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BUILDERS
BUILDERS episodes
- Jason Lavender, CEO of Electives: $10M Raised to Redefine Corporate Training
Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech's most innovative B2B founders. In today's episode, we're speaking with Jason Lavender, CEO & Co-Founder of Electives, a corporate learning platform that has raised over $10 Million in funding.
Here are the most interesting points from our conversation:
- Electives' Unique Approach: Electives offers interactive, live classes led by a diverse range of instructors, including FBI agents, athletes, professors, and authors, rather than traditional corporate trainers.
- Engagement and Interactivity: Addressing the lack of engagement in corporate training, Electives emphasizes live, interactive sessions that allow employees to connect with peers and instructors.
- Customer Profile and Traction: Initially targeting mid-sized tech companies, Electives now serves a wide range of enterprises, celebrating milestones such as 100 companies hosting classes and over $1 million paid to teachers.
- Teacher Recruitment and Referrals: The platform sources instructors from varied backgrounds, often through referrals from existing teachers, ensuring a wide array of unique and engaging content.
- Market Disruption and New Category: Inspired by the book "Play Bigger," Electives aims to create a new category in corporate learning, moving beyond traditional training models to offer comprehensive human development.
- Future Vision: Electives aims to be a staple in every company, providing diverse learning experiences that enhance personal and professional growth, while continuing to refine their category definition.
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Sponsors:
Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership.
www.FrontLines.io
The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe.
www.GlobalTalent.co
21 min - Yarden Shaked, CEO and Founder of Varos: $4 Million Raised to Revolutionize Data Analytics
Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech's most innovative B2B founders. In today's episode, we're speaking with Yarden Shaked, CEO and Founder of Varos, a data analytics platform that has raised $4 Million in funding.
Here are the most interesting points from our conversation:
- Identifying the Problem: Varos addresses the lack of comparative data analytics for e-commerce and SaaS companies by allowing them to benchmark key metrics like customer acquisition cost and retention rate against similar businesses.
- Give to Get Model: The platform's value proposition is built on a cooperative model where users must share their data to access aggregated and anonymized insights from others, creating a robust data ecosystem.
- YC Experience: Yarden highlights the intensity and value of Y Combinator, emphasizing the importance of staying lean, focusing on growth, and the crucial lessons learned from interacting with other talented founders.
- Category Creation: Varos is pioneering the competitive data analytics category, offering unique insights that traditional analytics tools lack, thereby requiring significant market education and evangelism.
- Navigating Challenges: Building a new category involves overcoming significant hurdles, including customer education and validating the hypothesis that businesses need and will benefit from comparative analytics.
- Future Vision: Yarden is motivated by the challenge of proving the Varos hypothesis, expanding the user base, and scaling the team to establish a new standard in data analytics.
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Sponsors:
Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership.
www.FrontLines.io
The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe.
www.GlobalTalent.co
15 min - Tim Kraska, Co-Founder of Einblick: $6M Raised to Build the Visual Data Computing Category
Today we are speaking with Tim Kraska, the co-founder at Einblick, the world’s first visual data computing platform. Einblick is changing the way that data science teams work and collaborate remotely. Since Einblick’s spinoff in 2020, the company has raised $6M in funding.
Topics discussed:
- Tim’s background and the founding of Einblick
- How visual data enhances collaboration within organizations
- Industries that are being disrupted and innovated through this new tool
- How Einblick has managed to raise over $6M in during the Pandemic
- What the future of visual data computing looks like
11 min - Why Product-Led Growth is the Ultimate Go-to-Market Strategy For Category Defining Companies
In today’s episode, we’re doing something a little different and will focus entirely on the topic of product-led growth with Dan Schoenbaum, Managing Partner at High Tide Advisors — an advisory firm that helps cybersecurity companies develop and execute high-growth go-to-market strategies. With over $5B in successful exits, IPO experience and many buy-side acquisitions, Dan’s battle-tested approach has been proven highly effective and impactful and we're excited to share with you the lessons he's learned along the way.
Topics discussed:
- Dan’s journey from Paratrooper in the Israeli military to a technology executive.
- Why product-led growth is the ultimate go-to-market strategy.
- How to determine if product-led growth is right for you.
- Why product-led growth is booming in industries like cybersecurity.
- What founders commonly get wrong about product-led growth.
- Dan’s #1 piece of advice for companies embracing a product-led growth strategy.
19 min - Zak Lefevre, CEO of ChargeLab: $20 Million Raised to Build the Operating System for EV Chargers
Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from the tech’s most innovative B2B founders. In today’s episode, we’re speaking with Zak Lefevre, CEO and founder of ChargeLab, an EV charging startup that has raised over 20 million in funding. Dive into Zak’s journey from his early days in construction to spearheading innovation in the EV charging space, transforming the way we power our vehicles.
Here are the most interesting points from our conversation:
- EV Charging Evolution: Zak outlines the transition from 2016 to 2022, highlighting significant growth in EV infrastructure but emphasizes the market is still emerging with much room for expansion.
- Charging Technology Advancements: Discussing the advancements in EV charging, Zak notes improvements but mentions the technological limitations and the need for infrastructure expansion to accommodate growing EV adoption.
