Founded and Funded: Recent Episodes
Madrona Venture Group
Listen to conversations between Madrona Venture Group investors and growth team members and entrepreneurs, founders, and startup personalities who talk about some of the key moments in building a company. Designed to give would-be founders and others interested in working with or for startups a view into the struggle and the lessons learned, these conversations are informal and informative.
Based in Seattle, Madrona Venture Group invests mainly in early-stage information technology based companies. These conversations also highlight why building a company in the Seattle region is so appealing to many founders.
After leaving a long sales career, David Rubenstein spent a year meeting more than 300 founders across 41 countries and turned what he heard into a framework for how companies sell now. In this episode of Founded & Funded, David sits down with Madrona's Anna Baird and Eric Wong to dig into why AI left buyers with more information and less clarity, why deals stall out of fear rather than disinterest, and how founders can cut through.
The conversation covers selling against build-it-yourself AI objections, the return of in-person selling, and why the founder's own brand is more important to drive pipeline.
This was originally an AMA with Madrona portfolio companies, but we wanted to share David's full sales playbook with founders, GTM leaders, and operators for a grounded look at how buying behavior shifted and where to focus when the old tactics stop paying off. Full Transcript:
Chapters (00:00) – Why AI Made Your Buyers Harder to Sell To (01:30) – How David Met 300 Founders Across 41 Countries in a Year (03:06) – Why the Old Go-to-Market Math Stopped Working (04:40) – AI Gave Buyers More Information and Left Them More Confused (05:27) – The SPRINT Framework for Diagnosing a Stalled Deal (07:03) – Give the "How" Before the Number So Results Read as Proof (08:54) – The Question Every Executive Buyer Asks Late in a Deal (10:16) – 3 Hidden Fears That Kill Deals During Implementation (12:00) – The Trigger Most Founders Leave Out of Their Customer Profile (15:24) – Why the First Seven Minutes of a Sales Call Are Wasted (16:19) – How to Sell Against "I'll Just Build It With Claude Code" (22:24) – Why AI Sales Prep Gives You the Average, Not the Edge (25:48) – Why Founder Brand Now Drives Pipeline (28:50) – Free vs. Paid Pilots and Why Skin in the Game Wins
Joe Beda and Craig McLuckie co-created Kubernetes, the infrastructure standard that became the default for cloud native computing. Now running Stacklok, they're watching enterprises hit the same identity, permissions, and security problems with AI agents that took the container ecosystem years to resolve, and they're building tools to compress that timeline.
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona's Tim Porter sits down with Joe and Craig to talk through what AI adoption actually requires: why MCP is the Docker moment for AI-native applications, how the LLM gateway is becoming a strategic chokepoint for cost, safety, and model flexibility, and why enterprises that don't get the architecture right early will face a familiar trap: vertical integration that looks like productivity and acts like lock-in.
They cover:
- Why the developer workflow is the template for knowledge worker AI adoption, and where the analogy breaks down
- The mainframe vs. open platform question that will define the AI infrastructure era
- Why the knowledge worker transition is harder than it looks — and what has to be built differently before developer-grade AI tooling can scale to the rest of your organization
- The governance gap between human accountability and AI behavior, and what enterprises actually need to build to close it
- Where to start: MCP controls first, LLM gateway second, and why deploying a platform without staying to close the loop consistently fails
Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/the-best-infrastructure-moment-since-cloud Chapters:
(0:00) – Introduction
(1:04) – Why the Kubernetes Creators Are the Right People to Read This AI Moment
(2:18) – Joe's Lesson from Cloud Native: Ignore Conventional Wisdom, Except When You Shouldn't
(4:16) – Craig on Enterprises and the Chaos of a New Infrastructure Era
(5:32) – Why Joe Rejoined Craig at Stacklok: The Engineer's Case for Getting Your Hands Dirty
(7:05) – Developers as Agent Orchestrators: How the Knowledge Worker Transition Will Follow
(10:10) – MCP Explained: Craig Sees Docker in 2013 When He Looks at the MCP Spec 1
(7:53) – The Mainframe vs. Open Platform Question That Will Define the AI Era
(20:24) – LLM Lock-In Is the Wrong Worry: The Real Risk Is Left of the Model
(25:19) – Where Enterprises Actually Start: Developer Posture First, Knowledge Workers Second
(29:10) – MCP First, LLM Gateway Second: The Concrete Technical Starting Point
(31:19) – How Stacklok Builds Software Now: Agents, Smaller Teams, the Unrecognizable Developer Profile
(38:07) – The Recruiter Who Started Building Agents: What AI Tools Do to Role Boundaries
There's a theorem being tested about how AI reaches general intelligence. Carina Hong's answer: through mathematics.
Carina is the founder of Axiom, and in less than a year of building, her team's AI has scored a perfect 120/120 on the Putnam mathematical competition — a test where more than 50% of brilliant undergraduates score zero. More concretely, Axiom Prover has reached 98.93% on a Lean software verification benchmark that leading alternatives solve at 11–12%.
In this conversation with Matt McIlwain, Carina explains her central thesis: that math and code are the two pillars of the digital world, and that any AI infrastructure missing a formal verification layer is structurally incomplete. She walks through the history of verified AI research at Google, DeepMind, OpenAI, and Meta, and explains why each effort stalled just as commercial pressure mounted. She describes what makes hardware and software verification the natural first commercial market, and what Axiom discovered when they tested their prover against circuits that industry-standard formal checkers could not verify.
For founders and operators trying to understand what's actually changing in AI capability, and for anyone building in adjacent infrastructure spaces, this is a map of where the frontier is and where it's heading.
Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/agi-needs-formal-reasoning-carina-hong-is-building-it-at-axiom
Chapters: (00:00) – Introduction (02:01) – How to Define AGI Right Now — and Why There Are Two Competing Definitions (04:17) – Math Is AGI (06:12) – Math Data Scarcity: Why a Disadvantaged Domain Accelerates Progress (08:13) – Formal vs. Informal Math: Why AI Researchers Treat This Like a Religion (13:44) – Google, OpenAI, DeepMind, and Meta All Abandoned Formal Math Research (21:20) – The Putnam Story: First AI Perfect Score (28:13) – Hardware Verification as the Commercial Frontier: What Axiom Found Testing Real Circuits (31:22) – 98.93% vs. 11–12%: What the Benchmark Gap Reveals About Formal Provers (34:22) – Math and Code as the Two Pillars of the Digital World (37:00) – Team Building Around a Shared Dream: Recruiting for Mathematical Superintelligence (38:03) – What Autonomous Proof Generation Looks Like
Nick LaRovere spent years at Palantir before co-founding Pryzm with friends, including a Lockheed Martin alum. And in this episode of Founded & Funded, Nick shares his inside account of how AI is actually being adopted inside the federal government, and what it takes to sell technology into that market.
Pryzm is an AI-powered intelligence engine for government business development: it aggregates data across CRMs, email, Slack, and public procurement sources to help companies win contracts. Nick's argument is that by the time an opportunity appears on SAM.gov, the deal is already decided. In this episode, Madrona Partner Chris Picardo and Nick cover: why there's still no purpose-built CRM for government buyers, what Pentagon AI adoption actually looked like from the inside (workers hadn't touched an LLM as recently as two years ago), and what forward-deployed engineering at Palantir taught Nick about building close to the customer.
If you're selling into government, building for defense, or trying to understand how AI procurement works inside federal agencies, this is a useful map of how the terrain actually works.
Full Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/palantir-alum-explains-how-ai-is-used-and-bought-by-the-federal-government
(00:00) – Introduction (01:42 – Why the Defense Budget Growing to $1.5 Trillion Matters for Startups (04:11) – Colors of Money: How Federal Budgets Actually Work (06:47) – The Move Toward Colorless, Flexible Defense Spending (10:51) – What Pryzm Does: AI-Powered Intelligence for Government BD (12:21) – Why Deals Are Decided Before They Ever Post on SAM.gov (17:25) – The Government AI Gap: Pentagon Workers Without LLM Access Until Two Years Ago (21:00) – The Digital Thread Problem: Fragmented CRMs and Millions Wasted on Brittle Tools (26:11) – What Nick Learned Watching Elon Sleep on the @tesla Factory Floor (27:00) – Palantir's Forward Deployed Engineer and Why It Produces So Many Founders (30:33) – Why Hard Problems Make Better Businesses: TAM, Willingness to Pay, and Moat (32:05) – Hiring Is Harder Than Founders Expect — and More Important
Zapier is doing hundreds of millions in ARR, has 800 employees, and has more AI agents than people. That ratio isn't an accident.
Wade Foster, CEO and co-founder of Zapier, built one of the most capital-efficient software companies in history on less than $1 million in venture funding. When GPT-4 launched in March 2023, he called a company-wide "code red" (a term he'd never used before) and stopped the entire company for a week-long hackathon. What happened next reshaped how Zapier hires, operates, prices its product, and thinks about the future of software.
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Karan Mehandru sits down with Wade to unpack:
- Why ChatGPT didn't trigger urgency at Zapier, but GPT-4 did — and the specific signal Wade used to make that call
- How Zapier went from 10% AI tool adoption to 90%+ across the company in a single week
- The pricing overhaul that simplified Zapier's model around task-based usage and why agents made seat-based pricing structurally broken
- Why Zapier's head of HR became the Chief People and AI Transformation Officer, and what that reveals about who actually leads change inside organizations
- The "build first, run always" framework Wade uses for deploying AI agents safely inside enterprise workflows
For founders and operators navigating their own AI transformation, this is a practical, unfiltered look at what it actually takes from a CEO who's in the middle of it.
Full Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/zapier-has-more-ai-agents-than-employees-heres-how-that-happened
Chapters: (00:00) – Introduction (01:44) – Zapier Today: Hundreds of Millions ARR, 800 Employees, More Agents Than People (06:16) – Why ChatGPT Didn't Trigger Urgency — But GPT-4 Six Months Later Did (07:12) – Code Red: Stopping the Entire Company for a Week-Long AI Hackathon (08:00) – How Zapier Moved AI Adoption From 10% to 90% of Employees in One Week (10:11) – Managing the Psychology of Change When Numbers Still Look "Okay" (13:11) – Why Companies in the Middle Ground Face the Hardest AI Transformation Problem (15:01) – From Bottoms-Up Adoption to Systematic ROI: The Two-Phase AI Rollout (17:00) – Why Zapier's Head of HR Became the Chief AI Transformation Officer (19:54) – Refactoring the Legacy Monolith: Writing Code for Agents Instead of Humans (21:25) – Zapier's Pricing Overhaul: Why Task-Based Usage Beats Seat Pricing (23:26) – Why Agents Will Choose What Software to Buy — and What That Does to SaaS (28:03) – The Build-First, Run-Always Framework for Enterprise Agent Governance (29:40) – Wade's AI Hiring War Council: A Multi-Agent System He Built That Morning (34:14) – The Leadership Profile That Thrives When the Job Is Rebuilding, Not Scaling (40:08) – If You're Starting a Company Today, Distribution Is the Bottleneck (42:10) – Why AI Deals Are Hard to Renew and the Rise of the Field Delivery Engineer
What happens when AI agents — not humans — become your primary customer? That's not a hypothetical. It's already happening, and the founders who recognize it earliest are rebuilding their entire infrastructure stacks from scratch.
In this live episode of Founded & Funded from our IA Summit in Seattle, Madrona Venture Partner Jon Turow sits down with Parag Agrawal, former CEO of Twitter and founder of Parallel Web Systems, and Nikita Shamgunov, who led Neon through a rapid AI pivot before its acquisition by Databricks.
What they cover:
- Why Parag is building a new search index from the ground up — and why existing ones weren't designed for AI agents
- The moment Nikita realized Replit agents were spinning up databases 4x faster than all human developers combined — and what that forced him to do
- How to pivot an established company in weeks, not months, when your customer base suddenly changes
- The "pagers vs. iPhones" framework for knowing when to lean into disruption vs. protect what you have
- Parag's two-person hiring rubric for teams operating in deep uncertainty
- Why Nikita added the head of product for ChatGPT to Neon's board — and what that signaled to the market
- The "two-way door" model for giving agents real autonomy without catastrophic downside
Whether you're building infrastructure, running an AI-native startup, or trying to figure out where your product fits in an agent-first world — this conversation will sharpen your thinking.
Full Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/twitter-ex-ceo-web-built-for-humans-make-it-work-for-ai-agents-nikita-Shamgunov-parag-agrawal
Chapters (00:00) – Introduction (01:52) – Parag Agrawal: Why Parallel Was Built for AI Agents From Day One (03:22) – Why Existing Search Indexes Don't Work for AI Agents (05:08) – Nikita Shamgunov: How Replit Agents Outpaced the Entire World on Neon (08:27) – The Pager-to-iPhone Decision: Lean Into Disruption or Get Left Behind (11:13) – How Neon Built an AI Team in Two Weeks and Launched MCP Before Anyone Else (13:41) – Firing Bullets: Why a 4-Out-of-9 Batting Average Was Good Enough (15:37) – Parag on the Two Types of People You Need to Take Concentrated Risk (21:08) – Building Trust in Agents: Evals, Confidence Scores, and Read-Only Infrastructure (23:32) – Nikita's Two-Way Door Framework for Agent Autonomy (25:35) – Parallel Execution: Fork Environments and Let Agents Compete
What does it really take to sell an AI-native product into the Fortune 500? In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Matt McIlwain sits down with two founders deep in the trenches of enterprise AI adoption, Esha Joshi (Co-founder, Yoodli) and Anup Chamrajnagar (Co-founder, Gradial.)
Their companies are selling into some of the world's most complex organizations, like Google, SAP, Snowflake, Databricks, and more. And they break down what founders often underestimate about enterprise AI sales.
They dive into: Why most AI pilots fail and how to prevent it The "three-legged stool" of enterprise sales How AI review boards are reshaping buying cycles Securing long-term contracts Pricing AI: seats vs. usage vs. outcomes Navigating non-deterministic AI failures with customers Building champions who accelerate their careers with AI
If you're building an AI-native company and selling into enterprises, this is for you.
Full Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/this-is-how-fortune-500-companies-are-buying-ai-today
Chapters: (00:00) – Introduction
(03:37) – Early AI Pilots: What Worked (and What Didn't)
(05:01) – Sell Pain, Not Features
(06:25) – Why Enterprise Expectations Are Higher Now
(07:48) – Moving From "Wow" Factor to Durable Outcomes
(09:17) – How to Structure a Pilot That Converts
(10:35) – Expanding Beyond the Initial Wedge
(13:41) – Turning Pilots Into 12-Month Contracts
(14:47) – Navigating Procurement & AI Governance Boards
(16:02) – What's Changed (and What Hasn't) in Enterprise Sales
(16:45) – How to Increase Deal Velocity
(19:39) – Using AI to Improve Your Own Sales Ops
(20:20) – Are You Replacing Jobs with AI?
(23:14) – Building Career-Accelerating Champions
(23:46) – When AI Outputs Go Wrong (Real Stories)
(25:23) – Why the Pilot Never Stops
(29:04) – Pricing AI: Seats vs. Usage vs. Outcomes
(34:48) – Go-To-Market Partnerships That Unlock Enterprise
(37:25) – The Role of Forward-Deployed Engineers
(38:44) – Final Advice for AI Founders Selling to Enterprise
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Ben Gilbert, co-host of the Acquired podcast, sits down with Chase Lochmiller, co-founder and CEO of Crusoe-AI, the company building what it calls AI factories, including its massive campus in Abilene, Texas, which are designed to power this new era of intelligence.
In this conversation, Ben and Chase explore the physical reality behind today's AI revolution. Why modern AI workloads demand entirely new infrastructure. How energy has become the primary bottleneck to scaling intelligence. What it takes to compress multi-year building timelines into months. And how Crusoe's energy-first philosophy, from capturing flared methane to siting facilities near abundant wind power, shaped its path to building one of the world's largest AI computing campuses.
This is a must-watch for anyone building in AI or rethinking infrastructure for the next era of intelligence.
Full Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/the-infrastructure-of-intelligence-inside-crusoes-ai-factory-in-texas
Chapters: (00:00) - Introduction (02:46) - Scale and Power Requirements (03:55) - Job Creation and Construction Progress (05:11) - Creative Solutions and Manufacturing Capabilities (06:25) - Modular Design and Infrastructure Optimization (07:42) - Data Center Construction and Assembly Process (09:07) - Technical Infrastructure and Cooling System (10:33) - Power Sourcing and Renewable Energy (11:56) - Wind Energy Utilization and AI Infrastructure (13:16) - AI Workload Flexibility and Energy Considerations (14:38) - Entrepreneurial Journey and Company Evolution (16:11) - Background in AI and Transition to Data Centers (17:40) - Early Business Model and Bitcoin Mining (19:14) - Infrastructure Evolution and Future Outlook (21:17) - Cloud Platform Services
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Partner Jon Turow hosts a live conversation with Carina Hong, Founder & CEO of Axiom, and Byron Cook, VP & Distinguished Scientist at AWS.
