Jyoti Bansal is the CEO of @Harnessio and @TraceableAI . He is also a co-founder of Unusual Ventures.In a special episode of the Startup Field Guide podcast, Jyoti sits down with John Vrionis – his co-founder and friend of 20 years — to discuss the recent merger of Harness and Traceable. This merger positions Harness + Traceable to create the most advanced AI-native DevSecOps platform in the world!Join us as we discuss:00:00 Product market-fit is a journey1:38 The recent merger between Harness and Traceable3:09 The insight that led to Traceable’s founding4:37 The technical inflection that Jyoti saw in 20197:46 The initial idea for Traceable11:39 Figuring out the right customer14:12 Iterating on Traceable’s GTM approach16:34 Advice for early-stage founders21:54 The big vision for Traceable + Harness25:56 One book all founders should read26:26 Jyoti’s advice on team-building27:55 Essential soft skill for founders28:55 Perspective on leadershipJohn Vrionis is the co-founder and CEO of Unusual Ventures.Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
Samantha Mckenna is the founder of SamSales and a leader in building go-to-market strategies. She has spent her nearly 15+ year career in enterprise sales doing two things: breaking over 13 sales records and doing so by leading with a buyer-first approach to sales. In this episode of the Startup Field Guide podcast, she shares why early stage founders should focus on solving challenges for buyers rather than selling, the need for thorough research and personalization in outbound prospecting, and the effectiveness of LinkedIn as a marketing platform. Some topics we covered with Sam include: 00:00 Preview: Importance of solving customer challenges first 00:18 Sam’s early journey into sales and GTM 02:20 Common mistakes in enterprise sales process for startups 02:37 Challenges and misconceptions about enterprise sales 04:10 How technical founders can get started in sales 9:26: How founders can start doing outbound sales while building their product 14:26 Tips for effective outbound messaging 18:18 Selling to engineers 19:57 Why founders should be using LinkedIn 22:25: Strategies for marketing on LinkedIn 38:15 AI tools for outbound sales and marketing 43:01 Hiring the right sales leaders for early stage startups
Samantha Mckenna is the founder and CEO of SamSales. Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
Relyance AI is a global privacy compliance and data governance platform that allows enterprises to protect customer data, avoid expensive fines, and build customer trust. It provides visibility and control over all enterprise data processing. In this episode, we chat with Abhi Sharma, CEO and co-founder of Relyance about the early days of the company, and how Relyance has recently completely transformed its sales culture.
Join us as we discuss:
00:00 Preview: Culture is about what you do day-to-day
1:28 The insight behind Relyance
6:20 Early feedback from design partners
9:17 Abhi’s learnings as a second-time founder
11:10 Transforming Relyance’s sales culture and strategy
15:30 How Unreasonable Hospitality influence Abhi’s thinking about company culture
18:18 What the hospitality industry can teach software founders
24:18 How Abhi coached his team into changing their mindsets
30:06 How Relyance’s customers and team have responded to the shift in the sales culture
35:51 Advice for early-stage founders on building strong company culture
Abhi Sharma is the CEO and co-founder of Relyance.
Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
Clay is an AI-powered platform for sales prospecting that gathers data from over 75 sources to build lists and help growth teams send personalized outreach messages. Recently valued at over $500M, Clay has several high-profile enterprise customers, including go-to-market teams at Intercom, Ramp, Notion, Anthropic, Verkada, Vanta, and more.
In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Kareem Amin, CEO and co-founder of Clay.
Join us as we discuss:
00:00 Preview: Picking the right customer
1:53 Lessons learned from Kareem’s first startup, Frame
4:54 Decision behind choosing acquisition for Frame
7:10 The founding insight behind Clay
9:20 Fundraising for Clay
11:52 Narrowing down the ICP for Clay
17:21 Clay’s decision to focus on growth marketers
21:12 Product feedback from early adopters
22:27 Picking the right strategy to monetize
28:37 Building the early team
32:14 Integrating GPT-3 into the product
34:38 Clay’s product roadmap
37:00 Advice for new founders
Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc.
Kareem Amin is the CEO and co-founder of Clay.
Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
Scribe makes it easy to share how you do your work by creating automated documentation. Scribe raised a Series B recently and has grown to millions of users with enterprise customers like Gong, LinkedIn, and Shopify.
In this episode, Scribe’s co-founder and CEO, Jennifer Smith chats with Sandhya Hegde about Scribe’s early days.
Join us as we discuss:
00:00 Preview — capturing institutional knowledge
1:46 The insight for starting scribe
5:40 Building the Founding Team
8:10 Product Launch and Early Adopters
12:40 Launching the GA Product
15:08 Analyzing User Feedback and Customer Profiles
16:42 Early go-to-market strategy
20:18 The evolution of Scribe’s GTM strategy
22:50 Leveraging AI
Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc.
Jennifer Smith is the CEO and co-founder of Scribe.
Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
Eightfold AI is a talent management platform used by hundreds of large organizations like Vodafone and Activision Blizzard. It helps them leverage data to find great people with the skills they need, both internally and externally. Last valued at $2.1 billion, Eightfold was launched in 2016.
In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Ashutosh Garg, co-founder and CEO of Eightfold AI.
Join us as we discuss:
00:00 Why Ashustosh wanted to build a talent platform
1:47 Ashutosh Garg's early career at Google
5:09 The founding insight for Eightfold AI
7:38 Why Ashustosh decided to focus on HR tech
9:42 Challenges of selling to large enterprises
17:11 Advantages of being an "outsider" in HR tech
19:32 Ashutosh's learnings as a repeat founder
22:58 The impact of recent macro shifts on the labor market
24:50 The impact of GenAI on Eightfold's roadmap
30:16 The future of work
35:11 Advice for first-time founders
Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc.
Ashustosh Garg is the CEO and co-founder of Eightfold AI.
Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
Monte Carlo is an end-to-end data observability platform that monitors pipelines for missing or inaccurate data. Last valued at $1.6B, Monte Carlo has over 150 customers, including data teams at companies such as CNN, JetBlue, Hubspot, PepsiCo, and Toast.
In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Barr Moses, co-founder and CEO of Monte Carlo.
Join us as we discuss:
00:00 Preview —Early feedback from a potential customer
1:37 Why Barr and Lior decided to focus on data observability
6:28 Profile of Monte Carlo’s early adopters
12:27 Common pain points among early adopters
16:05 How Monte Carlo narrowed in on their ICP
21: 33 Early product feedback and surprises
26:27 Monte Carlo’s current go-to-market strategy
31:22 How AI will impact the data ecosystem
35:57 Advice for founder building data platforms
Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc.
Barr Moses is the founder and CEO of Monte Carlo
Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
Perplexity is an AI-powered search engine that answers user questions. Founded in 2022 and valued at over $1B, Perplexity recently crossed 10M monthly active users and is growing fast.
In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Denis Yarats, co-founder and CTO of Perplexity.
Join us as we discuss:
00:00 Reactions to Perplexity’s prototype in 2022
1:33 How Arvind and Denis started working together
4:04 Building a text-to-SQL tool initially
6:34 Launch of ChatGPT and pivot to general search
9:46 Focusing on user data, and not on the foundation model
14:43 Perplexity’s early adopters
16:42 Early customer feedback
18:44 Perplexity’s core technical competencies
22:44 Subscription pricing and future gross margins
25:12 Perplexity’s hardware partnerships
29:49 Future product vision
32:50 Advice for founders in the AI space
Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc.
Denis Yarats is the CTO and co-founder of Perplexity.
Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
Everlaw is a legal tech company started in 2011 that helps law firms and corporations run what’s called “e-discovery”— essentially a process of investigating often massive piles of documents to find the key pieces of evidence, the smoking gun, and then to construct a narrative from it. Last valued at over $2B, Everlaw has over 1,000 customers over the world.
In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with AJ Shankar, CEO and founder of Everlaw.
