer exist. Continuum's defensibility comes entirely from network lock-in: displacing them requires disconnecting manufacturers like Carrier, Daikin, and Bosch plus their entire distributor ecosystems simultaneously. He references EDI (1960s technology still dominant today) as proof that network effects create permanent advantages. Founders must architect switching costs, network density, or proprietary data advantages into their business model—technology alone provides zero protection in the AI era. Match channel strategy to actual ICP behavior, not SaaS conventions: Continuum's top lead source is customer-driven network growth—distributors recruiting manufacturers and vice versa. Facebook retargeting works because their 50+ year-old supply chain buyers "are trying to comment on their grandkids' pictures," not scrolling LinkedIn. BDR outbound still delivers high win rates in an industry where business happens on handshakes, making events critical. This channel mix would fail for PLG products but works perfectly for enterprise cycles with $40K ACVs and 90-day sales processes. Founders should ethnographically research where their specific buyers actually spend attention rather than defaulting to LinkedIn, content marketing, or PLG based on what works in adjacent categories. Use 90-day enterprise cycles and multi-stakeholder complexity as qualification, not friction: Continuum runs enterprise sales motions for $40K deals because multi-party returns touch 16 constituents across sales, customer service, fleet, supply chain, warehouse, purchasing, and finance. Rather than trying to simplify buying, Alex uses this complexity as a filter—companies willing to coordinate VP of Supply Chain, COO, and CFO alignment are serious buyers. He layers three value propositions (P&L impact, labor reduction, customer experience) knowing different stakeholders weight them differently. Founders selling into complex environments should embrace multi-threading as a qualification mechanism that improves win rates and reduces churn, not overhead to eliminate. //  Sponsors:  Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire  Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM  

Anthony Lye joined Quid 14 months ago to lead a complete business model transformation. With three decades in Silicon Valley including executive roles at Palantir, NetApp, Oracle, and Siebel Systems, Anthony has operated through every major technology disruption. At Quid, he's dismantling the traditional SaaS playbook—eliminating seat-based pricing, collapsing the software/services separation, and refocusing the entire company on delivering measurable business outcomes rather than analytics tools. In this conversation, Anthony explains why most SaaS companies will fail in the AI era, how Palantir's forward-deployed engineering model creates defensible value, and the specific mental models founders need to reimagine their businesses before disruption makes the decision for them. Topics Discussed How Silicon Valley's technology oligopolies turn over every five years  Why AI shifts technology from features to benefits for the first time  Quid's transformation from social listening SaaS to outcome-based insights delivery  The separation of software and services as a structural flaw in SaaS economics  How forward-deployed engineers at Palantir and Quid collapse the services layer  Why SaaS failed knowledge workers while email remained dominant Discontinuity theory and how oligopolies resist then capitulate to disruption  The "fired tomorrow, compete with yourself" thought experiment for strategy clarity  How to build executive teams as custodians rather than functional heads GTM Lessons For B2B Founders Collapse software and services into outcome delivery: Quid eliminated seat-based pricing and module sales, shifting from IT budget to labor budget by selling insights, trends, and actionable information directly. This repositioned the product from a tool requiring sophisticated data scientists to a team augmentation service protecting brand health and driving commerce decisions. The business model change fundamentally altered buyer, buying process, and deal economics. When your product requires customization or professional services to deliver value, you've identified a structural opportunity to collapse both layers. Deploy the "fired and competing" thought exercise: Anthony's mentor advised imagining your board fires you tomorrow and you immediately compete against your own company. List the three things you'd do on day one to win. Then ask why you're not doing those things now. This exercise cuts through organizational inertia and reveals the obvious strategic moves you're avoiding. The discomfort in your answers indicates where you need to act. Match decision velocity to execution needs, not comfort: Tom Brett at Menlo Ventures told Anthony to increase from 3-4 decisions weekly to 50. The forcing function prevents overthinking and eliminates "second guessing paralysis." Organizations need clarity and direction more than perfect decisions. Write down every decision, communicate it clearly, and publicly reverse course when wrong. This builds a culture where being decisive and correctable beats being slow and theoretically optimal. Recognize when your hypothesis expires: Quid's social listening thesis was correct initially, but markets evolved while the company didn't. The problem remained valid (understanding brand health, shopping trends, product innovation signals), but the SaaS tool-based solution became untenable as data complexity demanded sophisticated users, shrinking addressable market. Founders must distinguish between persistent customer problems and expired solution approaches. Your original hypothesis has an expiration date. Identify the ox that gets gored: Every deal requires customers to stop spending elsewhere. You must be 10x faster or one-tenth the cost to overcome status quo bias. Explicitly identify which vendor or budget line you're displacing, then validate your value proposition can actually displace it. Most startups fail this calculus and wonder why proof-of-concept success doesn't translate to procurement approval. Start with blank canvas, fail backwards to SaaS: When reimagining for AI, don't bolt features onto existing architecture. Begin with first principles about what customers actually want to accomplish, design that solution using current capabilities, then fall back to SaaS components only where necessary. Anthony warns that additive approaches preserve structural constraints that prevent you from capturing the full opportunity. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Runway is building FP&A software that solves what Siqi Chen calls "the impossible problem"—matching Excel's speed and flexibility for thinking while functioning as an enterprise finance platform. In this episode of The Front Lines, wew sat down with Siqi to unpack Runway's mischief marketing playbook, why they enriched hot sauce pre-orders for lead gen, and how they're implementing AI as a coworker rather than a copilot. Topics Discussed: The unit economics behind the Burn Rate hot sauce campaign: $40K spend, 5K pre-orders, millions of views  How Siqi justifies creative marketing spend as CEO and CFO: downside scenarios must break even, upside gets uncapped returns  Naval's prescient 2020 advice: don't call it CFO AI because "everything's going to be AI anyway"  Why finance buyers completely flipped on AI in 24 months—from indifferent to requiring it  The three emotional triggers that drive FP&A tool adoption: frustration, resentment, anxiety  Runway's approach to competing with Excel by changing abstraction layers, not features  Building AI as a coworker (Ari) that lives in Slack, email, and comments—not a sidebar  Why proof-of-human marketing compounds in value as AI slop becomes the baseline GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Model creative campaigns like venture bets with downside protection: Siqi's framework: $40K for 200 hot sauces wrapped with $100 bills equals 1.5 deals to break even at mid-five-figure ACVs. But the real play was generating 5,000 pre-orders, enriching the top 200, and converting ICP matches at "well above 1%" into pipeline. The math ensures you don't lose money in downside scenarios while creative execution delivers uncapped upside. For B2B founders: calculate your break-even deal count, then structure campaigns where lead gen mechanics provide a safety net under the brand play. Hire for proof of work, not creative credentials: When Cal (Taika co-founder) cold-emailed Siqi with designed mockups of Burn Rate hot sauce and Runway jerseys, that was the interview. Siqi was already a Taika customer who remembered the 415 phone number branding on the can. His advice: "There's no better resume than someone saying 'hey, I submitted a pull request' or 'here's some designs.'" For creative roles especially, evaluate the artifacts directly rather than filtering through credentials or pitches about what they could do. Sell to emotion-driven active searchers, not satisfied users: Runway identified three specific emotions that trigger FP&A software searches: frustration (manually pulling from 20+ data sources monthly, copy-pasting QuickBooks exports), resentment (department heads treating finance requests as "the stupid form" and ignoring deadlines), and anxiety (one error in 10 million Google Sheets cells breaks the entire model). These aren't rational pain points—they're emotional breaking points that drive active solution-seeking. Don't build go-to-market around convincing satisfied Excel users. Instead, optimize for discovery when these specific emotions converge. Treat abstraction changes as category creation opportunities: Siqi explains Airtable's success came from changing Excel's abstraction from cell to row, enabling databases and applications. Runway's insight: business planning requires abstraction changes that Excel can't provide—specifically treating the model as a "game engine" or "simulation of a business" rather than a spreadsheet. The category emerged from that technical insight, not from marketing positioning. For technical founders: identify where your abstraction layer change creates fundamentally new capabilities, then let category definition follow from customer language around those capabilities. Time creative marketing to buyer perception shifts: Two years ago, Runway demoed AI features to leads who "didn't care at all." Today, buyers "don't care what the AI feature is, they just care that it's AI"—a complete flip. Meanwhile, Runway's competitors use .ai domains while Runway uses .com, creating unexpected differentiation. The lesson: buyer perception of emerging technologies follows unpredictable curves. Creative marketing that feels early can land perfectly if timed to perception inflection points. Track not just technology maturity but buyer discourse and demand signals to time creative bets. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Wisdom AI sells to enterprise data teams, empowering them to deploy AI data analysts that automate analytics functions traditionally handled by human analysts. As a former Rubrik co-founder and Google search ranking engineer, Soham identified the analytics problem firsthand while scaling Rubrik from intuition-driven to data-driven operations. In this episode of Category Visionaries, Soham shares how four Rubrik alumni are building a category-defining solution in the data analytics space, the tactical insights from targeting mid-market accounts to optimize deal velocity and onboarding experience, and how AI buying committees shifted from experimental budgets in 2024 to gatekeepers requiring departmental champions in 2025. Topics Discussed: Leveraging mid-market focus to compress sales cycles while refining onboarding as core product differentiation The transition from gut-based decisions to data-driven operations and why analytics remains unsolved Taming LLMs for precision and explainability requirements in enterprise analytics contexts Strategic navigation of the data ecosystem following the FiveTran-DBT merger and positioning against Snowflake, Databricks, and cloud providers Overlaying product-led trial motions on enterprise sales to maintain momentum during extended procurement cycles AI committee evolution from 2024's experimental phase to 2025's security-focused consolidation mandate Pursuing 10x productivity gains versus incremental improvement in established analytics markets GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Use mid-market to build onboarding velocity as moat: Rubrik deliberately targeted mid-market accounts despite being an enterprise product that closed eight-figure deals. This served two strategic purposes: compressed sales cycles enabled faster learning loops, and the necessity of quick onboarding forced the team to build exceptional admin experiences that became their primary differentiation. For B2B founders, mid-market isn't just easier logos—it's a forcing function for product refinement that creates competitive advantages when moving upmarket. Find problems through operational scar tissue, not market research: Wisdom AI originated when Soham tried moonlighting as engineering's data analyst during Rubrik's scaling phase and discovered he couldn't do it effectively. This wasn't a customer interview insight—it was firsthand recognition that even sophisticated technical leaders with dedicated focus couldn't wrangle data for operational decisions. The problem proved ubiquitous across every business leader optimizing top line, bottom line, and operations. B2B founders building for enterprises should prioritize pain points they've personally hit in operational contexts where existing solutions demonstrably failed them. Engineer time-to-value in minutes for PLG overlay on enterprise sales: Wisdom AI's experiential quality—users get excited when they try it, not when they see slides—creates PLG opportunity despite enterprise positioning. The critical difference: sales-led motions tolerate weeks to first value and build confidence through process, but self-serve requires hook-to-value in minutes with zero support. Soham's insight is using PLG not for credit card swipes but to maintain champion enthusiasm during lengthy procurement processes. B2B founders should architect trial experiences that deliver standalone value pre-data connection, creating internal advocates who sustain momentum through AI committee reviews. Treat ecosystem navigation as first-class GTM workstream: Wisdom AI's success depends on partnership execution with Snowflake, Databricks, and cloud providers—all potential competitors with their own AI initiatives. The FiveTran-DBT merger created immediate dynamic shifts requiring repositioning. Rather than viewing partnerships as business development, Soham frames ecosystem navigation as core GTM infrastructure requiring dedicated strategy and repeatable playbooks. B2B founders in platform-adjacent spaces should staff for partnership complexity early, recognizing that integration points and co-selling motions often determine market access more than direct sales capacity. Architect for AI committee gatekeepers with departmental executive sponsorship: The market fundamentally shifted from mid-2024's "experimental AI budgets, try everything" to 2025's centralized AI committees focused on security, tool consolidation, and preventing organizational wild west scenarios. Soham's tactical response: secure champions owning specific important departments who can navigate approval hierarchies while trial experiences maintain grassroots excitement. The implication for B2B AI founders—assumption of longer cycles, security scrutiny as table stakes, and explicit strategies for climbing from individual enthusiast to organizational deployment become non-negotiable enterprise sales requirements. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Grant Lee is the co-founder of Gamma, the AI-powered presentation tool that's one of the hottest and most interesting AI startups in the world right now. They're valued at over $2 billion, and they hit $100 million ARR in just over two years, with a lean team of just around 30 people. Unlike many fast-growing AI startups, Gamma has been profitable for most of its history, has not raised significant funding, and they built a massive business in a category most investors dismissed. In fact, one investor told Grant his idea was “the dumbest idea he had ever heard.”We discuss:• How Gamma found product-market fit by rethinking their onboarding• Their process for building a “word-of-mouth machine”• How they leveraged more than 1,000 micro-influencers instead of big names• Why focusing on the “first 30 seconds” transformed their business• Their approach to pricing that led to profitability within months• How Grant thinks about building a durable “GPT wrapper” business—Brought to you by:Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security.Justworks—The all-in-one HR solution for managing your small business with confidenceMiro—A collaborative visual platform where your best work comes to life—Where to find Grant Lee:• X: https://x.com/thisisgrantlee• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grantslee—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Introduction to Grant Lee and Gamma(05:59) The founding story of Gamma(09:52) Achieving product-market fit(15:43) Self-awareness as a founder(17:17) The power of onboarding(20:41) The original insight that led to Gamma(22:42) Founder-led marketing and growth tactics(29:20) Sharing online(37:40) Getting to $100M ARR(41:19) Influencer marketing as a growth strategy(54:08) Virality is not an accident(58:30) Investing in brand before paid ads(01:02:04) Tips for getting started with performance marketing(01:04:49) Prototyping and user feedback(01:16:12) Adapting and moving quickly(01:19:21) The concept of GPT wrapper companies(01:22:16) Deep dive into workflow and model utilization(01:29:06) Pricing strategies(01:34:53) Hiring philosophy and practices(01:43:24) Betting big on high performers(01:45:03) Final thoughts and lightning round—References: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-50-people-built-a-profitable-ai-unicorn—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

Brought to you by TogetherLetters & Edgewise!In this episode: AI PowerPoint-killer Gamma hits $2.1B valuation, $100M ARR, founder says | TechCrunchWaymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, San Francisco, and Phoenix | TechCrunchInside Netflix House: A Big Bet On Experiential EntertainmentMatthew McConaughey, Michael Caine Team With ElevenLabs for AI-Generated Versions of Their VoicesWorld's first transatlantic thrombectomy heralds new era of stroke treatmentOn November 13, 2026, Voyager Will Reach One Full Light-Day Away From EarthWeird and Wacky: Oreo Just Launched Thanksgiving Dinner-Flavored Cookies—But There's a CatchOpenAI CEO Sam Altman served with subpoena on stage in San Francisco event, watch what happened nextTech Rec:Sanjay - Anker Nano Travel AdapterAdam - Granola.aiFind us here:sanjayparekh.com & adamjwalker.comTech Talk Y'all is a proud production of Edgewise.Media.