Carina is building foundation models trained on verified proofs instead of human-written reasoning. Byron leads AWS's automated reasoning group, which secures massive infrastructure with mathematically proven systems.
During this live IA Summit conversation, they explore what it means to build AI that actually reasons and why verified intelligence is critical for domains where being right really matters.
They dive into: 1) Why today's models fail at objective truth in high-stakes domains 2) How verification bridges the gap between correctness and scale 3) What superintelligent reasoning engines might unlock 4) The future of AI in finance, chips, healthcare, and beyond
This is a must-watch for any founder or builder working in AI, infrastructure, or high-consequence systems.
Full Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/can-we-trust-ai-the-future-of-verified-reasoning-in-high-stakes-systems
Chapters: (00:00:00) Introduction (00:02:01) Meet Carina Hong & Byron Cook (00:04:07) Why Next-Gen Reasoning Models? (00:05:59) Objective Truth & Verification in AI (00:08:03) Formal Verification at Amazon (00:09:40) Making Proof Tools Usable (00:11:14) Proofs vs. Bugs: The Mathematical Approach (00:13:25) The Market for Reasoning & Scarcity (00:15:41) From Scarcity to Abundance in Reasoning (00:17:47) AI Mathematicians & Scientific Breakthroughs (00:19:59) Collaboration: AI & Human Experts (00:22:16) Lowering the Cost of Creativity & Experimentation (00:24:08) Broad Applications of Mathematical Reasoning (00:25:28) Balancing Theory & Practice in AI (00:28:14) Customer-Driven Investment in Formal Methods (00:30:31) Building Toward Superintelligent Reasoning Engines
In this live episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Soma Somasegar sits down with Jay Parikh, EVP of Core AI at Microsoft, to unpack the company's evolution from a software factory to an agent factory
Jay leads the team responsible for Microsoft's core AI stack, the systems that power Copilot, the tools developers rely on, like GitHub, and the infrastructure that makes large-scale AI possible. In short, his group builds the underlying tech that Microsoft and thousands of companies use to create AI-powered applications and agents.
In this conversation, Soma and Jay dive into what Jay calls the Agent Factory, which is a new paradigm reshaping how software gets built in the reasoning era. They explore how AI changes the development lifecycle, why observability and evals are becoming mission-critical for enterprises, what it means to collapse traditional engineering functions, and how organizations should prepare for a world where models, agents, and human builders all collaborate in real time.
This is a must-watch for founders, developers, and enterprise leaders who want to understand what's coming — and how to prepare for a world of real-time collaboration between humans, models, and agents. Full Transcript: http://www.madrona.com/microsofts-agent-factory-the-future-of-ai-software-with-evp-of-core-ai-jay-parikh
Chapters: (00:00) Introduction (2:43) Jay's Background & Microsoft Role (4:33) The Reasoning Revolution (6:45) From Software Factory to Agent Factory (8:38) Building the Agent Factory (10:54) Impact on Microsoft's Future (12:49) AI Code Generation & Productivity (14:46) Shifting Engineering Focus with AI (16:22) Future of Software Development (18:17) Real-World AI Productivity Gains (20:18) Microsoft's AI Infrastructure Investments (24:01) Challenges with AI Evaluation & Observability (26:12) Model Choices & Microsoft's Strategy (28:40) Audience Q&A
Where is OpenAI going, and what does it mean for the broader AI and tech ecosystem? Madrona Partner Vivek Ramaswami sits down with Jason Kwon, Chief Strategy Officer at OpenAI, for a rare behind-the-scenes look at the decisions shaping one of the most influential AI companies in the world.
In this live conversation from the 2025 IA Summit, Jason shares what OpenAI will build, what it won't, and how founders can use that as a roadmap to go big without going head-to-head. They unpack OpenAI's ecosystem-first mindset, what "full-stack AI" really means, and how the rise of agentic AI is reshaping what gets built — and by whom.
They also unpack:
- The real reason OpenAI is investing so heavily in compute infrastructure
- How to interpret and work alongside OpenAI's product moves as a founder, rather than fear them
- Why the most compelling startups bet on model progress, not workarounds
- Where OpenAI wants partners, and where it's staying hands-off
- What reasoning + agentic AI unlock for next-gen products
- How OpenAI is navigating its AGI mission while staying product-relevant
This episode is essential listening for anyone building in AI and wondering: Where should I build — and how will OpenAI operate in the space?
Full Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/how-what-to-build-in-the-age-of-openai
Chapters: (00:00) – Introduction (01:17) – Jason Kwon's background and role at OpenAI (02:43) – What is the "full stack of AI"? (Jason's breakdown) (04:07) – Where founders should build: Opportunities in the AI ecosystem (05:43) – OpenAI's partnerships and why compute matters (06:57) – The "reasoning revolution" and agent capabilities (07:57) – Agentic commerce: Stripe partnership and agent protocols (09:15) – OpenAI's philosophy: Platform vs. product, and the value of partnerships (10:47) – What does AGI mean inside OpenAI? Research focus and company culture (11:44) – How OpenAI decides what to build (and what not to) (14:42) – Where OpenAI won't build: Advice/opportunity for founders (17:31) – Q&A: Profitability, business models, and compute margins (20:00) – How ChatGPT changed OpenAI: Growth, culture, and leadership (21:20) – Sam Altman's ruthless prioritization and company focus (23:20) – Q&A: OpenAI's role in commerce and monetization (24:55) – Q&A: Application vs. model layer, and the Cursor partnership (26:48) – Looking ahead: What Jason hopes OpenAI will accomplish next year
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Digital Editor Coral Garnick Ducken sits down with Investor Rasik Parikh to unpack his journey from public markets to venture capital and what makes a founder stand out.
Rasik shares how working across institutional investing, M&A, and now enterprise AI at Madrona has shaped his analytical mindset and founder-first approach. They dive into how to build information asymmetry as an early-stage investor, why storytelling matters more than metrics in early fundraising, and what Rasik looks for in founders.
Founders building in security, agentic software, or enterprise AI — this one's for you.
Watch/listen to learn: How Rasik evaluates founders and opportunities The value of tribal vs. common knowledge in startup ecosystems How early-stage fundraising and M&A share a key ingredient: Storytelling What's exciting in enterprise AI and security
Chapters: (00:00) – Introduction (02:00) – Early career: Institutional investing & M&A (04:30) – Lessons from the UW Endowment (06:00) – Public vs. private markets & long-term thinking (08:50) – Applying an analyst mindset to venture (10:00) – The role of founders in early-stage investing (12:00) – Storytelling in fundraising & exits (14:00) – Rasik's connection to Madrona & Seattle's tech growth (16:00) – What Rasik looks for in founders: curiosity, awareness, urgency (18:20) – Security, enterprise AI, and what excites Rasik in tech (20:00) – Quick hits: How Rasik recharges & Seattle restaurant picks
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Venture Partner Patrick Ennis sits down with Varun Puri and Esha Joshi, co-founders of Yoodli, an AI-powered communications coach helping people become more confident speakers.
Varun and Esha share their leap from Big Tech into startup life, eating noodles on secondhand couches while chasing a bold mission: making effective communication accessible to everyone.
They dive into:
- The origin story behind Yoodli, (and where the name came from!)
- How AI roleplays bring "exposure therapy" to speaking practice.
- Use cases ranging from sales training to doctors having end-of-life conversations.
- The decision to build in Seattle vs. SF with support from Madrona and AI2.
- Co-founder dynamics, culture-first hiring, and why they turned down a famous Silicon Valley VC.
This is a must-listen for any founder building with AI, thinking about culture-first scaling, or just wanting to speak with more confidence.
Full Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/redefining-communication-yoodli-ai-roleplays
Chapters: (00:00) – Introduction (02:00) – The "Why" Behind Yoodli (04:00) – Why AI & Why Now (06:00) – Who Uses Yoodli? (09:00) – Building a Category: AI Role Plays (10:00) – The Real Story Behind the Name "Yoodli" (13:00) – Early Team & Company Building (15:00) – Seattle vs. Silicon Valley (17:00) – Turning Down a Famous VC (19:00) – Co-Founders: The Power of Two (21:00) – Building Confidence as First-Time Founders (24:00) – Scaling the Team & Culture (26:00) – Seattle's Talent Pool & Startup Ecosystem (28:00) – Hiring Values (30:00) – Customer Feedback & Boundaries (31:30) – Lessons Learned as Founders (33:00) – Serial Founders?
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Tim Porter sits down with Babak Parviz and Daniel Kelly, co-founders of NewDays, a platform purpose-built for older Americans living with cognitive change to help them reclaim abilities, preserve independence, and keep being themselves.
Babak and Daniel share how their experience at Amazon and Google led them to apply AI in the most human way: helping people with dementia and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) with scalable solutions.
They dive into: Why we chose to build at the intersection of AI and cognitive health How to translate clinical science into accessible daily experiences What “meaningful velocity” looks like inside an early-stage company How to balance mission-driven purpose with commercial viability Lessons learned from scaling startups and building impactful teams Why the next wave of generative AI is human-centered, not model-centered
Full Transcript: http://www.madrona.com/from-google-and-amazon-to-newdays-why-these-tech-vets-bet-on-ai-for-dementia
Chapters: (00:00) - Introduction (01:22) - The Scale of Cognitive Decline (03:03) - The Search for Solutions & Clinical Evidence (05:22) - Combining AI with Therapeutic Interventions (07:31) - How New Days Works: Telehealth & AI (13:36) - The Importance of Human Supervision (15:02) - Building a Customer-Obsessed Company (18:43) - User Feedback & Impact Stories (21:07) - Business Model & Pricing (22:51) - Building the Team & Company Culture (27:51) - Startup Advice: Velocity & Decision-Making (29:33) - Resource Constraints vs. Big Tech (31:16) - The Importance of Execution Velocity (33:35) - “Bus vs. Motorcycle”: Fast Problem Solving in Startups (35:23) - Startup Mindset
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Investor Joe Horsman sits down with Jeff Leek and Rob Bradley, co-founders of Synthesize Bio, a foundation model company for biology that’s unlocking experiments researchers could never run in the lab.
Jeff, chief data officer at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center, and Rob, the McIlwain Family endowed chair in data science, share:
•Why a startup the right fit for generative genomics •How generative genomics could reshape research, drug trials, and more •Why RNA is the right starting point for a generative AI model in biology •What this breakthrough means for the future of drug development •Why now is biology’s “ChatGPT moment” •What makes Synthesize a true foundation model for biology (not a point solution)
Whether you’re a founder, biotech innovator, or AI researcher, this is a must-listen conversation about the intersection of AI, biology, and the future of medicine.
Transcript:https://www.madrona.com/the-future-of-biology-is-generative-inside-synthesize-bios-rna-ai-model
Chapters: (2:00) – Why a Foundation Model for Biology? (5:00) – The Case for RNA (7:00) – Biology’s Large Language Model Analogy (9:00) – Solving Impossible Problems (11:00) – Validation & Testing (14:00) – Balancing Big Picture & Specific Biology (15:00) – Why a Company, Not Just a Lab (16:00) – Has Biology Had Its “ChatGPT Moment”? (19:00) – The Data Challenge (23:00) – Real-World Use Cases (26:00) – How Research Will Look in 10 Years (28:00) – Increasing the Odds of Discovery (29:00) – Clinical Trials & Precision Medicine (31:00) – Access & Next Steps
Fyxer.ai is an AI-powered assistant that helps users reclaim hours of their day by managing their inboxes, writing replies, and taking meeting notes. But Fyxer didn’t start with AI. It started with a decade-long executive assistant agency that gave them a treasure trove of data and insight that became the foundation for integrating AI.
Fyxer CEO and Co-Founder Rich Hollingsworth joins Madrona Managing Director Karan Mehandru on this episode of Founded & Funded to share how Fyxer went from $1M to $10M ARR in six months with just 30 employees.
In this episode, Rich shares: Why great startups start with real-world pain How there is still room for disruption with email Why quality data matters more than quantity The PLG-to-enterprise playbook that actually works The rowing team mindset that drives their decision-making
Whether you're a founder, operator, or investor, this is a masterclass in AI execution, startup focus, and scaling fast without breaking.
Full Transcript: www.madrona.com/fyxer-ai-productivity-tools-for-email-and-meetings
Chapters (00:00) Intro (01:00) From EA Agency to AI Assistant (03:00) Lessons from Building Workflow-Driven AI (04:00) Growth: $1M to $10M ARR in 6 Months (05:00) Planning for Success vs. Failure (06:00) Frameworks for Prioritization (07:00) PLG + Enterprise Motion (09:00) What's Broken in AI Productivity (10:00) The Quality of Data Edge (12:00) Hiring: Execs Who Do the Grunt Work (14:00) Building with Family: Founding with His Brother (16:00) The Co-Founder Pitch That Landed Matt (18:00) What Startups Get Right vs. Big Tech (19:00) Founder Self-Work: Execution vs. Promotion (20:00) The Kindest Thing
Thompson and Austin Hay, co-founders of Clarify, the startup that’s pioneering the idea of autonomous CRM.
Their vision? A CRM that actually does the work for sellers of driving outreach, managing pipeline, and surfacing insights without constant manual input.
Patrick and Austin share: • Their journey from Iteratively, Ramp, and Amplitude to founding Clarify • Why the CRM market is ripe for disruption with AI • How Clarify’s unique pricing model flips the script (free CRM, pay only when the AI agent works for you) • The concept of autonomous GTM teams and the rise of the Go-to-Market Engineer • Lessons in building culture, hiring talent, and embracing the “beautiful mess” of startups If you’re a founder, sales leader, or builder rethinking your revenue stack and curious about how AI will transform the way teams sell, this conversation is a must-listen.
👉 Subscribe for more conversations with founders and leaders shaping the future of technology.
Full Transcript: www.madrona.com/autonomous-crm-how-clarify-is-reinventing-a-100b-category
Chapters: (00:00) - Introduction (01:33) - What is Clarify? Tackling CRM Frustrations (02:11) - Lessons from Previous Startups and the CRM Problem (03:47) - Applying CDP Lessons to CRM (04:56) - Why Now? The Opportunity in CRM and AI (05:24) - Overcoming Legacy Systems and the Joy of New Tools (07:04) - Product Vision: Reducing Friction and Increasing Joy (08:44) - Business Model Innovation: Usage-Based Pricing (10:52) - Autonomous CRM: What Does It Mean? (12:12) - How Clarify’s AI Agents Work in Practice (14:35) - All-in-One vs. Best-of-Breed: Customer Feedback (16:09) - Autonomous GTM: The Rise of the Go-To-Market Engineer (18:17) - Data Strategy: Intent Data and Customer Insights (20:37) - Structuring Data for Automation and Analytics (22:10) - Team and Culture: Hiring and Building for Success (24:30) - Lessons in Leadership and Relationship Building (25:50) - The Future of Go-To-Market Teams (27:00) - Advice for Founders (28:32) - Embracing the Messiness of Startups
In this Investor Spotlight episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona’s Coral Ducken sits down with Investor Rolanda Fu to explore her journey to VC — from playing violin at weddings to advising startups in Chicago.
Rolanda shares what drew her back to Seattle and Madrona, how her generalist background helps her spot strong founders across sectors, and what traits she looks for in entrepreneurs — especially in today’s AI-first world. If you're a founder, this episode is packed with practical insights into how VCs think and what makes a company (and founder) stand out.
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Partner Vivek Ramaswami sits down with Jared Palmer — designer, developer, and founder of Turborepo (acquired by Vercel), and former VP of AI at Vercel.
Jared walks through his unique path from Goldman Sachs to Vercel, and how he combined finance, design, and engineering to create beloved developer tools like Formik, TSDX, and Turborepo, and v0.
The two dive deep into:
- Why vertical integration is the future of AI-native dev platforms
- The founding and launch of Vercel’s v0.dev
- How Vercel is positioning for a world with 700M code-generators, not just 28M developers
- What makes teams and products move fast
- Why “text-to-app” will soon become “text-to-business”
Whether you're a founder building dev tools, a product leader thinking about AI-native apps, or a developer curious about the future of your craft — this episode is packed with lessons and foresight.
Subscribe and listen now!
