Startup Field Guide by Unusual Ventures: Recent Episodes
Unusual Ventures
Every overnight success in the world of software happens after years of hard work finding product-market fit. The Startup Field Guide by Unusual Ventures is a podcast for early stage software leaders and aspiring founders looking for help going from 0 to 1. Featuring great conversations between venture capitalist Sandhya Hegde and successful startup founders, you will learn about hiring, product research, go-to-market, fundraising, and more. Welcome to the Startup Field Guide by Unusual Ventures. Unusual is a premier seed fund that invests in iconic software companies like Carta, Webflow and Arctic Wolf Networks. About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services.Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual has officies in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, and is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products.About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).
LaunchDarkly is a pioneer in the feature management space. Founded in 2014, while the agile and cloud movements were still relatively nascent, LaunchDarkly was ahead of its time. They have now scaled to a $3 billion company, serving over 4,000 customers.In this episode, LaunchDarkly Co-Founder and CEO Edith Harbaugh takes us back to her initial insight as an engineering manager and product leader at TripIt, deeply versed in the value of systematic feature flagging, and keenly aware of how underutilized it was by many other dev teams. She shares the conviction required to build a product that most buyers in Silicon Valley weren’t yet looking for, and how she engaged her network to gain initial design partners for the product that would come to define the feature management space.
Join us as we discuss:
- Honing a founder insight and being early vs late to an emerging sector
- Hypothesis testing and building with design partners
- Community-building and marketing a movement
- Fundraising when VCs are skeptical of a new sector
About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun.
About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).
Further reading:
- Identifying initial customers — https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/ideal-customer-profile-and-personas
- Early-stage pricing — https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/pricing-your-product
- TOOL: Founder prioritization heatmap — https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/ceo-founder-prioritization
- Building a self-serve motion — https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/self-serve-user-buyer-journey
Jasper is a leading AI-driven content platform with over 80,000 customers. Going from launch to unicorn status in 18 months, they have been one of the fastest companies to cross $1M in MRR with a new product.In this episode, Jasper Co-Founder Dave Rogenmoser shares his story of persistence, pivots, and market validation as he and his co-founders went from building a digital marketing agency to a hypergrowth AI unicorn. Join us as we discuss:
- External and internal signals that it’s time to pivot
- Validating startup ideas and how to let the user shape product decisions
- Product-led GTM and getting users to buy a product before it exists
- Building AI products and how to partner with foundation AI companies
About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun.
About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).
Aurora Solar is a solar design platform that has accelerated small business growth in the solar energy industry. Through it, vendors and homeowners have instant access to crucial data about home solar projects.
In this episode, Co-founder at Aurora Solar Chris Hopper shares how he went from installing solar panels to managing a $4B climate tech unicorn that has powered over 10 million solar projects. Join us as we discuss:
- Building a product around ignored customer needs
- Bootstrapping growth with SMBs for momentum
- Expanding up-market in a concentrated enterprise segment
About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun.
About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).
Further reading:
- How to raise Seed and Series A capital: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/fundraising-milestones-valuations
- Building a product roadmap: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/pmf-product-roadmap
- Unusual Ventures video series: the guide to fundraising: https://www.unusual.vc/post/unusual-founders-video-series-the-guide-to-fundraising
Before Webflow, creating a website required both a designer and a coder. Now, designers can build websites without code or sacrificing their artistic vision.
Listen, as Co-Founder of Webflow, Bryant Chou talks about his journey turning a simple idea of simplifying website-creation into a $4 billion dollar company.
Join us as we discuss:
- Webflow’s organic marketing strategies
- Lessons learned from Webflow’s private beta
- How Bryant discovered the product-market fit for Webflow
- Webflow’s product roadmap positioning
- Building a team that amplified Webflow’s vision
About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun.
About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya ) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).
Further reading:
- Creating a product roadmap: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/pmf-creating-product-roadmap
- Fixing Seed-Stage sales for enterprise businesses: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/sales-fixing-seed-stage-sales
- Define your ideal customer profile (ICP) and personas: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/sales-intro-to-icp
SOC2 certification is a daunting process for startup founders but increasingly necessary to land customers. Our guest today was among the first to understand how startup founders thought about security and compliance and set out to create the automated compliance category.
