Podcasts about market fit

Most startups bolt AI onto old products.  ⁨@ravennahq⁩  reimagined the entire workflow.  When we first met Kevin Coleman and Taylor Halliday, it was clear they weren't just chasing the hype cycle. They were pairing AI-native architecture with deep founder-market fit, and rebuilding how internal ops work — from first principles. Their new company, Ravenna, is going after a $160B+ market dominated by legacy players. But instead of being intimidated by incumbents, they got focused, making some smart moves that more early-stage teams should consider: 1) Speak with 30+ customers before writing a line of code 2) Define a clear ICP and pain points 3) Build natively for Slack — where support actually happens 4) Prioritize automation, iteration, and real workflow transformation 5) Stayed radically transparent with investors and early customers At Madrona, we love backing teams that combine ambition with discipline — and Kevin and Taylor are doing just that. In this episode of Founded & Funded, they sit down with Madrona Managing Director Tim Porter and talk through their journey, what they'd do differently the second time around, and how they're building a durable, agentic platform for internal support. If you're a founder building in AI, SaaS, or ops — this conversation is full of lessons worth hearing. Transcript: https://bit.ly/4ju2Cml Chapters:  (00:00) Introduction (00:23) Meet the Founders: Taylor Halliday and Kevin Coleman (02:05) The Birth of Ravenna: Identifying the Problem (03:05) The Concept of Enterprise Service Management (04:02) The Journey from Idea to Execution (04:31) Customer Insights and Market Fit (06:42) Building a Next-Generation Platform (10:43) Slack Integration and AI Automation (14:37) Partnering with Slack: A Strategic Move (17:13) Leveraging Slack for Knowledge Management (20:13) Balancing Focus and Vision (21:07) Discovering ITSM: A Hidden Market (21:40) Expanding Beyond IT: The Universal Help Desk (24:30) ServiceNow and the AI Revolution (27:03) Building a Transparent and Collaborative Culture (29:37) Recruiting Top AI Talent (31:59) Navigating Market Realities and Customer Focus (37:59) Advice for Aspiring Founders

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Pocket CastsIn This Episode:* What is a Solid State Transformer * How Solid State Transformers are Reshaping the Energy Industry* How They Built a $1bn PipelineSponsors:Goodwin: The Law Firm of Choice for ClimateTech EntrepreneursErthTech Talent: Affordable CleanTech Search FirmWhat's up, everyone!Today, we have a great episode with Haroon Inam & Michael Wood III from DG Matrix. We're talking about a simple technology that can fundamentally reshape the energy industry by transforming electricity more efficiently and with way less physical space than what's been done traditionally.Take an EV charger, for example. You need to get the exact electricity flow right. Usually, that would take a few parking spaces' worth of transformers. With DG Matrix, you can do it with a simple power stand smaller than your refrigerator.This is still the case even if you've got solar, batteries, or other distributed resources all mixed in together. They can handle all the streams of electricity in and out.It's clear the industry is loving this too. They have over $1bn of pipeline to date.We got Haroon and Michael, so it's a great episode._____Want to access all our content? Upgrade to paid today. Act fast! Annual subscriptions increase to $100 on May 1st (currently $80)._____TopicsFree Version:**03:21 The Journey to DG Matrix**05:51 Understanding Solid State Transformers**09:11 Market Position and Economic Impact**10:00 Goodwin AD**12:06 Solid State Transformer Advantages**13:26 Company AD**17:14 Building a Strong Advisory Network**18:51 Call to Action**21:10 Overcoming Challenges in Clean Tech**24:54 The Future of DG Matrix and Market Fit**26:29 Building from the Ground Up**27:51 Transforming Energy Markets**30:55 Streamlining Manufacturing and Supply ChainLinks* Haroon Inam, Michael Wood III | DG Matrix* Connect with Somil on LinkedIn | Connect with Silas on LinkedIn* Follow CleanTechies on LinkedInThis podcast is NOT investment advice. Do your homework and due diligence before investing in anything discussed on this podcast.Support the showEvery ClimateTech Entrepreneur needs a reliable partner for their legal needs. Why settle for less than the best?

Aidan joined this week's Unsupervised Learning for a wide-ranging conversation on model architectures, enterprise adoption, and what's breaking in the foundation model stack. If you're building or investing in AI infrastructure, Aidan is worth listening to. He co-authored the original Transformer paper, leads one of the most advanced model labs outside of the hyperscalers, and is now building for real-world enterprise deployment with Cohere's agent platform, North. Cohere serves thousands of customers across sectors like finance, telco, and healthcare — and they've made a name for themselves by staying model-agnostic, privacy-forward, and deeply international (with major bets in Japan and Korea) (0:00) Intro(0:32) Enterprise AI(3:23) Custom Integrations and Future of AI Agents(4:33) Enterprise Use Cases for Gen AI(7:02) The Importance of Reasoning in AI Models(10:38) Custom Models and Synthetic Data(17:48) Cohere's Approach to AI Applications(23:24) Future Use Cases and Market Fit(27:11) Building a Unified Automation Platform(27:34) Strategic Decisions in the AI Journey(29:19) International Partnerships and Language Models(31:05) Future of Foundation Models(32:27) AI in Specialized Domains(34:40) Challenges in Data Integration(35:06) Emerging Foundation Model Companies(35:31) Technological Frontiers and Architectures(37:29) Scaling Hypothesis and Model Capabilities(42:26) AI Research Culture and Team Building(44:39) Future of AI and Societal Impact(48:31) Addressing AI Risks With your co-hosts:  @jacobeffron  - Partner at Redpoint, Former PM Flatiron Health  @patrickachase  - Partner at Redpoint, Former ML Engineer LinkedIn  @ericabrescia  - Former COO Github, Founder Bitnami (acq'd by VMWare)  @jordan_segall  - Partner at Redpoint

We had to record this unusual episode. In what feels like a single day, a year's worth of drama has unfolded in software.It almost seems like John Oliver would talk about it. But since he's busy, we decided to do an episode for him on 11x and the chaos that's emerging.(00:00) - Introduction (02:03) - Deel, Rippling and the spy (05:35) - 11x (08:13) - TechCrunch acquired (09:33) - Fake Customers Controversy (13:54) - Insane Churn Rates (19:38) - Investor lawsuit? nope (23:11) - Employees. Not happy. (29:23) - Product Performance and Market Fit (34:25) - Future Prospects and Challenges SourcesTechcrunch on 11xHasan's post on XAI SDR testNever miss a new episode, join our newsletter on revenueformula.substack.com

After transforming her love for vintage clothing and 1970s surf culture into the globally recognized brand Aviator Nation, Paige Mycoskie has become a symbol of passion-driven entrepreneurship. In this episode of The Greatness Machine, Paige shares the story of building a brand that not only celebrates creativity but also fosters a culture of community and adventure. Paige delves into the importance of staying authentic in a fast-paced world, the value of stepping away from technology to spark inspiration, and the lessons she's learned from her journey as a leader. In this episode, Darius and Paige will discuss: (00:00) Introduction and Guest Background (02:4) Paige's Origin Story and Early Influences (06:03) The Birth of Aviator Nation (09:00) Initial Success and Market Fit (11:59) Scaling the Business and Production Challenges (15:05) Leadership Journey and Team Dynamics (26:54) Embracing Challenges and Team Growth (28:48) Advice for Young Entrepreneurs (30:58) The Creative Process and Authenticity (37:04) Maintaining Company Culture During Growth (42:45) Finding Your Ikigai (45:43) Sibling Success: Learning from Each Other Paige Mycoskie is the founder of Aviator Nation, a 70's-inspired, Made-in-America lifestyle brand with 17 U.S. retail locations and a factory in Los Angeles. Recognized as GQ Magazine's Designer of the Year and a Forbes-featured entrepreneur, Paige combines fashion, music, and philanthropy through partnerships with festivals like SXSW and nonprofits like Charity Water. From hand-sewing her first garments to creating immersive retail experiences, Paige continues to champion American manufacturing and inspire a new era of design and entrepreneurship. Sponsored by: Indeed: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at Indeed.com/DARIUS. Shopify: Sign up for a $1/month trial period at shopify.com/darius. Stash: Don't let your savings sit around - make it work harder for you. Go to get.stash.com/GREATNESS to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures. Rocket Money: Cancel unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster at RocketMoney.com/Darius.  Connect with Paige: Website: https://www.aviatornation.com/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aviatornation/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paigemycoskie/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paige-mycoskie-17a9b56  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paigemycoskie/  Connect with Darius: Website: https://therealdarius.com/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dariusmirshahzadeh/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imthedarius/ YouTube: https://therealdarius.com/youtube Book: The Core Value Equation https://www.amazon.com/Core-Value-Equation-Framework-Limitless/dp/1544506708 Write a review for The Greatness Machine using this link: https://ratethispodcast.com/spreadinggreatness.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the AI based discussion of my article, What About Problem Market Fit?  This is one of the better discussions I've seen from this tool.  They have some interesting examples and analogies.  Enjoy! Here is the original post:  https://partnersinexcellenceblog.com/what-about-problem-market-fit/

Listen now on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.***Tim Schumacher, General Partner at World Fund, joins the podcast to share insights on building Europe's largest climate-tech VC and what it takes to back companies that even climate deniers would buy from.In our conversation, we explore:* World Fund's investment and fundraising strategy* Assessing startups with the climate performance potential (CPP) * Climate-tech that can sell to climate deniers * The founding of Ecosia* … and more!***TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Introduction01:22 Tim's Journey from Software to Climate Tech 06:18 Ecosia: A Climate-Friendly Search Engine 14:57 World Fund's Investment Strategy 20:11 The Importance of CO2 Reduction 26:03 Assessing Climate Performance Potential (CPP) 31:12 Defining the Ideal Founder 33:42 Global Applicability and Market Fit 37:32 Due Diligence in Climate Tech Investments 40:51 Selling to Climate Deniers 43:55 Future Outlook for Climate Tech 48:05 Rapid-Fire Questions 54:52 Closing Thoughts and Final Words***FRAMEWORKS* Climate Performance Potential (CPP) - A methodology developed by World Fund to assess how much carbon a technology can save over time.STARTUPS* Ecosia – A search engine that uses ad revenue to plant trees.* Planet A – chocolate alternative made from oats and precision fermentation.* Anaphite – Developing new battery production methods for electric vehicles.* Aedifion – AI-powered energy optimization for buildingsFUNDS* European Investment Fund (EIF): A major LP in World Fund.* World Fund – Europe's largest climate-tech VC.* Better Ventures – An impact-focused angel investment group.* Energy Impact Partners (EIP) – A later-stage climate-tech fund.***GUEST▶️ Tim Schumacher - https://www.linkedin.com/in/timschumacher/

In this episode, we speak to Diane Wiredu, a messaging expert and the founder of messaging consultancy Lion Words. She's been helping SaaS companies for a decade to achieve 'message-market fit. So they can cut through the noise, market more effectively, and sell more. We speak to Diane about Message-Market fit, what it is, why it is important, and how to achieve it! We particularly discuss her take on the process of developing the right message representing your business, and the unique value it provides to customers. Some of the questions we discuss in this episode are: What is Message-Market fit? Why is it important? Why do so many companies fail with this - common red flags? What are the 5 process steps to achieve a good Message-Market fit? How do you balance internal vs external factors when defining the right messaging? How do you launch the new messaging, from inception to publishing it externally? These are some of the questions we address with Diane, tune in if you also want to learn more about how to achieve Message-Market fit.

In this episode of Tech Sales Insights, Randy Seidl is joined by Dave Greenberger, VP and Head of North America at CHEQ, to discuss the intricacies of building effective go-to-market strategies for new product launches. Sponsored by Titan X, the episode delves into outbound sales effectiveness, customer engagement, and the role of culture in sales execution. Dave shares insights on leveraging sales ops, identifying product-market fit, and the importance of continuous learning and adaptation in sales. The episode also highlights tools like Gong and ZoomInfo that are instrumental in their sales processes. Together, Randy and Dave provide valuable lessons from Dave's extensive experience in tech sales and startup environmentsKEY TAKEAWAYSImportance of Hard Work and Culture: Emphasis on a culture of constant learning, adaptation, and hard work for successful product launches and enterprise sales.Sales Ops and Technology: Vital role of sales operations and leveraging technologies like Gong and ZoomInfo for better sales performance and forecasting.Channel Partnerships: Strong partnerships and utilizing channels are crucial, especially when selling to large enterprises.Customer Focus: Ensuring customer satisfaction and iterating based on feedback is essential for achieving product-market fit.Complacency in Sales: The importance of avoiding complacency and continuously striving for improvement and additional insights within sales processes.Coaching and Training: Leveraging tools like Gong for coaching and training is pivotal, using structured programs and methodologies.Mentorship: Value of having mentors and learning from experienced professionals in the field.Goal Setting: Implementing structured goal-setting frameworks for personal and professional growth can drive sustained success.QUOTES"The thing that separates the good from the great is just continuing to go that little extra mile.""You need a whole machine and sales ops and a set of analysts that are throwing data in your face, testing every intuition you have.""When you can go at the high range and people still spark their interest, that's when you know you start to got something."Find out more about Dave Greenberger through the link/s below:https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidgreenberger/This episode is sponsored by Sandler. Sandler is a world leader in innovative sales, leadership, and management training. For more than 50 years, Sandler has taught its distinctive, non-traditional selling system and highly effective sales training methodology, which has helped salespeople and sales managers take charge of the process.