Transcript: https://bit.ly/4kQWVig
Chapters: (00:00) Introduction (01:40) Jared Palmer's Early Career in Finance (04:40) Transition to Design and Freelancing (07:12) Building a Career in Open Source (11:46) Creating TurboRepo (13:47) Joining Vercel (15:27) Adjusting to Corporate Life (17:37) The Power of Transparency in Teams (17:50) Building a Thriving Team Environment (19:08) Origins of v0 (19:29) Early Development and Challenges (21:38) Key Innovations and Prototypes (22:58) Launch and Rapid Growth (25:32) Navigating a Competitive Landscape (30:02) Future of AI and Software Development
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Investor Rolanda Fu is joined by Dedy Kredo, the co-founder and chief product officer of QodoAI — formerly CodiumAI, a 2024 IA40 winner and one of the most exciting AI companies shaping the future of software development. Dedy and his co-founder, Itamar, are entrepreneurs who have spent their careers building for developers, and with Qodo, they're tackling one of the most frustrating problems in software engineering — testing and verifying code.
As AI generates more code, the challenge shifts to ensuring quality, maintaining standards, and managing complexity across the entire software development lifecycle. In this conversation, Dedy and Rolanda discuss how Qodo's agentic architecture and deep code-based understanding are helping enterprises leverage AI speed while ensuring code integrity and governance.
They get into what it takes to build enterprise-ready AI platforms, the strategy behind scaling from a developer-first approach to major enterprise partnerships, and how AI agents might reshape software engineering teams altogether.
Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/engineering-ai-era-qodo-dedy-kredo-on-ai-powered-sdlc
Chapters: (00:00) Introduction (01:12) The Future of AI in Software Development (01:58) Dedy's Journey in Tech (03:02) The Genesis of Qodo (03:53) Qodo's Unique Approach to AI Coding (05:13) Exploring Qodo's Product Features (06:42) Code Review and Verification (08:53) Customizing AI Agents (11:02) Vibe Coding and Code Review (13:27) Developer Love vs. Enterprise Needs (15:33) Enterprise Adoption (17:51) Future of Software Engineering (22:13) Balancing Developer Love and Enterprise Sales (24:05) Advice for Founders
In the latest episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Partner Vivek Ramaswami sits down with Harley Sugarman, founder and CEO of Anagram, to unpack how one pivot, a flood of cold outreach, and relentless focus on behavior change transformed a niche tool into an enterprise platform serving companies like Disney and Pfizer. From landing enterprise logos off of nothing but wireframes, to outmaneuvering the 800-lb gorilla in a legacy industry — Harley's tactics are a masterclass for any founder trying to stand out in a crowded market.
Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/how-anagram-landed-disney-with-cold-outbound-security-awareness-training
Chapters: (00:00) Introduction (01:53) Harley Sugarman's Background and Journey (03:24) Founding Anagram (04:21) Initial Vision and Pivot (05:50) Challenges and Market Realities (06:54) Customer Feedback and New Direction (09:25) Executing a Startup Pivot (11:31) Cold Outreach Success (14:20) Security Awareness Training that works (18:52) Competing in a Crowded Market (24:48) Enterprise Sales Strategy (27:04) Fundraising Journey (28:54) Choosing the Right Investors (33:32) Advice for Founders (36:33) Future of Security Training
What happens when a scientist becomes a VC? We sat down with Madrona’s Joe Horsman to find out. In this episode, Joe shares his journey from late nights in the lab to helping biotech founders bring life-changing science to market.
You’ll hear:
- Why Seattle’s biotech + AI ecosystem is heating up
- What founders need beyond funding to commercialize world-changing science.
- Why weekend adventures fuel Monday creativity
In this Founded & Funded episode, Madrona Managing Director Soma Somasegar sits down with Charles Lamanna, Corporate Vice President at Microsoft, to unpack his journey from startup founder to corporate leader. They dive into what it takes to build a successful AI-transformed organization, how the nature of business applications is evolving, and why AI agents will fundamentally reshape teams, tools, and workflows. From "customer obsession" to "extreme ownership," Charles delivers insight after insight for startup founders and enterprise leaders navigating the age of AI.
They dive into: Why business apps as we know them are dead How AI agents and open standards like MCP and A2A are reshaping software The shift toward generalist teams powered by AI What startups are doing today that enterprises will follow in 3–5 years How to focus deeply on a few high-impact AI projects instead of chasing 100 pilots
Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/the-end-of-biz-apps-ai-agility-and-the-agent-native-enterprise-from-microsoft-cvp-charles-lamanna
Chapters: (00:00) Introduction (01:20) Charles Lamanna's Entrepreneurial Journey (01:39) Customer Obsession and Ownership in Startups (03:54) The Future of Business Applications with AI (05:56) AI-Powered Business Agents (08:22) The Role of AI in Modern Business (11:11) Startups Are the Blueprint for the Future of Work (14:33) Industry-Wide AI Adoption (18:32) Driving AI Transformation in Enterprises (21:51) Maintaining Agility in Large Companies (25:03) Personal Impact of AI on Daily Life (27:55) Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Entrepreneurs often ask: When do I know it’s time to scale? Or, how do I lead when I wasn’t the original founder?
In this week’s Founded & Funded, Madrona Partner Chris Picardo sits down with Eleanor Lightbody, CEO of Luminance, who shares how she took a promising AI product and built a company culture, go-to-market motion, and product strategy that’s scaled 6x in just two years. Eleanor’s candor and tactical insights on hiring, selling, and navigating founder dynamics make this a must-listen.
Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/building-ai-that-sells-scaling-smarter-with-luminance-ceo-eleanor-lightbody/
Chapters: (00:00) Introduction (01:29) Eleanor's Career Journey (03:22) Joining Luminance and Initial Challenges (05:46) Navigating CEO Role and Company Dynamics (11:01) Transforming Luminance's Growth Trajectory (19:03) Balancing Innovation and Core Product Delivery (24:42) Building a Collaborative Culture (28:44) Challenges and Rewards of Scaling a Company (34:57) Future of AI
Most startups bolt AI onto old products. @ravennahq reimagined the entire workflow.
When we first met Kevin Coleman and Taylor Halliday, it was clear they weren’t just chasing the hype cycle. They were pairing AI-native architecture with deep founder-market fit, and rebuilding how internal ops work — from first principles.
Their new company, Ravenna, is going after a $160B+ market dominated by legacy players. But instead of being intimidated by incumbents, they got focused, making some smart moves that more early-stage teams should consider:
1) Speak with 30+ customers before writing a line of code 2) Define a clear ICP and pain points 3) Build natively for Slack — where support actually happens 4) Prioritize automation, iteration, and real workflow transformation 5) Stayed radically transparent with investors and early customers
At Madrona, we love backing teams that combine ambition with discipline — and Kevin and Taylor are doing just that. In this episode of Founded & Funded, they sit down with Madrona Managing Director Tim Porter and talk through their journey, what they’d do differently the second time around, and how they’re building a durable, agentic platform for internal support.
If you're a founder building in AI, SaaS, or ops — this conversation is full of lessons worth hearing.
Transcript: https://bit.ly/4ju2Cml
Chapters: (00:00) Introduction (00:23) Meet the Founders: Taylor Halliday and Kevin Coleman (02:05) The Birth of Ravenna: Identifying the Problem (03:05) The Concept of Enterprise Service Management (04:02) The Journey from Idea to Execution (04:31) Customer Insights and Market Fit (06:42) Building a Next-Generation Platform (10:43) Slack Integration and AI Automation (14:37) Partnering with Slack: A Strategic Move (17:13) Leveraging Slack for Knowledge Management (20:13) Balancing Focus and Vision (21:07) Discovering ITSM: A Hidden Market (21:40) Expanding Beyond IT: The Universal Help Desk (24:30) ServiceNow and the AI Revolution (27:03) Building a Transparent and Collaborative Culture (29:37) Recruiting Top AI Talent (31:59) Navigating Market Realities and Customer Focus (37:59) Advice for Aspiring Founders
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Soma Somasegar sits down with Anoop Gupta, co-founder and CEO of @SeekOut — an AI-first company transforming how organizations discover, hire, and manage talent.
They explore: 1) SeekOut’s evolution from LLM-powered workflows to the launch of SeekOut Spot, their agentic AI solution that delivers hires in as little as 3 days. 2) Why "service as software" is the future of recruiting. 3) How founders and talent leaders can reimagine hiring in the age of AI agents. 4) Lessons from building an AI-native company through market shifts. 5) The real business model shift from tools to outcomes.
With customers like Discord, 1Password, HP, and even Madrona itself, SeekOut is redefining what fast, high-quality hiring looks like.
Transcript: https://madrona.com/rise-of-agentic-ai-in-recruiting-seekout-anoop-gupta
Chapters: (00:00) Introduction (01:56) SeekOut Background and AI Evolution (03:55) The Role of Agentic AI in Recruiting (07:59) Business Model and Flexibility (12:59) Recruiting Process and Efficiency (16:49) Navigating Challenges and Product-Market Fit (20:29) Focus on Outcomes not on Hype (22:25) Do you Need a Data Moat? (23:45) Don't build a recruiting org too early (25:50) The biggest hiring mistakes (29:15) Agentic AI for recruiting is here
This bonus episode of Founded & Funded is a follow-up to Madrona Partner Jon Turow's conversation with Douwe Kiela, CEO of Contextual AI and co-inventor of RAG.
In this quick chat, they dive into:
1) Why storytelling—not just GTM—needs to be vertical2) How to build a platform by showing what’s possible3) The tension between “doing one thing well” vs. building the whole stack 4) Multimodal content moderation at Meta & what it taught Douwe
This 10-minute post-show chat is a must-listen for founders thinking deeply about where to plant your flag — and when to break the rules.
Microsoft Chairman & CEO Satya Nadella sat down with Madrona Managing Director Soma Somasegar at Madrona’s 2025 Annual Meeting to discuss the key inflection points in his leadership journey, Microsoft’s AI strategy, and the massive economic impact AI will have on the world. From redefining company culture to betting big on AI and OpenAI,Satya shares deep insights into Microsoft’s transformation — and what’s next.
Watch now for leadership lessons, AI predictions, and the future of innovation!
Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/satya-nadella-microsfot-ai-strategy-leadership-culture-computing
Chapters:
(00:00) Introduction (03:34) Satya Nadella's Journey as CEO (09:57) Cultural Transformation at Microsoft (14:03) The Influence of Cricket on Leadership (18:27) The AI Revolution and Microsoft's Role (28:30) The Future of AI and Economic Impact
What does it take to invent a foundational AI paradigm — and then build a company to bring it to the enterprise?
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Partner Jon Turow sits down with Douwe Kiela, co-founder and CEO of Contextual AI and the co-inventor of RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation). They dive into the origins of RAG, its misunderstood role in the enterprise, and how Contextual is redefining what production-grade AI systems can do. Douwe shares what most companies get wrong about RAG, why chunking shouldn't matter, how to think about hallucinations, and what founders need to know in the era of RAG agents.
Transcript: https://madrona.com/rag-inventor-talks-agents-grounded-ai-and-enterprise-impact
Chapters:
(00:00) Introduction (01:27) The Origin of RAG (04:00) Challenges and Innovations in RAG (09:49) Enterprise Adoption and Use Cases (20:46) Scaling and Innovations at Contextual AI (23:39) The Future of RAG Agents (24:43) Challenges in Enterprise Data (26:34) Building a Research-Driven Company (27:55) The Intersection of Research and Product (32:10) Advice for Founders and AI Companies (38:14) Understanding and Addressing Hallucinations (40:50) Company Building is Harder Than You’d Think (42:00) The Importance of Evaluation in AI (44:14) Concluding Thoughts
The security industry has a math problem: 12 million job postings, only 7 million qualified professionals. The solution? AI.
Edward Wu spent nearly a decade at ExtraHop, pioneering AI-driven security detection. But instead of just alerting security teams about potential threats, he saw a bigger opportunity — what if AI could act as an actual security analyst? That question led to Dropzone, a company that’s not just throwing AI at security but strategically using it to solve one of the most overwhelming problems in the industry — alert fatigue.
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Edward and Partner Vivek Ramaswami dive into:
- The "aha moment" that led Edward to leave a successful career to start Dropzone
- Why most AI security startups will fail, and what it takes to stand out
- How Dropzone landed UiPath as a customer—without a single cold email
- The future of security in an AI-first world
Watch/Listen to the full conversation for insights from Edward on what it takes to build in one of the most competitive categories in security today.
Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/dropzones-edward-wu-security/
Chapters:
(00:00) Introduction (01:40) Edward Wu's Journey into Security (02:48) The ExtraHop Experience (05:10) The Leap to Entrepreneurship (07:59) The Aha Moment: Founding Dropzone (10:28) AI's Role in Security (16:30) Navigating the Competitive Landscape (19:15) Marketing and Customer Acquisition Strategies (21:30) Landing a big-name customer without cold outreach (25:40) Push v. pull when selling into security (28:25) ChatGPT was startups' greatest marketing gift (30:18) Lessons Learned as a Solo Founder
The biggest AI breakthroughs won’t come from Ph.D. labs — they’ll come from people solving real-world problems. So how do AI founders actually turn cutting-edge research into real products and scale them? In this week’s episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Partner Jon Turow sat down with Jonathan Frankle, Chief AI Scientist at Databricks to talk about the shift from AI hype to real adoption — and what founders need to know.
They dive into:
1) How AI adoption has shifted from hype to real-world production
2) The #1 mistake AI startups make when trying to sell to enterprises
3) Why your AI system shouldn’t care if it’s RAG, fine-tuned, or RLHF — it just needs to work
4) The unexpected secret to getting your first customers 5) The AI opportunity that most startups are overlooking
Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/databricks-ia40-ai-data-jonathan-frankle
Chapters:
(00:00) Introduction (01:02) The Vision Behind MosaicML (04:11) Expanding the Mission at Databricks (05:52) The Concept of Data Intelligence (07:42) Navigating the AI Hype Cycle (15:10) Lessons from Early Wins at MosaicML (20:50) Building a Strong AI Team (23:36) The Future of AI and Its Challenges (24:06) Evolving Roles in AI at Databricks (25:55) Bridging Research and Product (28:29) High School Track at NeurIPS (30:39) AI Techniques and Customer Needs (38:22) Rapid Fire Questions and Lessons Learned (42:49) Exciting Trends in AI and Robotics (45:40) AI Policy and Governance
Thinking about leaving Big Tech for a startup? In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Tim Porter sits down with Bhrighu Sareen, who took the leap from Microsoft to Highspot and has been leading AI-driven product innovation ever since. They talk about the realities of transitioning from a massive company to a high-growth startup, scaling AI-driven teams, and how Bhrighu’s helping transform sales enablement through automation and intelligence.
His insights on navigating change, working with founders, and executing at speed are a must-listen for any leader considering the leap from stability to startup chaos. Tune in now for practical strategies and an inside look at how AI is reshaping go-to-market execution.
Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/big-tech-to-startups-highspot-bhrighu-sareen Chapters:
00:00 Introduction 03:01 Bhrigu Sareen's Journey at Microsoft 06:52 Transition to Highspot 10:00 Working with Founders and Building Trust 16:31 Increasing Product Velocity and Efficiency 21:12 Cross-Team Dependencies and Offshore Strategies 23:02 Starting the Journey at Highspot 23:31 Navigating Economic Uncertainty 24:21 Expanding Talent Pool in Vancouver 25:37 Establishing a Development Center in India 27:54 Challenges and Surprises in Transition 29:50 Innovating Through Economic Challenges 31:01 HighSpot's AI and ML Innovations 33:03 AI-Powered Sales Training and Coaching 36:14 Future of AI in Sales and Marketing 43:31 Balancing Data and User Experience 47:28 Looking Ahead: AI Agents and Productivity Gains
What does it take to go from engineer to founder, from startup CEO to scale CEO? In this special live episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Karan Mehandru sits down with Mohit Aron, founder of Nutanix and Cohesity, to uncover the lessons behind his success. Mohit shares his unique hiring strategy, how to identify product-market fit, and the power of balancing vision with execution. Whether you’re navigating your first company or scaling your third, Mohit’s advice is a masterclass in resilience, grit, and building a legacy.
