In this episode of the ASCEND podcast, Adam Ward, Executive Recruiting Leader at Cursor, breaks down what it really takes to build a strong recruiting culture at early-stage startups.

Adam shares why founders should spend up to 50% of their time on recruiting and the three key pillars of success: scoping roles clearly, building networks early, and sharpening assessment skills. He highlights the importance of layering leadership carefully to maintain culture, the need for structured hiring systems, and why everyone at a startup—not just hiring managers—should contribute to recruiting.

Adam also explains why traits often matter more than experience when hiring, warns against the "silver bullet" mentality, and urges founders to maintain high standards throughout the growth journey.

In this episode of the ASCEND podcast we sit down with Dhiren Bhatia, CEO and Co-Founder of Inventive AI.

One thing I love about my role here at Sierra Ventures is working with our early-stage founders and helping them with their journeys.

The Seed stage is challenging and founders that have exited previous startups and are willing to roll back up their sleeves and do it again always come with a lot of wisdom. Dhiren is a 2x founder. His last company Viewic was acquired by Roche and he has stepped back in the startup ring with a new team and a new vision. 

In this interview, Dhiren discusses lessons learned from his first startup and how AI has drastically changed the game.

He discusses how he found co-founders with complementary skillsets that filled gaps in his own expertise, pushing each other to think creatively and execute more effectively as a stronger team.

Join us as we dive into Dhiren's journey, discussing how he thinks about building the second time around.

In this episode of ASCEND, we sit down with Jerry Brooner, a seasoned sales leader with a wealth of experience in driving growth and building high-performing teams in the tech industry. 

We also discuss Jerry's insights on Enable Software, his criteria for choosing the right company to join, and the essentials of building a customer-focused sales culture. Whether you're an early-stage founder looking to crack the code of sales success or a sales leader aiming to refine your craft, this episode is packed with actionable advice and inspiration.

Join us as we dive into Jerry's journey, exploring his unique approach to sales leadership, the fundamentals of building a strong sales team, and the critical strategies for driving revenue growth. 

In this interview with Nikhil Gupta, Founder and CEO of ArmorCode, he discusses his entrepreneurial journey and advice for founders.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS:

- Nikhil has always had an entrepreneurial spirit, inspired by seeing his father's small business while growing up in India.

- He tried starting companies multiple times, failing over 20+ years before finally having a successful exit with his previous startup Avid Secure.

- Nikhil started ArmorCode during COVID because he saw it as an inflection point with increased digital transformation and cyber threats.

- He was pleasantly surprised at the pace enterprises adopted buying over Zoom versus needing in-person meetings.

- ArmorCode's vision is to "secure the way we live, work and play" with cybersecurity solutions.

- Nikhil stresses the importance of focus, learning/unlearning, and not giving up on your dreams. 

TOPICS DISCUSSED:

1. Nikhil's entrepreneurial journey and background - Grew up in a business family in India, and helped his dad with his art business. Made first venture attempts in college and had many failures before finally succeeding. 

- Key learnings: think big but start small, focus, need to unlearn and learn as things change. 

2. Founding and vision for ArmorCode - Founded during COVID, saw it as a time of digital transformation but also increased cyber threats. Vision is to "secure the way we live, work and play" with cybersecurity. He was surprised at the pace enterprises adopted buying over Zoom.

3. Building company culture - 5 core values: Hungry, Humble, Hardworking, Honest, Humanity ("5 Hs"). He operationalizes through the hiring process and ongoing recognition. Looks for curious, flexible, passionate people to match values.

4. Advice for new founders - Find your "why" and inner passion, not just money. Follow your dreams and passions.

5. Book recommendations include: Build by Tony Fadell, The Founder's Dilemma, and How to Win Friends and Influence People.

In this episode of the ASCEND podcast, we talk to Hu Liang, CEO and Founder of Omniex, which crypto giant Gemini acquired. Omniex was a trading technology platform that provides order, execution, and portfolio management system solutions for institutional crypto trading. The acquisition enabled Gemini to launch Gemini Prime, a crypto prime brokerage offering.

Before founding Omniex, Hu was SVP of the Emerging Technologies Center at State Street.
Key Takeaways: 
Direct translation: There is a reasonably direct relationship–Hu estimates between 70% and 80%–between his State Street/FX experience and building crypto trading products like Omniex. His expertise, particularly his proximity to big banks, provided additional credibility. 

Timing is key: When considering when to break off and pursue being a founder, it is vital to ensure that one’s present experience, the state of the market/external environment, and ambitions for the future are aligned at the right moment to give a company the greatest chance for success.

Differentiation: In newer industries, it is critical to differentiate from competitors and the general hype of the market. For that reason, credibility becomes increasingly essential as a means of differentiation. But ultimately, building the right product will be the ultimate way to differentiate.

Creating Value: When reflecting on what he was most proud of in building Omniex, Hu cites building something highly useful for other companies and people as the greatest indicator of success. Many founders can get caught up in superficial indicators of success like press releases, but ultimately, creating something of value is what Hu is most proud of.

Confidence from Within:  One way to stave off self-doubt can come from building a team you can trust, but more importantly, building confidence from the inside out by implementing more positive self-talk.

Building a team through trial and error: When creating a team, it can be challenging to find the right balance between seeking out familiar team members and new team members. On the one hand, fixed mindsets can make it challenging to work with people you already know, while on the other hand, unfamiliarity can pose challenges when working with new people. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to building a team, so it's essential to be flexible and responsive to individual needs and circumstances.