This this lesson, you're going to learn the sales world's newest and most powerful concept: "Negative impact/market fit." Just as with "product/market fit," you can find a repeatable set of negative impact questions that predictably resonate with your target buyers. When you master this skill, you will see results in your bank account in 30 days or less. If you want to take the full course on Mastering Negative Impact so you can accelerate urgency and close more deals, head over to www.pclub.io and sign up as an individual. From there, you'll have instant access to this course and can start growing your income and bank account immediately. Enjoy!

saas.unbound is a podcast for and about founders who are working on scaling inspiring products that people love, brought to you by https://saas.group/, a serial acquirer of B2B SaaS companies. In episode #38, Anna Nadeina talks with Fynn, Co-founder & CEO of Schematic, a solution that allows businesses to quickly integrate pricing and packaging into their application with a few lines of code. ----------Episode's Chapters-------------- 00:00 Introduction to SaaS and Pricing Strategies 07:21 The Inception of Schematic and Its Purpose 14:54 Target Audience and Sales Strategy 18:38 Pricing Strategies and Market Fit 26:54 Lessons from Previous Ventures and Future Outlook Fynn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/fynn-glover-b0410015/ Schematic - https://schematichq.com/ Subscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish twice a week - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-group Stay up to date: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_group LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796

In this episode, Sowmya Prabhakar, COO of Takshashila Institution, is in conversation with Bhumika Modh from The Association of People with Disability (APD, India). They talk about the recent developments in the accessibility space. Using the framework of society, markets & government - they dwell on what it takes to make accessibility a reality for PwDs in India. All Things Policy is a daily podcast on public policy brought to you by the Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru. The Takshashila Institution has designed the 'Technopolitik: A Technology Geopolitics Survey' to understand and assess what people think about how India should navigate high-tech geopolitics. Please take this 5-minute survey at the following link: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/technopolitik_survey⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Find out more on our research and other work here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://takshashila.org.in/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out our public policy courses here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://school.takshashila.org.in⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Wie wichtig ist eigentlich der Message Market Fit bei Softwareunternehmen? Darüber sprechen wir heute mit Julia von Awork.

Ever wish employee benefits could go beyond the usual offerings and tackle real-life stressors? Join us as we chat with John Cooper, co-founder of Overalls, a company that's transforming how we think about workplace support by addressing everyday challenges like insurance hassles and caregiving needs. Discover how John's personal experiences led to the creation of this innovative service and how Overalls has achieved a remarkable product-market fit by engaging with employers to fill a crucial gap. With a seamless integration into the workplace and an easy-to-use platform, Overalls is here to offer relief from the chronic stressors we all face, aiming to improve both employee well-being and productivity. In our conversation, we also unravel the unpredictable journey of entrepreneurship with John, sharing insights on emotional resilience and risk management in the face of unforeseen events like pandemics and financial crashes. We challenge the perceived safety of corporate roles versus startups, and reflect on the agency and unpredictability inherent in both paths. As Overalls scales and educates the market, learn about the role of thought leadership and the exciting integration of technology that keeps people at the heart of problem-solving. This episode is a testament to the dynamic nature of building a startup while staying committed to solving real issues with innovative solutions. Timestamps 00:00:00 - Introduction 00:00:30 - Introducing Eric Malka: From Undocumented Immigrant to Entrepreneur 00:02:00 - Early Entrepreneurial Ventures: Private Label Surfwear in the Caribbean 00:03:15 - Moving to Miami and Transitioning to New Ventures 00:04:45 - Founding The Art of Shaving: Inspiration and Vision 00:06:20 - Building a Brand in Men's Grooming: Challenges and Breakthroughs 00:08:00 - The Impact of New York Times Coverage on Business Growth 00:09:30 - Strategic Pivoting: From Retail to Wholesale and Back 00:11:00 - Founding Strategic Brand Investments: Vision and Purpose 00:12:30 - Reflecting on Entrepreneurial Lessons and Failures 00:14:00 - Importance of Mentorship and Tools for Modern Entrepreneurs 00:15:30 - Recognizing and Developing Talent: The Role of Eric's Wife 00:17:00 - Strategic Brand Investments: Focus on Luxury, Beauty, Grooming, and Wellness 00:18:30 - The Fulfillment of Mentoring Aspiring Entrepreneurs 00:20:00 - Legacy Goals: Promoting Natural Living and Entrepreneurial Support 00:21:30 - How to Connect with Eric Malka and Strategic Brand Investments 00:22:00 - Conclusion and Closing Remarks   Go to @getoveralls. To find out more about what they do and how they can help you.  Legacy Podcast: For more information about the Legacy Podcast and its co-hosts, visit businesslegacypodcast.com. Leave a Review: If you enjoyed the episode, leave a review and rating on your preferred podcast platform. For more information: Visit businesslegacypodcast.com to access the shownotes and additional resources on the episode.

Connor Turland (@Entrecurious) is the prototypical software entrepreneur. He found a niche from a "prior life" and is now building an AI bookkeeping SaaS.Now, many founders struggle with bookkeeping, so this is your opportunity to learn more about the pitfalls and opportunities of that field from someone who speaks both "developer" and "bookkeeper."Here's Connor and how he is employing cutting-edge AI in an industry that is usually very resistant to change.Learn more about Connor at https://connorturland.com/You'll find Ceedar at https://ceedar.ai/This episode is sponsored by Paddle.com — if you're looking for a payment platform that works for you so you can focus on what matters, check them out.The blog post: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/connor-turland-pioneering-the-future-of-bookkeeping-with-ceedar-ai/The podcast episode: https://tbf.fm/episodes/359-connor-turlandCheck out Podscan to get alerts when you're mentioned on podcasts: https://podscan.fmSend me a voicemail on Podline: https://podline.fm/arvidYou'll find my weekly article on my blog: https://thebootstrappedfounder.comPodcast: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/podcastNewsletter: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/newsletterMy book Zero to Sold: https://zerotosold.com/My book The Embedded Entrepreneur: https://embeddedentrepreneur.com/My course Find Your Following: https://findyourfollowing.comHere are a few tools I use. Using my affiliate links will support my work at no additional cost to you.- Notion (which I use to organize, write, coordinate, and archive my podcast + newsletter): https://affiliate.notion.so/465mv1536drx- Riverside.fm (that's what I recorded this episode with): https://riverside.fm/?via=arvid- TweetHunter (for speedy scheduling and writing Tweets): http://tweethunter.io/?via=arvid- HypeFury (for massive Twitter analytics and scheduling): https://hypefury.com/?via=arvid60- AudioPen (for taking voice notes and getting amazing summaries): https://audiopen.ai/?aff=PXErZ- Descript (for word-based video editing, subtitles, and clips): https://www.descript.com/?lmref=3cf39Q- ConvertKit (for email lists, newsletters, even finding sponsors): https://convertkit.com?lmref=bN9CZw

Michelle Razavi cofounded Elavi to bring low- sugar, high- protein brownies and dessert spreads to the market. Find out how one of the biggest production mishaps turned into marketing gold, and how to keep sales momentum alive.For more on Elavi and show notes click here.  

Upside/Downside is a podcast about value creation and the strategies finance and business leaders can use to grow profits and cash flow.  I'm your host, Matt Cooley. In our third episode about starting myAgeTechlab.com, produced by my teenage son and co-founder Liam, we delve into how we expect to find product and market fit.  Not easy in a new and fragmented business like AgeTech!  What do customers really want? Why should suppliers care about us?  Can we generate cash flow?Join us!Thank you for listening and please tell your friends about Upside/Downside - a podcast about value creation.If your organization needs customized assistance, I may be able to help. All revenues after taxes earned from consulting engagements are donated to registered charities working on challenges in the United States. See my host page for more details.

What is message-market fit, and what are the essential strategies for B2B SaaS success? In this episode of the Grow Your B2B SaaS Podcast, host Joran Hofman sits down with Diane Wiredu, a messaging expert and founder @ Lion Words, to dive into the concept of message-market fit. She emphasizes the importance of crafting messages that resonate with prospects and succinctly articulate the value and uniqueness of a product. Diane argues that achieving message-market fit is crucial for B2B SaaS companies, as it ensures that growth doesn't stall and makes marketing more effective. Key Timestamps (0:38) - Welcome and Guest Introduction (1:09) - Topic Introduction: Message Market Fit (1:17) - Defining Message Market Fit (2:04) - Evolving Nature of Message Market Fit (3:15) - Difference Between Message Market Fit and Product Market Fit (4:16) - Common Mistakes in Messaging (5:41) - Importance of Customer-Centric Messaging (6:50) - Translating Product Features into Customer Benefits (8:04) - The Jobs to Be Done Framework (9:35) - Messaging Bloat: Too Many Messages (10:40) - Finding the One Key Message (OKM) (11:50) - Example of Effective Messaging: Superhuman (12:13) - Sponsorship Break: Expandee (12:29) - Steps to Achieve Message Market Fit (13:37) - Evaluating Existing Messaging (14:45) - Research and Discovery Phase (16:54) - Synthesizing Findings and Identifying Opportunities (17:13) - Building Messaging Blocks and Value Proposition (18:42) - Conducting Customer Interviews (19:58) - Importance of Follow-up Questions (20:11) - Additional Frameworks for Messaging (21:29) - Developing a Value Proposition (22:26) - Examples of Good Messaging Practices (24:22) - Messaging's Role in SaaS Growth and Retention (27:10) - Messaging and Churn Reduction (29:24) - Importance of Repelling Bad Fit Clients (30:35) - Challenges in Redoing Messaging (31:48) - Building an Internal Feedback Loop (32:18) - Advice for Early-Stage SaaS Founders (34:25) - Transitioning to Growth: 1M to 10M ARR (36:07) - Summary of Key Takeaways

Support a New Startup! - Founder Market Fit Found - #FSBBC1 is GO

Description: Stephan Herrmann, Co-founder & CEO of Reverion, and Sebastian Heitmann, Co-Founder and Partner at Extantia Capital—an investor in deep decarbonization technologies—joined Nick for a live discussion in New York City to explore breakthroughs in Reverion's biogas energy technologies and discuss the state of energy and climate tech in general across the world. Reverion is redefining biogas, enabling up to 5x revenue additions for biogas plant operators by converting excess renewable energy into green gas, all while enhancing grid stability.In this episode, the trio discusses the following:Biogas Tech Evolution: Biogas has evolved beyond traditional combustion engines, with Reverion integrating fuel cells and electrolysis to maximize efficiencies. Reverion's tech enables biogas plants to operate when renewable power is scarce and then flip on a dime to produce green methane when there's an excess of renewable power, transforming downtime into additional revenue and benefits for other stakeholders from the plant to the grid.The Role of Biogas in a Decentralized Grid: As power grids shift to include more intermittent sources like wind and solar, biogas offers dispatchable energy that can balance grid demands. Stephan and Sebastian explain the unique benefits of Reverion's solution and how it can help meet the needs of modern, dynamic energy systems.Market Fit and Commercialization: Stephan shares his journey from PhD research to piloting the first plants and securing customer interest across Europe and beyond. Reverion is now poised to expand across markets, including the U.S., where biogas remains an underutilized resource.Diverse Climate Impact and Benefits: Reverion's systems offer not just power but pure CO₂ streams for carbon capture and utilization. This positions it as part of the bioenergy ecosystem alongside solutions like biogas carbon capture and storage (BECCS). Versatility is a crucial strategy for business building or climate outcomes, like reducing carbon dioxide and methane emissions and producing dispatchable clean energy for a resilient power grid.Broader Climate Tech Landscape: Nick and the guests wrap up with a discussion on geothermal, carbon capture, geological hydrogen, and much more, including the macroeconomic environment and the outlook for energy and climate tech solutions.Listen in for insights on balancing innovation, energy demands, a changing world, and expanding climate solutions globally.Timestamps:00:02:07 - Live Podcast from Climate Week NYC00:03:07 - Guest Introductions00:04:14 - Stephan's Journey to Reverian00:07:35 - Extantia Capital00:10:12 - Technical Overview of Fuel Cells00:13:41 - Market Applications of Fuel Cells00:16:59 - Summary of Energy Grid Transition00:20:10 - Introduction to Biogas00:24:20 - Importance of Methane Emissions00:25:50 - Reversion's Commercialization Journey00:28:00 - Technical Components of Reverian's System00:33:35 - Hydrogen and Methane Production00:36:39 - Series A Fundraising00:39:44 - Audience Q&A: Logistics and Transportation00:45:08 - Audience Q&A: Ideal Customer Locations00:46:26 - Audience Q&A: Efficiency Comparison00:48:18 - Audience Q&A: Green Ammonia ProductionLearn more about Reverion here: https://reverion.com/…and Extantia Capital here: https://extantia.com/If you love listening to The Keep Cool Show, please leave me a 5-star review on Rate My Podcast:

saas.unbound is a podcast for and about founders who are working on scaling inspiring products that people love, brought to you by https://saas.group/, a serial acquirer of B2B SaaS companies. In episode #14, Anna Nadeina talks with Robin, founder of ManyRequests, a client portal software for agencies. ----------Episode's Chapters------------ 00:00 - Introduction to Robin and ManyRequests 03:09 - Robin's Entrepreneurial Journey 05:52 - Transitioning from Agency to SaaS 12:02 - The Role of Investment and Mentorship 14:58 - Building a Customer-Centric Product 19:54 - Marketing Strategies and Customer Acquisition 26:07 - Navigating Challenges and Growth 34:07 - Reflections on Wins and Failures 36:49 - Final Thoughts and Hacks for Success Robin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinvanderheyden/ ManyRequests - https://www.manyrequests.com/ Subscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish twice a week - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-group Stay up to date: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_group LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796