Full Transcript: https://bit.ly/42xnyD9
Chapters: (00:00) Introduction (02:04) Traits of Successful Founders (05:03) Challenges in Transitioning from CTO to Startup CEO to Scaling CEO (07:51) Effective Hiring Strategies (13:42) Defining Product-Market Fit 15:55 Balancing Vision and Focus (17:48) The Importance of a Bigger Vision (20:12) The Role of a CEO Post Product-Market Fit (22:00) Delegation and Leadership Strategies (24:23) Generative AI: Hype vs. Reality (27:09) Crafting a Vision and Minimum Lovable Product (28:56) Choosing the Right Investors and Building a Board (32:15) Framework for Startup Success
Terray Therapeutics CEO Jacob Berlin returns to Founded & Funded after three years to share how the company has scaled from an ambitious startup to an industry leader in AI-driven biotech. Learn how Terray's proprietary hardware combined with the world's largest chemistry data set is powering new discoveries in small molecule drug development.
Jacob also discusses how the company’s $120M Series B fundraise will prepare their internal programs for clinical trials and further enhance their AI platform. He shares insights on where he sees the future of AI and drug design and dives into how founders can balance internal innovation and high-profile partnerships.
Don’t miss this deep dive into the intersection of AI, biotech, and innovation!
Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/terray-jacob-berlin-on-the-ai-powered-future-of-medicine
Chapters:
(00:00) Introduction 00:39 The Evolution of Terray Therapeutics (02:08) Understanding Small Molecule Therapies (04:12) The Journey of Data and AI (07:58) Series B Fundraise and Future Plans (11:20) Biotech Platform vs. Product Debate (14:20) Building a Long-Term Vision (16:39) Deep Dive into Terray’s AI and Science (36:05) The Importance of Partnerships (39:20) High-Performance Culture at Terray
Imagine a future where healthcare isn’t just reactive but deeply personalized — where every patient gets the right treatment at the right time based on a precise understanding of their biology. This is the future Ovation is building, and on this week’s Founded & Funded, Madrona Partner Chris Picardo dives into it all with Ovation CEO Curt Medeiros.
From transforming underutilized clinical data into rich multiomics datasets to forging industry-leading partnerships with companies like Illumina, Curt shares how Ovation is shaping the future of precision medicine. He also opens up about the challenges of building a scalable, privacy-first platform, the lessons he’s brought from leading large healthcare businesses, and why collaboration and diversity are key to solving complex problems in healthcare.
Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/curt-medeiros-on-revolutionizing-precision-medicine-and-scaling-ovation
Chapters:
(00:00) Introduction (01:32) Ovation's Role in Precision Medicine(03:17) The Importance of Data in Precision Medicine(06:12) Challenges and Opportunities of Genomic Data (11:17) Privacy and Pharmaceutical Applications (16:42) Ovation's Unique Approach and Partnerships (17:00) Expanding Research Beyond Pharma(18:28) Recent Successes and Future Plans(26:36) Curt Medeiros' Journey to Ovation(29:56) Leadership Philosophy and Company Culture(33:21) Future of Precision Medicine
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Tim Porter and Jama Software CEO Marc Osofsky discuss the intentional strategies that fueled Jama’s transformation from $20M ARR to a $1.2 billion acquisition by Francisco Partners. Marc shares his blueprint for scaling with purpose, challenging conventional wisdom, and embedding efficiency into the DNA of a company.
Key Takeaways Include:
Accelerating Growth Conventional Wisdom: Scale your sales team rapidly to hit growth targets. Intentional Wisdom: Focus on improving win rates to double or 2.5x your capacity without adding headcount.
TAM Conventional Wisdom: Prioritize the total size of your market potential. Intentional Wisdom: Target activated TAM—the demand being addressed in a given year—and aim to capture a larger share. M&A Strategy Conventional Wisdom: Burn cash and rely on strategic buyers for exits. Intentional Wisdom: Achieve profitable growth and rule-of-40 metrics to attract financial sponsors, giving you more control over the process.
Transcript: https://bit.ly/49mMKhp
Chapters:
(00:00) Introduction (00:52) Challenging Conventional Wisdom (03:48) Focusing on Win Rates (06:13) Efficiency and Culture at Jama (08:45) Vertical Market Focus (10:49) Geographic vs. Vertical-focused GTM Teams (15:28) Culture: Jama's Focus on Habits (19:00) Customer Success Strategies (21:02) The Francisco Partners Acquisition (26:12) Focusing on a GM structure (28:30) Advice for Founders
What does it take to move from cutting-edge academic research to launching a biotech company that could transform medicine? In this week’s episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Partner Chris Picardo sat down with Jamie Lazarovitz, CEO and co-founder of Archon Biosciences, to uncover the story behind their groundbreaking protein-based biologics and their unique Antibody Cages (AbCs).
From bootstrapping deep tech investments as a student to navigating the challenges of commercializing revolutionary science, Jamie shares the pivotal moments, tough decisions, and key lessons that led to Archon’s creation.
This isn’t just a story for biotech enthusiasts — every founder can take away valuable insights on:
1) Asking for help and building teams with complementary skills — no founder succeeds alone. 2) Applying AI thoughtfully — it’s a tool, not a magic wand. 3) Patience — ensure your foundation is strong before scaling. 4) Partnering with investors you trust and who align with your mission. 5) Setting a high bar for talent and culture — great people build great companies. 6) Communicating your differentiation — make your value clear to all stakeholders. Full Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/archon-unlocks-antibodies-with-ai-jamie-lazarovits Chapters: (00:00) Introduction (00:55) Jamie Lazarovitz's Journey from Deep Tech to Biotech (01:45) Early Ventures and Lessons Learned (05:03) The Motivation Behind Jamie’s Biotech Passion (07:40) Joining the Institute for Protein Design - David Baker (09:40) Meeting Co-Founder George Ueda and the Birth of Archon (12:46) Revolutionary Protein Design at Archon: Antibody Cages (AbCs) (25:23) The Role of AI in Protein Design (27:50) Building a Successful Biotech Company (38:47) Future Prospects
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Karan Mehandru hosts Brian Raymond, founder and CEO of 2024 IA40 winner Unstructured. Unstructured turns raw, messy, unstructured data into something AI tools can actually process — a typically expensive and time-consuming process for companies hoping to save money with the tools themselves.
Brian and Karan explore some of the biggest trends in AI, including moving from prototype to production, the rise and fall of vertical applications, the shift toward powerful horizontal solutions, whether the ROI will be there on all this capital investment into AI, and the trough of disillusionment and why expectations in AI often don't match reality. They also discuss how an unlikely source, the public sector, is driving AI innovation today.
It's a conversation you won't want to miss.
Full Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/prototype-to-production-ai-insights-unstructured-brian-raymond
Chapters:
(00:00) Introduction (01:14) Trends in AI: From Vertical to Horizontal Solutions (01:47) The First Mile of AI: Preprocessing and Data Ingestion (03:43) Displacement of knowledge graphs for RAG (06:19) The AI Stack: Layers and Competition (08:55) Is the current level of investment in AI justified? (11:19) The Speed of Change in AI(12:47) Public Sector vs. Private Sector Roles in AI Innovation(16:52) "Two completely incongruous narratives"(19:15) Advice for AI Entrepreneurs(21:49) Unstructured's Future
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Tim Porter and Venture Partner Patrick Ennis host Chris Diorio, co-founder and CEO of Impinj, the pioneer and world leader in RFID technology. Patrick and Chris have known each other for more than 24 years — since Madrona and ARCH Venture Partners co-led Impinj's first round of financing in the summer of 2000. In this episode, these three reminisce about old times and share some fun stories while diving into what it takes to truly launch a new category — and the patience required by both entrepreneurs and investors when doing so. They also discuss developing new speculative technology, navigating channel partner relationships, making it through an IPO during uncertain times, and how Impinj became the least known $4.6 billion public company in Seattle. This is a must-listen for any entrepreneurs out there.
Full transcript: https://www.madrona.com/perseverance-over-speed-creating-a-new-category-with-impinjs-chris-diorio
Chapters:
(00:00) Introduction (02:01) Creating a category, early days of Impinj (03:22) Pivot to RFID(04:40) Struggles and Breakthroughs(08:50) Principles and Company Culture(13:01) Struggles with RFID Standards (14:27) Surviving and Thriving (15:11) Adoption and Scaling Challenges (18:01) End Customer Scenarios and Partnerships (20:52) Financing Strategy and Key Partnerships(23:27) Patrick Meeting Morris Chang: A Career Highlight(24:50) Remembering Tom Alberg's Influence(27:55) The Art of Hiring and Mentorship(33:13) The Journey to IPO(36:42) Strategic Partnerships and Investments (37:01) Company Principles and Future Outlook (38:35) Balancing Work and Life
In the latest episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Tim Porter hosts Pradeep Rathinam, a seasoned software executive with over three decades of leadership experience. Paddy was the Founder and CEO of Madrona portfolio company AnswerIQ, which Madrona invested in back in 2017. It was one of the early machine learning applied to SaaS companies that Madrona invested in. Paddy sold AnswerIQ in 2020 to Freshworks, where he started out as chief customer officer, helped take the company public, became chief revenue officer, and really drove a series of incredible accomplishments for Freshworks.
Today, Tim and Paddy dive into that world of SaaS go-to-market. Paddy shares his experiences on how to not just grow a company, as every company needs to do, but how to grow efficiently and how that includes reducing churn, expanding accounts, and landing new logos. This is something that all go-to-market leaders and startup founders have a lot of questions about how to unlock, so it is a must-listen for founders.
View the full transcript here: https://www.madrona.com/startup-efficient-growth-gtm-pradeep-rathinam/
You can find Paddy's writings on these topics here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paddyrathinam/recent-activity/articles/
Chapters:
(00:00) Introduction
(00:31) Meet Pradeep Rathinam
(01:36) The AnswerIQ Journey
(04:06) Joining Freshworks: Tackling Churn and Growth
(05:25) Efficient Growth Strategies
(06:10) Framework for Efficient Growth
(09:09) Challenges and Solutions in Sales Transformation
(14:12) Change Management and Organizational Alignment
(17:28) New Business Development
(23:01) Customer Retention Strategies
(36:05) Driving Expansion Within Accounts
(41:10) When to Hire a CRO
Today Madrona Managing Director Karan Mahandru and Scott Stephenson, Co-Founder and CEO of Deepgram, a foundational AI company building a voice AI platform providing APIs for speech-to-text and text-to-speech. From medical transcription to autonomous agents, Deepgram is the go-to for developers of voice AI experiences, and they're already working with over 500 companies, including NASA, Spotify, and Twilio.
Today, Scott and Karan dive into the realities of building a foundational AI company, meaning they're building models and modalities from scratch. They discuss the challenges of moving from prototype to production, how startups need to out-fox the hyperscalers while also partnering with them, and, of course, how Scott went from being a particle physicist working on detecting dark matter to building large language models for speech recognition. This is a must-listen for anyone building in AI.
Full Transcript: http://www.madrona.com/founded-funded-deepgram-scott-stephenson
Chapters:
(00:00) Introduction (01:15) From Particle Physics to Voice AI (03:16) The Birth of Deepgram (03:40) Building a Developer-Centric AI Company (06:11) Challenges and Early Decisions (09:49) Navigating the AI Market (13:33) OpenAI's Whisper and Deepgram's Response (17:30) The Future of AI and Speech Recognition (21:59) Deepgram's Real-World Applications (31:19) From Prototype to Production
Madrona Managing Director Soma Somasegar hosts Temporal Co-Founders Samar Abbas and Maxim Fateev in studio. Temporal was founded in 2019 based on an open-source microservices orchestration engine project but is the result of a more than decade-long partnership between the two co-founders that spanned their time working on different iterations of the same thing at AWS, Microsoft, and Uber.
In this episode, Soma, Samar, and Maxim dive into the challenges of building an open-source ecosystem while also working on a commercial offering and scaling a successful company, how to navigate and adjust a product roadmap in an ever-changing world of AI and large language models, and how to successfully build an early startup team, navigate through a CEO transition, and bring on a startup's first independent board member. It's a very compelling conversation and a must-listen for every builder out there.
Full transcript available here:
(00:00) Introduction(01:55) What is Temporal?(04:30) Temporal's Unique Advantages(07:37) Building a Commercial Entity from Open Source(11:15) Balancing Open Source and Commercial Goals(14:51) Temporal's Annual Developer Conference: Replay(16:41) Impact of AI on Temporal's Roadmap(22:35) Choosing the Right Co-Founder(25:56) Seamless CEO Transition(31:27) Bringing on an Independent Board Director
In this episode of Founded & Funded, host Coral Garnick Ducken interviews Madrona Partner Chris Picardo for the latest Investor Spotlight. With degrees in math and English, Chris shares his unique journey into venture capital. Chris highlights the importance of cross-disciplinary skills in understanding and communicating complex concepts and what he looks for in founders, emphasizing unique worldviews and innovative approaches, particularly in AI, biotech, and consumer verticals. This is a great episode for entrepreneurs interested in working with VCs.
(00:00) Introduction to Madrona Partner Chris Picardo
(00:46) Chris Picardo: From Math and English to Startups
(01:26) Chris's Transition to Madrona and Venture Capital
(03:20) Joining Madrona and Early Stage Ventures
(05:50) Chris on AI-Enabled Biotech
(08:28) Chis's Cross-Disciplinary Approach
(11:24) What Madrona Looks for in Founders
(14:49) Book Recommendations and Personal Interests
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Venture Partner Len Jordan sits down with Sean Muller, Founder and CEO of iSpot, to talk about the company's evolution in measuring TV advertising for both conventional and streaming platforms. Sean delves into strategic partnerships, acquisitions, and the rise of ad-supported streaming. They discuss the impact of sports on advertising, challenges for marketers in balancing investments across various channels, and the innovative strides iSpot is making with AI-driven planning and real-time data. Tune in to explore the future of TV advertising and iSpot's role in shaping it.
Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/transforming-tv-advertising-ispot-sean-muller-the-role-of-ai-future-of-streaming
(00:00) Introduction (01:35) The Rise of Ad-Supported Streaming (02:42) Streaming vs. Traditional TV Advertising (04:43) The Impact of Sports on Advertising (05:51) Challenges for Modern Marketers (06:37) Audience Differences and Interactivity (10:40) iSpot's Evolution and Strategic Moves (12:04) Real-Time Data and Optimization (12:36) Planning and Programmatic Buying (17:13) Navigating the Competitive Landscape (22:57) Acquisitions and Integration Success (27:23) Innovation and Future Trends
In this episode of Founded & Funded, host Coral Garnick Ducken interviews Madrona Investor Sabrina Wu for the latest Investor Spotlight. These two discuss Sabrina's transition from private equity to venture capital and the learnings that translate to building successful VC-backed startups, Sabrina’s focus on intelligent applications, and the characteristics she looks for in founders — grit, authenticity, and intellectual honesty. Sabrina also shares her approach to engaging with early-stage founders and her interests outside the office. This is a great episode for entrepreneurs interested in working with VCs.
(00:00) Introduction
(00:44) Sabrina Wu's Experience at Vector Capital
(02:50) Transition to Venture Capital
(04:26) Focus on Intelligent Applications
(05:32) Aspiring for Intelligence Newsletter
(06:56) Traits of Successful Founders
(09:00) Responding to Cold Emails
(09:53) Recommended Books and Podcasts
(10:47) Interests Outside of Work
Madrona Partner Vivek Ramaswami hosts Dev Rishi and Travis Addair, co-founders of 2023 IA40 Rising Star, Predibase. Predibase is a platform for developers to easily fine-tune and serve any open-source model. They recently released LoRA Land, a collection of 25 highly-performant open-source fine-tuned models, and launched open-source LoRA eXchange, or LoRAX, which allows users to pack hundreds of task-specific models into a single GPU.
In this episode, Dev and Travis share their perspective on what it takes to commercialize open-source projects, how to build a product your customers actually want, and how to differentiate in a very noisy AI infrastructure market. This is a must-listen for anyone building an AI. Full Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/predibase-ai-open-source-commercialization
Chapters
(00:00) Introduction (01:29) The Founding Story of Predibase (04:03) Vision and Evolution of Predibase (06:23) Predibase's Response to the ChatGPT Hype (11:26) Commercializing Open-Source Projects (17:37) Bigger Isn't Always Better - LLMs (24:10) Challenges and Solutions in AI Infrastructure (30:47) Predibase's Unique Approach and Future Outlook (34:11) Over-Hyped vs. Under-Hyped in AI (38:37) Advice for First-Time Founders
In this episode, Madrona Managing Director Matt McIlwain hosts David Shim, founder and CEO of Read AI. These two have known each other for over two decades, having worked together at Farecast and then Placed, which David founded in 2011. They came together again in 2021, when David started Read AI, which delivers AI solutions that make meetings, emails, and messages more valuable to teams with AI-generated summaries, transcripts, and highlights.
