Founded & Funded

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