In a rapidly evolving job market shaped by post-pandemic shifts, AI advancements, and the rise of remote work, competition for good jobs is fiercer than ever. Standing out and strategically positioning yourself is no longer optional – it's essential.For over 25 years, Phil Terry has been helping people build exceptional companies and careers. As the founder and CEO of Collaborative Gain, a consultancy that fosters knowledge-sharing among senior executives, Phil leverages his experience coaching leaders at top firms to guide individuals in navigating today's complex job market. His approach centers on applying product management principles to build intentional, sustainable career paths. Topics Include:- Applying product management to job searching- The importance of candidate market fit- How to conduct a listening tour for feedback- Building a support network with job search councils- Emotional challenges of the job search process- Strategies for negotiating job offers- Understanding psychological safety in job hunting- Avoiding "rebound jobs" and finding the right role- Phil's experiences coaching senior executives at Google and Amazon- The impact of gratitude and vulnerability on the job search - And other topics...Phil Terry is the founder and CEO of Collaborative Gain, a consultancy that helps senior executives share knowledge and solve challenges in a collaborative, cross-company environment. With over two decades of experience in coaching leaders at top companies like Google and Amazon, Phil is a pioneer in customer experience and product management. His latest book, Never Search Alone, applies his expertise in product management to career development, encouraging job seekers to approach their careers strategically, as if they were marketing a product.Resources Mentioned:Never Search Alone by Phil Terry: https://www.amazon.com/Never-Search-Alone-Seekers-Playbook/dp/B0B9Q9YDQ5Customers Included by Phil Terry: https://www.amazon.com/Customers-Included-Transform-Products-Companies/dp/0979368111 Connect with Phyl:LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/phylterry/Website: phyl.orgWork with Dart:Dart is the CEO and co-founder of the work design firm 11fold. Build work that makes employees feel alive, connected to their work, and focused on what's most important to the business. Book a call at 11fold.com.

The Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) is the governing body for tennis in the UK, known for its innovative, forward-thinking approach to making tennis accessible to all. A key strategy in achieving this is through leveraging digital platforms to engage fans and tennis enthusiasts.In this episode, we spoke with Chris Pollard, Managing Director of Commercial & Operations at the LTA, who has been with the organisation for over five years. Chris, a passionate sports enthusiast, shared insights from his diverse roles in innovation, digital, and commercial, including his insights on the evolution of the industry since the London 2012 Olympics and to the recently concluded Paris 2024 Games Tune in to learn more about:The challenges facing global tennis governanceHow digital solutions can break down organisational silosThe LTA's digital maturity and future directionKey takeaways for the sports industryWe hope you enjoy this episode!  If you had a good time listening, please support us by:Subscribing – it just takes a click!Giving us a 5-star rating on your listening platform to help us spread the word.Finally, if you want to learn more about what we do at LaSource, check out our website and/or LinkedIn page: [https://www.lasource.io](https://www.lasource.io) and [our LinkedIn page](https://www.linkedin.com/company/joinlasource/).LeCorner is a podcast dedicated to sports and digital. Every two weeks, we have the pleasure of hosting a prominent guest in the sports industry to discuss digital innovation and strategic development.Hosted by Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

John Gusiff on brand experience.

GTM Disrupted host Mike Smart meets with Barrett King, Sr. Director of Revenue at New Breed, an Elite HubSpot partner. In his role Barrett leverages his previous 9 years of successful partner leadership roles at HubSpot. Barrett shares his insights on the power of partnerships in driving business growth. He explains how the best partnerships in the SaaS space can go beyond immediate revenue generation delivering the key ingredients for long term growth and hyperscale. King also highlights the impact of investing in partnerships, advising that the level and type of investment is linked to the company's go-to-market maturity as opposed to a company's size. Key learnings from this podcast include:  Leveraging Partner Market Fit  Partners as Customer Experts  Shift Toward Intent-Focused Marketing Barrett's Bio: Barrett King is the Sr. Director of Revenue at New Breed, an Elite HubSpot Solutions partner agency. Passionate about partnerships, innovative Go-To-Market strategies and high-performing teams, Barrett has more than 15 years of first-hand experience driving exceptional results for organizations of all sizes. A HubSpot veteran and six-time HubSpot President's Club recipient who's laser-focused on growth for both his team and the business he's in, Barrett is an accomplished leader, featured speaker, and podcast host for ‘Outcomes,' where he interviews industry leaders across the Go-To-Market space. With his diverse background, Barrett brings a uniquely fresh perspective to the GTM practice. To Learn more about Barrett to go https://www.linkedin.com/in/barrettjking

Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech's most innovative B2B founders. In today's episode, we're speaking with Siddharth Sridharan, CEO & Co-Founder of Spendflo, a SaaS spend management platform that has raised $15.4 Million in funding. Here are the most interesting points from our conversation: Spendflo's Unique Offering: Spendflo not only provides SaaS procurement automation but also acts as a virtual procurement team that guarantees savings by negotiating and managing software renewals. SaaS + Service Layer Model: Sid believes the future of SaaS will likely include a service layer for specific segments like mid-market customers, but it won't be universal across all verticals. Market Fit and Customer Profile: Sid emphasizes the importance of understanding your ideal customer profile (ICP) deeply and tailoring offerings to fit their specific needs and stages of their growth. The Pandemic Opportunity: Spendflo's founding during the pandemic was advantageous as SaaS spending surged, allowing the company to identify and capitalize on a widespread problem faced by CFOs. Event Marketing Strategy: After initial cold outbound struggles, Sid highlights the importance of in-person event marketing combined with account-based marketing for mid-market engagement, including creative approaches like hosting pickleball events. Fundraising Lessons: Sid attributes fundraising success to a combination of early traction, a strong team, and a clear vision, supported by participating in programs like Accel Atoms that structure the fundraising journey.   //   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

In this episode, Kevin chats with Rani Al Hajji, a seasoned expert in consumer goods and marketing, about the importance of staying focused on the end user. Rani shares insights from his career at L'Oreal and Colgate, emphasizing the importance of understanding consumer needs and maintaining a balance between product obsession and customer feedback. He also discusses his transition to advising startups, helping them define and articulate their value propositions. The conversation touches on the art and science of innovation, the significance of diverse perspectives, and practical steps for founders and product managers to stay customer-obsessed in their development process. Resources: Rani Al Hajji on LinkedIn Kevin Gentry on LinkedIn Timeline: 00:32 The Importance of Customer Focus 02:52 Rani Al Hajji's Background & Experience 05:35 Challenges & Insights in Startups 08:58 Balancing Innovation & Customer Feedback 14:55 Corporate Innovation at L'Oreal & Colgate 25:41 Advising Startups: Value Proposition & Market Fit 42:16 Practical Advice for Founders & Product Managers Check out our website @⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠productcoffeepodcast.com⁠ ☕️

In this episode of "Women in B2B Marketing," host Jane Serra interviews Noosh Baratpour, Co-Founder and CMO of Formula. They discuss Noosh's transition from web development to marketing, her entrepreneurial journey, and the founding of Formaloo, which focuses on automation for startups. Noosh emphasizes the importance of flexibility and community engagement in entrepreneurship. She shares insights on managing a marketing team, prioritizing customer engagement, and leveraging community feedback for product development. The episode provides valuable advice for marketing professionals on adapting to industry changes and fostering a supportive community to drive growth.Noosh and Jane discuss:The founding and mission of Formaloo, focusing on automation for startups.The significance of flexibility and adaptability in marketing and entrepreneurship.Strategies for community engagement and building a supportive user environment.The role of community-driven feedback in product development.Insights on managing community dynamics and addressing user concerns.The concept of "community market fit" and its impact on product-led growth.Why marketing leaders can't be obsessed with KPIs.The importance of intrinsic motivation over incentives for community engagement.Career journey lessons, including the value of networking and volunteering.Advice for aspiring marketers on leveraging technical skills in marketing strategies.Key Links:Guest: Noosh Baratpour: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noosh-baratpour/Host: Jane Serra: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janeserra/

Welcome to Growthmates with Kate Syuma — Growth advisor, previously Head of Growth Design at Miro. I'm building Growthmates as a place to connect with inspiring leaders to help you grow yourself and your product. Here you can learn how companies like Dropbox, Adobe, Canva, Loom, and many more are building excellent products and growth culture. Get all episodes and a free playbook for Growth teams on our brand-new website — growthamtes.club, and press follow to support us on your favorite platforms. Listen now and subscribe on your favorite platforms — Apple, Spotify, or watch on YouTube (new!).In this episode, I chat with Enzo Avigo, CEO of June.so. We delve into the journey of product management and the shift from being a Product Manager at companies like Zalando and Intercom to becoming a Startup founder. Enzo shares his insights on the key differences between product management in large companies and startups, and how that experience shaped his approach to building June.so, a platform for B2B SaaS companies that provides customer analytics for product-focused teams. We discuss positioning, product-market fit, and how to align multiple aspects like brand, marketing, and product into what Enzo calls "Position Market Fit."—By the end of this episode, you'll gain insights on:- The transition from PM to Founder  - The role of design and user experience in creating a strong product position  - How to build a memorable product experience that stands out  - Practical examples of positioning, including how Enzo applies it at June.so  - Lessons learned on when to outsource brand work and when to handle it in-house—Brought to you by Command.ai — a user-focused platform offering an alternative to traditional popups or chatbots. Their AI “Copilot” answers questions, performs actions, and simplifies complex tasks. Use “Nudges” to guide users with timely, relevant messages, all within a no-code platform. Perfect for Product, Support, and Marketing teams to positively influence user behavior while respecting their needs: https://command.ai/— Self-Serve Onboarding course is coming back! Get 100€ off

In this episode, we are joined back Jack O'Holleran to unpack the potential of gas-free blockchains and why these are necessary for mass adoption. We also explore the double-edged sword of "narrative market fit" in crypto, discussing how hype can both help and hinder true innovation. The conversation then shifts to the importance of building for crypto's endgame, the challenges of building in crypto, and how macroeconomic and political factors could shape the industry's trajectory. Thanks for tuning in! - - Start your day with crypto news, analysis and data from Katherine Ross and David Canellis. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire?utm_source=podcasts Follow Jack: https://x.com/jackoholleran Follow Jason: https://twitter.com/JasonYanowitz Follow Santiago: https://twitter.com/santiagoroel Follow Empire: https://twitter.com/theempirepod Subscribe on YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/4fdhhb2j Subscribe on Apple: https://tinyurl.com/mv4frfv7 Subscribe on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/wbaypprw Get top market insights and the latest in crypto news. Subscribe to Blockworks Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/ - - Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction (00:35) Skale's Origin Story (12:52) What is Skale Building For? (18:18) Crypto's Change to Fundamentalism (24:13) Gas Free Blockchains (29:40) Ecosystem Growth (41:12) Running a Crypto Company Today - - Disclaimer: Nothing said on Empire is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Santiago, Jason, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.