In this episode, David and Matt examine how leveraging emerging technologies, getting engagement from multiple members of your ecosystem in the early days, and learning your way into a business model have been three themes across David's startup journeys. They explore the challenges and success of implementing AI in various categories, the benefits of using AI model cocktails for more accurate and intelligent applications, and where they see the opportunity for founders well beyond productivity AI. It's a great discussion you won't want to miss.
Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/read-ai-david-shim-efficient-meetings-intelligent-agents
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:51 The Genesis of Read AI: From Concept to Reality
04:26 Leveraging Emerging Technologies: The Journey of Placed and Read AI
09:10 The Evolution of Business Models: Learning from the Market
12:13 Engagement and Distribution: Partnering with Platforms
14:07 Innovating Meeting Summaries: Read AI’s Shift to Intelligent Recaps
16:06 The Power of Model Cocktails: Enhancing AI Applications
18:03 From Zero to Growth: The Momentum of Read AI
21:06 Read AI: The Future of AI Productivity & Intelligent Agents
26:12 Exploring Product-Led Growth and Market Expansion
29:56 – Horizontal v. Vertical
31:46 – Gen-native v. Gen-enhanced
35:45 Importance of Model Cocktails
35:55 Opportunities for Founders
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Steve Singh and Christal Bemont, CEO of Direct Travel, Madrona's newest portfolio company, delve into the acquisition of Direct Travel and its pivotal role in revolutionizing the $1.4T corporate travel ecosystem, along with @Spotnana , Troop, and Center.
Full Transcript: https://bit.ly/3wxBFuT
(00:00) Intro
(01:19) Direct Travel: Transforming Corporate Travel Management
(03:56) The Challenges of Modern Business Travel
(07:43) The Perfect Trip: A Vision for Seamless Travel
(10:06) Spotnana: Building the Next-Generation Travel Platform
(16:27) Integrating Solutions: Center and Troop's Role in the Travel Ecosystem
(20:58) Direct Travel's Strategic Vision and Integration
(25:15) Realizing the Perfect Trip: Timeline and Expectations
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Investor Paul Goel and Neon Co-founder & CEO Nikita Shamgunov dive into the database market and the importance of creating a killer developer experience while balancing that experience with performance and reliability. Nikita also shares just how bullish he is on AI, his excitement for AI agents like Devin, and advises founders to not wait on an idea they’re passionate about.
Full transcript here:
(00:00) Introduction
(00:46) Nikita's Background and the Genesis of Neon
(02:50) The Right Time to Build Neon and Database Market Insights
(05:17) Neon's Differentiation in the Database Market
(08:10) The Importance of Developer Experience
(11:56) Building a Culture of Reliability and Performance
(16:24) Strategic Growth and the Future of Neon
(20:26) AI's Impact on the Future and Neon's Role
(29:08) Intelligent Applications Nikita's Eyeing
(30:53) Challenges and Advice for Founders
Investor Sabrina Wu hosts Bobsled Co-founder and CEO Jake Graham for the latest episode of Founded & Funded. Jake is revolutionizing data sharing across platforms, enabling customers to get to analysis faster directly in the platforms where they work. Madrona co-led Bobsled's $17 million series A last year, which put the company at an $87 million valuation.
In this episode, Jake — who had stints at Neo4j, Intel, and Microsoft — provides his perspective on why enabling cross-cloud data sharing is often cumbersome yet so important in the age of AI. He also shares why you can't PLG the enterprise, how to convince customers to adopt new technologies in a post-zero interest rate environment, and what it takes to land and partner with the hyperscalers.
Transcript here: https://www.madrona.com/bobsled-cross-cloud-data-sharing/
(00:00) Introduction
(01:36) Why found a startup?
(03:00) The Genesis of Bobsled: From Inspiration to Reality
(05:26) Understanding Bobsled’s Functionality: Cross-Cloud Data Sharing
(09:48) The Role of Cross-Cloud Data Sharing in the Age of AI
(13:05) Redefining the Modern Data Stack and Its Future
(18:04) Navigating Enterprise Sales and Partnerships in Tech
(23:22) Strategic Partnerships and Navigating the Hyperscaler Landscape
(29:40) Leadership Lessons and Vision for Bobsled
Madrona Partner Vivek Ramaswami hosts May Habib, co-founder and CEO of Writer, a 2023 IA40 winner. Writer is a full-stack generative AI platform for the enterprise. In this episode, May shares her perspective on founding a GenAI company before the ChatGPT craze, building an enterprise-grade product and go-to-market motion with 200% NRR, whether RAG and vector DBs even have a role in the enterprise, the essential attributes she looks for when hiring, and some valuable lessons she learned from past experiences. It's a must listen for anyone building in AI.
Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/writer-ceo-may-habib-generative-ai-platform
(00:00) Introduction
(01:00) The founding story of Writer
(01:19) Understanding Writer's product and value proposition
(02:58) The importance of building your own AI models
(07:10) The role of vector databases and RAG in enterprise
(12:41) Navigating the challenges of enterprise sales in AI
(16:43) The essential attributes May looks for when hiring
(19:13) The journey of building a high-growth AI company
(29:27) Final thoughts and hiring at Writer
Hear from Madrona Managing Director Soma Somasegar as he discusses his path to venture capital by way of 27 years at Microsoft. He shares invaluable insights about what he looks for in a founder, the importance of passion in founders, the state of cloud technology, and the future of AI and Startups. Tim also shares Madrona's core principles, his favorite books for entrepreneurs, and his personal interests outside of work, including his passion for outdoor sports and the nonprofit Global Partnerships. This chat is a must-watch for aspiring entrepreneurs looking for insights into the venture capital world or strategies to capture an investor's eye.
(00:00) Introduction
(01:18) Soma's Journey from Microsoft to Madrona
(02:08) Choosing the Venture Capital Path
(03:31) Why Seattle and Madrona?
(05:33) Soma's Investment Focus: AI and Cloud Infrastructure
(08:00) Evaluating Founders and Teams
(11:17) Recommended Books for Founders
(12:20) Soma's Passion for Cricket
Madrona Partner Jon Turow hosts Gabriel Hubert and Stan Polu, the co-founders of a 2023 IA40 winner, Dust, which enables information workers to create LLM-based agents that help them do their own work more efficiently. They discuss the broader AI/LLM ecosystem, the merits and potential of horizontal vs vertical solutions, limitations of AI assistants, and the influence of Stripe on their business. The founders dive into the future use cases and adoption of AI in businesses and also touch on keeping humans in the loop of AI and software development.
Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/dust-bets-foundation-models-change-how-companies-work/
(00:00) Introduction and Overview
(01:31) The Trade-off Between Vertical and Horizontal
(02:48) The Power of Horizontal Approach
(08:26) The Influence of Stripe on Dust’s Strategy
(10:45) The Future of AI and LLM Deployment
(18:23) The Role of Dust in Organizations
(21:37) The Potential of Dust as a Company OS
(28:32) The Future of Work with Dust
(33:30) The Success and Challenges of Dust
(36:08) The Potential of Dust and AI
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Tim Porter talks to Craig McLuckie, who’s most known as one of the creators of Kubernetes at Google. Madrona previously backed Craig’s company, Heptio, and was excited to back his latest company — Stacklok. Stacklok is a software supply chain security company that helps developers and open-source communities build more secure software and keep that software safe. Tim and Craig discuss Stacklok’s developer-centric approach to security, the role of open source in startups, the importance of open source and security, and they also hit on some important lessons in company building — like camels vs. unicorns – and where Craig sees opportunities for founders. It’s a must-listen for entrepreneurs.
Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/founded-funded-stacklok-craig-mcluckie/
(00:00) Introduction (01:48) Stacklok and securing open source (05:35) Knowing where open-source tech comes from (08:45) What is Supply Chain Security (10:04) The Role of Developers in Security (13:50) The Power of Open Source in for Startups (18:22) The Importance of Culture in a Startup (camel v. unicorn) (22:37) The Three Jobs of a Founder (27:59) The Future of Stacklok and the Cloud Native Ecosystem (31:00) Opportunities for Founders
Madrona Investor Palak Goel talks with Arvind Jain, founder and CEO of Glean, which has raised about $155M since launching in 2019 and was named a 2023 IA40 winner. It should be no surprise that Glean is touted as the search engine for the enterprise because Arvind spent over a decade at Google as a distinguished engineer, where he led teams in Google Search. Palak and Arvind dive into Glean's vision to be the AI-powered personal assistants in the workplace, how AI should not be thought of as a product but rather as a building block to create a great product, the need for better AI models and tooling, and advice for founders in the AI space, including the importance of customer collaboration in product development, the need for entrepreneurs to be persistent – and so much more! Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/ia40-glean-arvind-jain-ai-in-the-enterprise/
(00:00) Introduction
(01:32) The Challenges/Opportunities of Building AI Products
(03:20) The Role of Glean in AI Applications
(04:55) Impact of AI on Different Industries
(06:17) From Prototype to Production
(08:46) Importance of Persistence and Customer Centricity
(10:32) Future of AI and Its Impact on Enterprises (13:07) AI is a Wave You Have to Ride
(14:48) AI is Bigger than Cloud
(16:35) Glean's Role in the Future of Work
(17:52) Advice for Founders and Builders
(20:44) The Impact of the Internet
(23:07) Glean's Product Evolution
(28:31) What Intelligent App Arvind's Excited About
(28:50) AI Trends Arvind is Excited About
Hear from Madrona Managing Director Tim Porter as he discusses his path to venture capital by way of mechanical engineering and Microsoft. He shares invaluable insights about what he looks for in a founder, the importance of customer focus, and the high priority he places on integrity. Tim also shares Madrona's core principles, his favorite books for entrepreneurs, and his personal interests outside of work, including his passion for outdoor sports and the nonprofit Global Partnerships. This chat is a must-watch for aspiring entrepreneurs looking for insights into the venture capital world or strategies to capture an investor's eye.
(00:00) Introduction (01:25) Tim’s path to Venture Capital (02:55) Current Focus and Interests (06:36) Working with Founders (08:36) Attributes of a Successful Founder (12:08) Lessons Learned (12:48) Sticking to Madrona's Culture Amidst Changes (14:42) Book Recommendations for Founders (15:36) Personal Life and Hobbies
In this episode, Madrona Managing Director S. Somasegar and General Counsel Joanna Black discuss the fundamental role of a board in a startup's growth and development. They touch upon the importance of aligning strategic views with board members, managing disagreements, and effective governance to ensure that the organization is run efficiently. The duo offers numerous insights into the intricacies of board structure at different stages of a startup lifecycle, drawing parallels from recent events at OpenAI. The conversation covers the need for transparency, both in sharing good and bad news, and the necessity for a functional board reflecting a functional culture.
(00:00) Introduction
(02:12) Differences between Nonprofit and For-profit Boards
(03:03 Defining Governance and its Importance
(04:20) The Role of a Board in Early-Stage Companies
(06:33) Board Evolution with Company Growth
(09:09) Choosing the Right Board Members
(10:38) Navigating Disagreements and Conflicts within the Board
(13:00) The Importance of Transparency and Communication in Board Governance
(15:08) Conclusion and Final Thoughts
This week, Madrona Managing Director Karan Mehandru hosts Madrona Operating Partner Anna Baird. The operating partner role is a new one for Madrona, and we're excited to have her on the team to advise our founders. Before transitioning to board positions in the last couple of years, Anna was most recently the CRO at Outreach. Before that, she was the COO at Outreach, and before that, she was the CFO at several companies. That trifecta of C-Suite experience gives Anna a unique perspective to help founders navigate any blind spots they may have.
Anna and Karan, who is on the board of Outreach, dive into how the sales profession has changed, how the role of the CRO has changed since COVID, how to talk to customers, how to build high-performance sales teams, go-to-market strategy, AI's role in sales, and so much more. These two tackle it all, and it's a must-listen. Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/karan-mehandru-anna-baird-go-to-market-strategy/
Chapters: (00:00:40) Introduction(00:02:14) How Anna Baird got into tech with an accounting major?(00:06:13) Changes in the sales profession since COVID.(00:09:56) Creating a go-to-market strategy.(00:12:38) Balancing growth and profitability.(00:15:05) Building a high-performance sales team.(00:18:31) Why Madrona?(00:22:21) Don't try to make failure look pretty.(00:24:27) Is AI going to take all the sales jobs away? (00:25:43) Book recommendation.
Madrona Partner Aseem Datar hosts Tigera CEO Ratan Tipirneni. Tigera is in the business of preventing and detecting security breaches in cloud-native applications, and its open-source offering Calico is one of the most widely adopted container networking and security solutions out there. Aseem and Ratan dive into whether or not you should open source, the three business models founders should evaluate when thinking about commercializing an open-source project, how to compete with free, how product-led growth can really kickstart your business compared to traditional go-to-market, and so much more.
Words of wisdom from Ratan Tipirneni:
- You need to be thinking about commercialization even as you’re launching the open-source offering.
- Wait to launch a commercial product until you reach a minimum critical mass in your community.
- Don’t put everything in the open-source bucket. It leaves you no other option but to monetize through commercial support, which is not a very defensible business.
- Trying to compete with free by offering more free stuff is a losing battle.
- It is a fallacy to assume that just because you’re offering free software a user will adopt it.
- Stick to fundamentals – be clear about who your end users are and what their pain points are. Everything else will take care of itself.
- Stars are a vanity metric that can be gamed. Signs of daily usage, the growth rate, and user feedback are better places to start.
Get to know Madrona Investor Maria Gilfoyle. Learn how she pivoted from wanting to become an artist into venture capital, her design-first mindset focus, what she looks for in founders, and what she enjoys doing outside the office.
Today, managing director Steve Singh sits down with Troop Travel Co-founders Dennis Vilovic and Leonard Cremer. Madrona invested in Troop and its corporate travel meeting management platform in 2021. These three talk about looking for the right problem to solve, to launch a company, and how you decide if it's the right time. They also discuss when you need to switch from bringing on generalists to bringing on experts, how to identify the right investors to work with, why working closely with customers and potential customers is so important, and so much more. So I'll go ahead and hand it over to Steve to take it away.
You can read the transcript of this conversation here: https://www.madrona.com/troop-travel-founded-funded/
Get to know Madrona Managing Director Karan Mehandru. Learn what drew him to venture capital and working with founders, what he looks for in founders, what he thinks founders should look for in VC partners, and what he enjoys doing outside the office.
(00:00:00) Introduction (00:01:00) Madrona Managing Partner Karan Mehandru's background (00:01:33) Why venture capital (00:02:50) Founders: Become the best version of yourself (00:04:58) Understand the person behind titles and roles (00:05:44) What Karan looks for in founders (00:06:52) Visionary founders (00:07:34) The role of grit and intellectual honesty (00:08:50) How Founders should select partners/investors (00:11:36) Biggest changes Karan's seen over his career (00:13:56) What has stayed the same (00:14:52) Cats or dogs (00:15:46) Karan's book recommendation (00:17:07) What Karan does outside of the office
Today, Madrona Managing Director S. Somasegar talks with Statsig founder and CEO Vijaye Raji, who spent 20 years at Microsoft and Facebook before launching Statsig as a way to bring the powerful tools he was used to using inside Facebook to all builders.
Statsig experimentation platform and automated AB testing helps companies make product decisions in a data-driven way at scale, which means shipping the right products faster. Vijaye and Soma go way back and take a little trip down memory lane, talking about Microsoft’s Small Basic. But then they dive into what it’s like transitioning from big tech to a founder, the importance of data-driven decision-making, integrating AI into those decisions, identifying the ideal customer profile, and learning how to sell your product. Something that did not come naturally to Vijaye. He and Soma talk about all of this and so much more.
You can read a transcript of this conversation here: https://www.madrona.com/statsig-founder-vijaye-raji-product-building-launching-a-startup-ai/
In this week's episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Matt McIlwain hosts NYSE Group President Lynn Martin ahead of our Intelligent Applications Summit on October 10th and 11th. Lynn will be speaking at the Summit, but we thought it would be great to have her on the show to talk more about her background, the NYSE, capital markets, IPOs, and, of course, the role data, AI, and large language models are playing in the markets and in companies broadly! This conversation couldn’t come at a better time now that we’re seeing a number of tech companies teeing up IPO plans.
Lynn thinks we’ll be back to a more “normal” IPO environment in 2024 – but you have to listen to get her full take!
This week, Vivek Ramaswami talks with Chroma Co-founder and CEO Jeff Huber. Chroma is an open-source vector database, and vector databases have taken the AI world by storm recently, with Chroma quickly emerging as one of the leading offerings in the space. Jeff's background is in machine learning, and for him and his co-founder, starting Chroma was a classic "there has to be a better way moment when it comes to going from demo to production".