Gamma co-founder and CEO Grant Lee and lead series A investor Vas Natarajan of Accel are building one of the fastest-growing creative-tools startups in tech. With 70 million users, 100M ARR and just 50 employees, Gamma has become the “anti-PowerPoint”—a visual communication platform for the AI generation.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

MishiPay has scaled from processing $10 million to over $250 million in annual transactions by abandoning product purity for market pragmatism. What started as a mobile-first scan-and-go solution evolved into a comprehensive checkout platform spanning self-checkout kiosks, RFID systems, mobile POS, and traditional cash registers—now deployed across 2,000+ stores in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Australia. In this episode of Category Visionaries, we sat down with Mustafa Khanwala, CEO and Founder of MishiPay, to dissect why the "inferior" product often wins in retail tech, how trust-building mechanics differ fundamentally across geographies, and what it actually takes to maintain startup agility at enterprise scale. Topics Discussed: The seven-year journey from consumer mobile app to B2B checkout infrastructure Why MishiPay nearly failed by over-indexing on superior UX instead of adoption curves The 2022 pivot that unlocked triple-digit revenue growth with flat headcount How checkout solution requirements vary by customer visit frequency (weekly grocery vs. annual travel retail) Trust-building in enterprise sales: face-to-face requirements in Middle Eastern markets vs. video-first Western sales cycles Delivering two-week go-live timelines and 10-minute UI changes while maintaining 99.9999% uptime AI integration strategy: internal efficiency first, then customer-facing analytics and autonomous POS management GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Adoption friction kills better products: Mustafa spent years refusing to build self-checkout because scan-and-go was objectively superior UX. The company nearly died defending this position. "Should we have started on some of our other products in 2019 instead of 2022? Probably." The lesson isn't about building inferior products—it's about understanding that customers evaluate "better" through implementation risk, training overhead, and behavior change required. B2B founders must map the gap between current state and ideal state, then build the bridge products that de-risk each transition step, even if those bridges feel like compromises. Customer frequency determines viable solution complexity: Scan-and-go requires significant user education investment that only generates ROI with weekly-plus usage. In travel retail where 70-80% of customers visit 1-2x annually, that education cost never pays back. MishiPay now matches solution types to visit patterns: scan-and-go for high-frequency grocery, staff-assisted mobile POS for low-frequency travel retail, RFID self-checkout for mid-frequency fashion. B2B founders should calculate the learning curve payback period against actual usage frequency—if users won't encounter your product enough times to justify the learning investment, you need a different entry point regardless of how good the end-state experience is. Enterprise stability with startup agility is a wedge, not a platitude: Every vendor claims this. MishiPay operationalizes it through specific SLAs: two-week store go-lives, 10-minute button changes, two-day promotion additions, two-week payment method integration—all while maintaining 99.9999% uptime that enterprise POS demands. This isn't about "moving fast," it's about architecture decisions that enable rapid customization without stability trade-offs (mobile-first, cloud-native, API-driven). B2B founders should define their agility claims in measurable timelines and uptime guarantees, not adjectives. If you can't operationalize "flexibility" into specific hours or days for changes, it's not a differentiator. Geographic trust-building fundamentally differs in mechanism, not degree: Western enterprise sales: product merit → pilot → relationship building → expansion. Middle Eastern enterprise sales: relationship building → pilot opportunity → product merit demonstration → deal. The difference isn't relationship importance (both require it), but sequencing. Mustafa noted Middle Eastern business culture evolved from pearl diving where "their whole job was to be able to look at someone in the eyes and decide if that person was going to scam them." Face-to-face happens pre-deal in Middle East, post-deal in the West. B2B founders expanding globally must rebuild their sales motion sequencing by geography, not just translate materials or add local reps. Staff productivity scales by solving the manager's problem, not the user's pain: MishiPay's roadmap progression reveals a pattern: first solve for store staff (checkout experience), then assistant managers (store operations), then store managers (performance analytics), then HQ (multi-store optimization). Each layer up requires data aggregation from the layer below. The AI analytics launch targets store-level decisions (pricing, promotions, inventory) using transaction data from POS—this expands buyer persona from IT/Operations to Finance/Merchandising. B2B founders should map their product expansion as a vertical climb through the org chart, where each new buyer persona requires accumulated data from the previous user tier.   // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role.  Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM  

The journey from aerospace engineering at NASA to serial entrepreneur isn't a well-trodden path but it's one that's worked for Adam Markowitz. In this episode of The SaaS Revolution Show, Alex Theuma talks with the Drata Co-founder and CEO about the journey from NASA, to edtech, to Drata and how lessons at each stage led him to the next. From finding product-market fit and executing at speed, to building a culture of trust and timing the market just right, Adam shares the learnings behind Drata's rapid rise from $0-100M ARR in four years. Listen to learn: - How NASA inspired Adam's founder mindset and approach to problem-solving - The “lightning in a bottle” moment that catapulted Drata's product-market fit - How strategy, execution, and timing team became Drata's competitive advantage - Why a partner-led GTM strategy helped Drata scale faster - How AI is transforming compliance and customer expectations in SaaS Guest links: LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/markowitzadam/ Website - https://drata.com/       Check out the other ways SaaStock is helping SaaS founders move their business forward: 

Keye helps private equity investors accelerate deal evaluation through AI-powered quantitative analysis. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, I sat down with Rohan Parikh, Co-Founder and CEO of Keye, to explore how his team bridges the gap between AI capabilities and the 100% accuracy requirements of financial due diligence—enabling PE firms to say no to deals earlier and focus resources on the right opportunities. Topics Discussed: Why ChatGPT-style search and summarization tools fail in PE workflows—summaries don't drive investment decisions The technical challenge of achieving 100% deterministic accuracy while maintaining AI contextualization capabilities How market timing created unexpected GTM momentum: PE operating partners watching portfolio companies transform with AI became receptive to internal tooling Persona-specific cold email strategies that demonstrate workflow understanding rather than biographical personalization Design partner economics in conservative industries: accepting