Join us as we discuss:
00:00: The vision for Everlaw
0:36 Introduction to Everlaw
1:45 AJ Shankar's Journey to Starting Everlaw
4:43 The Vision and Early Years of Everlaw
6:41 Challenges in Fundraising and Building the Early Team
9:56 Understanding Customer Needs and Building Authenticity
11:38 Product Development and Technical Skills
16:22 Impact of Everlaw on the Legal Industry
20:36 Fundraising Challenges and Success
23:59 Adoption of Generative AI and its Implications
29:30 The Future of Everlaw and the Legal Industry
35:51 AJ Shankar's Evolution as a Founder and CEO
Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc.
AJ Shankar is the CEO and founder of Everlaw.
Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
Deepgram is a voice AI company that has built an incredible reputation in the market for the quality of its speech recognition. Last valued at over $250M, Deepgram has over 500 customers, including NASA, Spotify, and Twilio.
In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Scott Stephenson, CEO and co-founder of Deepgram.
Join us as we discuss:
00:00 Preview: Fully contextualized speech-to-speech is the future
01:07 Scott's background in particle physics and starting Deepgram
7:18 Scott's first years as a founder
13:17 How the Deepgram team gathered early customer feedback
17:38 Early use cases and product feedback
22:58 How conversational AI will impact the customer support industry
26:54 Specialized hardware in the AI Industry
30:34 How additional hardware specialization will impact Deepgram
32:14 Deepgram's product vision
36:46 Advice for Founders starting an AI company
Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc.
Scott Stephenson is the CEO and co-founder of Deepgram.
Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
Material Security is an email security company that protects an organization's users and data particularly across Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. Last valued at $1.1B, Material has over 100 enterprise customers, including Doordash, Lyft, and Fox.
In this episode, Sandhya Hegde and Wei Lien Dang chat with Abhishek Agrawal, CEO and co-founder of Material Security.
Join us as we discuss:
00:00 Preview: Seeking validation for a B2B product
1:36 Founding Material Security
5:31 Identifying the Gap in Existing Solutions
10:00 Validating the Thesis
12:41 Product Vision and Initial MVP
19:56 Go-to-Market Strategy for the First Million in ARR
25:40 Product Vision and Impact of AI
31:50 Advice for Founders Starting Companies in 2024
Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc.
Wei Lien Dang is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures and leads investments in infrastructure software, security, and developer tool. Wei was a co-founder of Stackrox, a cloud-native security company prior to its acquisition by Red Hat. He can be reached at wei@unusual.vc
Abhishek Agrawal is the co-founder and CEO of Material Security
Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
Hightouch is a composable customer data platform. It helps companies collect and sync user data into ad platforms, CRMs, email tools etc. Last valued at over $600M, Hightouch has over 600 customers, including the NBA, Spotify, Plaid, Calendly, and more.
In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Kashish Gupta, co-CEO and co-founder of Hightouch.
Join us as we discuss:
00:00 Switching personas to find product-market fit
1:44 Evolution of the Data Integration Space
2:42 The Concept of Reverse ETL
5:41 The Origin Story of Hightouch
8:01 Exploring Different Business Ideas
12:06 Early Design Partners and Product Strategy
14:46 Transition from Founder Selling to Hiring Sales Team
16:48 Go-to-Market Motion and Marketing Strategy
18:39 Hightouch's Product Vision and Future Direction
22:55 Challenges in the Market and Building User Certainty
27:01 Co-CEO Arrangement and Founder Team Dynamic
31:04 Advice for Aspiring Founders in 2024
Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and
Kashish Gupta is the co-CEO and co-founder of Hightouch
Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
Notion is a productivity platform that blends all your workplace apps into a single platform, including team projects, wikis, and docs. Last valued at $10bn, Notion’s customers include teams at Amazon, Nike, Uber, Figma, Deel, and more!
In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Akshay Kothari, co-founder and COO of Notion.
Join us as we discuss:
00:00 Preview: Building Notion 1.0
03:32 How Akshay met Ivan Zhao and invested in Notion
5:21 Lessons from the Pulse Journey
8:09 Building Notion’s first templates
12:43 Why Akshay joined Notion full-time
16:26 Akshay’s first few months at Notion
21:59 Evolution of Notion’s GTM strategy and Enterprise vs SMB
26:13 Akshay’s GTM learnings and challenges
34:37 Launching AI Features in Notion
38:44 Customer Feedback and Future of Notion AI
Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and
Akshay Kothari is the co-founder and COO of Notion.
Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
Domino Data Lab was founded in 2013 and was one of the early innovators in the space known as MLOps. It delivers a unified platform for enterprises to build, deploy, and manage machine learning workloads and provides access to data, tools, compute, models across any environment. Domino enables ML and data teams to collaborate, ensure governance, and reduce costs at scale.
In this episode, Wei Lien Dang chats with Chris Yang, co-founder and CTO of Domino Data.
Join us as we discuss:
00:00 Introduction to Domino Data Lab
02:04 The Origin Story of Domino Data Lab
06:58 Balancing Authenticity and Customer Feedback
10:52 Open Communication and Collaboration Among Co-founders
14:24 The Importance of Engaging with Users
16:19 Building the First Feature: Enabling Compute Workloads in the Cloud
22:42 Discovering Unexpected Use Cases and Features
33:20 The Importance of Choosing a Target Market
35:44 The Evolution of MLOps and the Current AI Wave
Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc.
Wei Lien Dang is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures and leads investments in infrastructure software, security, and developer tool. Wei was a co-founder of StackRox, a cloud-native security company prior to its acquisition by Red Hat. He can be reached at wei@unusual.vc.
Chris Yang is the co-founder and CTO of Domino Data.
Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Julianna Lamb, co-founder and CTO of Stytch. Stytch is a comprehensive tool for identity management. Its auth and fraud prevention capabilities improve both security and user experience. Last valued at $1.0B, the company now works with over 1000 customers.
Join us as we discuss:
00:00 Preview: early product surprises for the Stytch team
01:53 Introduction to Stytch and identity management
05:15 The founding insight for Stytch
10:27 Validating the idea and Minimum Viable Product
12:27 Choosing a customer segment and MVP
14:33 Surprises and patterns in early customers
17:57 Lessons from Plaid and building a flexible solution
19:46 Approach to developer marketing
22:20 Approach to developer awareness and hiring
26:32 Starting a company in an unusual environment
30:53 Impact of AI on authentication and fraud prevention
34:25 Advice for developers starting a company
Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and
Julianna Lamb is the co-founder and CTO of Stytch.
Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Andy Byrne, co-founder and CEO of Clari. Clari was started in 2012 and last valued at $2.6B. Its revenue platform has been helping enterprise sales teams create visibility and predictability within their organization for over a decade. It helps over 1,500 companies including Cisco and Databricks improve their entire revenue process.
Join us as we discuss:
00:00 Preview: Gen AI’s impact on revenue ops
1:40 Origin Story and pain points
3:27 Early challenges and customer feedback
6:00 Surprises and feedback from design partners
10:01 Building for multiple stakeholders
13:16 Go-to-Market strategy
14:56 Identifying adjacent opportunities
18:00 Clari’s AI strategy
20:52 The future of sales and revenue
26:44 The evolution of CRM providers
28:34 Crowded sales tech landscape
32:59 Advice for new founders in GTM Tech
Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and
Andy Byrne is the co-founder and CEO of Clari.
Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
Further reading from Unusual Ventures:
Coming up with a founding insight
In this episode, Sandhya Hegde and Wei Lien Dang chat about everything that happened in the world of AI Startups in 2023.
2023 was very much an Act 2 for Generative AI as GPT became a household name. We had a long Act 1 during Covid ending with some incredible launches in the second half of 2022 including Stable Diffusion and of course ChatGPT. We take a closer look at what the pivotal moments have been this year and more importantly what they mean for the startups ecosystem.
Join us as we discuss: 00:00 Preview: Strategy to defeat incumbent software companies
3:39 January 2023 — ChatGPT's Success and Consumer Adoption
7:16 February 2023 — Controversies and Legal Issues
12:09 March 2023 — GPT-4 Launch and Multimodal AI
16:04 April and May 2023 — Large infrastructure providers’ AI strategy
20:04 June 2023 — GPU Shortage and Infrastructure Challenges
22:41 July and August 2023 — Fine-Tuning and New Modalities
29:46 September 2023 — Governance and Safety Concerns
32:06 October 2023 — Revenue Generation and Open Source
33:18 November 2023 — OpenAI Leadership Changes
37:17 December 2023 — Google's Gemini and Future Predictions
Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor.