On today's episode of The Goats of Growth, I have Austin Myers, VP of Revenue at Certificial. Certificial is on a mission to automate and streamline the traditionally labor-intensive COI process, bridging the gap between the insurance and business industries. With a vision of a seamless future where COIs are obsolete and insurance information flows effortlessly across systems, Austin provides deep insights into how Certificial is leading this transformation. Tune in to discover Austin's insights on: Revolutionizing COI Processes: How Certificial is automating and streamlining the COI process to save time and reduce risk for compliance managers, insurance agents, and vendors. Connecting Industries: The importance of linking the insurance industry with the business world to ensure real-time compliance and eliminate insurance risks. Financial Stewardship in Startups: The critical importance of budgeting, profitability, and proper measurement in decision-making, especially in a startup environment. Hiring for Success: The traits Certificial looks for in their revenue organization, including curiosity, initiative, ownership, and judgment. AI and Automation: How Certificial uses AI and automation to scale processes and boost efficiency across the organization. This episode is packed with insights for anyone interested in the intersection of technology, insurance, and business growth! Tune in and let us know your key takeaway. Austins Linkedin Profile Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Certificial and the COI Process. 07:00 The Role of VP of Revenue at Certificial. 11:20 Message Market Fit and Evolution. 17:22 Becoming the Category Leader in the COI Space. 20:40 Execution and Growth Strategies. 25:14 Targeting Different Layers of Customers. 29:23 Leveraging Customer Advocacy for Growth. 29:51 The Importance of Budgeting and Being Good Stewards of Money. 31:44 Prioritizing Profitability and Proper Measurement. 34:57 The Role of Experimentation in Sustainable Growth. 36:53 The Hiring Profile for the Revenue Organization. 43:33 Using AI and Automation to Scale Processes.

This week on Product Coffee, Kevin interviews Ian Cairns, CEO & Co-Founder of Freeplay, a company that helps product teams with generative AI. Ian talks about his career journey, challenges of using AI in product development, evolving product management roles, and the importance of hands-on experimentation. He also explains how Freeplay supports teams in building AI-driven products, and provides amazing advice for product managers and leaders in AI. Episode Resources: Kevin Gentry on Linkedin Ian Cairns on Linkedin Freeplay's Website Timeline: 00:00 Introduction 00:27 Meet Ian Cairns: CEO and Co-Founder of Freeplay 00:56 Ian's Journey in Product Management 17:04 The Inspiration Behind Freeplay 20:47 Challenges and Innovations in Generative AI 23:36 Exploring Dimensions of Quality in AI 23:51 Operational Workflows and Non-Engineers in AI 24:14 Understanding FreePlay's Customer Base 24:31 FreePlay's Product and Features 25:27 AI Integration Examples and Challenges 27:53 The Promise and Complexity of Multi-Step AI 28:42 Building and Learning in Generative AI 29:11 FreePlay's Approach to Product Development 29:48 The Evolution of Data Handling and AI 32:16 FreePlay's Vision for the Future 32:28 Current State and Market Fit of FreePlay 34:53 Team Dynamics and Operational Models 41:10 Homework and Plugs Check out our website @⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠productcoffeepodcast.com⁠ ☕️

Note: Be sure to listen until the very end, after the outro, for the bloopers. :-)For the 100th episode of Associations Thrive, CEO Joanna Pineda sat down with fellow association podcasters:Dave Coriale, Delcor Technology Solutions and host of Reboot ITKiki L'Italien, Association Chat and host of Association ChatBen Muscolino, Breezio and AMSGeek and host of The Association PodcastDave Will, PropFuel and host of Association StrongThey talked about:What's new about their podcasts.Association statistics and demographics.Kiki's new association podcast directory.Market fit when developing new products and how associations need to develop an entrepreneurial mindset when developing new products.The looming membership cliff.A few of their favorite episodes and the key themes of governance, reinvention and entrepreneurship that keep popping up during the podcast interviews.Their crazy predictions for the future of associations.References:DelcorReboot ITAssociation ChatAssociation Chat PodcastBreezioAMSGeekThe Association PodcastPropFuelAssociation Strong

Jason Marc Campbell shares his perspective on transforming sales through authenticity and passion. With over two million podcast downloads and a bestselling book, Jason discusses how selling with love can revolutionize your approach to business. He dives right into the challenges of traditional sales tactics, the importance of building genuine relationships, and how to create real value for your clients. Whether you're struggling with pushy sales techniques or looking to refine your strategy, this conversation offers insights that will inspire you to rethink your methods and elevate your sales game. Tune in to discover how heart-centered selling can lead to lasting success and fulfillment! Chapters: 00:00:00 - Introduction: Selling with Passion and Integrity 00:00:35 - Guest Spotlight: Meet Jason Marc Campbell 00:01:07 - Authentic Selling: Changing the Sales Game 00:02:53 - Sales Journey: Overcoming Common Challenges 00:06:23 - Building Confidence and Expertise 00:09:51 - Strategic Partnerships: Nurturing Valuable Connections 00:12:46 - Consistency and Value: Strengthening Relationships 00:18:04 - Auditing Client Journeys: Enhancing the Experience 00:24:24 - Understanding the Value Equation in Sales 00:26:08 - Evaluating Product and Market Fit 00:27:58 - Adapting to Market Changes 00:29:37 - Rebranding and Strategic Business Moves 00:33:05 - Personal Journey: Life in Bali and Spartan Races 00:36:17 - Final Thoughts: Reflections and Takeaways Connect with Jason Here: Jason's Website LinkedIn Instagram Twitter Selling with Love on Amazon Selling with Love Podcast Jason Marc Campbell on YouTube Connect with The Better Than Rich: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Get Your Free Delegation Plan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Better Than Rich ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BTR Mini-Course⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/betterthanrichshow/message

In this conversation, DJ and Matt discuss their journey of building a product, focusing on market fit and customer needs. They explore the process of identifying the target market, understanding customer pain points, and the challenges of building a product from a service-oriented perspective. The conversation also delves into the importance of reliability and the iterative nature of product development.