Assembled is the AI customer support platform powering hundreds of modern enterprises including Stripe, Robinhood, Salesforce, and Ashley Furniture. The company's largest customer operates a 20,000-person contact center. With products spanning AI chat and voice agents that resolve 70-80% of tickets to sophisticated workforce management and forecasting systems, Assembled's core thesis challenges the industry narrative: the best support teams orchestrate humans and AI in perfect balance rather than replacing one with the other. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, we sat down with Ryan Wang, CEO and Co-Founder of Assembled, to explore the company's journey from eight months to first customer to becoming the infrastructure behind customer experiences at scale. Topics Discussed: The reality gap between AI support demos and production deployment Why sophisticated buyers now demand quality benchmarks and latency metrics over feature lists The hidden complexity in contact center work: KYC compliance, fraud review, and multi-system workflows How the Klarna "fire everyone" approach failed and what it reveals about the market Patrick and John Collison's all-company support rotations at Stripe The product-market fit question that ended six months of wrong direction Enterprise destiny baked into early product decisions Converting LinkedIn discomfort into a systematic storytelling engine Path dependence from workforce management to AI automation products Why customer support problems rhyme with operations challenges across industries GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Quality-first positioning wins when buyers move past demo amazement: Ryan observed a critical market shift. Sophisticated buyers now run rigorous bake-offs with training data variability and ask for latency metrics, quality benchmarks, and production performance data. The last three AI deals Assembled closed required detailed competitive evaluations. When messaging emphasizes cost reduction over quality improvement, you lose credibility with buyers who understand that turning off support entirely would be free—they're investing in lifetime value and loyalty creation. Position around the buyer's actual objective hierarchy: quality first, efficiency as validation. The product-market fit question that encodes your entire GTM strategy: Ryan's co-founder asked prospects "What is software that you must have or you hate your options?" This single question revealed multiple strategic insights simultaneously: you're targeting painkillers in established categories, pursuing replacement sales against weak incumbents, and entering markets with demonstrated willingness to pay. For Assembled, this naturally surfaced workforce management—a must-have category with Windows 95-era tools serving 20,000-person teams. The question's elegance is how it filters for product-market fit and GTM approach in one conversation. Access the best through respect signals, not connections: When hiring his first engineering executive at 15 people, Ryan got an introduction to a former VP of Engineering at Facebook, then explicitly signaled time respect: requested only 15 minutes, clarified he wasn't recruiting, offered availability "Saturday 8pm or anytime," and had specific questions prepared. The call happened at an odd Saturday time. The insight wasn't just learning about "Dual Lands" leadership (a Magic: The Gathering reference)—it was understanding how exceptional minds construct mental models. You can reach these people through investor networks or multi-hop introductions, but earning their time requires demonstrating you'll use it surgically. Recognize when you're not "the company" to avoid strategic errors: A top recruiting firm told Ryan "you're not Stripe, so you can't sell people like you're Stripe." At any moment, one Silicon Valley company occupies a unique position—Stripe then, OpenAI now—where normal rules don't apply. That company can eliminate product managers, remove all titles, or make unconventional demands. Understanding you're not in that position prevents catastrophic hiring missteps. Ryan had to recalibrate from Stripe-era patterns where his recruiter became Anthropic's president and his onboarding buddy became OpenAI's president. Your positioning must match your actual market gravity, not your aspirational tier. Systematize founder storytelling to compound credibility: Ryan solved founder marketing discomfort by reframing from self-promotion to being an intermediary—sharing customer stories from Armenia, banking conferences, and global contact centers rather than broadcasting opinions. The system: Friday morning sessions with prompts ("interesting things from this week," "near-death moments," "challenges from 1-10M to 10-20M ARR," "why London now?"), team filters for compelling angles, three drafts weekly, then editing. The Science of Storytelling principles apply: narratives demonstrating lived experience build more credibility than thought leadership. This creates a flywheel where audience members surface their own stories in comments and DMs, feeding future content. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role.  Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Grant Lee was told Gamma was "the worst idea ever heard" by an investor who hung up mid-Zoom—yet he built it to 100 million users and $100M ARR without spending a dollar on advertising.While competitors hired aggressively, Grant's team of seven refused to grow, dedicating 25% of their tiny team to design and personally onboarding every influencer themselves. They reveal how ignoring AI for their first two years, then orchestrating multiple models in ways the frontier labs can't replicate, let them steal the presentation market from Microsoft and Google—going from 60,000 signups in eight months to 50,000 per day. Resources:Follow Grant on X: https://x.com/thisisgrantleeFollow Sarah on X: https://x.com/sarahdingwangFollow Olivia on X: https://x.com/omooretweets Stay Updated: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends!Find a16z on X: https://x.com/a16zFind a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16zListen to the a16z Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYXListen to the a16z Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenbergPlease note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Stay Updated:Find a16z on XFind a16z on LinkedInListen to the a16z Podcast on SpotifyListen to the a16z Podcast on Apple PodcastsFollow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Voltiris has developed spectroscopy-based solar panels that filter light for greenhouse crops while generating renewable energy. Unlike traditional opaque panels that cause 60-80% yield reduction in high-tech greenhouses, Voltiris's technology harvests only the light wavelengths unused by photosynthesis. In this episode, we sat down with Nicolas Weber, Co-Founder and CEO of Voltiris, to explore how a former BCG consultant and a PhD spectroscopist are navigating multi-season validation cycles with family-owned greenhouse operations across Northern Europe. Topics Discussed: Why spectroscopy expertise unlocked a solution to greenhouse energy challenges The technical reality: traditional solar creates 60-80% yield loss in high-tech greenhouses Earning credibility with second and third-generation greenhouse operators Time as constrained resource: multi-season validation in agriculture markets System-level thinking required to manage complex greenhouse operations Offline GTM in conservative B2B agriculture: fairs, referrals, and crop advisors Platform strategy: expanding from solar to complete greenhouse energy management GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Time constraints differ fundamentally in hardware: Voltiris faces season-dependent validation cycles where "you can throw as much cash as you want on a tomato, it's going to take one year to demonstrate that it works." Most growers demand 2-3 full growing seasons before adoption. Hardware founders must structure runway, investor expectations, and partnership terms around immovable biological or physical timelines—not software-style iteration speeds. Product-market fit exists before product in infrastructure plays: Voltiris confirmed demand preemptively. Nicolas explains: "If the technological promise holds, there is demand...the growers, they already told us from the beginning we're waiting for solution like this to come." When selling infrastructure that solves existential problems (energy transition, electrification mandates), validate market pull before achieving technical proof. This inverts typical startup sequencing but derisks decades of R&D investment. Treat early customers as co-creation partners, not transactions: Voltiris positions initial deployments as "joint creation" rather than sales. Nicolas's pitch: "This is the future vision. Are you ready to build it with us and do you want to jump into that shit with us?" In markets with 25-30 year product lifecycles and 3-year company track records, transactional selling fails. Structure partnerships with shared risk, transparent data access, and collaborative problem-solving. Master domain expertise at operator level, not executive level: Voltiris's technical co-founders became greenhouse operations experts, not just energy technology experts. Nicolas credits this: "My two co founders are now among the best experts you have in terms of how to run a greenhouse." In complex B2B environments (agriculture, manufacturing, logistics), founders must understand day-to-day operations—not just C-suite pain points—to build credible solutions. Use direct feedback environments to compress learning cycles: Dutch growers provided unfiltered assessment within minutes. Nicolas values this: "If what you're building is not good, you would know directly within five, 10 minutes...they would say, not worth my time, please, the door is here." Seek brutally honest customer segments that accelerate validation, even if acquisition is harder. Fast negative feedback prevents wasted development cycles on wrong assumptions. //   Sponsors:  Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role.  Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM  

