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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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