Wei Lien Dang is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures and leads investments in infrastructure software, security, and developer tool. Wei was a co-founder of StackRox, a cloud-native security company prior to its acquisition by Red Hat.
Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
Further reading from Unusual Ventures:
Whose responsibility is responsible AI?
How do you navigate AI security in an evolving landscape?
Autonomous AI agents could change the world, but what do they actually do well?
In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Shishir Mehrotra, CEO and co-founder of Coda.
Coda is a collaborative workspace that brings together teams and tools to create organized workflows in docs. Started in 2014, Coda serves over 80% of the Fortune 100. Last valued at $1.4B, Coda is used by over 25,000 teams including ones at Figma, The New York Times, Square, Doordash, and Toast.
00:00 Preview: Coming up with product insights
01:38 Shishir’s experience at YouTube
03:32 YoutTube Shorts versus Tiktok
06:03 Product-market fit is not a binary
08:04 The founding insight behind Coda
11:16 Positioning Coda against incumbent products
18:05 Coda’s alpha launch
24:36 PMF scores versus disappointment scores
29:53 Shishir’s approach to product rituals
38:05 The launch of Coda 4.0
43:50 Advice for new founders in enterprise productivity
Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and
Shishir Mehrotra is the CEO and co-founder of Coda. Prior to Coda, Shishir was the Vice President of Product, Engineering, and UX at YouTube.
Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
Further reading from Unusual Ventures:
MosaicML is the developer of open source infrastructure for training LLMs. The company was acquired by Databricks for $1.3 billion in July 2023. and has gone from 0 to over $30M in revenue this year in just 6 months.
In this episode, Sandhya Hegde and Wei Lien Dang chat with Naveen Rao, co-founder of MosaicML and now the head of Generative AI at Databricks
Join us as we discuss:
00:00 Preview: Future of foundation model companies
2:16 How Naveen’s previous experiences led to MosaicML
7:29 The core insight behind the founding of MosaicML
9:52 MosaicML’s approach to building an end-to-end platform
12:09 Why MosaicML focused on open models and LLMs
14:25 Why most foundation model companies will fail
15:52 How MosaicML found early adopters
18:14 Early use cases for MosaicML’s product
21:27 Impact of early feedback on MosaicML’s product roadmap
25:21 Why Naveen decided to move ahead with the Databricks acquisition
31:44 How Naveen sees the AI ecosystem evolving
34:08 Regulation of AI and the importance of open source
41:15 Advice for founding building AI infrastructure
Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor.
Wei Lien Dang is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures and leads investments in infrastructure software, security, and developer tool. Wei was a co-founder of StackRox, a cloud-native security company prior to its acquisition by Red Hat.
Naveen Rao is the co-founder of MosaicML (now a Databricks company) and currently the head of Generative AI at Databricks
Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
Further reading from Unusual Ventures:
Starting an open source company
Open source customer development
Full episode transcript here: www.unusual.vc/post/sprigs-product-market-fit-journey
Sprig is an AI-powered product feedback platform; it helps teams run in-product surveys and session replays with AI native analysis to help them build better products. Last valued at $330M, Sprig has hundreds of the largest and fastest growing tech companies as customers, including Notion, Figma, PayPal, Webflow, and Dropbox.
In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Ryan Glasgow, the founder and CEO of Sprig.
Join us as we discuss:
01:13 Sprig’s origin story
05:26 Evolution of user feedback platforms
09:26 Building Sprig’s early team
12:37 Validating Sprig’s product hypothesis
15:37 Building relationships with early design partners
19:15 Iterating to MVP
23:19 Ryan’s approach to founder selling
29:11 Sprig’s early AI strategy
33:36 Sprig AI strategy post-ChatGPT
35:37 Ryan’s evolution as CEO
Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and
Ryan Glasgow is the founder and CEO of Sprig.
Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
Further reading from Unusual Ventures:
Defining your ideal customer profile (ICP)
Validating your early product hypothesis