Host Victoria Guido welcomes Wendell Adams, CEO of PrimeLab.io, as he talks about his lifelong passion for technology and entrepreneurship. Wendell shares his experiences, from hacking electronics as a child to studying various fields in college and eventually starting his own business. He emphasizes the importance of understanding market needs and leveraging language to make technology accessible. Wendell's drive to improve encryption and data security led to the formation of PrimeLab; a company focused on making encryption functional and accessible without compromising performance. Wendell discusses PrimeLab's strategic direction and market fit. He outlines the challenges and opportunities in the entertainment industry, emphasizing the need for innovative solutions that respect user control and privacy. Wendell also shares insights into how PrimeLab's technology can democratize data access and enhance business processes. The episode concludes with a reflection on the future of AI and encryption technologies and Wendell's advice for aspiring entrepreneurs to think critically and creatively about their ventures. PrimeLab.io (https://primelab.io/) Follow PrimeLab.io on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/primelab-io/), or X (https://x.com/PrimeLab4). Follow Wendell Adams on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendell-a-83317895/). Follow thoughtbot on X (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Transcript:  AD: We're excited to announce a new workshop series for helping you get that startup idea you have out of your head and into the world. It's called Vision to Value. Over a series of 90-minute working sessions, you'll work with a thoughtbot product strategist and a handful of other founders to start testing your idea in the market and make a plan for building an MVP. Join for all seven of the weekly sessions, or pick and choose the ones that address your biggest challenge right now. Learn more and sign up at tbot.io/visionvalue.  VICTORIA: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Victoria Guido. And with us today is Wendell Adams, CEO at PrimeLab io. Wendell, thank you for joining us. WENDELL: Thanks for having me. So, question, actually, where'd you guys come up with the name? VICTORIA: You know, I have asked this before, and I think I remember the answer. I might have to go back to the 500th episode to get it, but I think it was just robots was already kind of a theme at thoughtbot. I mean, thoughtbot, obviously, has robot in the name. Joe might have the best answer. And we have our special co-host, Joe Ferris. Who better to answer? JOE: [chuckles] Yes, I'm not sure who better to answer, probably Chad. I don't remember the answer either, but happy to be here to speculate with the two of you. It comes from the blog. We named the blog Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots and then used it for our podcast. But I don't remember where the blog name came from. WENDELL: It kind of reminds me of the Robot Wars thing, like, where they would have competitors driving around the robots and then smashing into each other, trying to flip them over and disable them. JOE: That was excellent. I also watched that. WENDELL: [laughs] VICTORIA: Yeah, it's a pretty great name. I really enjoy being a host. And, you know, I go out to local San Diego events and meet people and introduce myself as a co-host of Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots. It's usually pretty funny [laughter], which is where I met you, Wendell; we met at a San Diego CTO Lunches, which was super fun. WENDELL: Yeah, I always enjoy any type of tech conversation or anything else. I thought that was a lot of fun to sit down and just talk with people and talk about what they're working on. VICTORIA: I love that, yeah. And before we dive into the tech and get to hear more about PrimeLab, I just want to start a little more socially question. What did you do last weekend, Wendell? WENDELL: It was my father-in-law's birthday party at Legoland. We took my daughters my mother-in-law, and we all went to Legoland. It was a lot of fun. Although, honestly, I prefer the San Diego Zoo over Legoland, so... VICTORIA: Can you please describe what Legoland is to people who may not know? WENDELL: Okay. Legoland is based in Carlsbad, and it's really ideal for, like, four to nine-year-olds. And they have, like, miniatures of all the different cities. Actually, the SF miniature that they have is crazy detailed with Chinatown and everything else. They did an amazing job there. They actually...I think they just redid the San Diego part of it. But the miniatures are really cool, seeing all this stuff. They have different rides performers, but it's definitely, like, one of those things that it's more for kids to go and kind of experience. If you're an adult, you're going to love a lot of the processes that go into place, like how they built things, but mostly, yeah, it's very much kid rides and stuff like that. VICTORIA: I imagined it to be, like, life-size Lego buildings, but maybe I'm...that's very interesting all those other things you could do there. WENDELL: Well, like, they have the One World Trade Center, and I think it's, like, 25 feet tall. It is, like, the replica of it. It's kind of interesting, too, because not all the Legos that they build, they're huge, are solid Legos. So, it's like, they'll do where it's like, on the outside, they'll do a base, and then they'll build it. There's a replica of a Lamborghini. That one's life-size. But it's heavy. It's, like, 2,000 pounds, something like that. VICTORIA: Is that as much as a regular Lamborghini weighs, too, 2,000 pounds? It can't be that far up. WENDELL: I don't know. No, I don't think it...no, it couldn't be. VICTORIA: I have no idea how much cars [laughs] weigh. What about you, Joe? Did you do anything fun this weekend? JOE: Not a lot. It was supposed to be my son's first soccer game ever, but it rained here in Boston, so they postponed it. Sunday he went to my parents' house for a grandma day, and so I did nothing. I ate cookies. WENDELL: [laughs] VICTORIA: Wait, what kind of cookies were they, though? JOE: They were chocolate chip cookies. VICTORIA: That's so good. JOE: They were good. They were brown butter chocolate chip cookies, I should say. VICTORIA: Were they homemade, or did you get them somewhere? JOE: They were. We made them in this home. VICTORIA: Oh, that's the best. Yeah, love that. I got some fancy cookies that someone else made, and they were also [laughs] very good. And then, yeah, I've just been having cookies pretty much every day. So, that's been my time. WENDELL: My mother-in-law recently made me peanut butter cookies, and those are my favorite kind of homemade cookies. VICTORIA: Okay. Noted. You'll get a post-podcast gift of peanut butter cookies [laughter]. I love that. It's so great to hear a little bit more about each of you as, like, in a personal way before we dive into AI. And tell me a little bit more about your background and what led you to PrimeLab. WENDELL: I've always kind of, like, been a hacker, so to speak, just from a technical standpoint. My one grandfather was an engineer. He worked for GM designing, like, assembly arms and stuff like that. And then my other grandfather was a master electrician. So, I've always been the person that, like, just worked on things, got stuff together. You know, there's a lot of stories. Like, there's the story about when I broke my grandmother's workbench, rocking bench out front, and it was all aluminum. I remember telling my grandfather, and he's like, "Oh, what are you going to do?" And I was like, "Buy a new one?" He's like, "You got money?" I said, "No." And he said, "Well, you better figure how to make it then." So, ironically, it's half aluminum, half wood. We took wood, sanded it down, and stuff. So, it's just like I've always been an entrepreneur. I've always been interested in this kind of stuff. I used to hack VCRs, and PlayStations, and all kinds of stuff. I always liked parts and components and rewiring things. And as I got older, I also really liked math and all those things. And I wanted to understand more about how the world works, so to speak, like why it works the way it does, not just from a technology standpoint. But why do people think the way that they do? Why do things behave the certain way they do? So, initially, I started going to college. I thought I might be a math professor, and then decided to get degrees in business, economics, finance, marketing, consumer product goods, and comparative religions. So, while I was in college, I started working on, like, hacking, different video games, writing JavaScript, writing Java, all kinds of stuff. And then, eventually, even writing mobile applications early on, and then just analyzing because I always liked to build phones, too. I would take apart phones. And I really was curious about, like, how to make things faster, more efficient, and better. So, now to bring it down, like, how to make things accessible, where it benefits some of the smallest people and make it where it's a greater opportunity for someone to come out ahead of something. Like, one thing that I learned from my marketing degree is language matters. So, it's like, all the marketing it's not anything special. It's just they intentionally create language barriers that cause people not to feel as accessible with it. And then, like, you hire a consultant or something to just basically teach you about those language barriers. And I think every industry has, like, SAT, or LTM, or something like these abbreviations that mean a lot of different things. And it causes bottlenecks if you don't speak the language. So, understanding the language but also learning about how was very helpful from a standpoint on the marketing side. And I always try to figure out how do I make this accessible to people who don't understand that language? VICTORIA: And what was the turning point where you decided to start PrimeLab, and what made you realize there was a company there? WENDELL: It was a project I've been working on since at least 2011, honestly. And just as a heads up, PrimeLab as a whole works with encrypted data for AI models and to speed that up and everything else. So, early on, I was very obsessed with how advertising works through, like, stealing user data, which stealing is different, here or there, the sense of privacy, the sense of, like, how things could run, and the sense of messaging. And initially, a lot of it was using encryption as an overlay in, like, the pixel application space, which is always a way to hack or get into it. And it slows everything down. So, I had always been working on trying to figure out how do you speed up and embed security so it's actually functional? And it took a while to figure out, like, give encryption functionality, like, make the encryption something that you could actually execute on. And, actually, one of the things that really helped is the blockchain space there's a lot of, like, hash trees and everything else, like, where people are innovating in that. That's really helped innovate encryption as a whole from understanding, like, Merkle trees, hash graphs, and everything else to make it more functional and faster. Because people are trying to speed up distributed networks and stuff, but the actual technology that they built, like Hedera is...What Hedera has done with Hashgraphs and everything else—really amazing. I'm glad that they open-source stuff like that. But it's also really interesting just to see how things push forward. So, like, when I first started, like, RAM was, like, 256 in a phone. So now, you know, you can get multiple gigabytes, which makes it a lot more capable to do encryption, decryption, and work more in the functional space of things. The bigger problem that you have on the data part is how an application communicates because there's so many levels of abstraction. Like, you have the Swift language that communicates into something else that then communicates into something else. Like, right now, we're talking on a system that's recording us over the internet through a browser, all those different things. And it's an approximation of what the data is and what we sound like. It's not an absolute. So, I was really interested in when you have absolutes, and you can verify those absolutes, what can you do with that? A few years ago, I felt like we got to a point where we could actually execute those things and actually deliver on that. So, therefore, I decided to start PrimeLab with my co-founder, who I really liked and enjoyed. And we've had a lot of really great advisors, where people have helped us continuously. Over, you know, the decade-plus of working on this, I've gotten a lot of input from some of the smartest people I know, from people who have designed full server racks for AWS to literally a good friend of mine that built cloud storage. His name's on the patent for it. So, that kind of stuff has really helped me understand and build this where it can communicate the lowest possible level. VICTORIA: Yeah, and to just recap and reflect that back a little bit, it sounds like you were always interested in how to make encryption faster and lighter weight, and so you could build it in and build in security without impacting the performance of the applications. And then meeting your co-founder and the advancement of technology, this time a couple of years ago, led you to think, okay, let's really go forward with this. WENDELL: Kind of rephrasing, I was always interested in control. So, like, one of the things that really interested me...so, I started a video game store buying and selling, like, video games and trading cards and stuff when I was roughly ten and a half or so, and then sold it roughly when I was 17, which is how I paid for quite a bit of college and likewise. But the things that really interested me about that is it went out of business three to four months afterwards because the person who basically bought the rest of it bought too much of Madden. And Madden, at this time, the margins were, like, a buck, as you go all the way through, and the price drops immensely. So, I wanted to really understand why that happened. What you kind of get to is, like, they didn't have control over it, just, like, the bulk orders methodology, where they would buy the whole entire supply. And what I've seen over the years, be it Apple, Google, or anything else, is, like, that was...in that example, that's a game publisher, EA, flexing control, right? But more and more companies are flexing control on a platform like now with Facebook or advertising. If you think about what Google used to do, Google used to provide a lot more insights when you had your own website. You used to know your own keywords. You used to know a lot of things about your users who come through. More and more, Facebook and Google try to stop that. And they're really the ones determining your own user personas for you. So, you become dependent upon them. So, I wanted to say, okay, from a business standpoint, how do you implement control and privacy where it's permissioned? And encryption was one of the answers that I came to. But then it was, how do you make encryption functional then to actually execute on control? Because unless the system is secure, faster, cheaper, better, it's never going to get adopted. VICTORIA: That makes sense. Thank you for sharing that. And you mentioned your founder. I'm curious, how does your founder kind of complete what you needed to be able to get the business up and running and off the ground? WENDELL: He has a robotics degree, so he had launched several products that had failed. And he wanted to learn marketing after they had failed. So, we have a similar like mindset about, like, control and functionality for how something may or may not work, and that allowed us to communicate well. So, like, I have a lot of friends and stuff. But the thing that allows me and my co-founder to work really well is that we come from things in different angles, but we have the same language that we speak. So, like, that's what I was talking about before, like, LTMs or otherwise, like, language really matters from how you can move something forward when you're talking in different industries. And just with him, there's a lot of stuff that you don't have to say. You can skip a lot of filler and then go straight to what something might be or a solution or something. Or if we have to jump to a tech abbreviation, to a market abbreviation, to a financial abbreviation, he's one that can follow along with me really quickly and then teach me a lot of things about operational execution because he's great at operations. I am not great at operations. VICTORIA: That's really interesting. And I think you're making a good point about, like, a shared language. And it reminds me of any product that you're building; if you want to sell it to a company and you want them to adopt it, you have to consider their language, their belief system, how to influence change within the organization. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about that with your experience at PrimeLab. WENDELL: I'll give you an example of a market that we decided to go after. So, instead of just working at, like, healthcare markets where you have, like, GDPR...for people who don't know GDPR or HIPAA, HIPAA is for the United States. GDPR is the EU privacy requirements, right? For the right to be forgotten and everything else. So, these are vernaculars that you need to know. But the requirements of each one is very different, and these are markets that we've learned being in tech and likewise. But we wanted to change it up. So, I wanted to go after the entertainment market as a whole, namely because after meeting with some select people, including a stunt man, this is going back a few years ago, I started to realize that the entertainment market was getting kind of screwed over quite a bit from a tech standpoint. Basically, tech goes through this thing where...someone wrote a great article about this. It's called Enshittification. But, basically, where they go they try to take over a whole entire market, where first they're providing great value to your users. And then, gradually, you enshittify your product to provide greater value to your investors. And then, gradually, you suck all of the value out of the room for both. Right now, if you look at Sora, what OpenAI is trying to do in entertainment, [inaudible 16:08], you kind of can see that happening. They're going, "Hey, here's a great value for it." And they're really pushing that stuff off. But the thing about the entertainment market that I think is really interesting is it's basically thousands and thousands of small businesses that are constantly going, it's so chaotic. It's not like tech and startups. There's a lot of overlay of, like, you know, people are looking for that top quartile film that's going to make the money back, and then long-term royalties that they can earn off of it, right? Whereas in tech, they're looking for those huge markups as well. So, I was really fascinated by it, but it was something that, like, we had to learn. Like it was something that I didn't know otherwise. So, it was literally...how we learned it was we took our tech stuff, and we would walk SAG-AFTRA strike lines. We would walk strike lines. We would go to entertainment events, and we would demo what we were trying to do, and we would show them. And then, oftentimes, we got really negative feedback right off the bat. And we're like, "No, no, no, so, you know, this is for you. Like, you could control. Like, this is going to help you." And then, after doing that enough times, talking to the SAG-AFTRA lawyers, and everything else from there, and all of the creatives, the creatives were coming to us and giving us ideas how to explain it because there's, like, three different formats. You have tech, business, creatives in the entertainment industry. And it's like, we could talk to the tech people. We could talk to the business people. But you really need the creatives. And, like, the wording of each one, like, each group of those is vastly different. So, having the creatives be able to explain something in 90 seconds that used to take me a couple of hours to dive into became really valuable. And also, in tech, like, you have this thing where it's feature creep, where you're like, oh, I'll add this, this, and this. Just to hear very coldly and bluntly, like, "If it does X, I'm interested. If it does Y, I'm not interested." That was very interesting or refreshing of, like, "Yes, you're going to solve these problems. But I need sign-off for everything in there." And it's kind of weird in the entertainment part, too. Like, you want to solve a problem without being a competitor to another vendor because you need so many different sign-offs. And if you're a competitor to another vendor, to a certain point, maybe that's going to cause a hiccup with sign-offs because there's 18 different cooks in the kitchen, so to speak, just so many different people that need to say, "Yes," all the way through with it. VICTORIA: Thank you. Yeah, that's really interesting. I'm curious, Joe, if you have an answer for that question as well, like, any experiences about navigating change and putting new products in place at different clients, different industries? JOE: I don't think I've had the same kind of resistance. Like, I haven't been on the front lines the way you described, like, literally in the, you know, going and talking to people on strike. I think I have more indirect experience talking to the people who are doing that. And certainly, like, I think there's generally a resistance to bringing in new technology without eliminating the old way of doing things if that makes sense. Like, people want the old ways of backup. Like they want to be able to go back to paper, which I empathize with. But that's frequently been a challenge for the people I've worked with is that they don't fully embrace the new process, which significantly reduces the value they would get from using it. I don't know if that's something you've encountered with PrimeLab. WENDELL: So, we were building another company of mine many, many, many years ago. I was building a website for this lumber company, and I remember showing up, and the owner was there. But it was his son that had commissioned it, and the owner didn't know about the website. And I was like, "Oh yeah, we'll get the website going." He goes, "Oh, this web thing it's a fad. It's never going to happen. You don't need websites. It's faxes." That's how everything would happen. But secretly, what was happening is they would get an order. They would print it off, and then they would fax it. So [laughs], I always thought that was crazy. VICTORIA: I mean, one of my local bars still just writes the order on a ticket and sends it on a clothesline down to the grill. So [laughs], sometimes old is good. But I think that you know, I want to hear more about where you found or how you found a product-market fit for PrimeLab and where that AI really becomes useful and ethical in the industry you're focusing on WENDELL: How I look at PMF (product-market fit)...and if you hear me just say PMF, that's what that means. So, how I look at PMF is I'm a little different in the fact that when I look at a product, or a technology, I don't just look at, like, so you have foundational tech. Like, okay, this is encryption. This is control, right? Now, where's the market that has the biggest problems with it? So, I like to go out and actually talk to those people. Because, like, when you're implementing tech, or you're implementing the product itself, it's different. So, you're like, you have the underlying infrastructure, but whether that's a button or a simple API that you need to build so it works different to hit that PMF...are you familiar with the term build a better mousetrap? VICTORIA: I don't think so. JOE: I'm familiar, but I'd still love to hear you describe it. WENDELL: So, in business school, and likewise, they will tell you "If you build a better mousetrap, people will come, and they will buy