Fund/Build/Scale

Most of us learn culture by adapting to one that already exists. We join a company, figure out what gets rewarded, who has power, what people say in meetings, and what they say after the meeting ends.

Founders don’t have that luxury. They’re not fitting into a culture. They’re creating one, whether they mean to or not.

SnapLogic President Molly Matthews has a more practical way to think about it: culture is what gets repeated. It shows up in who you hire, what you build, and how you treat customers.

“For me, it’s the ethos,” she said. “It’s the energy in which you exchange details with colleagues. It’s how you show up to work.”

We get into the first five hires, why “culture fit” is often the wrong frame, what to do with the talented-but-toxic employee, and we’ll end with a self-diagnostic you can run to see if your company is becoming the kind of place you meant to build.

📺 Watch this episode on YouTube

(1:58) Molly Matthews on scaling through people

(4:29) What company culture actually means

(19:09) Why waiting for the perfect hire backfires

(26:56) When grit turns into burnout

(32:06) The Captain America problem: when talent hurts the team

(38:37) Morale and culture are different problems

(40:14) Choosing advisors and investors

(44:47) What to look for in your first five hires

If so, that’s often a sign you’re working on something interesting, but it raises the risk that you’re missing out on fundraising, sales, hiring, and media opportunities.

I help early-stage founders sharpen the narrative: what matters, why now, who needs to care, and why they’re the right team to make it happen.

If you’re preparing for a raise, launch, important customer meeting, panel, or hiring push, I can help you pressure-test the story before the stakes get higher.

👉🏾 Visit the Fund/Build/Scale website to learn more, or email [email protected]

📥 Get the Fund/Build/Scale newsletter on Beehiiv: https://fundbuildscale.beehiiv.com/

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What makes a startup worth backing if it has no product, revenue or meaningful traction to evaluate?

Paige Craig, founder and managing partner of Outlander VC, invests at the idea stage, which means much of his job involves assessing founders before the usual signals exist.

In this episode, Paige explains what he looks for instead: obsession with the problem, time spent with prospective customers, learning velocity, judgment, character and the ability to execute under uncertainty.

We also get tactical about what founders can do before they have a product. Paige explains how to distinguish polite customer interest from an actual commitment, what early execution should look like, how to tell whether an idea has venture-scale potential, and how co-founders can pressure-test whether they’re actually working well together.

If you’re still figuring out whether you have a startup, a venture-backable business, or just an interesting idea, this conversation offers some self-diagnostics you can run before you start worrying about a pitch deck.

(1:46)  "We aim to be the very first check into a founder, as early as possible."

(8:01)  Real problem versus interesting idea

(14:53)  Intelligence as learning speed

(17:24)  Knowing when to course-correct

(23:13)  "Character is the hardest thing for us to get right."

(27:07)  What execution looks like when there's no product, customers or revenue

(34:58) Customer discovery: " What you want is someone who will commit clearly in the short term."

(26:32)  How to test how well your founder team is performing 

If so, that’s often a sign you’re working on something interesting, but it raises the risk that you’re missing out on fundraising, sales, hiring, and media opportunities.

I help early-stage founders sharpen the narrative: what matters, why now, who needs to care, and why they’re the right team to make it happen.

If you’re preparing for a raise, launch, important customer meeting, panel, or hiring push, I can help you pressure-test the story before the stakes get higher.

👉🏾 Visit my info page to learn more or email [email protected]

📥 Get the Fund/Build/Scale newsletter on Beehiiv: https://fundbuildscale.beehiiv.com/

↔️ Follow F/B/S on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7249143254363856897/

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Selling your pitch to an investor is one thing. Showing that you understand how to sell your product to customers is another.

Amy Cheetham, partner at Costanoa Ventures, sometimes watches founders talk to prospective customers as part of her diligence. Those conversations can reveal how well they understand the problem they’re solving, whether they can absorb feedback and how effectively they communicate with the people they hope will buy what they’re building.

In this episode, Amy explains what she looks for in those conversations, why learning to sell matters for founders, and how distribution can become a moat for AI startups.