Listen in as Christina Cacioppo, CEO and co-found er of Vanta talks about her journey to creating the leading automated security and compliance platform that is valued at $1.6B today.
Join us as we discuss:
- How Christina approached finding product-market fit for Vanta
- What productivity looks like for the sales team at Vanta with $10-20k ACVs
- How Christina has invested in her own evolution as a leader and CEO
- Christina’s best advice for seed stage founders just starting out on their journey
About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun.
About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).
Further reading:
- CEO/Founder prioritization tool: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/leadership-ceo-and-founder-prioritization
- Modern GTM: Scale your sales team to win the early majority: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/the-modern-gtm-scaling-your-sales-team-to-win-the-early-majority
- Product testing process: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/product-testing-overview
The SQL database that sits under most applications in the world is old technology that was not built with the Cloud in mind. Now we live in a Cloud-Native world and it's important for developers to have a database that offers the same guarantees as legacy SQL database technology while also taking advantage of life in the cloud.
Listen in as Peter Mattis Co-founder and CTO at Cockroach Labs talks about the cloud-native, distributed SQL database that provides next-level consistency, ultra-resilience, data locality, and massive scale to modern cloud applications.
Join us as we discuss:
- What were the unique insights that Peter and his team felt that drove them to creating a new database
- Why open source was a sensible approach for Peter and his team to take in terms of strategy
- Who were the early adopters of the open source project and Peter's advice to first time founders to be able to engage and foster a small community of users
- How Peter built his team early on to answer the technical problems that came with building a database
About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun.
About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).
Further reading:
- How to stand out in an established open-source community: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/stand-out-in-an-open-source-community
- How to pick the right GTM motion to reach $100M ARR: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/picking-a-gtm-motion
- How Cockroach Labs leveraged open source to find product-market fit: https://www.unusual.vc/post/cockroach-event
- Free plan vs. free trial in PLG: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/free-plan-vs-free-trial
In today's episode, we hear from Andy Rachleff, who coined the term “product-market fit” which served as the inspiration for this podcast.
Andy Rachleff is a legendary Venture Capitalist who originally coined the term "product-market fit." Andy has had an incredibly accomplished career in the tech industry, co-founding Benchmark Capital in 1995 and Wealthfront in 2008. Andy has mentored and guided hundreds of founders and investors, and in this episode talks about why understanding product-market fit is the only thing that matters and all the pitfalls founders face along the way.
Join us as we discuss:
- How Andy got into venture capital and ended up starting Benchmark
- Who and what inspired Andy to coin the term product-market fit
- The core concepts behind product-market fit and why it’s the only things that matters for founders and investors
- What truly defines an MVP and how it should test the desperation hypothesis
About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun.
About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).
Further reading:
- Building conviction in a startup: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/building-conviction
- Customer validation: going from idea to sellable product: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/pmf-customer-validation
- What are design partners, and how do you acquire the right ones? https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/picking-design-partners
- 12 tips to improve your MVP with early adopters: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/shape-your-mvp-with-design-partners
Early revenue can sometimes fool you into thinking that you have product-market fit. Startups begin to focus on growth without having solved the core problem their customers are playing them to address.
In this episode, we are joined by Lars Albright, a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, where he leads investments in vertical SaaS and fintech startups. Lars is a three-time founder of enterprise software companies, having sold two of his companies to Apple and Mastercard. Today, Lars joins us to talk about his last startup SessionM, a pioneer in mobile loyalty, and even today, powers the loyalty infrastructure for Fortune 1000 brands.
Join us as we discuss:
- How SessionM needed to find product-market fit with 3 different customer stakeholders
- The launch of mPlus Rewards and early traction
- Why Lars and his team decided to pivot from coalition loyalty programs to enterprise software despite the revenue traction
- The challenges of working with fortune 500 companies as a small startup and the lessons Lars took from that time
- Lars’ advice to founders who have revenue but not product-market fit
About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun.
About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).