your product." So, like, it's a common thing where they're like, "Build a better mousetrap. People will come. They'll be there." And the thing that you learn with consumer product goods and marketing, though, is they actually built a better mousetrap, and it failed. And the reason why it failed is you had a mousetrap that was roughly a cent versus another mousetrap that was three cents. And I think this is in the '60s or so. The other mousetrap was reusable, so it executed a lot better, and everything else is more humane. But what they didn't understand is that it was wives most of the time that would have to actually handle this. And they didn't want the mouse alive, and they didn't want to reuse the trap. They wanted them to actually be disposed of right away. So, by not understanding the market, even though they built a better mousetrap, they'd missed the point. Like, the main problem to solve wasn't killing the mouse or having it be reusable. The main problem to solve was, like, getting rid of the mouse. So like, if you have a solution for getting rid of the mouse, the next thing is your execution for it. Like, does it hit the actual market, which is the fit aspect? Like, every product is a little bit different where you look at, like, how does this fit in? So, in this case, fit is very important for, like, disposing of the mouse, which is why you also have, like, you know, mouse poisons are popular, even though they're terrible because they die somewhere and, hopefully, you don't see them. And it's like sight unseen, right? Now, I'm glad, like, that's changing and stuff. But it's understanding even if you have a solution to something, you need to understand what your market wants out of your solution, and it's not going to be an abstract. It's going to be an emotional, like, execution-based process. So, you kind of have to go, all right, this is my market. This is kind of my fit. But the actual product I'm building is going to change to make sure it works all the way through with this. I was advising a startup many, many years ago, and they were building this CRM software on Android for South America. And I think they were building it for Android 6 or 7 at the time. But the market that they were targeting, they all ran Android 4.1. So, they spent a little over a million dollars building for the wrong version of Android that wouldn't even work on that version of the system. Like, it was one of those things where they were required to build it for that. But they didn't understand the actual market, and they didn't spend enough time researching it. So, it's like you get the Bay Area groupthink. If they had actually spent the time to analyze that market and go, "Oh, they run, you know, an inexpensive phone. It's 4.1. It's low RAM," now you can design a product. If you want it to be a CRM, you're going to, like, chunk up the system more. Like, you're going to change all that instead of just wasting a million dollars building something that now you basically have to start over again from scratch. VICTORIA: That seems like he got off cheap, too. People make way bigger mistakes that cost way more money [laughs] because they [inaudible 24:13] WENDELL: Well, that wasn't me. That was an investor that -- VICTORIA: Oh no. I mean, yeah, not just them. Yeah. WENDELL: He's like, "What would you do?" And I was like, "You should sell this company or sell your stake ASAP because that's a really bad sign." JOE: I have found that the answer nobody ever wants when you're doing product validation or testing product fit is, "You should not build this product." The idea that the software just shouldn't be written is universally unpopular. WENDELL: Yes [laughs]. That's, you know, that's part of the reason why it took me so long to do PrimeLab is because, like, it took a long enough for the software to actually need to be written, if that makes sense. Mid-Roll Ad: When starting a new project, we understand that you want to make the right choices in technology, features, and investment but that you don't have all year to do extended research. In just a few weeks, thoughtbot's Discovery Sprints deliver a user-centered product journey, a clickable prototype or Proof of Concept, and key market insights from focused user research. We'll help you to identify the primary user flow, decide which framework should be used to bring it to life, and set a firm estimate on future development efforts. Maximize impact and minimize risk with a validated roadmap for your new product. Get started at: tbot.io/sprint. VICTORIA: What does success look like now versus six months or even five years from now? WENDELL: I take a different approach to this because I have so many friends that have sold their businesses. They raise and everything else. I look at success as instead of an exit or another large thing, like, literally, we turned down a billion-dollar term sheet offer. I didn't like the terms. I didn't like what it would do from the control standpoint of the technology. What I care about is go-to-market and, like, adoption and actually getting the tech out there in a way that has market penetration but, like, that adds value to every person's life. VICTORIA: Yeah, maybe say more about that. Like how do you see AI and this technology you have with PrimeLab benefiting people and benefiting the industry that you're working within? WENDELL: So, the current AI models are kind of weird. They're basically just filter systems because they communicate in pixel space and then go down to functional space. It's the GPU. GPUs are actually terrible to use for AI. This is why you have dedicated AI chips getting built. Hopefully, the RISC-V chipset does actually do something because that's a chipset that I think it's an open-source chipset, but you can actually especially build models on it. So, I think that we're going to see a lot more in the RISC-V chipset where it's like, this is just for one particular image, or this is just for explosions, or this is just for touching up all these different points in the actual individual, like, microcontroller module data that ends up compiling to move forward with it. But the AI models now it's like you took the internet, and you're trying to ask it a probability question, what I was talking about before, where it's not an absolute. So, it's like, if I want to do an OCR system or anything, I take an image. It's got to say, "This is..." letters; it's going to recognize that. So, there's, like, multiple models and algorithms that need to run on that whole entire process. You even have artificial data, but all of that information is an approximation. It's not an absolute. If you want absolute, you can get a lot of absolute data from the actual hardware devices themselves. You know, take a Sony camera. You could see the lighting. You could see the raw information, everything else there. But because of how expensive it is, people compress it. Like, take YouTube where it's compressed, and now you're training off of it. You're trying to compress it more and then run an algorithm so that you don't have to actually process those large, raw files all the way through. That's just a bad infrastructure for compute. You're trying to reduce, but you're also trying to utilize what you own for rights, same thing, contextual, or anything else there. There's no value in a model. Once a model is out there, it's just weights moving it back and forth. The value is in the data and the applications. So, the actual data itself that's going in. So, if you have just lava scenes, like, having all that data for lava, and I want to put it in a background, now I can do that, but more importantly, it's not about just adding it into the background. The thing that is often missed is contextually the output. So, like, say I want to do a financial report. Rather than having the data of all financial reports out there, what I want as the input is my financial data. And what I want as, like, a fine-tuning output is an example of the reports that were generated. And I don't want those reports as the input to inform the output because that's where you get a hallucination. Maybe it starts grabbing financial data from someone else. And I also think we're in store for a lot more hacks because with not just poisoning data, which we do in the functional space, if someone tries to access it. But, I mean, literally, there's the story...I think the guy was in Hong Kong, where they faked his board all the way through with it. Because you have agents acting and executing on people's behalf, you're going to have systems where people go onto the hardware and start generating fake financial numbers. And now that's going to get reported. Or you pay an invoice that you weren't supposed to pay because someone manipulated your AI agent. And a lot of the stuff that we're seeing now from Microsoft and everything else that's not really where the models will go. It's great to do it, but it's kind of like we're in the dial-up stage of AI. Like [chuckles], dial-up has its use cases and stuff, but it's nowhere near what the tech will look like in the future, and it's nowhere near how it will function. And one of the big pushbacks that you see, like, from Google, from all these different places, like, they want your attention. But at the end of the day, Google's an ad company. Facebook's an ad company. It's not in their best interest to have hyper-localized data that you control for your models and likewise. They want it in the cloud. They want it used there, where they can control that data, and they can monetize and advertise for you. But at the same time, like AI models work the best, and AI applications work the best when the data set is limited, so it can't hallucinate, and when the outputs are actually controlled to what it should be from an informed standpoint. So, where we're at this is just in the beginning stages of stuff. VICTORIA: That's really interesting. Thank you so much for sharing. I think if you could go back in time when you first started PrimeLab and give yourself some advice, what would you say? WENDELL: You know, I lived through the Great Recession. The Great Recession informed me a lot more. The things that I didn't understand this time...like the Great Recession, was market contributors doing stuff that impacted everyone with their spend and their adoption, and how those things were. But the Fed raising interest rates, which is, you know, Silicon Valley Bank failed and stuff like that, that dynamic of those startups and, like, how much startups power everything, like, I would have advised myself to pay more attention to the Fed and those market dynamics going forward. Because what changed is it's not just the Silicon Valley Bank failed it, you know, Rippling went down, for instance, which would pay therapists in Florida and all kinds of stuff. Like, it broke so many different things. It caused bottlenecks in business that we're still going through. Like, everyone's like, "Oh, we're getting back to normal." Really not. It's still, like, delayed all the way through it. The AI aspect is really getting back to normal, where people are really pushing AI. But if you look at SaaS and other industries, it really, really slowed down. And the reason why that matters is, like, in my field, production and timelines matter. So, when you have that plus, you know, the entertainment strike and everything else, you have things where the actual production of things starts slowing down immensely. Whereas AI is one of the few things that you still have innovations because that never really slowed down, same thing with the models. But all the rest of the industries and stuff have really slowed down. And understanding what that means from an operational execution standpoint...it's a good thing I have my co-founder [inaudible 32:24]. It matters quite a bit because it means your team sizes have to change, how you handle certain clients has to change. Because once those companies start downsizing or laying off people for whatever reason like, that's going to change how you're working with them, and their requirements are going to change as well. VICTORIA: And what do you see on the horizon as a challenge or a big hurdle that you face as a company or as an industry? WENDELL: You know, the entertainment market's really interesting from all the different sign-offs. The challenge is more execution of timeline. So, like, if you're doing something with, like, Nvidia and the healthcare thing, it could take years. If you're doing something in, like, the IoT space, you know, also years. If you do something in the entertainment space, it could take weeks to months, except the large studios. The larger studios, it could take a couple of years as well. But going to market, I think, is a very big challenge, not just for us but the whole entire industry. I mean, there's a reason why Sam Altman came down to LA to meet with studios, to try and get stuff moving forward. And I think one of the things that he's forgetting is like, you think of Netflix. Netflix is streaming. In order for that to work, they needed Roku, and they needed Kevin Spacey because [chuckles]...it's crazy to say that, but House of Cards is kind of what made it, right? And Hollywood was mostly boxing them out quite a bit. Same thing with Blockbuster otherwise. They had to drop a hundred million dollars, a large enough bankable star at the time that would really push something forward. And they had to basically really push Roku out there so that they had PMF across the board. What that means, though, is, like, Netflix is paying for content like crazy, right? So, this is kind of enshittification in a process. So, they're paying for content like crazy. So, now Hollywood's making money. They like it. At the studios, they don't love it when their stuff's going there because maybe it's less money, but now they start cutting the seasons short. They start cutting...it's a lot more algorithmic-driven. You have the ad systems that sort of come out. So, now, like, Netflix is not just doing ads where the customer experience is getting worse, but now, also, the business experience for those partners selling stuff is also getting worse, and all that value is getting driven to Netflix. Like, that's the tech system and Hollywood's learned that. But, like, when you're looking at the next adoption, like, they're hesitant for that. Just like a lot of stuff with AI, they're hesitant because they're thinking about all the power and control that they gave up. But you have to show how they're going to make money. You can't just cut costs, right? If you can't show how they're going to make money, you're not going to get adopted. That's kind of what I like there because so much of tech is about saving costs and being more efficient. In the entertainment industry, it's not just those two things. It's how can I make more money? And it's going to, like, ooh, you can monetize your content through training samples and stuff like that. So, our model goes exactly against what the large tech companies have where they want to take content, train on it, like the search engine does, suck the value off Sam Altman's Sora. Ours goes, all right, this is your content. Only you own this. You can take your own content, train it, and then perform this operation on it that is more efficient likewise. And if you choose to monetize it in any way, shape, or form, we can just take the functional space, not all the images and no one will ever see it, and take that functional space for training so that you can actually monetize from that as well. VICTORIA: I love that. Super interesting. Thank you so much for sharing. And do you have any questions for me or for Joe? WENDELL: I've noticed a lot of differences on, like, applications and how systems are built. So, I'm kind of curious about you guys' standpoint about applications, you know, the Apple Vision Pro. Facebook just said they'd start licensing out their AI system, or Meta, whatever. So, you have the comparisons to Android versus iOS that's happening, stuff like that. So, I'm really curious about, like, you guys' thoughts on the Vision Pro and that ecosystem. JOE: Well, I can't speak for all of thoughtbot, but I can say that, to me, it was interesting to see that get released. And it's been interesting to see how aggressively Meta and Apple have been pursuing the various VR markets. Like it reminds me of when television companies and studios worked really hard to get 3D movies to be a thing. WENDELL: [laughs]. JOE: Because I think they just ran out of things that people are asking for. Like, people were interested in getting better resolutions up to a point. Like, they wanted better packaging. But it got to a point where it was like, they didn't want to give anybody anything they were asking for. So, they were like, what if it's in 3D? And, like, for years, it seemed like Apple was really on top of seeing what people really wanted, and being able to present a very well-prepared version of that product before other companies were able to. And, personally, it's not what I saw with the Apple Vision Pro. Like, it wasn't the obvious missing space that was there when the iPhone or the iPad showed up. WENDELL: Yeah, I always go back to, like, the "Why?" question. You know, previously when...even just before we had talked, I was talking about comparative religions, and why that's so valuable is because it really teaches you...again, I've had this conversation before, but the comparative religions, if you think about religion as a tech company, they're always trying to solve why. Like, why did the sun come up? Why did this happen, right? And you always have to do that. So, apply that to technology, Google or Apple, why does this product exist? And when you get to, like, it just existed to make money, I think that's really the 3D thing. Whereas, like, why did the iPhone exist? It existed to solve this problem of being portable on the go and getting information in the way that we communicated, too. VICTORIA: Yeah. I think the Apple Vision Pro appeals to a very specific market segment and that that segment is not me [laughter]. I, actually, during COVID...after...it was, like...yeah, we're still in COVID. But during the pandemic, I moved from DC to California. And to connect with some old friends, I bought a VR headset and decided to go to virtual coffee with them. And it just makes me nauseous. And it actually affects...quite a lot of women get nauseous in VR. For some people, the look—the capability is really exciting. They have the extra money to spend on gadgets, and that's what they like. And it's very appealing, and the, like potential, is really interesting. I just find it for myself. Personally, I'm more drawn to tech that's not maybe cutting edge but solves problems for actual people. And kind of why I'm interested in PrimeLab, what you were mentioning is just how artists can use this technology to protect their creative work. To give that power back to people and that control over their content, I think, is really interesting rather than...I'm not really sure what I would do with the Apple Vision Pro [laughs]. Like, the early ones, I mean, it's cool. It's fun. I definitely enjoy it. Like, I sometimes like to learn about it, but it's not my passionate genre of tech that I normally go for. WENDELL: Going back to what you just said about, like, control, like, part of the thing is because of the hash IDs that we put into place, like, you don't need analytics. You don't need cookies or anything else, like the content holder. Basically, like, if you have a TV set or something and you want to stream content to it, you can actually see that information directly yourself. So, it takes the person generating it and the person viewing it. It forms...we call them function access keys. It forms a one-to-one relationship, basically, where you guys know if you want to know what you want to know, but then you choose to give access to the platform if you want to, which changes the dynamic of control quite a bit. And it's interesting because when you look at platforms like the Apple Vision Pro, and you look at Apple's whole entire system as a whole, just trying to lock in people, I think it's interesting because something like what I just described, Apple can't really stop. It's how compute works. So, if people want to use it, there's nothing they could do to stop it from being used. So, I'm really interested in the product stuff and just more about, like, how...and I'm curious what you guys think on this, too. Especially as you see phones and processors and everything else, I'm really interested in, like, how these things come about, like, how things are actually built and developed and the why for that, like, in the everyday use. So, like, the Apple Watch it started off as a fashion thing, which looked like a money grab, and then the why was, oh yeah, fitness. So, just curious if you guys have seen any other products out there that you're like, oh, this really resonates with me and the why. JOE: Yeah, I'm not really a gadget person, but I think the idea of taking some of the capabilities that we've gotten with the internet and with phones and making them hands-free was interesting. And that, to me, was what I think started pushing the development of products like the Apple Watch or Google Glass. Like, I think that hands-free capability, the trade-off became rewarding in the fitness field, but I think it's more generically applicable. I think that technology it's too obtrusive in other scenarios and too bad at its job to do some of the things it could do. And people got creeped out by Google Glass. But it doesn't really seem like the Vision Pro fits in there. Something being successful hands-free means it becomes less obtrusive, whereas the Vision Pro is like you become a cyborg. VICTORIA: Do you have anything else you would like to promote? WENDELL: I wouldn't say necessarily promote as much as like people with ideas or aspirations, like, I think it's important that you think counter to what everyone else is doing. There's that line of, like, when everyone else is running in one direction, run the other. And it's like, if you have a business or startup idea, really think about your market. Like, think about why you're doing what you're doing, and don't be afraid to just go out there and talk to people. You will get value no matter who you talk to. So, like, I'm a hugely tech-based person. My wife is a therapist, and I learn from her everyday things about emotional intelligence and all kinds of things that I would be an idiot otherwise. But also, learn, like, you can always learn something from someone. Like, take the time to listen to them. Take the time to actually, like, try and figure out what's one thing I can learn from someone, even if, you know, I learn stuff from my daughters even. Like, don't put things in boxes. Like, try to think outside of like, how can I ask a question to learn? VICTORIA: I love that advice. That's great. WENDELL: Have you guys used Suno before? VICTORIA: That's music, right? Music AI. WENDELL: All right, I got to show you guys this. We're going to create you a quick theme song. Like, this is what I mean by, like, it's an interesting solution for why. VICTORIA: That does sound fun. I like the ones...like my friend's a doctor, and she uses AI to take her conversation she's having with patients and automatically fill out her notes. And it saves her, like, 20 hours of documentation every week. Like, I like that kind of app. I'm like, oh, that makes a lot of sense. WENDELL: What's a style of music that you guys really like? JOE: Swedish pop VICTORIA: Like ABBA [laughs]? I'm down for an ABBA Giant Robots theme song. Sounds great. WENDELL: I think you're going to like this. [Music Playing] VICTORIA: These are awesome. They're super fun. Thank you so much. You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, you can email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on X @victori_ousg. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. See you next time.  AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at: referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions. Special Guest: Joe Ferris.