In this episode, we sit down with Fabian Veit, CEO of Make.com, to talk about what it really takes to scale not just one but two hyperscale SaaS companies - first in a classic enterprise sales-led motion, and now in a PLG + AI/automation world. Fabian shares how Make has 15x'd revenue and grown from ~50 to nearly 400 people, while racing past 100k+ paying customers and aiming for €100M+ ARR, and why that requires a fundamentally different mindset than selling multi-million euro deals into the Fortune 2000. He contrasts the “one deal can make your quarter” reality of enterprise sales with the high-volume, product-first, self-serve motion of Make, where thousands of users sign up every month and the product has to carry the weight. We also dig into what it means to build in the middle of the AI & agentic wave when your platform is literally how people wire AI into their business processes. Fabian explains why most AI projects are actually 80–90% integrations & automation, where AI is the smart layer inside the flow, not the whole show, and how Make is evolving from classic “if-this-then-that” workflows into visual AI agents that power real operations. You'll hear Fabian talk about: PLG vs Sales-Led: What changed when he went from 9–12 month, high-touch enterprise cycles at Celonis to Make's “sign up free, upgrade yourself” engine. Rebuilding While Scaling: Why everything is always breaking in hypergrowth, and how he decides what to fix for 5× future scale, not just today. Brand & Positioning Pivots: The risky shift from Integromat to Make.com, losing SEO in the short term to win a much bigger global brand in the long term. Culture at Hyperspeed: How they keep their values intact with hundreds of new hires through explicit values & operating principles, and a brutal honesty policy inspired by Radical Candor. The AMA Channel: An internal Ask Me Anything Slack channel where anyone can ask leadership anything (even anonymously), and why Fabian believes answering every question publicly is non-negotiable for trust. We wrap up with Fabian's view on where we are in the AI hype cycle, why he compares this moment more to the industrial revolution than just another tech fad, and what kinds of human skills will matter even more in an AI-driven world.

Nightfall AI is pioneering AI-native data loss prevention (DLP) for enterprises navigating cloud, SaaS, and AI application proliferation. Founded in 2017 by former Uber engineers who witnessed data breaches firsthand, Nightfall addresses the architectural limitations and false positive problems plaguing legacy DLP solutions. By leveraging machine learning and large language models across three distinct layers—content classification, risk assessment, and forensic investigation—Nightfall delivers 10x accuracy improvements while enabling secure AI adoption. In this episode of Category Visionaries, I sat down with Rohan Sathe, Co-Founder & CEO of Nightfall AI, to explore their strategy for displacing entrenched incumbents and positioning as the security enabler for organizational AI deployment. Topics Discussed: Nightfall's founding thesis addressing DLP coverage gaps created by cloud and SaaS migration Three-layer AI architecture: content classification, behavioral risk analysis, and agent-assisted forensics Positioning against legacy DLP's rules-based approaches and exact data match workarounds Market education shift post-ChatGPT: from "don't use AI" to "enable AI securely" Purple brand differentiation strategy in security's dark-themed visual landscape Conference ROI reallocation: executive suite meetings versus booth presence at RSA and Black Hat Mid-market to enterprise expansion pattern through peer-to-peer word-of-mouth Founder-led LinkedIn strategy balancing market education with competitive displacement narratives Sales team composition: domain practitioners versus traditional sales profiles GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Structure POVs to prove quantifiable superiority on one dimension: Rohan revealed Nightfall benchmarks against Google and Microsoft DLP APIs, demonstrating 10x accuracy improvements during proof-of-value cycles. When challenging mature categories, identify the single metric where you demonstrably outperform and architect evaluations to surface that gap. The key isn't claiming superiority—it's creating controlled comparisons where buyers verify it themselves. Deploy AI across three workflow layers, not as a monolithic feature: Nightfall applies AI distinctly at content classification (identifying sensitive data with high precision), behavioral analysis (distinguishing risky data movement from standard workflows), and investigation assistance (helping analysts focus forensic efforts). This creates compounding value and defensibility. Map where AI can reduce friction at multiple decision points in your customer's workflow rather than treating it as a single capability. Replace field marketing spend with curated CISO access: Nightfall redirected budget from RSA and Black Hat booths to private suites hosting scheduled executive meetings. Rohan emphasized engaging "chief information security officers who sign the checks" in intimate settings rather than booth traffic. For enterprise sales, calculate cost-per-meeting with economic buyers and reallocate spend accordingly. Design 8-person dinners as vendor-neutral industry forums: Nightfall hosts 3-4 annual dinners with 5-7 prospects and 2-3 team members (founders, head of product) structured around industry developments—like OpenAI's agent workflow builder and security implications—not product pitches. The format positions Nightfall as thought leaders while qualifying prospects through discussion quality. Agenda topics, not sales decks, drive conversion. Hire former practitioners into quota-carrying roles: Rohan identified hiring former DLP security operations analysts as account executives or solutions architects, mirroring trends in legal tech (hiring lawyers) and HR tech (hiring recruiters). For technical categories with sophisticated buyers, domain fluency in customer-facing roles outweighs traditional sales experience. This isn't solutions engineering—it's putting practitioners in quota-carrying positions. Use LinkedIn for two narratives: market education and competitive wins: Rohan posts thought leadership on DLP evolution and AI security implications alongside selective announcements of competitive displacements at enterprise AI companies and top 10 banks. He noted role postings also drive engagement, signaling growth momentum. The pattern: educate on category gaps, prove you're winning deals in those gaps, show team expansion. Avoid pure product promotion. Leverage AI adoption mandates as your demand generation engine: Post-ChatGPT, Rohan noted "board mandate and CEO mandate from every company to use as much AI as you can" created new security requirements. Nightfall shifted positioning from "prevent data loss" to "enable AI adoption securely." When macro shifts create executive-level mandates in your category, realign messaging around enabling that mandate rather than preventing its risks. Challenge category conventions through education, not assertion: Rather than simply claiming exact data match (EDM) is obsolete, Nightfall explains EDM emerged as a workaround for rules-based approaches' false positive problems—and ML eliminates the need for workarounds entirely. When displacing established practices, reveal why current solutions exist (what problem they patch) before explaining why your approach eliminates the underlying issue. //  Sponsors:  Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