Vivek and Jeff talk about why on earth we need another database, the new wave of software engineering happening right now, community-led growth, the competitive landscape, and so much more.
In this episode, Madrona Partner Jon Turow and Cohere CTO and Co-founder Ivan Zhang dive into the world of foundation models for the enterprise. Cohere was founded in 2019 — a time when even the most passionate believers did not realize how soon the world would be struck by the capabilities of foundation models. The company announced a $270 million raise in June – which put it at an over $2 billion valuation — and — Ivan’s co-founder Aidan Gomez was a co-author of the seminal paper “Attention Is All You Need,” which actually introduced the Transformer, the architecture behind foundation models. Notwithstanding the big numbers, Cohere keeps itself scrappy and hungry, having still only raised a fraction of what others in the space have to date.
In this episode, Ivan shares about his decision not to finish school and instead gain practical experience working in startups and publishing research to basically prove that he could without a degree. He dishes about applying that same renegade spirit to hiring, shares his thoughts about the importance of feedback loops with customers as well as the difference between fine-tuning and teaching a model how to retrieve the right knowledge, and so much more.
This week we have the pleasure of having former Snowflake CEO Bob Muglia on the show again. Bob is an active investor and sits on the boards of many next-generation data platform companies, and more recently, he launched his first book — "The Datapreneurs." Given the long history between Bob and Madrona Managing Partner Soma, we had to have Bob joins us again to talk about his new book and dive into the world of data and AI. These two old friends discuss what exactly a datapreneur is and the Arc of Data Innovation concept Bob wrote about in his book. They also talk through how companies can add value with AI through copilots and agents and what white spaces and opportunities there are for entrepreneurs right now — especially when it comes to semantic models.
This week, investor Aseem Datar is possibly making app dev and product development history with his guests. We've got former Tableau CEO Mark Nelson and James Phillips, the former president of Microsoft who drove the creation of many of the company's most successful products, including, of course, Tableau's number one competitor — Power BI. James was also just named the VP of Google Cloud. Mark and James are both part of the Madrona family, as venture partner and strategic director respectively. And today, we have the rare treat of them together sharing their learnings and experiences about modern app development, data and analytics, product-led growth, and scaling in the face of stiff competition. You won't want to miss this.
In this episode, Madrona Managing Director Soma Somasegar talks with Typeface Founder and CEO Abhay Parasnis. Typeface combines generative AI platforms with its own brand-personalized AI, so all businesses can create content that is multimodal and on-brand. Typeface just announced $100 million in new funding, and Madrona couldn’t have been happier to participate in the round.
Abhay and Soma have known each other for almost 20 years from their time at Microsoft. But In 2022, Abhay left Adobe, where he was CTO and CPO, because he saw an inflection point coming that he wanted to be a part of. This was, of course, before ChatGPT and all the other popular GenAI tools that we’ve all been playing with this year even came out. Typeface has made waves quickly, attracting Fortune 500 customers and partnering with Salesforce and Google Cloud.
In this week’s episode, Abhay shares about the need to balance your passion and recklessness for going after a dream with a product that you know will resonate with customers. He explains that people relationships are the real currency when launching a new company, and how advisers are just as important as what he calls the flag planters and road builders that founders need to seek out, to help them on their startup journey.
These two industry veterans share all of this and so much more.
Get to know Madrona Partner Vivek Ramaswami. Learn what drew him to venture capital and working with founders, what he looks for in founders, where he focuses, and what he enjoys doing outside the office.
In this week's IA40 spotlight episode of Founded & Funded, Investor Sabrina Wu talks with Airtable Co-founder and CEO Howie Liu. Airtable is a low-code platform that enables teams to easily build workflows that modernize their business processes. The company launched in 2012 and has been on a product-led journey since then. Last year, Airtable ranked number three in the growth stage section of the intelligent applications 40. And just in May, the company announced new embedded AI capabilities to make it possible for teams to integrate powerful AI into their data and workflows.
In this episode, learn about Howie's transition from a first-time founder to a second-time founder, the lessons he took with him from that journey, and how he decided to go up against the dominant forces in the low-code productivity tools space when he was only a few years out of school. As Howie explains it, to be a founder, you really have to have the perfect balance of naivety and pragmatism, but you'll have to listen to hear his explanation.
This week, Madrona Managing Director Tim Porter talks to Numbers Station Co-founders Chris Aberger and Ines Chami. We announced our investment in Numbers Station’s $17.5M Series A in March and are very excited about the work they’re doing with foundation models, which is very different than what has been making headlines this year. It isn’t content or image generation – Numbers Station is bringing the transformational power of AI inside of those foundation models to the data-wrangling problems we’ve all felt! You can't analyze data if the data is not prepared and transformed, which in the past has been a very manual process. With Numbers Station, the co-founders are hoping to reduce some of the bifurcation that exists between data engineers, data scientists, and data analysts, bridging the gaps in the analytics workflow! Chris and Ines talk about some of the challenges and solutions related to using foundation models in enterprise settings, the importance of having humans in the loop — and they share where the name Numbers Station came from. But, you’ll have to listen to learn that one!
Get to know Madrona Partner Jon Turow. Learn why he got into VC, what he looks for in founders, where the opportunities lay for founders when it comes to generative AI, and what he enjoys doing outside the office.
This week on Founded & Funded, Madrona Partner Vivek Ramaswami talks to Jack Naglieri, Founder and CEO of 2022 IA40 winner Panther Labs. Jack founded Panther, a leading cloud-native security information and event management platform, because he had experienced first-hand the threat detection challenges companies have at cloud scale. Growing frustrated with the compromises required by traditional SIEM platforms, Jack took his experiences from Yahoo and Airbnb and set out to build a solution that detects and responds to suspicious activity in real time.
In this IA40 spotlight episode, Jack shares where the inspiration to launch his own company came from – hint it was from a cold email he received. He also breaks down why he decided to take the leap and become an entrepreneur and what it’s like transitioning from a software engineer to a founder and then to a successful founder. Jack also shares details about what it takes to land – and keep — your first customer and provides some advice about how CEOs should be the only ones learning on the job. But you’ll have to listen to get all the details.
This week, Madrona Partner Jon Turow brings us a story about a great partnership forming between two people, who had never even met, when they each find themselves on a mission to focus on what it is they do best. You’ll hear from Hannes Mühleisen, creator of the DuckDB open-source project, and Jordan Tigani, the database leader who saw an opportunity to commercialize it, about the lightning-bolt moment that led to one of them flying half way around the world to meet — how does this happen and how do they set their partnership up to be the foundation of a really big business while still supporting the open-source community? Jon gets into all of this and so much more. MotherDuck and DuckDB have become integral for students of the modern data stack, but this story of inspiration, partnership, and execution is something that builders everywhere can learn from.
Today we have the pleasure of hosting GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke! He and Madrona Partner Aseem Datar talk about how Thomas got into working with computers and coding and the work he's been doing since becoming GitHub CEO in November 2021, including the recent launch of Copilot X. But these two discuss so much more, including the rise of generative AI, talking about everything from how it is a new way for developers – everyone really – to express their creativity to how it democratizes many skills and access to those skills. They also discuss how the constantly evolving world developers have always worked in has set them up with the perfect safety network to leverage generative AI to its fullest potential. Thomas also offers up advice for people just launching a startup. But you'll have to listen to hear it all.
In this week’s IA40 Spotlight Episode, Madrona Investor Sabrina Wu talks with Credo AI Founder and CEO Navrina Singh. Founded in 2020, Credo’s intelligent responsible AI governance platform helps companies minimize AI-related risk by ensuring their AI is fair, compliant, secure, auditable, and human-centered. The company announced a $12.8 Series B last summer to continue its mission of empowering every organization in the world to create AI with the highest ethical standards.
Navrina and Sabrina dive into this world of governance and risk assessment and why navrina wanted to make governance front and center rather than an afterthought in the quickly evolving world of AI. Navrina is not why about what she thinks we should all be worried about when it comes to the abilities of LLM and generative AI and her passion for an “AI-first, ethics-forward" approach to Artificial intelligence. These two discuss the different compliance and guardrail needs for companies within the generative AI ecosystem and so much more.
This week, we’re excited to release a special live episode recorded during the community event portion of the Madrona 2023 annual meeting. Managing Director Matt McIlwain talks with Madrona Alumni and Acquired Podcast Hosts Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal. The three reflect on Acquired episode No. 28, which dove into the Amazon IPO with the late Madrona Co-founder and original Amazon Board Member Tom Alberg, and the early days getting the show off the ground from the Madrona offices.
Madrona Managing Director Soma dives into the world of intelligent applications and generative AI with Common Room Co-founder and CTO Viraj Mody. Madrona first invested in Common Room in 2020 — and we had the pleasure of having the founders join us on Founded & Funded the following year.
Common Room is an intelligent community growth platform that combines engagement data from platforms like LinkedIn, Slack, Twitter, Reddit, GitHub, and others with product usage and CRM data to surface insights from across an organization’s entire user community. Customers like Figma, OpenAI, and Grafana Labs use Common Room to better understand their users and quickly identify the people, problems, and conversations that should matter most to those organizations.
Soma and Viraj dive into the importance of deeply understanding the problem you’re trying to solve as a startup — and how that will feed into your product iterations — why organizations need a 360-degree profile of their user base, how Common Room has utilized foundation models to build intelligence — not just generative intelligence — into its platform — and so much more.
Get to know Madrona Managing Partner Matt McIlwain. Learn where he gets his spark to work with entrepreneurs, what he looks for in founders, where the opportunities lay for founders when it comes to generative AI, and what he enjoys doing outside the office.
In this episode of Founded & Funded, partner Aseem Datar talks with Leaf Logistics Co-founder and CEO Anshu Prasad. Leaf is applying AI to the complexities of the freight and transportation industry, connecting shippers, carriers, and partners to better plan, coordinate, and schedule transportation logistics. This enables network efficiencies and unlocks a forward view of tomorrow’s transportation market while simultaneously reducing carbon emissions.
Leaf Logistics was founded in 2017, and Madrona joined Leaf's $37 million series B in early 2022. From the beginning, Leaf has been fighting the one-load-at-a-time way that trucking has historically been conducted. The company analyzes shipping patterns to make sure that when a truck is unloaded at its destination, another load is located to return to the city of origin. Identifying these patterns allows Leaf to coordinate shipments across shippers at 1000x the efficiency and effectiveness typical in the industry.
Aseem and Anshu dive into the story behind Leaf, what makes logistics so complex, and how AI can continue to improve it. And Anshu offers up great advice for founders that he's learned on his own journey.
In this week's IA40 Spotlight Episode of Founded & Funded, Investor Elisa La Cava talks to Lexion Co-founder and CEO Gaurav Oberoi. Lexion was one of the first spinouts from AI2, and Madrona invested in the first round the company raised in 2019. Like many companies that come from AI2 – Lexion is focused on applying AI to change an industry. Specifically, Lexion helps legal teams at enterprises manage contracts – and they are one of the companies that have added features using OpenAI’s GPT technology.
In this episode, investor Elisa La Cava talks with Josh Crossman, CEO of Magnify, which was incubated at Madrona Venture Labs. Josh was actually recruited by Madrona Venture Labs to help launch a business that would bring AI to the customer experience. He was quickly persuaded and signed on in 2021, spinning out of MVL in less than three months with a $6 million seed round.
Josh and Elisa discussed the incubation process and how Magnify's intelligent application to improve customer retention, expansion, and adoption is solving one of the biggest pain points of the customer experience — focusing on and understanding the needs of every single user. They also dive into finding product market fit and the importance of incorporating AI/ML into a product from the very beginning. I'll go ahead and hand it over to Elisa to dive into all this and so much more.
This week on Founded & Funded, Partner Chris Picardo is talking with A-Alpha Bio Co-founder and CEO David Younger for our first Intelligent Application 40 Spotlight episode of 2023. We announced the 2022 IA40 winners in October, and A-Alpha was the first biotech company to make the list, which was no surprise to us. As one of our portfolio companies, we know the work David and his team are doing at the intersections of biological and data/computer sciences will change the world — but having a group of judges agree with us makes us all the more certain.
Protein interactions govern just about all of biology and A-Alpha uses synthetic biology and machine learning to measure and engineer protein-protein interactions, speeding up a traditionally slow wet lab process. The company's proprietary platform — AlphaSeq — uses genetically engineered cells to experimentally measure millions of protein-protein interactions simultaneously, generating enormous amounts of data to inform the discovery and development of therapeutics.
It is within that enormous amount of data that the company is adding to every day that so many answers will start to be found as the company is able to use machine learning to train predictive models and begin predicting new antibody sequences that could be effective against different viruses and diseases — improving the way that we are able to discover drugs.
Chris and David dive into that future that A-Alpha is working toward and so much more — the power of data engineering, building business models around data, building cross-functional teams, having both tech and biotech-focused investors. It is an episode you won't want to miss.
In this week's IA40 Spotlight episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona partner Jon Turow talks with dbt Labs Founder and CEO Tristan Handy. Here at Madrona, we just announced our 2022 IA40, and dbt Labs is one of our two-time winners. The company has positioned itself as the industry standard for data transformation in the cloud, and it raised $222 million at the beginning of the year, which was led by Altimeter, but Databricks and Snowflakes both participated in the round, further solidifying dbt's place and the modern data stack.
Jon and Tristan dive into the concept of epistemic truth, how the modern data stack has significantly improved the frontier of what's possible in data, the collaboration that needs to happen between data analysts, analytics engineers, and data scientists, the right way to use partnerships, and how the best way to try and create a community around your product is to not try and create a community, but you'll have to listen to Tristan's explanation.
In this week's IA40 Spotlight episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona partner Jon Turow talks with dbt Labs Founder and CEO Tristan Handy. Here at Madrona, we just announced our 2022 IA40, and dbt Labs is one of our two-time winners. The company has positioned itself as the industry standard for data transformation in the cloud, and it raised $222 million at the beginning of the year, which was led by Altimeter, but Databricks and Snowflakes both participated in the round, further solidifying dbt's place and the modern data stack.
Jon and Tristan dive into the concept of epistemic truth, how the modern data stack has significantly improved the frontier of what's possible in data, the collaboration that needs to happen between data analysts, analytics engineers, and data scientists, the right way to use partnerships, and how the best way to try and create a community around your product is to not try and create a community, but you'll have to listen to Tristan's explanation.
In this week's episode which is leading up to our Intelligent Applications Summit on November 2nd, Soma speaks with Bob Muglia. Bob has thought deeply about the Modern Data Stack and they speak about it here - what is needed in the data stack to enable Intelligent Applications (or data driven apps as Bob calls them) and the opportunities for new companies to innovate. Bob is also well known as the CEO that took Snowflake from a promising application for the public cloud to success by focusing on the problem of scaling a data warehouse in the cloud, and building product and sales teams that could win the hearts and minds of their loyal customers. Bob talks here about the early days after he joined Snowflake and what he did to get a product to market, how partnering with the big public cloud providers worked- and had it's challenging moments. It's a great view into how both Soma and Bob are thinking about the future of enterprise data and intelligent applications.
In this week's episode which is leading up to our Intelligent Applications Summit on November 2nd, Soma speaks with Bob Muglia. Bob has thought deeply about the Modern Data Stack and they speak about it here - what is needed in the data stack to enable Intelligent Applications (or data driven apps as Bob calls them) and the opportunities for new companies to innovate. Bob is also well known as the CEO that took Snowflake from a promising application for the public cloud to success by focusing on the problem of scaling a data warehouse in the cloud, and building product and sales teams that could win the hearts and minds of their loyal customers. Bob talks here about the early days after he joined Snowflake and what he did to get a product to market, how partnering with the big public cloud providers worked- and had it's challenging moments. It's a great view into how both Soma and Bob are thinking about the future of enterprise data and intelligent applications.
This week Madrona Investor Sabrina Wu talks with Fivetran Co-founder and CEO George Fraser. Fivetran is fundamentally a data replication company — that’s how George explains it. But the company actually started out trying to solve a completely different problem when it was founded in 2012 and pivoted to strictly data integration in 2015 after multiple customers started asking for help. But in attacking that problem differently than it had ever been done before — by only focusing on replicating people’s data into the desired destination w/o getting sucked into any of the workflows that the user intended to do on the other side — they’ve come out as a leader in the space. Fivetran landed a $565M series D last year and made two acquisitions. And – it was named one of our top 40 Intelligent Applications in 2021. In this IA40 spotlight episode, Sabrina and George not only dive into the story behind Fivetran and how it has taken time and patience to get to where they are now. But Sabrina also gets some hot takes on the modern data stack, reverse ETL, query federation and why Fivetran doesn’t open source. He also has some great advice about coming up with a company name, but you’ll have to listen to get it, so I’ll hand it over to Sabrina to dive in.