We also discuss what makes a strong early-stage narrative, how founders without an existing VC network can start building investor relationships, and a simple seven-day experiment for testing an idea with prospective customers.

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GkTaPQ02NG8

(1:41) Costanoa "will invest really as early as you can imagine." 

(5:33)  ”It's not just fundraising as a skill. We're understanding how founders sell to customers.”

(21:38) If you can't explain it, you can't sell it 

(29:58) In the application layer, distribution is the moat 

(34:50) "My founder archetype has always been domain experts."

(38:30) Start cultivating relationships with investors before you raise

(44:07) Validate your startup's right to exist with this 7-day experiment

That’s often a sign you’re working on something interesting, but it raises the risk that you’re missing out on fundraising, sales, hiring, and media opportunities.

I help early-stage founders sharpen the narrative: what matters, why now, who needs to care, and why they’re the right team to make it happen.

If you’re preparing for a raise, launch, important customer meeting, panel, or hiring push, I can help you pressure-test the story before the stakes get higher.

Visit the Fund/Build/Scale website to learn more, or email [email protected]

👉🏾 Learn more

📥 Get the Fund/Build/Scale newsletter on Beehiiv: https://fundbuildscale.beehiiv.com/

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📺 Watch FBS on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFFH4cs2B1BKatPGs8SFRJw

If you work in tech long enough, there’s a good chance you’ll go through a layoff. Either your own, or one that leaves you wondering whether you’re next.

Shanon Olsen, COO of Henley Leadership, works with executives and organizations navigating growth, disruption, and change. In this episode, we talk about why layoffs should be understood as a cultural breakdown rather than a one-day event, what happens when founders build companies they aren’t prepared to lead, and why CEOs can delegate just about everything — except culture.

I’ve been on both sides of this equation, so I asked Shanon about how to stay committed to your work without making your employer your identity, why it’s important to maintain relationships outside your company, how to assess whether a workplace is recovering after layoffs, and why staying in a job and exploring other possibilities don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

(2:05) When does a startup stop being a startup? 

(9:37) If you're not ready to let someone go, you shouldn't be the CEO

(14:57) Why layoffs are a "cultural breakdown" 

(19:56) How should the CEO behave after layoffs? 

(23:50) Building a culture that's resilient enough to weather layoffs

(26:58) How to tell an employee WHY you're laying them off

(32:38) " Identify what's your purpose outside of your position." 

(39:13) How to tell if your company is recovering after layoffs 

(44:23) Should you stay or leave after layoffs?

📺 Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/vbunRx4FZIQ

That’s often a sign you’re working on something interesting, but it raises the risk that you’re missing out on fundraising, sales, hiring, and media opportunities.

I help early-stage founders sharpen the narrative: what matters, why now, who needs to care, and why they’re the right team to make it happen.

If you’re preparing for a raise, launch, important customer meeting, panel, or hiring push, I can help you pressure-test the story before the stakes get higher.

Visit the Fund/Build/Scale website to learn more, or email [email protected]

👉🏾 Learn more

📥 Get the Fund/Build/Scale newsletter on Beehiiv: https://fundbuildscale.beehiiv.com/

📺 Watch Fund/Build/Scale on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFFH4cs2B1BKatPGs8SFRJw

America is getting older. Tens of millions of people are caring for parents, grandparents and other family members. The problems are everywhere, and many of them are painful, expensive and still poorly served by technology.

That does not mean every care-related startup is a good business, however.

Tatyana Zlotsky, CEO of A Place for Mom, joins me to talk about what founders need to understand before building for older adults and the people who care for them.

We discuss why "seniors" aren't a single customer segment, how to conduct customer research in a market you don't know, and why founders need to distinguish between the person using a product, the person making the decision and the person actually paying for it. 

Tatyana also explains why private-pay and insurance-backed businesses require fundamentally different approaches, and shares the story of a founder who spent more than a year changing course after discovering he'd chosen the wrong customer.

We also dig into AI. Tatyana explains why starting with what the technology can do is backwards, why proprietary customer data can create a meaningful advantage, and why founders should ask whether they're really building something that general-purpose AI can't already provide.

This is a conversation about finding real problems, understanding who you're solving them for, and building businesses around customer needs instead of technology trends.