BlueRock is building an agentic security fabric to protect organizations deploying AI agents and MCP workflows. With a $25 Million Series A, founder Bob Tinker is tackling what he sees as a 10x larger opportunity than mobile's enterprise disruption. Bob previously scaled MobileIron from zero to $150 million in five years and took it public in 2014. In this episode of Category Visionaries, Bob shares the strategic mistakes that cost MobileIron its category positioning, why go-to-market fit is the missing framework between PMF and scale, and how B2B marketing has fundamentally transformed in just 18 months. Topics Discussed: Taking a company public: the killer marketing event versus the unexpected team psychology challenges of daily stock volatility Why agentic AI workflows create unprecedented security challenges at the action and data layer, not just prompts The strategic timing of category definition: MobileIron's cautionary tale of letting Gartner define you as "MDM" when customers bought for security Where enterprise buyers actually get advice now that Gartner's influence has diminished AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) replacing SEO as the primary discovery mechanism for B2B solutions Why 1.0 categories have fundamentally unclear ICPs versus 2.0/3.0 products with crisp buyer personas The "high urgency, low friction" framework for prioritizing what to build in nascent markets Go-to-market fit: the repeatable growth recipe that unlocks scaling post-PMF Unlearning as competitive advantage for second-time founders GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Time your category noun definition strategically: MobileIron focused exclusively on solving the problem (the verb) but waited too long to influence category nomenclature. Gartner labeled it "Mobile Device Management" when customer purchase drivers were security-focused, not management. This misalignment constrained positioning for years with no way to correct it. The framework: lead with verb, but proactively shape the noun before external analysts do it for you. Bob's doing this differently at BlueRock by distinguishing "agentic action security" from "prompt security" early, even while the broader market sorts out AI security taxonomy. Use customer language as category discovery, not invention: Bob's breakthrough on BlueRock positioning came from asking prospects: "How would you describe what we do to your peers?" One prospect distinguished their focus on "the action side - taking AI and taking action on data and tools" versus prompt inspection and AI firewalls. This customer-generated framing revealed the natural fault lines in how practitioners think about the problem space. The tactical application: run this exact question with your first 10-15 qualified prospects and pattern-match their language, rather than workshopping category names internally. Engineer for the "high urgency, low friction" intersection: Bob's filtering criteria for BlueRock's roadmap requires both dimensions simultaneously. When a prospect revealed they were building their own MCP security tools - a signal of acute, unmet pain - they also asked BlueRock to add prompt security features. Bob's framework forced a "no" despite clear demand because it would violate low friction. The discipline: if a feature request fails either test (not urgent enough OR too much friction), it doesn't make the cut, even when prospects explicitly ask for it. Accept ICP ambiguity as a feature, not bug, of 1.0 markets: In 2.0/3.0 categories, you can target "VP of Detection & Response" with precision. In 1.0 markets like agentic security, Bob finds buyers across three distinct orgs: agentic development teams building secure-by-default systems, product security teams inside engineering (not under the CISO), and traditional security organizations. His thesis: this lack of crisp ICP definition is actually a reliable signal you're in a genuinely new market. The response: invest in community engagement across all three buyer types rather than forcing premature segmentation. Shift content strategy from SEO to AEO immediately: Bob identifies the clock speed of marketing change as "breathtaking" - what worked 18 months ago is obsolete. The specific shift: ranking above the fold in Google search is now irrelevant. What matters is appearing in the answer box that ChatGPT or Google Gemini surfaces above traditional results. This isn't incremental SEO optimization - it requires fundamentally restructuring content to feed LLM context windows and answer engines rather than keyword-optimizing for traditional search crawlers. Treat go-to-market fit as a distinct inflection point: Bob observed a consistent pattern across MobileIron, Box (Aaron Levie), Citrix (Mark Templeton), Palo Alto Networks (Mark McLaughlin), and SendGrid (Sameer Dholakia) - all hit PMF, hired salespeople aggressively, burned cash, and stalled growth while boards grew frustrated. The missing concept: PMF proves you can create value; GTM fit proves you can capture it repeatedly. It's the "repeatable growth recipe to find and win customers over and over again." The tactical implication: after PMF, resist pressure to scale headcount and instead obsess over making your first 3-5 sales cycles systematically repeatable before hiring your second AE. Build community as primary discovery in fragmented buyer markets: Bob's most different GTM motion versus five years ago: "We're just out talking to prospects and customers - individual reach outs, hitting people up on LinkedIn, posting in discussion boards, engaging with the community." This isn't supplemental to demand gen; it's replaced traditional top-of-funnel. When prospects exist across multiple personas without clear titles, community presence in Reddit, Stack Overflow, and LinkedIn becomes the only scalable discovery mechanism. The benchmark: successful new tech companies have built communities of early users before they've built repeatable sales motions. Practice systematic unlearning as second-time founder discipline: Bob's most personal insight: "What really got in my way wasn't what I needed to learn. It was what I needed to unlearn." The specific application: he's questioning his entire MobileIron marketing playbook because "blindly applying that eight-year-old playbook to marketing or sales will end in tears." His framework: periodic gut checks asking "What assumptions am I making? How should I think about this differently?" rather than letting inertia drive execution. The meta-lesson: success creates muscle memory that becomes liability without deliberate examination. Second-time founders should actively audit which reflexes to preserve versus discard. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role.  Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Harish spent 9 months building Deliver and could barely get 10 customers. The product worked. Merchants liked the fast delivery promise. But nobody was signing up.Then he made two changes—and scaled to $100M in revenue in 2 years. Shopify acquired them for over $2B.Harish says it wasn't about finding product-market fit. It was about finding product-PRICE-market fit. The product was fine. The pricing model was killing them. This episode breaks down why pricing often isn't just a business decision—it's part of your product, how to build self-serve systems that scale to thousands of customers without talking to anyone, and why you must obsess about end users AND economic buyers if you actually want adoption.Harish is now building Augment, an AI company for logistics that just raised an $85M Series A. He shares what he learned shadow-sitting operators for 60 days and why demos mean nothing in the AI era.Why You Should Listen:Why PMF is often not enough—you need  product-price-market fitWhy subtle changes can have huge resultsWhy you need both users AND buyers to love your productHow to master self-serve Keywords:startup podcast, startup podcast for founders, product market fit, pricing strategy, $2B exit, Shopify acquisition, product-price fit, logistics startup, self-serve systems, Amazon fulfillment00:00:00 Intro00:07:06 Starting Deliver in 201700:14:24 Struggling with only 10 customers after 9 months00:19:53 The two changes that changed everything00:23:43 Zero to $100M in 2 years and product-price-market fit00:29:32 How the $2B+ Shopify acquisition happened00:32:07 Starting Augment AI for logistics00:47:35 PMF moments and top advice Send me a message to let me know what you think!