Miguel Armaza interviews Charles Moldow, General Partner at Foundation Capital, a 30-year old venture capital firm with $3+ billion in AUM. Charles joined Foundation in 2005 and over the last two decades has led early-stage investments for many companies, 14 out of which either went public or were successfully acquired. Some of his investments include Lending Club, DOMA, Rappi, Rover, and OnDeck Financial.I learn a lot every time I talk to Charles and I hope you'll enjoy this conversation as much as I did.We discuss:Why data is the new gold and a framework on how to invest in the sector. The reason why different market dynamics require different types of founders to succeed. Thinking selectively about credit-driven fintechs. Valuable portfolio and liquidity management lessons… and a lot more! Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today's global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 65,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4ZMiguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBcFintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp

MVPs are Officially Dead: Here's How to Launch and Find Market Fit in 2024 w/ Sachin Rekhi Welcome back to "Unsolicited Feedback," where Product-Market Fit (PMF) expert, Sachin Rekhi joins Fareed Mosavat to discuss the evolving thinking on Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) and their impact on achieving PMF in competitive markets. We discuss Linear, Dropbox, and Airbnb, and reflect on this post by Linear co-founder, Tuomas Artman. Check out a full summary of the takeaways and lessons at ➡️ https://www.unsolicitedfeedback.co/ 00:00 From MVP to Magical: Rethinking Product Launch Strategy 06:46 Narrowing the Market: A Key to Success 07:34 The Dropbox Story: A Lesson in Product Polish and Narrow Focus 14:00 The Importance of Craft, Taste, and Target Audience in Product Development 18:25 Linear's Approach: Strong Convictions and Narrow Focus 24:01 The Power of Closed Betas and Waitlists 27:48 Case Study: LinkedIn Sales Navigator's Journey from Zero to One 31:20 Validating Product Market Fit Before Building 36:06 Narrowing the Target Audience for Precise Market Fit 39:04 Key Takeaways on Product Development and Market Fit

After last week's announcement that IBM is acquiring HashiCorp for $6.4B, HashiCorp co-founder Armon Dadgar discussed a few behind-the-scenes elements of the acquisition and HashiCorp's full journey from the early days. Armon shares some of his biggest lessons from the journey, from fundraising to community building and more. (00:00) Intro(01:17) Explaining HashiCorp: Simplifying Cloud Infrastructure for Enterprises(03:24) Navigating the Acquisition: Emotions, Expectations, and the Future with IBM(09:01) The Founding Story: Choosing the Path of a Venture-Backed Business(10:59) Challenging Silicon Valley Wisdom: HashiCorp's Multi-Product Strategy(17:54) The Importance of Being Pragmatic: Adapting Products to Market Needs(32:27) Customer Trust and Commitment: The Foundation of HashiCorp's Success(36:27) Organizational Evolution: Adapting Structure to Strategy at HashiCorp(38:36) Exploring Product Verticals and Team Structures(39:16) The Evolution of Product Portfolio(40:46) Strategic Product Development and Market Fit(41:51) Transitioning from Product Expansion to Monetization(43:27) The Impact of Docker on Fundraising and Strategy(50:31) Navigating the Challenges of Multi-Product Strategy(55:33) The Significance of Branding and Product Naming(01:00:46) Understanding User vs. Buyer Dynamics in Open Source Monetization(01:09:17) The Founders' Journey: From University to HashiCorp(01:16:39) Navigating Leadership and Hiring Challenges(01:17:14) The Search for the Right Leadership: A Journey of Discovery(01:17:57) Realizing the Need for Specialized Roles(01:18:24) The Turning Point: Hiring Key Executives(01:19:57) Overcoming the Ego: Embracing Change for Company Success(01:21:18) The Final Decision: Bringing in New Leadership(01:22:45) Reflecting on the Hiring Process and Its Impact(01:28:27) Building a Culture of Execution and Communication(01:50:51) The Importance of Airline Loyalty for Busy Executives Executive Producer: Rashad AssirProducer: Leah ClapperMixing and editing: Justin Hrabovsky Check out Unsupervised Learning, Redpoint's AI Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCUl-s_Vp-Kkk_XVyDylNwLA 

Steve Wolfe, managing partner and co-founder of Growth Street Partners, joins Matt Watson on the Startup Hustle podcast to discuss practical fundraising for founders. They explore the challenges faced by practical founders in raising money and the drawbacks of traditional venture capital funding. They emphasize the importance of founder market fit and the advantages it brings. They also discuss the benefits of having a growth equity firm like Growth Street Partners as an investor, including the ability to provide liquidity to founders and the flexibility to scale at a pace that suits the business. The episode reveals the following insights: Founder market fit is crucial for success. Entrepreneurs with experience, expertise, and passion for solving the problems their business addresses have a competitive advantage. Traditional venture capital funding may not be suitable for practical founders. It often requires raising large amounts of money and focuses on rapid growth, which may not align with the goals and needs of practical founders. Growth equity firms like Growth Street Partners provide an alternative for practical founders. They invest in companies that have proven their product but need capital to scale. They offer a unique solution for practical founders serving medium-sized addressable markets. Having the right team, industry connections, funding and resources, a first-mover advantage, an existing customer base, and a world-class team can all contribute to a founder's success. Growth Street Partners helps practical founders navigate scaling challenges, providing guidance on hiring, sales and marketing, and strategic decision-making. So, jump in and learn about practical funding and founder-market fit!     Find Startup Hustle Everywhere: https://gigb.co/l/YEh5   This episode is sponsored by Full Scale: https://fullscale.io/   Visit the Growth Street Partners website:  https://growthstreetpartners.com    Learn more about Steve Wolfe: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-wolfe-ba5a596/  Highlighted Discussion Points Raising money for startups with a focus on practical founders and scalability. 0:31 Venture capital funding and growth strategies for startups. 4:25 Investing in startups, prioritizing financial stability. 11:30 Potential downsides of venture capital funding include loss of decision-making control and unrealistic expectations. 16:12 Startup funding, founder market fit, and the risks involved. 20:36 Investment philosophy, industry connections, and funding resources. 24:57 Key factors for startup success include team, capital, and existing customers. 29:22 Scaling challenges for B2B SaaS companies, with product, sales, and marketing insights. 36:00 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of "The Goats of Growth," I interview Jacco van der Kooij, founder of Winning by Design, about the challenges facing SaaS companies in achieving go-to-market fit. Jacco explains that the "growth at all costs" mentality has led to inefficient spending on sales and marketing, resulting in unsustainable growth. Tune in to learn how he advocates for a shift towards process-centric strategies, emphasizing the need for data-driven decisions, cost efficiency, and the unique treatment of different market segments.  Jaccos Linkedin Profile Revenue Architecture (00:01:12) Jacco's book "Revenue Architecture" and its insights into successful revenue leadership. Has SaaS lost go to market fit? (00:01:48) Discussion on a paper titled "Has SaaS lost go to market fit?" and its implications for venture-backed SaaS companies. Product market fit and go to market fit (00:02:53) Exploration of the concepts of product market fit and go to market fit, and their significance for sustainable growth. SaaS companies' go to market challenges (00:04:23) Analysis of the challenges faced by SaaS companies in maintaining go to market fit and the increasing cost of marketing and sales. Impact of cost increase on go to market fit (00:05:22) Discussion on the rising cost of acquiring revenue and its impact on go to market fit and sustainability. Automation and evolving go to market strategies (00:11:13) Insights into the potential impact of automation on certain tasks and the evolution of go to market strategies in response. The role of the CFO and CRO in go to market strategies (00:13:47) Exploration of the evolving roles of the CFO and CRO in managing go to market strategies for rapid growth companies. Scaling and efficiency in go to market motions (00:17:25) Consideration of tactics for scaling and maintaining efficiency in go to market motions for companies reaching the $200-300 million revenue level. The importance of being process-centric (00:21:01) Discussion on the shift from people-centric to process-centric organizations and the need for optimization and automation. Impact of process automation on productivity (00:22:21) Exploration of how automation and technology can increase productivity and revenue per headcount. Skills and certification for executives (00:25:54) Discussion on the necessary skills and certification for executives in the context of revenue architecture and the changing business landscape. The need for education and certification in revenue architecture (00:29:32) Exploration of the importance of education and certification for executives to understand revenue architecture and compound growth. Investment in retention and expansion for revenue growth (00:32:10) Insights into the shift from new revenue acquisition to investment in retention and expansion for revenue growth. Challenges in shifting marketing and sales alignment (00:37:43) Discussion on the challenges and time required for shifting marketing and sales alignment in organizations. Balancing short-term demands and long-term growth (00:40:04) Exploration of the paradoxical challenge of meeting short-term demands while focusing on long-term growth strategies. Server, software, and GTM (00:41:13) Discussion on the design and success rates of server, software, and go-to-market motion. Success rates of server and software (00:41:57) Explanation of the success rates of server (99%) and software (five nines). Success rate of GTM (00:42:39) Exploration of the success rate of companies in the go-to-market motion, defined as closing over a $3 million round in funding. Vision and compound growth (00:45:41) Discussion on the importance of vision and compound growth in go-to-market strategy. Changing GTM motion (00:47:44) Exploration of the evolving go-to-market motion and the need for proper architecture in sales strategies. Exploring future topics (00:48:43) Request for a future episode to delve into the seeds being planted for the next phase of go-to-market strategies.

Is your idea based on delivering value the market desires? There are easy ways to tell if your app is doing that out in the world. Is your app getting downloads? Are users logging in repeatedly & logging time on it? If those answers are YES, your app may be ready for monetization techniques. But if your app is struggling to get installs & there are more tumbleweeds than users on it... There's a mismatch between the app and the market. The question is what is really going on with your app and the user base? Utilizing data with some awareness and creativity can answer this key question for you and help move your app's numbers in line with the market's values and your startup's goals. On this episode of the Zen Business podcast, Jonathan Maxim will help you learn exactly how with some expertise from Jay Miller, a brilliant, eccentric marketer from Philadelphia with an expert marketing strategy in SEO, content tracking, analytics, and data. The pair shares knowledge on data tracking and analysis for business profitability, marketing strategies for early-stage businesses, and content strategy for social media platforms that focuses on technical solutions for conversion optimization. **** Listen to New Zen Business episodes every Monday - Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Overcast & MoreFind @itsjmaxim on Instagram where you can get free Marketing, Mindset and Money tips. If you're an investor-backed startup or a new app looking for a leg up, contact us at ⁠ @viralapplaunch on IG for performance-based marketing - where we only win when you do.