This week Madrona Investor Sabrina Wu talks with Fivetran Co-founder and CEO George Fraser. Fivetran is fundamentally a data replication company — that’s how George explains it. But the company actually started out trying to solve a completely different problem when it was founded in 2012 and pivoted to strictly data integration in 2015 after multiple customers started asking for help. But in attacking that problem differently than it had ever been done before — by only focusing on replicating people’s data into the desired destination w/o getting sucked into any of the workflows that the user intended to do on the other side — they’ve come out as a leader in the space. Fivetran landed a $565M series D last year and made two acquisitions. And – it was named one of our top 40 Intelligent Applications in 2021. In this IA40 spotlight episode, Sabrina and George not only dive into the story behind Fivetran and how it has taken time and patience to get to where they are now. But Sabrina also gets some hot takes on the modern data stack, reverse ETL, query federation and why Fivetran doesn’t open source. He also has some great advice about coming up with a company name, but you’ll have to listen to get it, so I’ll hand it over to Sabrina to dive in.
This week, Investor Aseem Datar is talking with Will Rush, co-founder and CEO of Stack, a teen crypto platform to educate a young crypto-curious generation — and their parents — about responsible investing. After working at a company, building a banking app for teens, Will took his decade-long experience in securities and finance and applied it to crypto and Web3. He saw the excitement and curiosity that teens had for crypto and knew he could apply his experience to create a world of responsible teen crypto investing.
Stack has managed to balance education and access for both parents and their teens in a way that the younger generation is actually appreciating and connecting with. And Will is maniacally focused on the education portion. Not only because he is a soon-to-be parent himself, but because in what he calls the Wild West of Web3 and crypto, he says somebody needs to be the good guy. To help continue that project, Stack just landed $2.7 million in funding to continue developing its platform. And Will's advice for every founder — "You need to have slime on your face" — a reference most of us millennials will understand, but you'll have to listen to see how Double Dare relates to launching a startup.
This week, Investor Aseem Datar is talking with Will Rush, co-founder and CEO of Stack, a teen crypto platform to educate a young crypto-curious generation — and their parents — about responsible investing. After working at a company, building a banking app for teens, Will took his decade-long experience in securities and finance and applied it to crypto and Web3. He saw the excitement and curiosity that teens had for crypto and knew he could apply his experience to create a world of responsible teen crypto investing.
Stack has managed to balance education and access for both parents and their teens in a way that the younger generation is actually appreciating and connecting with. And Will is maniacally focused on the education portion. Not only because he is a soon-to-be parent himself, but because in what he calls the Wild West of Web3 and crypto, he says somebody needs to be the good guy. To help continue that project, Stack just landed $2.7 million in funding to continue developing its platform. And Will's advice for every founder — "You need to have slime on your face" — a reference most of us millennials will understand, but you'll have to listen to see how Double Dare relates to launching a startup.
This week, Investor Maria Gilfoyle talks to Brad Van Vugt, founder and CEO of Battlesnake, a multiplayer programming game for experienced web developers where your code is your controller. Battlesnake builds games for programmers that encourage self-directed learning and are challenging to master. In this episode, Maria and Brad dive into where the idea for the game came from, how they get the developer community so involved, and how they're able to combine aspects of gaming, eSports, and traditional sports to create an engaging experience not just for developers, but for anyone to watch and enjoy. You won't want to miss Brad's stories and advice in this one.
This week, Investor Maria Gilfoyle talks to Brad Van Vugt, founder and CEO of Battlesnake, a multiplayer programming game for experienced web developers where your code is your controller. Battlesnake builds games for programmers that encourage self-directed learning and are challenging to master. In this episode, Maria and Brad dive into where the idea for the game came from, how they get the developer community so involved, and how they're able to combine aspects of gaming, eSports, and traditional sports to create an engaging experience not just for developers, but for anyone to watch and enjoy. You won't want to miss Brad's stories and advice in this one.
In this IA40 spotlight episode, Managing Director Hope Cochran talks with Tesorio Co-founders Carlos Vega and Fabio Fleitas about getting finance teams out of the world of manual, error-prone and inefficient spreadsheets and equipping them with intelligent applications more common in other parts of a company. That’s where Tesorio comes in — they offer automation solutions designed to help companies manage accounts receivable — in other words, they help companies turn their revenue into cash. The platform replaces that tedious and manual collections processes with accurate, real-time predictions, optimized workflows, and actionable insights based on behavioral trends. Tesorio raised a $17M Series B in July to expand its go-to-market efforts and last year landed on Madrona’s list of the country’s top 40 intelligent applications, a list we launched to recognize companies applying machine learning to solve business problems better than ever before. We think these intelligent applications will define the next generation of innovation and shift the SaaS technology landscape into application intelligence.
In this episode, Hope, Carlos, and Fabio dive into where the idea for Tesorio came from, how the company pivoted from the original idea, how these two met, the hard conversations any co-founders should have before deciding to launch a company together, and so much more.
We've all struggled with call center experiences. Madrona's Ishani Ummat talks with Cresta Co-founder and CEO Zayd Enam about the unique angle Cresta takes to leverage AI to drive a better customer experience in real time.
The two dive into the important topic of how AI can be used to help empower people to be more productive. we hear the story of why Zayd dropped out of his Ph.D. program to pursue launching his own company based on what he explains as the "schlep blindness" of contact centers. He also discusses the unique way he landed his first customer, which happens to be Intuit, one of the largest financial software companies in the country, and the benefits of taking a modular approach versus a full rip and replace of a customer's entire system.
This episode may make you crave a Costco hot dog, but you'll have to listen to find out why!
In this episode of Founded and Funded, Managing Director Scott Jacobson is talking with CommerceIQ CEO Guru Hariharan. CommerceIQ is a retail e-commerce management platform that automates and unifies category analytics, retail media management, and sales and operations all under one roof. The company secured $115 million in funding in March and just made its first acquisition — e-fundamentals — to expand into digital shelf analytics. The acquisition actually brings the company around full circle in a sense. CommerceIQ was originally Boomerang Commerce, which was a dynamic pricing software for multi-brand retail companies to better compete with the likes of Amazon. But Guru realized that despite the quality of that software and the A+ team he'd pulled together, he was trying to grow a business in an F market. He ended up pivoting the entire company to what is now CommerceIQ, selling the Boomerang business to Lowe's. Scott and Guru dive into what went into navigating those turbulent times, what it takes to be a vertical SaaS company, and Guru's realization that he couldn't solve every problem as though it were a math problem.
In this episode of Founded and Funded, we stray a little from our typical format to answer some questions that often come up in discussions between founders and our investors. Madrona Managing Director Matt McILwain talks with one of our Limited Partners — or the partners of ours that are not the day-to-day investors — Top Tier Capital Partners Founder and Managing Director David York. They explore different kinds of funding mechanisms, the current market conditions, and a bit of a history between the two firms – more specifically, why this San Francisco-based firm decided to bet on Seattle and Madrona all those years ago!
In this episode of Founded and Funded, Madrona Partner Chris Picardo dives into the world of crypto and Web3 with Sila Co-Founder and CEO Shamir Karkal. Sila is a FinTech platform that provides payment infrastructure as a service and sits at the intersection of crypto rails and traditional financial services infrastructure — because as much as some people want to get away from the traditional financial system, crypto still needs to be able to plug into it. Shamir and Chris dive into the importance of this infrastructure, the ups and downs of the crypto market, the trends driving FinTech and crypto, and so much more!
In this episode of Founded and Funded, we spotlight IIA40 winner Snorkel AI. Managing Director Tim Porter not only talks with Snorkel Co-founder and CEO Alex Ratner all about data-centric AI and programmatic data labeling and development, but they also dive into the importance of culture — especially now — and how to take advantage of what Alex calls "one of the most historic opportunities for growth in AI."
In this episode of Founded and Funded Madrona Investors Aseem Datar and Sabrina Wu sit down with robotics expert and University of Washington Professor Sidd Srinivasa to talk about the technology and sociological trends that are leading to innovation in the robotics space, where Sidd sees opportunities for founders, and why now it is a time to pay attention to what's happening in the space. Sidd also shares why he is what he calls an "accidental roboticist" and some of the hard-learned lessons from throughout his extensive career.
Madrona investor, Ishani Ummat, speaks with PitchBook Data leader, Daniel Cook, about bringing machine intelligence to the IA40 list. Their new algorithm takes many data points and creates a company score to predict company outcome probability. They previewed this work by analyzing last year’s IA40 list and found that late stage companies were 60% more likely to IPO. Listen as Ishani and Daniel talk numbers and what it means for companies building intelligent applications.
This week on Founded and Funded, we spotlight our next IA40 winner – SeekOut. Investor Ishani Ummat talks to SeekOut Co-founder and CEO Anoop Gupta and VP of People Jenny Armstrong-Owen about their AI-powered intelligence platform, the importance of not only finding and recruiting new hires but also developing and retaining employees within a company, and maintaining SeekOut's own culture while seeing significant growth over the last year.
This week on Founded and Funded, we spotlight our next IA40 winners – Hugging Face and OctoML. Managing Director Matt McIlwain talks to Hugging Face Co-founder and CEO Clem Delangue and OctoML Co-founder and CEO Luis Ceze all about foundation models, diving deep into the importance of detecting biases in the data being used to train models as well the importance of transparency and the ability for researchers to share their models. They discuss open source, business models, the role of cloud providers and debate DevOps versus MLOps, something that Luis feels particularly passionate about. Clem even explains how large models are to machine learning like what Formula 1 is to the car industry.
This week on Founded and Funded, we spotlight our next IA40 winner – Starburst Data. Managing Director Matt McIlwain talks to co-founder and CEO Justin Borgman about how launching his first company was like getting a Ph.D. in entrepreneurship, and then they dive into the customer problem Justin saw that made him believe the time was right to launch his second — Starburst. The two discuss open-source alignment, why making use of cloud partnerships early, especially cloud marketplaces, can be so beneficial for startups, why Starburst had to change the name of its query engine from Presto to Trino, and Justin’s guidance for creating a future-proof architecture.
In this episode of Founded and Funded, Madrona is launching a special series to highlight some of its IA40 winners, starting with RunwayML, which offers web-based video editing tools that utilize machine learning to automate what used to take video editors hours if not days to accomplish. Madrona Investor Ishani Ummat speaks with Co-founder and CEO Cristobal Valenzuela all about where the idea came from, how he decided to launch a company instead of joining Adobe – and even how TikTok fits into all of this. Listen now to hear all about it.
Madrona just wrapped our annual meeting, which we were able to have in person for the first time in three years. The meeting, with about 150 attendees this year, was a much-needed dose of human connection that reminded many Madrona investors why they got into this business in the first place — people and more specifically — great founders. During the day's events, the audience heard about Madrona's results, of course, but the stars of the show were the founders and leaders at our companies — and we took the opportunity to check in with them on this week's episode of Founded and Funded.
In this episode of Founded and Funded, Madrona Managing Director Matt McIlwain and Partner Aseem Datar sit down with Qumulo CEO Bill Richter to talk about developing meaningful partnerships. Madrona was an early investor in Qumulo when it launched in 2012, and the company recently partnered with Microsoft to launch Qumulo on Azure as a Service. Startups often partner with large enterprise companies to accelerate growth, but there are benefits to both parties, and in this episode, we take a look at it from both perspectives.
In this episode of Founded and Funded, partner Aseem Datar sits down with co-founder of Spiceai.io, Luke Kim, to talk about the power of building tools for developers, the difficulty of integrating AI (SpiceAI is making this easier for developers) and moving from a big company to building a startup.
Madrona Partner, Chris Picardo, sits down with Terray Therapeutics founders (and brothers), Jacob and Eli Berlin as well as data scientist, Narbe Mardirossian to talk about the power of bringing together transformational wet lab processes with ML and AI to speed drug development. Terray Therapeutics announced their Series A of $60 million in February of 2022 and this podcast follows that announcement.
How do you join a company and lead from the day one? And how do you do that when you come from a completely different work experience than your startup? Trevor Thompson of TerraClear had a 14 year career in the Navy, including a decade as a Navy Seal, and is now president of #agtech company, TerraClear. He talks to investor Elisa LaCava about the opportunity for companies to hire experienced veterans and how the company is executing on its mission to make a farmer’s life a little bit easier with their rock picker robot.
Matt McIlwain and Ishani Ummat discuss the vision, methodology and top level insights from the first IA40 list.
Aseem talks about growing up in Mumbai with "jugaad" all around him - the Hindi word for 'Hustle', how he made his way to Seattle, to Microsoft and to Madrona. Aseem joined Madrona this year as a partner after 17 years at Microsoft working in entrepreneurial roles and growing businesses like Azure from the underdog to a contender.
Madrona Partner, Chris Picardo, sits down with Dr. Ali Ansary, founder & CEO of Ozette Technologies. Chris and Ali talk about Ozette’s mission to uncover hidden information about the immune system to help with the efficacy of cancer treatments. Ali also speaks about the unique ability of biotech companies to attract traditional tech talent.
Madrona Investor, Ishani Ummat, sits down with Shirish Nadkarni, serial entrepreneur, now angel investor and author of FROM STARTUP TO EXIT, out from Harper Collins Aug 2021. Ishani and Shirish talk about starting a company, finding your co-founder, product market fit and how to choose your investors.
Starting a company is a lonely business. Finding co-founders can be the solution to this – but what if you don’t know anyone who fits the bill? Linda Lian of Common Room set out to build a company and recruited her co-founders one by one. Hear her story and theirs. Viraj Mody, Francis Luu, Linda Lian in conversation with Madrona’s Shannon Anderson.
Investor Matt McIlwain speaks with CEO of Accolade, Rajeev Singh. Rajeev is the CEO of Accolade, a healthcare advocacy company, but this is not his first time leading. Matt and Rajeev talk about learning resilience, how it's not about directing but more about convincing employees of the road ahead, and how the role of the CEO has changed considerably. They also talk about what the entrance of big tech companies into healthcare means for consumers and the industry.
In this episode of Founded and Funded, Anu Sharma continues her deep dive into commercial open source projects and talks to Jeremiah Lowin, the founder and CEO of Prefect, a dataflow automation platform that is trusted to build, run, and monitor millions of data workflows and pipelines. Jeremiah talks about how he and his team built this open source community from zero to 5,000, and how the community helps the team at Prefect reach their users and intentionally break out of internal echo chambers that often trap early stage products.
Going back to the archives to bring forward one of our most popular episodes which is a deep dive on Hope Cochran’s journey to investor, public board member and colleague. She tells the story of being overlooked at her first job which spurred her to take a post in a small European country in her early 20s to take on a huge challenge. That spirit of adventure and ambition set her on the road to entrepreneur, CFO, and founder advocate. Dan Li, who is now a CEO of a new stealth company, Plus, sat down with her to learn her story.
| Knock was on the verge of raising their B round and then Covid hit. Co-founder and CEO Demetri talks with Madrona investor, Scott Jacobson, about how they successfully navigated 2020, including an inside round, and came out even stronger. Knock raised in early 2021 from a new outside investor and is a crucial element in the big business of multifamily. |
Building a company on open-source software is not easy. As one of the creators of Kubernetes, and a founder of Heptio, Joe Beda has experience building open source, cultivating a community and founding a company. In this conversation he talks with Madrona Partner, Anu Sharma about the varying states of open source and how founders can think about building companies around or on top of these powerful technologies. This is a co-production with Traction, Anu’s blog and video conversations on GTM for technical products.
Strike Graph, a company started by two white tech guys, and funded in mid 2020 with just an intern, is now growing and serving customers. It is also two thirds women or gender diverse. The road to getting there was clear to CEO Justin Beals before he even incorporated. In this conversation with Hope Cochran and Elisa La Cava, Justin talks about the whys and how he set out to build his company this way and what this has meant for their success as a team.
The path to building a company (and getting venture funding) can be varied. Two of the paths available are Startup Studios or Accelerators. They each offer different benefits. Madrona investor, Elisa La Cava sat down with Madrona Venture Labs’ Mike Fridgen and FFA’s Leslie Feinzaig to dig into the differences and the types of companies that benefit from these programs.
At the start of 2020, Barry Wark and the team at Ovation.io were on a growth path – not even they could envision 75x usage growth they ended up seeing. Madrona investor, Chris Picardo, talks to Barry about the year and how the incredible amount of genomic data created by COVID testing will be a tailwind to academics, researchers and others looking for treatment and cures for disease.