tiun is building auth and payment infrastructure that consolidates two traditional categories into one streamlined solution. By combining social login with instant payment functionality, tiun eliminates the standard account creation and credit card entry flow, reducing user onboarding to a two-click process. Operating as merchant of record, tiun serves online entertainment businesses, content creators, news publishers, and SaaS platforms. The company currently reaches 10 million users monthly through customer website placements and is growing transactions 15-20% month-over-month. In this episode of Category Visionaries, Sandro Zweig shares how tiun evolved from targeting news publishers to building a broader entertainment ecosystem, the challenges of creating a market for a combined category, and the data-driven approach to proving ROI before scaling. Topics Discussed: Evolution from news publisher focus to entertainment and SaaS ecosystem strategy Consolidating auth and payment infrastructure into a single category Case study metrics: 20% uplift in paying users with under 1% subscription cannibalization The 2.5x lead generation improvement versus traditional subscription models Building market-specific ecosystems as a B2B2C go-to-market strategy DACH penetration strategy before US expansion Achieving organic exposure through customer website placement Reducing integration complexity to drive adoption in an emerging category GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Geographic density creates B2B2C flywheels: tiun's go-to-market prioritizes ecosystem density within a single market over broad geographic distribution. Users discover tiun on one platform, then encounter it across 3-4 additional properties in their consumption pattern, creating recognition and repeat usage. This required penetrating DACH (100 million people, single language, unified regulations) before considering US expansion. For B2B2C products where end-user familiarity drives business adoption, concentrate on saturating one market until the consumer-side network effect reduces enterprise sales friction. Validate with 6-12 month pilot data before scaling: tiun ran contained pilots with 3-4 customers for a full year before pursuing their long-tail market. This produced case studies showing 20% paying user uplift and under 1% cannibalization—metrics that directly addressed the primary objection (subscription revenue risk). Sandro notes this extended validation period became essential because "there is no market for it yet. We're creating the market." When creating a new category, resist scaling pressure until you have multi-month data that quantifies business outcomes and neutralizes the biggest adoption barriers. Strategic revenue trade-offs accelerate ecosystem development: tiun deliberately adjusted pricing to "pay out more to our businesses to grow a bit faster"—prioritizing transaction volume and ecosystem density over near-term take rate. This economics decision reflected that their value proposition strengthens with ecosystem scale: users need to encounter tiun across multiple properties for the solution to deliver its full promise. When building network effects or marketplace dynamics, model whether lower monetization drives the velocity needed to reach critical mass faster than optimizing for immediate margins. Integration speed directly determines category creation velocity: Sandro identified that "if the sales cycle is too long and integration is too complicated, people won't do it. Especially since it's a product that doesn't exist and there is no market for it yet." They focused on reducing implementation to 2-3 weeks, recognizing that asking companies to replace existing auth and payment infrastructure requires minimal switching costs. For emerging categories where customers must displace incumbent solutions, integration complexity often determines adoption more than feature superiority. Build investor relationships 12+ months before raises: Sandro emphasizes starting fundraising conversations well before needing capital: "If you decide, oh, I need to fundraise right now, then you will automatically get into a cash crunch. Because by the time you have established all the relationships, it just takes such a long time that you run out of money where it really hurts your negotiation power." Treat investor relationship development as continuous rather than transactional—similar to enterprise pipeline development where deals close from relationships built quarters earlier. //   Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role.  Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM  

Implentio automates workflows between e-commerce merchants and their third-party logistics providers, starting with invoice reconciliation. The platform tackles a problem every scaled e-commerce brand faces: thousands of rows of billing data in CSVs paired with six-figure invoices that nobody has time to validate. In this episode of Category Visionaries, I sat down with Jason Bang, Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder of Implentio, to explore how two decades running operations—from analyst to COO—led him to build what operations teams have never had: tools as sophisticated as what marketing has been using for years. Topics Discussed: The margin erosion hidden in 3PL invoicing and why operations teams can't afford to audit complex billing  Founder-led growth in tight-knit industry networks where everyone goes to the same trade shows  Partnership GTM with fractional CFOs, software providers, and 3PLs themselves  Building a personal brand as an anti-social-media operations leader  Why operations teams are creative problem solvers trapped in spreadsheets  The roadmap toward AI-powered operational intelligence that eliminates manual data work GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Industry networks unlock faster GTM than traditional outbound: Implentio's first customers came from Jason's 20-year operations network—direct texts to brand founders, warm intros to ops teams, relationships from the same trade shows and conferences. His approach eliminated typical B2B sales cycles by going straight to decision makers who already trusted him. For founders with deep industry tenure, exhausting warm networks before building cold outbound infrastructure delivers conversion velocity and cycle time advantages that justify founder time investment despite limited scale. Partner with companies who own your ICP's budget allocation: Implentio partnered with fractional CFOs who control purchasing decisions and immediately understand ROI. Jason explained their appeal: "They see the numbers, they understand the numbers. So I show them an ROI and they're like, boom, no brainer." The framework: identify which third parties influence or control budget decisions in your category, then build rev-share referral programs. Mapping your buyer's external advisors and service providers can shortcut enterprise sales cycles. Turn industry incumbents into distribution partners by solving their client problems: Despite addressing 3PL billing issues, Implentio positioned 3PLs as partners rather than adversaries. Jason's philosophy: "I'm not a 3PL adversary. I actually love 3PLs. I think they serve an important need." Implentio offers 3PLs a value-add service for their merchant clients while gaining direct customer access. The framework works when you solve what incumbents are contractually responsible for but operationally struggle to deliver, without competing for their core revenue. Pre-qualify partnership ROI using your own customer economics: Implentio learned that partner enthusiasm doesn't correlate with lead quality. Jason's example: "That $50 million brand might have $1,000 AOV. And so the number of transactions and shipments they're doing, there's just not enough there for there to be a good ROI on our solution." Implentio now evaluates partner customer lists against specific transaction volume thresholds before investing in relationships. Document minimum viable customer criteria and require partners to verify their portfolio meets those thresholds to prevent pipeline pollution. Subject matter expertise scales through teaching, not content production: Jason built Implentio's founder brand despite having no Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok, using one principle: "Knowledge is only good if you transfer it and you pass it on." He prioritizes teaching operations concepts over polished content, measuring success by whether someone learns something valuable regardless of conversion. His insight: "If I can teach somebody something, that's a win for me. Even if they don't sign up for my platform." Sophisticated buyers assess expertise through insight depth, not posting frequency. Wedge entry with acute universal pain, then expand horizontally: Jason's long-term vision is "COO in a box"—comprehensive operational intelligence spanning supply chain, fulfillment, and customer service. But Implentio launched with 3PL invoice reconciliation because every scaled e-commerce brand outsources fulfillment and struggles with billing validation. The wedge criteria: universal problem (every target customer has it), acute pain (directly impacts margin), and immediate ROI (quantifiable savings exceed platform cost). Once embedded in the finance workflow, Implentio can expand into adjacent operational data problems without re-selling the value of centralized ops intelligence. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