(2:21) Tatyana Zlotsky’s path to A Place for Mom

(4:46) Why senior care remains an underbuilt market

(9:20) The real problems caregivers need solved

(12:36) Why “seniors” aren’t a single customer segment

(16:31) How to do customer research in the care market

(20:35) Why “AI for X” isn’t a business strategy

(24:02) Private pay vs. insurance: deciding who pays

(26:50) What happens when founders choose the wrong business model

(28:59) The senior-care product Tatyana wishes someone would build

(33:24) What makes a care startup worth taking seriously

(36:19) Why families shouldn’t wait for a care crisis

Tatyana Zlotsky

A Place For Mom

Oura

Fitbit

That’s often a sign you’re working on something interesting, but it raises the risk that you’re missing out on fundraising, sales, hiring, and media opportunities.

I help early-stage founders sharpen the narrative: what matters, why now, who needs to care, and why they’re the right team to make it happen.

If you’re preparing for a raise, launch, important customer meeting, panel, or hiring push, I can help you pressure-test the story before the stakes get higher.

Visit the Fund/Build/Scale website to learn more, or email [email protected]

👉🏾 Learn more

📥 Get the Fund/Build/Scale newsletter on Beehiiv: https://fundbuildscale.beehiiv.com/

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If you have a startup idea, how do you know whether you’re onto something—or just really good at convincing yourself?

Pete Martin has spent his career finding out. He’s worked at six cybersecurity startups, most of them in the pre-product, pre-revenue days, with two IPOs along the way. Today, he’s CEO and co-founder of Realm Security.

In this episode, we get tactical about finding the right early adopters, running customer discovery that produces actual signal, recognizing patterns in the feedback, and knowing when someone’s interest is strong enough to ask a question that makes a lot of founders uncomfortable: 

Would you pay for this?

And if you’ve got an idea but aren’t ready to quit your day job, Pete lays out a seven-day experiment you can run to start finding out whether there’s really something there.

(1:51) What does Realm do today, and who's buying it?

(3:28) Finding the right early adopters

(8:01) Where to locate your first potential customers

(12:54) Why customer discovery requires volume

(18:55) How to write outreach that gets a (positive) response

(21:05) When to say no to a potential customer

(23:48) Sell the outcome, not the features

(28:33) A seven-day experiment to test your startup idea

(33:01) When is it time to hire a sales team? 

Pete Martin

Realm Security

That’s often a sign you’re working on something interesting, but it raises the risk that you’re missing out on fundraising, sales, hiring, and media opportunities.

I help early-stage founders sharpen the narrative: what matters, why now, who needs to care, and why they’re the right team to make it happen.

If you’re preparing for a raise, launch, important customer meeting, panel, or hiring push, I can help you pressure-test the story before the stakes get higher.

Visit the Fund/Build/Scale website to learn more, or email [email protected]

👉🏾 Learn more

📥 Get the Fund/Build/Scale newsletter on Beehiiv: https://fundbuildscale.beehiiv.com/

📺 Watch Fund/Build/Scale on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFFH4cs2B1BKatPGs8SFRJw

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Peter Wang is co-founder and Chief AI and Innovation Officer at Anaconda, a company he helped start in 2012 after years of working as a software developer and consultant.

In this episode, Peter draws on Anaconda’s early days and the entrepreneurship lessons he shares with scientists and engineers at Cornell to explain what technical people need to learn when they launch a company.

We talk about learning to ask better questions instead of rushing to provide answers, recognizing the limits of what you know, and treating yourself as an investor when deciding whether an idea is worth pursuing.

Peter also explains his approach to customer discovery, why employees are investors too, and how aspiring founders can practice entrepreneurship by building something — however small — that someone will actually pay for.

(1:53) Finding the Product by Doing the Work

(10:19) "I'm just sharing my own field notes on what I had to learn."

(14:05) Know the Limits of What You Know

(18:18) Climbing the Ladder of Disbelief 

(23:59) Customer Discovery: Listen, Validate, Explore

(29:02) "Your employees are also investors."

(31:02) " It's really incredibly important that the vision is compelling for people."