This slightly unusual Founded and Funded is the story of the early years of Madrona as told by the founders and early team members, Tom Alberg, Paul Goodrich, Matt McIlwain and Greg Gottesman. They recount the first meeting with Jeff Bezos, early missteps by a green investing team and the struggle to raise a fund following the dot com bust. We celebrate our 25th year by talking about the first ten!
| As we take a break and plan Season 4 of Founded and Funded, we bring you the first in a new podcast series from Madrona investor, Anu Sharma. In this series, Anu speaks with experienced founders, engineers and product leaders about the mystery of GoToMarket or GTM. Focused on uncovering not just how to measure but how to build a GTM that resonates with customers, the first episode is an interview with Jon Gelsey on the complexities when developers are your customer base. Gelsey, who led AuthO and Xnor.ai through major periods of growth, talks in depth about how the product experience is part of the GTM especially when building a developer centric product. For links to posts on GTM and to the podcasts- https://tractionnow.io/ and available on all podcast platforms. |
Daniel Li, Chris Picardo and Erika Shaffer from Madrona Venture Group talk about the incredible number of financings in PNW in September. 40 companies raised over $450 in venture financings. We talk about how GitLab manages their 1,300 employees who are remote, and we touch on a guerrilla approach to selling SaaS - use some SEO know how. Sign up for the DL, Dan's weekly newsletter here. http://thedl.danielxli.com/issues/the-dl-september-2020-pnw-venture-deals-trusting-amazon-how-to-remote-work-and-how-to-sell-saas-282565
Jumping off of this week's DL, we talk about Microsoft's announcements (as we lived through the huge outage of Office 365 etc) and talk about the guy who started Snowflake and many other enterprise tech companies that are doing rather well - Mike Speiser from Sutter HIll. Touch on drones in the home and a quick how-to on Gen Z. You can also read it here. http://thedl.danielxli.com/
This week Dan Li and Ishani Ummat from Madrona talk about a surprisingly huge IPO in China that rivals some of the US tech IPOs. For water. Dan takes a bit of a deep dive on Chamath Palihapitiya SPAC (Hedosophia II!!) and the 'memo' on OpenDoor that doesn't as much make a case for the specific company but for the market capacity. Other highlights are how image rights in social media are not what they seem (free and easy) and an esports league that had escaped our knowledge until now - Farming Simulator League - and it's global! The DL for this week - https://bit.ly/35VDLF2
The smoke is here and we've been stuck indoors - so there is a lot to cover. Hear Erika Shaffer, Daniel Li and Ishani Ummat discuss the news from the week. We review the growth of hiring in the tech world, Investment memos and what entrepreneurs (and VCs) can learn from them and hit on some truth telling from Reed Hastings on working remotely. Want to dig into the text detail? check it out here. http://thedl.danielxli.com/issues/the-dl-tech-s-hiring-spree-vc-investment-memos-remote-work-at-netflix-and-dl-baby-advice-277248
| Hope Cochran sits down with the founders of Sila, a banking as a service company, to talk about why she invested, how they came to build this company, and the problem of moving money on the internet. Sila has navigated this complex regulatory and technical world to enable fintechs or companies that need as a part of their business to hold their customers’ money to launch quickly and focus on their product, not the details of moving money. |
This week, new Madrona team member, Anu Sharma, joins Dan to talk about The DL. On the docket for this week are impending IPOs, Amazon Stores, Amazon Halo and some funny bits from NeoPets to Waterskiing with a Drone. Also, hear a brief preview of our upcoming podcast with Sila, a fintech for fintechs.
Madrona investors, Soma and Elisa, continue last week’s conversation with the co-founder of Coda, Shishir Mehrotra. They discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the future of work as well as what companies within the tech space will look like moving forward. Shishir offers a unique perspective with a leadership background from his time at mature companies like Google and Microsoft and being a two time startup founder. Listen in to hear Shishir’s take on the future of work and the growth of the maker generation!
Discussion on this week's DL which covers Amazon's struggle with gaming, a revolutionary way to remove pet hair that happens to be one of the fastest growing companies on the Inc magazine list, and how a super creative firm called MSCHF has turned masterclass into cartoons.
check out the DL here - http://thedl.danielxli.com/issues/the-dl-what-amazon-s-bad-at-covid-activities-inc-5000-pnw-and-how-to-talk-like-a-monopoly-270811
Madrona investors, Soma and Elisa, sit down with the co-founder of Coda, Shishir Mehrotra. They discuss the foundational questions that Mehrotra had to ask himself before leaving Google to take the entrepreneurial leap for the second time, what to do when your family and friends don’t entirely see it your way, and a surprising first funding story. They also discuss the importance of treating employees like investors. Shishir is a great story teller so be sure to check this episode out!
The run down on the DL with Dan Li and Chris Picardo from Madrona. Recording SNAFU last week meant we missed a great Tic Tok discussion ( we expect that will happen again) but we are back! The DL is a weekly newsletter that covers startup news and other fun stuff from Madrona Venture Group investor, Dan Li. August 10 edition - https://bit.ly/3kx4o8e
In this quick run down we discuss the concept of Amazon spinning off AWS (ala Tim Bray's piece on Github), what a SPAC is and why they are gaining steam right now, and GPT-3 - some very cool technology from OpenAI - that and more in the week's DL. http://thedl.danielxli.com/issues/the-dl-a-cloud-s-prfaq-geekwire-awards-spacs-gpt-3-demos-261053
In this episode of Founded and Funded, Madrona managing director Tim Porter sits down with Saykara Founder, Harjinder Sandhu, and President Dr. Graham Hughes. They talk about how new technologies are changing the physician’s office and why now is the time for AI, NPL and Speech recognition to make the physican’s life easier by dramatically reducing their time devoted to charting. They also speak about the benefits and challenges that come with scaling a startup successfully.
A quick dive into the DL this week with Daniel Li and Elisa La Cava of Madrona. Here is this week's newsletter with links. https://bit.ly/32I5wzh. We also hear from Harjinder Sandhu and Graham Hughes of Saykara. SayKara is a health startup and the two leaders share some advice here for other startup entrepreneurs.
Daniel Li, Ishani Ummat and Erika Shaffer from Madrona talk about the news of the day, how Accolade is the first Seattle IPO of the year and how we all appreciate Raj SIngh's Linked In profile and then wax poetical on how well DIsney + will be doing in 20 years. Not to mention, Slack vs Teams, care of Stratechery. Join us this Friday for our first 25th anniversary virtual even with John Stanton and Hope Cochran - sign up here.
In this episode of Founded and Funded, Madrona managing director, Scott Jacobson sits down with serial founder and CEO of Crowd Cow, Joe Heitzeberg. They discuss how Crowd Cow was able to build their own supply chain to elevate a culture of transparent and conscious protein consumption. The two also talk about how, through a global pandemic that has rocked the meat industry, the company was able to build resilience. Give it a listen! Joe’s retelling of how Crowd Cow came to be will not disappoint.
In this episode , we’re switching things up! Madrona's Daniel Li @danielxli and Ishani Ummat explore if Amazon might be headed to Day Two and how new companies are kicking old ones off the big stock indices. And then hear from @jorisaeger from @uplevelteam, to learn more about deep work. Which we all aspire to especially in this WFH environment. Jori talks about how companies and managers can help create that for their teams. https://uplevelteam.com/innovation-managing-remote-team/
Founded and Funded is back for Season 3, hosted by Erika Shaffer, and we start with a conversation about the current news about startups in the Pacific Northwest. This conversation between Madrona investors, Dan Li and Ishani Ummat covers a high flying tech IPO that no one in Silicon Valley seemed to notice until it doubled in price, what could be the future of virtual road shows as well as a call out to a memorable piece by Glenn Kelman on Redfin’s iPO that is a classic. You also learn what PJ means to the PE folks. And it’s not your jammies. All this and more - and you can read along with Dan’s weekly newsletter, The DL,
In this environment, Sales and Go to Market for enterprise companies has changed, sometimes drastically. We sat down with sales leaders from early, mid and later stage venture funded enterprise SaaS companies to talk about how they are addressing the challenge of sales and GTM in the COVID19 time. Tune into hear some creative ideas for building team work, strengthening customer relationships and continuing to grow your business. Hear from Snowflake, Clari and Seekout.io
In this episode, Madrona managing director Matt McIlwain sits down with Jason Knight and Luis Ceze of OctoML to talk about how they are helping companies deploy models and helping hardware providers be ML optimized. The company just announced a Series A raise of $15 million (and they are hiring!) Built on open source technology that the team initiated four years ago and is now actively supporting, OctoML enables a broad set of developers to access and leverage machine learning technology to create intelligent applications.
In this episode, Madrona Managing Director, Hope Cochran talks with three companies with distributed workforces to better understand their experiences with building a culture of trust, hiring remotely, and the right level of communication. With the onset of COVID-19, Barry Wark, CEO at Ovation.io, Carlos Vega, CEO at Tesorio, and Kara Hamilton, Chief People and Culture Officer at Smartsheet share how they have already been able to make working distributed work for their company and employees. They talk about the importance of connecting with your employees and being there for them – especially if working remotely is a new experience.
These are uncertain times. The certainty is that it’s not up and to the right. In this special Founded and Funded we hear from the CEOs of Redfin, Qumulo and Highspot on how they helping their companies, employees and customers steer through the coming weeks. There is insight here from the 2008 downturn and the unique situation we find ourselves in now. Steve Singh shares his experience at Concur which he grew through the downturn to an acquisition by SAP in 2014.
Madrona managing director, S. Somasegar (Soma) sits down with Eric Rudder and Joe Duffy, co-founders of Pulumi, to discuss their journey as entrepreneurs bringing an open source based solution to market. They talk about how their experiences at Microsoft helped them recognize and leverage the promise of open source technology and their journey to build a company that empowers both its employees and its customers.
Listen to Madrona Managing Director, Matt McIlwain, and the Founder of Placed, now CEO of Foursquare, David Shim sit down to talk about the founder journey from startup employee to startup founder. David has consistently recognized big trends and he saw the promise of mobile phones for location data early on, building Placed around that opportunity. He was conservative with venture capital and he and Matt talk about how this approach helped give the company urgency to find product market fit. David reflects on how hard it is to give up your idea of what the product is, even when the market is telling you it’s something else, and he gives advice to would be founders. Placed was acquired from Snap by FourSquare in 2019 and David became the CEO of Foursquare later that year.
www.placed.com
https://foursquare.com/
In this episode, Madrona Managing Director, Tim Porter, sits down with founder of Onvia and Koru, Kristen Hamilton. They take a ride in the Wayback Machine to map Kristen’s journey through entrepreneurship and to explore the unwritten rules of fundraising that have resulted from years of truth-telling and being her most authentic self. If you are looking to fundraise or are just curious about how venture capital works, this is a must listen.
Listen as Madrona Director of Talent, Shannon Anderson, and the founder of Reverb, Mikaela Kiner, sit down for a wide ranging and fascinating conversation about building a workplace that supports your mission, how startup founders hate “HR” but want good people (and culture), and why even Mikaela had to consult an expert to understand why she was having trouble building a diverse team. They bring personal stories to illustrate how the lessons from Mikaela’s new book, Female Firebrands, are experiences they have lived through. Some great tips in here for startup founders who are looking to build an organization that lasts!
In this episode, Madrona Managing Director, Tim Porter, sits down with the founders of Algorithmia. They talk about how a six month backpacking trip through the outback (with a laptop) was the genesis of the company and how they learned how to work together by living in a tent together. They also talk about their core business of machine learning and where we are in the cycle of innovation.
In this episode, Madrona Managing Director, Len Jordan, sits down with iSpot.tv founder, Sean Muller to talk over his journey from wanting to know more about who was responsible for the creative in ads to tying effective advertising to business outcomes. Sean’s journey is like many in entrepreneurship – you begin with a great idea, buck some trends (and advice) and then find your true path once you start executing. Sean talks about finding the product market fit for iSpot.tv – and seeing the future clearly enough to bet the company on one big partnership.
In this episode, Madrona Managing Director, Scott Jacobson, speaks with Drew Green, the CEO of Indochino. Drew, an accomplished entrepreneur and operating executive, joined Indochino, a made to measure men’s clothier, as it was at crossroads and he and Scott tell the story of their journey to China to help save the business and forge a meaningful partnership with one of the leading suit producers. Drew talks about the sometimes difficult task of building partnerships as a startup with a larger company. They discuss omnichannel selling and working with sports stars and teams - Indochino recently launched their line with Knicks player, RJ Barrett, as this was recording.
In this episode, Madrona Managing Director, Tim Porter, speaks with Elissa Fink. Elissa was the CMO of Tableau during the years that it emerged and grew into the leader in data visualization. She speaks about building a B2B marketing machine by making it personal. And how transparency and integrity with customers is important to building the trust and long term relationships. The podcast ends with some tips for measuring conversion and hiring people who will make a difference to a startup’s growth.
Seattle is known for marketplaces – Expedia, Zillow, Redfin, Amazon. Building them is REALLY Hard.
Mark Britton, a Strategic Director at Madrona and the founder of Avvo, a marketplace for consumers to find lawyers, talks about the opportunities for startup founders passionate about a community based marketplace, and the mistakes he sees entrepreneurs make when they set out to build one. He and Elisa La Cava from Madrona talk about the evolution of Google from search to interactive services for consumers, what to do when big tech wants your market and how AI and ML technologies can change the playing field.
Tom Gonser came up with the idea for DocuSign in the late 90s and founded DocuSign in the early 2000s. In this conversation with Madrona Managing Director, Len Jordan, the two talk about building a company that changed the approach to a highly regulated and established process that is at the heart of so many aspects of both business process and consumers’ lives. It’s not straightforward and required a flexible approach to both customer and industry growth as well as the persistence to make it through a tough global market with the 2008 recession.
There are great lessons in the conversation about balancing customer feedback with product vision and roadmap as well as keeping the right team in place for the stage of growth of your company.
| In this episode, founder of Highspot, Oliver Sharp speaks with Madrona Managing Director, Tim Porter about the importance of being connected with your customer. This connection informs your product market fit, your sales and market story, and how you reach your customers. Oliver offers straight talk about how to understand your audience – and how thinking in their terms is more valuable than you may realize. He covers how to build a successful customer satisfaction team (start with the product designers) and how this approach of being close to the customer was the crucial element that changed the trajectory at Highspot. Oliver also talks about making the transition from big company to startup. He has done this journey back and forth several times and as he states “a startup doesn’t care how senior you are” the work needs to get done. Oliver offers some ideas for interviewing if you are thinking of making the leap from big to startup. One tip is don’t use the phrase “roll up my sleeves!” The slightly longer than usual episode ends with how to have a company culture survive and change. You can come up with great words and values – and he offers some ways to integrate these into everything a company does and thus build the strength of the organization. Highspot is the highest rated and most adopted sales enablement platform on the market. Their customers include Workday, Dun & Bradstreet, Zillow, Starbucks. Oliver is a founder and the Chief Solutions Architect at Highspot. |
In this episode, Director of Talent at Madrona, Shannon Anderson, speaks with co-founder and CEO of Amperity, Kabir Shahani about building a culture in a fast growing company. Amperity helps corporate customers use their owned data to serve the customer and has a very clear company culture of working for each other, moving quickly and building things that last. This year they produced a book for their internal team that goes in depth on the culture. That book inspired this podcast.
Shannon talks with Kabir about how they created Amperity’s culture, how they sustain it and where he thinks it is heading. The founding team looked to pro sports to create a personal philosophy and were intentional about the direction they pursued for Amperity in terms of building the company they wanted.
About Amperity: With a customer base of world-leading consumer brands such as Starbucks, Gap, MGM Resorts, Nordstrom, Lucky Brand, Alaska Airlines, and more, Amperity is revolutionizing the way companies connect, identify, and understand their customers are leveraging AI to deliver a truly comprehensive and actionable Customer 360.
www.amperity.com
| The first episode of Founded and Funded is a conversation between Daniel Li and Hope Cochran from Madrona. Before she became an investor at Madrona, Hope wore a lot of hats and here we talk about her days as an early stage entrepreneur, a CFO helping to build a nationwide data network (for billions), and as an executive and CFO taking a massively popular gaming company public in three months. She shares great stories including all the mistakes she made along the way for you to learn from. She and Dan end with the pros and cons of being an investor in early stage companies, which she does as a managing director at Madrona. And she introduces FTJ – Finish the Job – the importance of getting things done well in your life, from family to business. |