The dental industry is chronically supply-constrained: 97% of dentists report staffing as their primary volume limiter, 95% cite extreme recruiting difficulty, yet 75% of hygienists prioritize schedule flexibility above all else. This structural mismatch created the opportunity for Toothio—a labor marketplace connecting dental professionals seeking flexible work with practices facing critical staffing shortages. In this episode, we sat down with Ian Prendergast, Co-Founder and CEO of Toothio, to unpack how he applied labor marketplace principles from hospitality and light industrial verticals to dental, why DSO enterprise customers emerged as the true ICP only after launch, and how being an industry outsider enabled business model innovation that insiders missed. Topics Discussed: How a single golf course conversation with a dentist exposed the 97% staffing crisis and validated the market opportunity Translating labor marketplace GTM from Qwick (hospitality staffing) and Steady Install (light industrial) into dental The supply-demand structural imbalance: dental growing 10.5% CAGR, 40% workforce departure in 2020, insufficient pipeline Supply-first marketplace development and why quality/reliability required deep supply pools before demand acquisition The ICP evolution from private practices (faster sales cycles, lower risk validation) to DSO enterprise (higher volume, stickier retention) Building credibility as outsider founders through strategic SME hires, advisors, and embedding in industry associations The enterprise motion: hiring CCO and SVP Sales with dental Rolodexs to access top-10 DSO decision-makers Quantifying previously unmeasured costs: 100%+ recruiting cost increases, industry-leading turnover rates, $1,560+ daily production loss per unstaffed hygienist Leveraging AI agentic systems to eliminate geographic marketplace constraints for national expansion The moat-building roadmap: layering SaaS and RCM software over the distribution channel to increase switching costs GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Supply depth before demand scale prevents unit economics collapse: Ian's experience across three labor marketplaces reinforced one principle: excess supply is recoverable, excess demand is catastrophic. With too much demand and insufficient supply, you're "spending a bunch of money to acquire these demand users, but you're not able to fulfill the supply side. So now they're churning out at a high clip, they're going somewhere else. And now it drives up your CAC across the marketplace and reduces your lifetime value." In two-sided marketplaces, founders must resist investor pressure to show demand-side revenue before supply reliability is proven—the temporary revenue bump destroys long-term unit economics. ICP clarity requires live market data, not pre-launch assumptions: Toothio launched targeting private practices (shorter sales cycles, lower barriers, faster learning) before discovering DSOs were the actual ICP through usage cohorts showing materially higher volume and retention. Ian was explicit: "Once we got into it, we realized...the true ICP is going to be our group practices." The tactical framework: establish presence across plausible segments, instrument everything, collect 1-2 quarters of behavioral data, then redirect resources to wherever retention and expansion metrics are strongest. This data-driven ICP discovery prevents premature optimization around the wrong customer profile. Hire senior enterprise operators when you have validation plus clear TAM: Toothio broke conventional early-stage wisdom by hiring a Chief Commercial Officer and SVP Sales—roles typically considered "top-heavy"—because Ian had validated product-market fit and identified a concentrated enterprise opportunity (hundreds of DSOs). The result: "Next thing you know, we're in front of five or six of the top eight or ten DSOs in the country." The decision framework: if you have (1) proven unit economics, (2) clear product-market fit signals, and (3) an enterprise TAM with established relationship networks, senior hires with category Rolodexs can compress multi-year enterprise sales cycles into quarters. Without all three conditions, follow conventional wisdom and stay lean. Outsider economic analysis creates differentiated value propositions: Ian's non-dental background enabled him to "look at the dental office P&L and the core drivers of production with a completely neutral lens and realize that there was a lot of waste." He quantified what insiders hadn't: recruiting costs up 100%+ in five years, dental turnover among the highest of any U.S. industry, and the compounding cost of cancelled patient days (immediate production loss + 20% patient churn × $10-15K lifetime values). This economic framing repositioned Toothio from "staffing vendor" to strategic finance partner. The pattern: outsiders should weaponize their fresh perspective by conducting rigorous economic impact analysis that category incumbents haven't done, then speak to buyers in CFO language rather than operational features. Industry association involvement is enterprise distribution, not brand marketing: Ian credited local and national dental association sponsorships as "the catalyst to get us on the radar of some of the bigger orgs early" because associations created credibility signals plus network effects at scale. In relationship-driven B2B categories with strong professional associations (dental, legal, accounting, healthcare), sponsorship generates repeated exposure to concentrated decision-maker populations and warm introduction paths that cold outbound can't replicate. Founders should map the association landscape in year one, treat it as a primary distribution channel with measurable pipeline contribution, and staff it with team members who can build genuine relationships—not just write checks. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Brett Queener is Partner at Bonfire Ventures, a $1B AUM seed-stage fund writing $3-4M checks into application software companies. He was employee #70 at Salesforce.com, where he built go-to-market, launched the AppExchange, and helped scale the company from its earliest days. Previously, he worked at Siebel Systems (the fastest-growing software company of its era) and ran a B2B startup (SmartRecruiters) from pre-revenue to $100M ARR. He writes about the changing software industry in real-time at his Substack. He came to SaaStr Annual + AI Summit for a deep dive on AI and Product. This episode explores the evolution of application software, the increasing pace of product innovation, and the new challenges and opportunities faced by founders. Key topics include the commoditization of tech stacks, the impact of AI on software development, and the importance of rapid product iteration. Learn how to build differentiated products that stand out in a fast-changing landscape, the critical role of onboarding in customer success, and why staying nimble is more essential than ever. Whether you're an entrepreneur or an investor, this discussion offers valuable insights for thriving in today's tech-driven market. --------------------- This episode is Sponsored in part by Salesforce: Connect data, automate busywork and empower teams like nobody's business with the one platform that grows with you, every step of the way. Learn how Salesforce works for Startups at salesforce.com/smb. --------------------- This episode is Sponsored in part by Intercom: Fin is the #1 AI Agent for resolving complex queries like refunds, transaction disputes, and technical troubleshooting—all with speed and reliability. See how Fin can deliver the highest resolution rates and highest-quality customer experience at fin.ai/saastr. --------------------- If you're serious about B2B and AI, you need to be in London this December. SaaStr AI London is bringing together more than 2,000 leaders and founders for two days of practical advice on scaling into the new year. We'll have speakers flying in from OpenAI, Wiz, Clay, Intercom, and all your favorite SaaS companies, including yours truly with Harry Stebbings for a live 20VC podcast. It'll be fun, and it's all in the heart of London. Don't miss out: get your tickets with my exclusive discount by going to podcast.saastrlondon.com --------------------- Hey everybody, the biggest B2B + AI event of the year will be back - SaaStr AI in the SF Bay Area, aka the SaaStr Annual, will be back in May 2026. With 68% VP-level and above, 36% CEOs and founders and a growing 25% AI-first professional, this is the very best of the best S-tier attendees and decision makers that come to SaaStr each year. But here's the reality, folks: the longer you wait, the higher ticket prices can get. Early bird tickets are available now, but once they're gone, you'll pay hundreds more so don't wait. Lock in your spot today by going to podcast.saastrannual.com to get my exclusive discount SaaStr AI SF 2026. We'll see you there.