Mistakes are unavoidable: Regarding founding a company, some challenges cannot be avoided; dwelling on mistakes can prevent you from moving forward.

Institutional legitimacy: When discussing the industry, Hu describes how many crypto companies cut corners in bypassing regulatory bodies in 2020 and 2021. “It is important to balance asking for forgiveness and asking for permission,” says Hu.

Seeking out problems to solve: In the entrepreneurial space, it is good practice to look at big-picture questions. For Hu, this looks like going after problems within the broader market in order to identify use cases (for AI or blockchain, for instance).

Make hard decisions: Waiting to see how the market changes is a luxury that well-resourced, well-established firms have; in the early stages, you must be willing to make sacrifices and changes quickly.

We got to sit down with Vetri Vellore, Founder at Ally.io (Acq by Microsoft), for this podcast, diving into many questions that are top of mind for founders.

Vetri Vellore is an accomplished entrepreneur with two exits to date. His most recent exit was in 2021 when Microsoft acquired Ally.io, and he became corporate vice president in charge of building Microsoft's Viva Goals. 

Before founding Ally, Vetri co-founded Chronus, which was later acquired by private equity.  In addition to his business ventures, Vetri is the author of "OKRs for All," a book that received endorsement from Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft. He is one of the most passionate entrepreneurs and leaders and his passion for building really comes through in this interview.

#venturecapital #entrepreneurship #podcast #CXO #OKRs

Sierra's Anne Gherini will be talking to early-stage leaders about building incredible brands, filling the pipeline, and helping retain key customers all on a startup budget.

Roundtable Speakers:

Joe Andrews is the CMO at SupportLogic; previously, he was a marketing leader at OODA, InsideView, Zuora and VMware.

Jake Braly is the CMO at Krisp; previously, he was a marketing leader at Highspot, Apptio, K2 and Microsoft

Ron Harnik is the VP of Marketing at Endor Labs; previously, he was a marketing leader at Tastewise, Palo Alto Networks and NetApp.

Key Takeaways:

These tips emphasize the importance of a strong foundation in product marketing, the power of storytelling, revenue focus, iterative strategies, and data-driven decision-making in early-stage marketing success.

#venturecapital #entrepreneurship #podcast #CXO #startup #marketing #cmo #productmarketing #growthmarketing #earlystage #founder #customersucess #leader #CS #sales

In today's competitive environment, customer success is crucial to establishing a solid foundation and building long-term growth at any SaaS company. This session will provide essential strategies, best practices, and practical tips to construct an effective customer success team that drives customer satisfaction and retention.

Sierra Ventures' Anne Gherini talked to two incredible customer success leaders, Judith Platz, and Brian Cloughley, about how to build a successful customer success team at your startup. 

Judith Platz is the Chief Customer Officer at SupportLogic. Previously, she was SVP of Customer Support at Salesforce and led CS teams at TSIA, Approva, Infor, and Oracle.

Brian Cloughley is a go-to-market strategy advisor and was previously the SVP of Customer Success and Revenue Expansion at Affinity and led CS and Business Operations teams at Comfy and Autodesk.

Key Takeaways:

1. Understand and quantify customer value before building a CS team. Specifically, spend time with customers to understand what value they get from the product. Quantify this value down to a specific metric, like hours saved per week before making CS hires.

2. Define clear metrics and KPIs for the CS team to track customer health such as adoption rates, revenue retention, revenue expansion, and customer effort. Also, track sentiment data as an alternative to CSAT.

3. Ensure the CS team works closely with other revenue teams like sales and marketing. Specifically, collaborate on sharing customer success stories and feedback from sales processes, as discussed. Also, integrate CS into revenue meetings from the start.

4. Gather customer feedback early and regularly to influence product roadmap. In particular, analyze support and usage data to identify trends and share these insights with the product, as SupportLogic can do.

5. Hire for empathy, adaptability, and collaboration over rigid processes. Look for people comfortable with flexibility and experimentation in a startup.

6. Build a team with roles beyond CSMs like data analysts, ops, and IT support. Specifically, hire people focused on customer experience mapping, health scoring, and tool administration.

7. Track leading indicators of customer success like adoption and usage metrics. For example, monitor metrics that show high-performing customer behavior.

8. Experiment regularly and track the results to inform future strategies. Take responsibility for specific experiments each quarter and share your learnings with the board.

9. Communicate challenges and opportunities transparently with investors. Specifically, share positive and negative quotes and customer trends in board decks.

10. Build the CS team structure based on customer tiers, journeys, and volumes. For instance, set different CSM ratios and responsibilities according to customer segments.

#venturecapital #entrepreneurship #podcast #CXO #startup #marketing #cmo #productmarketing #growthmarketing #earlystage #founder #customersucess #leader #CS #sales

We got to sit down with Carol Carpenter, CMO at Unity, for this podcast, diving into many questions that are top of mind for founders.

Carol has led an incredible career. Before Unity, she was the CMO at VMware, ClearSlide and the Global VP of Marketing for Google Cloud. Carol also stepped in and became CEO of ElasticBox, which she helped get acquired by Lumen.

One area of focus was building exceptional teams. Carol made a great point about hiring people not just because they were previously at an amazing company but focusing on what they have done in their careers and what they have learned, especially from their failures.

There are advantages to bringing on team members who have experienced some failure in their careers. "Failure is an amazing teacher."

In this conversation, we discuss:

💡 Carol’s leadership background

💡 Advice for early-stage founders

💡 The future of AI in marketing 

#venturecapital #entrepreneurship #podcast #CXO