Further reading:
- Customer validation: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/pmf-customer-validation
- Lars’ core fintech themes and advice for founders in today's market: https://www.unusual.vc/post/core-fintech-themes-and-advice-for-founders-in-todays-market
- Loyalty 3.0: Where consumers become owners: https://www.unusual.vc/post/loyalty-in-a-web3-world
Successful startups need to solve a problem, but there is a big difference between a founder knowing a problem exists in the abstract and a founder experiencing the pain points firsthand and developing ways to solve it.
Laura Behrens Wu is the Founder and CEO of Shippo, a shipping platform designed to give every merchant access to the best-in-class tools and technology reserved for retail giants. Over 100k brands trust Shippo to ensure their customers love how their products are delivered. In this episode, Laura takes us through the product-market fit journey of Shippo and her journey of evolving as its CEO.
Join us as we discuss:
- The origin story of Shippo when Laura first launched the company in 2014
- How Laura approached the path to find product-market fit
- Shopify app vs API company - solving the chicken and egg shipping problem
- How the pandemic affected Shippo and what it was like making decisions amid all the chaos happening in the logistics and supply chain industry
- How Laura invested in herself as a founder and CEO
About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun.
About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).
Further reading:
- Customer validation: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/pmf-customer-validation
- The Unusual Guide to pre-seed: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/building-conviction
- CEO/founder prioritization template: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/leadership-ceo-and-founder-prioritization
- Leading through uncertainty: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/leadership-through-crisis
Since the rise of COVID-19, every company has adopted remote work, and our guest's mission is to create a more equal world by making it possible for talented professionals to work from any country they choose to.
Tony Jamous is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of Oyster, a global employment unicorn that helps companies hire employees and contractors anywhere in the world. Before Oyster, Tony was the founder of Nexmo (2010), a Twilio competitor that was acquired by Vonage in 2016 for $230M. In this episode, Tony takes us through the product-market fit journey of Oyster.
Join us as we discuss:
- The origins of Oyster in April 2020 as world implemented lockdowns
- Tony's approach to product-market fit and the milestones and key metrics that gave them confidence that they found it
- The learnings that Tony took from his first company Nexmo, to help him build Oyster
- The challenges of creating connection across a remote team and how Oyster uses Kona
- Tony's best advice for seed stage founders just starting out on their journey
About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun.
About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).
Further reading:
- Managing remote teams: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/leadership-managing-remote-teams
- Key metrics for product-led SaaS (from SaaStr 2022): https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1CT34wM2QSVhNErZ_5tB-VMv_OCREwM4vdJ20PfbLIIo/edit#slide=id.g13acbf38164_0_86
Leading through uncertainty: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/leadership-through-crisis
While some startups experiment and pivot their way into product-market fit, others have founders with a unique insight that needs persistence. After a rough 6 year start as a company between 2012-2018, Arctic Wolf hit a tipping point driven by market awareness. In the past 4 years, the growth rate of the business has been phenomenal. Founder Brian NeSmith joins us to discuss his conviction to keep going and how he kept his talented team together even when results weren't what they expected.
Brian NeSmith is a cybersecurity industry veteran, having led three successful companies - the latest of which is Arctic Wolf Networks. Last valued at over $6BN, Arctic Wolf is the leader in the cybersecurity category known as MDR - Managed Detection and Response, provided as a service.
In this episode, Sandhya is joined by co-host John Vrionis, her partner and founder of Unusual Ventures. John led the first venture investment in Arctic Wolf, a $7.5M round by Lightspeed when Brian first started the company.
Join us as we discuss:
- The origin story of Arctic Wolf and why John backed Brian
- Brian’s framework for evaluating market demand and product-market fit
- Brian's approach to fundraising in 2017-18, when the 150+ investorshe pitched were concerned by AWN’s story as well as a market crash, and how John supported Brian during this time
- How Brian handled tough board conversations when times were hard, and what John saw Brian do well as a CEO managing the board
- Brian's advice for founders on quitting or pivoting away from an idea
To learn some of the skills Brian and John discussed, explore the Field Guide modules on:
- Raising a Seed or Series A round
- Managing a Series A board meeting
- CEO/Founder prioritization
- Leading through uncertainty
About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun.
About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).