In this episode of the Product Thinking podcast, host Melissa Perri is joined by Alex Wettrelos Chief Product Officer at Sunday. Join them as they explore the challenges of rapid scaling and then descaling during the 2022 tech-crisis. They discuss how Sunday, a fintech company innovating payment methods across the hospitality industry, went from an idea on a slide deck to 450 employees with $124 million of seed funding. They also touch on the differences between product management in Europe & the US.

This Week in Startups is brought to you by… Miro. Working remotely doesn't mean you need to feel disconnected from your team. Miro is an online whiteboard that brings teams together - anytime, anywhere. Go to https://miro.com/startups to sign up for a FREE account with unlimited team members. Hubspot YouTube Network. Whether you're a marketer, a sales rep, or an entrepreneur HubSpot has you covered with its tutorials and AI-powered tools. It's all guaranteed to make your workday easier. Check out  HubSpot's AI Content Writer and start using HubSpot's tools for FREE. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmJwJF6ppCo https://clickhubspot.com/zu8 Gelt. It's time to take control over your taxes. Discover how Gelt can help you to manage and optimize both your personal and business taxes. Visit http://joingelt.com/twist now * Todays show: Screendoor's Jamie Rhode joins Jason to discuss the evolution of early-stage fund managers (3:00), effective portfolio construction (11:18), qualities of high-performing GPs (38:37), and much more! * Timestamps: (00:00) Screendoor's Jamie Rhode joins Jason (3:00) Early-stage fund managers today, spray and pray vs. concentrated bets, and importance of GP market fit (10:11) Miro - Sign up for a free account at https://miro.com/startups (11:18) Effective Portfolio construction, investing in startups that are creating new sectors, and finding the right fund managers (17:28) Why seed stage investing attracts fewer GPs than series A or B (23:08) Hubspot - Sign up for HubSpot's FREE CRM and get access to the AI Content Writer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmJwJF6ppCo https://clickhubspot.com/zu8 (24:28) Quantity of GPs to invest in and Screendoor's approach to the DEI landscape (32:22) Gelt - It's time to take control over your taxes. Visit http://joingelt.com/twist now. (33:35) Carry, Fees, and the percentage of a fund that Screendoor targets (38:37) Qualities of high-performing GPs * Check out Screendoor: https://www.screendoor.co * Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp * Follow Jamie: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerrcfa/ * Follow Jason: X: https://twitter.com/Jason LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis * Thank you to our partners: (10:11) Miro - Sign up for a free account at https://miro.com/startups (23:08) Hubspot - Sign up for HubSpot's FREE CRM and get access to the AI Content Writer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmJwJF6ppCo https://clickhubspot.com/zu8 (32:22) Gelt - It's time to take control over your taxes. Visit http://joingelt.com/twist now. * Great 2023 interviews: Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland * Check out Jason's suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis * Follow TWiST: Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups * Subscribe to the Founder University Podcast: https://www.founder.university/podcast

Join host Michael Mitchel as he welcomes back Ben Deda, CEO of Food Maven, for a revealing look at the company's four-year journey. Explore key milestones, strategic shifts, and insights into navigating challenges in the food industry. Gain valuable lessons in leadership, resilience, and adaptability while gaining optimism for the future of Denver's startup ecosystem.   Full show notes and resources: https://ocns.co/podcast/   Key highlights include: Strategic Evolution: Ben Deda outlines Food Maven's strategic shift towards a tech-centric model, reflecting on their trajectory over the past four years. Tech-Driven Solutions: The episode explores Food Maven's transition into a technology-driven provider, spotlighting the introduction of their Procurement API. Navigating Stakeholder Dynamics: The intricacies of managing stakeholders amidst uncertainty and transformation, emphasizing effective communication strategies. Market Fit and Resistance: Reflecting on industry challenges, Ben highlights strategic shifts made to align with market demands, overcoming resistance to change. Investor Relations: The importance of investor buy-in during strategic pivots and setbacks is discussed, shedding light on managing expectations. Lessons Learned: Insights gleaned from Food Maven's journey, stressing the significance of adaptability and maintaining a clear business narrative. Leadership Traits: Drawing from experience, Ben elaborates on essential leadership traits and decision-making skills crucial for navigating uncertain environments.   Timestamps 00:00:00 - Introduction 00:01:41 - Challenges Faced During the Pandemic 00:02:11 - Growth Strategies and Acquisitions 00:03:14 - Impact of COVID-19 on Fundraising Efforts 00:04:07 - Transitioning to a Tech-Centric Business Model 00:05:16 - Introduction of Food Maven's Procurement API 00:06:27 - Challenges and Opportunities in Food Procurement 00:07:32 - Transformation from Tech-Enabled to a Tech Company 00:09:15 - Managing Stakeholders and Communication Strategies 00:14:48 - Strategy evolution and go-to-market approaches 00:16:24 - Overcoming challenges in stakeholder engagement 00:17:39 - Industry resistance to change and finding the right market fit 00:18:43 - Dealing with investor expectations and buy-in 00:19:31 - Lessons learned and the importance of creating optionality 00:20:27 - Gaining wisdom and skills through experience 00:21:04 - Leadership traits and decision-making in uncertain environments 00:22:22 - Reflections on Denver Startup Week and adapting to changing community dynamics 00:25:15 - Goals and considerations for the future of Denver Startup Week 00:27:00 - Building optionality and maintaining a clear narrative in business   Thank you to ACG Denver for being a sponsor of CXO Conversations Podcast. Association for Corporate Growth in its role as the hub of the middle market business community for quality networking, education and events. Connections are made, deals are formed and thought leadership is exchanged.     Enjoy the show? Leave us a review on iTunes – thanks!   

In this episode, Scott highlights a few themes from his book “Blocking and Tackling: 60 Keys to Building a Business and Managing Your Money”

In this episode of The Brainy Business podcast, Melina Palmer explores the concept of normalcy bias and its implications for decision-making. She provides compelling examples of how normalcy bias impacts individuals and industries, emphasizing the necessity of overcoming this mindset to foster adaptability and innovation. Melina underscores the significance of seizing virtual opportunities and leveraging behavioral economics for business success, urging her audience to consider the enduring value of maintaining virtual offerings.  Additionally, she addresses the perils of normalcy bias, emphasizing the need to acknowledge and confront the tendency to underestimate potential future challenges or changes. Melina teases an upcoming episode with Cass Sunstein, where the concept of normalcy bias will be thoroughly examined, offering listeners an exciting chance to gain further insights. This segment offers valuable insights on embracing change, capitalizing on virtual prospects, and challenging conventional norms, making it essential listening for business professionals seeking to enhance their decision-making acumen. In this episode: Recognize the impact of normalcy bias on decision-making processes. Utilize virtual opportunities to leverage behavioral economics for business growth. Enhance business success by maintaining virtual offerings in the current market landscape. Implement diversification strategies to mitigate risks and optimize business resilience. Address normalcy bias to improve decision-making and strategic planning. Show Notes: 00:00:00 - Introduction Melina introduces the concept of normalcy bias and its impact on decision-making during times of crisis or change. 00:03:02 - Impact of Normalcy Bias on Decision Making Melina discusses how normalcy bias affects decision-making, leading to complacency and resistance to change, using examples from different industries. 00:09:20 - Clinging to Normalcy in Times of Change Melina explores the tendency to cling to normalcy even when change is inevitable, and how this can hinder adaptability and innovation in businesses. 00:12:48 - Impact of Normalcy Bias on Financial Industry Melina provides an example of how normalcy bias affected decision-making in the financial industry, leading to missed opportunities and potential risks for businesses. 00:15:08 - Adapting to Change and Overcoming Normalcy Bias Melina shares insights on the need to adapt to change, prepare for unforeseen circumstances, and overcome normalcy bias for long-term business sustainability. 00:16:05 - Exploring New Opportunities Melina discusses the need to look for virtual opportunities, the importance of behavioral economics for business success, and the potential for adding new product lines accessible from home. 00:16:34 - Market Fit and Future Planning Melina emphasizes the importance of aligning with market needs, maintaining future sustainability, and considering brand continuity in business decisions. 00:17:25 - Diversification and Normalcy Bias Melina highlights the significance of diversification in business and the impact of normalcy bias on decision-making and problem-solving in the face of change. 00:18:09 - Underestimating Change Melina discusses how normalcy bias leads to underestimating the impact and duration of problems, and the need to regain sensitivity to notice both positive and negative aspects of life. 00:19:25 -  Conclusion Melina's top insights from the conversation. What stuck with you while listening to the episode? What are you going to try? Come share it with Melina on social media -- you'll find her as @thebrainybiz everywhere and as Melina Palmer on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Android. If you like what you heard, please leave a review on iTunes and share what you liked about the show.  I hope you love everything recommended via The Brainy Business! Everything was independently reviewed and selected by me, Melina Palmer. So you know, as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. That means if you decide to shop from the links on this page (via Amazon or others), The Brainy Business may collect a share of sales or other compensation. Let's connect: Melina@TheBrainyBusiness.com The Brainy Business® on Facebook The Brainy Business on Twitter The Brainy Business on Instagram The Brainy Business on LinkedIn Melina on LinkedIn The Brainy Business on Youtube Learn and Support The Brainy Business: Check out and get your copies of Melina's Books.  Get the Books Mentioned on (or related to) this Episode: Look Again, Cass Sunstein and Tali Sharot Sludge, Cass Sunstein Nudge, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein Simpler, Cass Sunstein What Your Employees Need and Can't Tell You, Melina Palmer  Top Recommended Next Episode: Sludge (ep 179) Already Heard That One? Try These:  Nudge (ep 35) Optimism Bias (ep 34) Loss Aversion (ep 9) Availability Bias (ep 15) Time Discounting (ep 51) Herding (ep 19) Other Important Links:  Brainy Bites - Melina's LinkedIn Newsletter Tali Sharot Ted Talk

Join host Mosheh Poltorak in a conversation with Laurel Taylor, the visionary CEO behind Candidly, a fintech platform revolutionizing student debt solutions.  In this episode, Taylor shares Candidly's journey from its inception to serving thousands of employers, offering invaluable insights into startup growth, technology integration, and the importance of company culture. Key Takeaways: Innovative Solutions: Candidly's fintech platform offers practical solutions to the student debt crisis, saving borrowers substantial loan repayments. Importance of Company Culture: Taylor emphasizes the crucial role of creating an effective company culture in fostering growth and success. AI Integration: Learn how AI has greatly improved Candidly's operations, enhancing efficiency and effectiveness. Empathy in Business: Understand the importance of empathy and collaboration in building meaningful relationships, both internally and externally. Join Moshe Poltorak and Laurel Taylor as they delve into the world of startups, technology, and growth, offering valuable insights for entrepreneurs and business leaders. _________________ 

Today on the show, we have Sofia Quintero, the co-founder of Collie.In this episode, Sofia shares her journey from founding EnjoyHQ to her role in shaping Collie, a tool that integrates all engineering rituals into one platform, fostering trust and efficiency through asynchronous communication. With a rich background that includes leading growth at GeckoBoard and navigating EnjoyHQ through acquisition by UserZoom, Sofia brings a wealth of knowledge on scaling startups, product innovation, and market fit.We delve into the critical aspects of product development, from identifying genuine user pain points to creating tailored solutions that drive growth. Sofia emphasizes the significance of aligning product offerings with market demands and the dynamic process of adjusting to user feedback while staying true to the product's core value proposition.Mentioned Resources:EnjoyHQCollieGeckoboardUserZoom

Your conversation has gone according to plan. They absolutely loved your presentation, adored your team, aligned with your mission, and resonated with your purpose. They view you as an expert in your field and feel confident in what you can do. But then it all falls apart in a hurry the moment you give the price. Sounds familiar?Well, you aren't alone. 65% of salespeople state that price is the hardest part to navigate when closing.The trick here is to associate the investment equivalent of the price point to an experience worth paying for that gets results.Consumers know the value of the sales experience and the connection that can be made with a partner company. About 84% of business buyers say that experience is just as important as the product or service being sold, with around 67% willing to pay more for a great experience. These numbers underscore the importance of a positive sales process.This episode will help you understand the four components of a great pricing infrastructure that will help you go from start to finish, hopefully with a signed contract at the end.Beyond The Episode Gems:Learn About My New Business Venture: S3M - Where We're Driving Inclusive Marketing & DEIB Integrations ForwardDiscover All of the Podcats on the HubSpot Podcast NetworkGet Free HubSpot Marketing Tools To Help You Grow Your Business Grow Your Business Faster Using HubSpot's CRM PlatformBook A Time To Hire Me To Help You Scale Your Business#####Support The Podcast & Connect With Troy: • Rate & Review iDigress: iDigress.fm/Reviews•  Follow Troy's LinkedIn @FindTroy• Get Strategy Solutions & Services: FindTroy.com•  Buy Troy's Book, Strategize Up: StrategizeUpBook.com•  Follow Troy's Instagram @FindTroy