- ChargeLab’s Role: ChargeLab develops software to manage EV chargers, positioning itself as the “Android of EV charging” by providing a versatile software layer compatible with multiple hardware manufacturers.
- Target Customer Segments: Zak identifies their primary customers as entities building large networks of EV chargers, including fleets, convenience stores, and property managers, underscoring the software’s adaptability to various business needs.
- Investor Enthusiasm: Highlighting the reasons behind investors’ excitement, Zak points to the booming EV market as a prime opportunity for growth, underscoring the importance of being in the right market at the right time.
- Future of EV Charging: Zak envisions a more frictionless charging experience for both EV drivers and site owners, with advancements aimed at simplifying the installation, management, and use of EV chargers.
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Sponsors:
Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership.
www.FrontLines.io
The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe.www.GlobalTalent.co
26 min - Danny Lopez CEO of Glasswall: $60+ Million Raised to Make the Content Disarm and Reconstruction (CDR) Category Mainstream
In today’s episode, we speak with Danny Lopez, CEO and founder of Glasswall — a Content Disarm and Reconstruction (CDR) platform that’s raised more than $60 million in funding.
Topics discussed:
- Danny’s journey — from diplomat to CEO of Glasswall.
- What Glasswall does and the problem they solve for customers.
- The State of CDR today, how the category has evolved over the past couple of years, and why it’s more important than ever.
- How Danny engages with analyst firms like Gartner and how those conversations are leading the category from adolescence to mainstream.
- What’s in store for the future of CDR.
12 min - Kirill Klokov, CEO of Truv: $28 Million Raised to Build the Payroll API Category
In today’s episode, we speak with Kirill Klokov, CEO and founder of Truv — an income and employment verification platform that’s raised over $28 million in funding since launching in 2020.
Topics discussed:
- Kirill’s journey before founding Truv.
- How Truv works and the problem they solve for customers.
- How much traction Truv has gained since launching in 2020.
- Understanding how customers today solve the problem of income and employment verification today, why the current solutions fall short, and why a new category is needed to truly this problem.
- How the Payroll API category will replace the legacy income and employment solutions.
- The trends that will define the future of the payroll API category and make it more important than ever before.
- What's in store for the future of Truv.
11 min - Brad LaPorte: How Gartner Works & The Role Analysts Play in Shaping New Market Categories
In today’s episode, we’re doing something a little different from our usual founder interviews and we’re speaking with Brad LaPorte — a former Gartner and current go-to-market advisor for cybersecurity startups. In the interview, Brad gives us a behind-the-scenes look into how Gartner works and helps us understand the role analysts place in shaping market categories.
Topics discussed:
- High-level overview of what Gartner is and how it works (Both from a vendor and buyer perspective).
- What the perfect analyst relations program looks like for an early-stage VC-backed startup.
- What founders should do if they feel they don’t fit into existing market categories.
- What happens behind the scenes when Gartner creates a new category
- The most common mistakes founders make when it comes to analyst relations
- 3 pieces of advice for startups looking to engage analysts as they take their idea to market
31 min - James Hawkins, CEO of PostHog: $21 Million Raised to Build the Future of Product Analytics
In today's episode of Category Visionaries, we speak with James Hawkins, Co-Founder and CEO of PostHog, about what makes startups so exciting, and how to make a successful business in the digital era. By leveraging a strong commitment to PNG and flexible approach to development through their open source product operating platform, PostHog integrated the needs of their customers with a stellar business proposal, driving opportunities to innovate and grow together as a community.
Topics Discussed:
- How finance became startups - how James fell into the world of start-up enterprises from a career in investment banking
- Why not everyone is happy about the digital transition, and why some companies prefer to keep their data offline
- Why 'slow and steady' is still relevant for stable growth in the market, even today
- PLG as a core business strategy, and why a transition to big enterprise might require a revised sales strategy
- The power of feedback in building a customer profile before going overboard with staff spending.
Favorite book:
No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention
27 min - Zaedo Musa, CEO of Superb: $14M Raised to Build the Guest Experience Management Category For Restaurants
In today’s episode, we speak with Zaedo Musa, CEO and founder of Superb — a guest experience management platform that's raised over €13 million in funding.
Topics we cover:
- Understanding the restaurant technology landscape which is mostly dominated by marketplaces or discovery platforms that drive traffic but have forgotten about the back office of the restaurant.
- Why Suberb is focused on independent restaurants and how much traction the company has gained since launching in 2017
- How Suberb’s end to end platform works and the value it brings to restaurants and guests.
- Why Suberb decided to launch its own category — Guest Experience Management (GXM) and how the company overcame doubters and obstacles along the way.
- What the future of guest experiences look like and the role Superb will play in shaping this future
16 min
About BUILDERS
From the publisher's feed
Welcome to BUILDERS — the show about how founders get new technology adopted.
Each episode features a founder on the front lines of bringing new tech to market, sharing how they broke into their industry, earned early believers, built credibility, and unlocked real technology adoption.
BUILDERS is part of a network of 20 industry-specific shows with a library of 1,200+ founder interviews conducted over the past three years.
For the full network, visit FrontLines.io.
Brought to you by:
www.FrontLines.io/FounderLedGrowth — Founder-led Growth as a Service. Launch your own podcast that drives thought leadership, demand, and most importantly, revenue.