StackRox is a security startup born in 2015. After many initial setbacks, StackRox went on to become a leader in container security, riding the Kubernetes wave and helping cloud-native companies secure their software. Wei Lien Dang joins us today to discuss how StackRox found product-market fit.
Wei Lien Dang is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures. Before joining the venture capital firm, Wei was the Co-Founder of StackRox. StackRox became one of the first startups in the container security world to offer a Kubernetes-native solution and in 2021, was acquired by Red Hat.
Join us as we discuss:
- What drew Wei to StackRox and his transition from being a product executive to a founder?
- StackRox’s product-market fit journey and the indicators that they had found product-market fit after their pivot.
- How did StackRox define its product strategy?
- How StackRox leveraged open source as a critical part of its go-to-market strategy and Wei’s advice for founders going open source.
About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun.
About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).
Henry Ward joins us to talk about how his team of fewer than 20 employees scaled their startup, then known as eShares, to product-market fit and eventually became a household name in equity management software.
Henry Ward is the Co-Founder and CEO of Carta. This $7.4B business has created a new category of software in equity management by helping companies and investors manage their cap tables, valuations, investments, and equity plans. Henry gives us insight into the early stages of Carta: the initial products that Carta built, gaining validation through investor networks, closing their first 100 customers, and how they found product-market fit on their way to acquiring 28,000 customers.
Join us as we discuss:
- How Carta built products designed to get distribution
- The early go-to-market lessons that Carta learned about when to focus on sales vs when to start marketing
- Why Carta didn’t start with a self-serve experience
- How Carta changed its pricing model at scale without upsetting customers
Go further:
- Learn how Carta won their first 100 customers: https://www.unusual.vc/post/how-carta-won-their-first-100-customers
- Learn about early customer identification and collaboration in our module: What are design partners: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/picking-design-partners
About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun.
About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).
How do you know when an early-stage startup idea is working, and what do you do if it isn’t?
Today we talk with Sarah Leary, the Co-Founder of Nextdoor, the iconic neighborhood network that enables local communities to receive trusted information, give and get help, get things done, and build real-world connections with those nearby. Sarah gives us insight into the early days of Nextdoor: the pivots they made, community-building strategies they used, and how they found product-market fit on their path to being adopted by over 250,000 communities in 11 countries.
Join us as we discuss:
- How Nextdoor found product-market fit.
- The early days of Nextdoor and the founding team’s decision to pivot from a sports community to what became Nextdoor.
- How successful community products empower users by helping them replicate their real-life workflows online easier and faster.
For more resources from Sarah on how to validate your startup idea and start your company, check out the Unusual Ventures Field Guide module here: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/building-conviction About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services.
Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun.
About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).
When running a startup, finding product-market fit is a crucial measurement to the success of the business. Today, we talk about the cybersecurity company over 2.5 million developers have tried, Snyk. Snyk is a developer-friendly security platform for anyone responsible for securing code.
Hear our conversation with Co-Founder Guy Podjarny and Ben Williams, VP of Product at Snyk, about the early days of Snyk and how they have found product-market fit.
- How Snyk has found product-market fit
- How Snyk has scaled over the last two years
- How Snyk’s GTM helped them climb to over 5,000 customers
More information about Guy Podjarny and Ben Williams and today’s topics:
- LinkedIn Profiles: Guy Podjarny and Ben Williams
- Company Website: www.snyk.io
About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services.
Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun.
About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).
How do software startups find product-market fit? How do you know if you have it? What does it take to get there? These questions keep every early stage founder up at night.
In this introductory episode, we discuss our goals for the show and who it’s for.
Hear our conversation with Sandhya Hegde, General Partner at Unusual Ventures about
- The biggest challenges faced by the startup ecosystem today
- Why we are launching this podcast for early stage enthusiasts
- Why the product-market fit playbook matters so much
More information about Sandhya Hegde and today’s topics:
- LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde
- Company website: https://www.unusual.vc/
- Sandhya’s email: Sandhya@unusual.vc
To hear more interviews like this one, subscribe to Startup Field Guide on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Startup Field Guide in your favorite podcast player.
About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services.
Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun.
About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).