(38:39) An Exercise for Entrepreneurship

📺 Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GuysuVrGd8Y

Peter Wang

Anaconda

Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive,  Harvey Mackay

That’s often a sign you’re working on something interesting, but it raises the risk that you’re missing out on fundraising, sales, hiring, and media opportunities.

I help early-stage founders sharpen the narrative: what matters, why now, who needs to care, and why they’re the right team to make it happen.

If you’re preparing for a raise, launch, important customer meeting, panel, or hiring push, I can help you pressure-test the story before the stakes get higher.

Visit the Fund/Build/Scale website to learn more, or email [email protected]

👉🏾 Learn more

📥 Get the Fund/Build/Scale newsletter on Beehiiv: https://fundbuildscale.beehiiv.com/

📺 Watch Fund/Build/Scale on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFFH4cs2B1BKatPGs8SFRJw

Canvas Prime Co-founder and Managing Director Rebecca Lynn has spent 25 years in venture capital, backing companies including LendingClub, Doximity and Casetext and helping founders navigate more than a dozen exits.

In this conversation, we get into why taking venture capital puts founders on a path toward liquidity, and why an IPO isn't the only outcome worth building toward.

Rebecca explains how founders can develop relationships with potential acquirers years before they're ready to sell, when it makes sense to bring in a banker or strategic advisor, and how Casetext built the relationships that eventually led to its acquisition by Thomson Reuters.

We also talk about why founders should get an offer on paper before trying to improve it, how to negotiate without overplaying your hand, what to watch for with earnouts and other deal terms, and how to make sure employees aren't forgotten when a company gets sold.

📺 Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/5kV4SvM9rBY

(2:17) Creating Strategic Options

(8:50) What Taking Venture Capital Really Means

(11:42) Don't Build to Sell; Build Strategically 

(15:18) How Casetext Built Toward an Exit  

(21:39) Where Acquisition Offers Come From 

(27:54) "If it's not on paper, it's not real."

(33:02) Price Isn't the Only Thing That Matters

(35:22) Take Care of Your Employees

(37:32) How to Get M&A Ready

Rebecca Lynn, LinkedIn

Canvas Prime

Thomson Reuters Completes Acquisition of Casetext, Inc.

Doximity

Lending Club

Gabi

--------

Are you building something that’s hard to explain?

That’s often a sign you’re working on something interesting, but it raises the risk that you’re missing out on fundraising, sales, hiring, and media opportunities.

I help early-stage founders sharpen the narrative: what matters, why now, who needs to care, and why they’re the right team to make it happen.

If you’re preparing for a raise, launch, important customer meeting, panel, or hiring push, I can help you pressure-test the story before the stakes get higher.

Visit the Fund/Build/Scale website to learn more, or email [email protected]

👉🏾 Learn more

📥 Get the Fund/Build/Scale newsletter on Beehiiv: https://fundbuildscale.beehiiv.com/

Head of Marketing for Observe at Snowflake Shruti Bhat has spent her career helping highly technical companies explain why their products matter, find the customers who need them most, and build go-to-market systems that can actually scale.

In this episode, she talks about how founders identify their real market, recognize genuine product-market fit, hire their first product marketing and GTM leaders, and earn trust across engineering, product, sales, and marketing.

Drawing on three startup exits, including Observe’s acquisition by Snowflake, Shruti explains why demand generation often starts too early, what repeatability looks like in enterprise sales, and why the best GTM leaders know how to unlearn their old playbooks.

This is a practical conversation about turning technical innovation into customer conviction.

(2:28)  From Engineering to Product Truth

(7:10)  Finding Observe’s Enterprise Sweet Spot

(16:48)  When Technical Founders Need To Hire A Product Marketer 

(24:57)  Hiring Your First GTM Leader Depends on More Than Stage

(34:27)  How GTM Leaders Build (and Lose) Trust With Technical Teams 

Shruti Bhat on LinkedIn

Snowflake

Observe by Snowflake

______

Are you building something that’s hard to explain?

That’s often a sign you’re working on something interesting, but it raises the risk that you’re missing out on fundraising, sales, hiring, and media opportunities.

I help early-stage founders sharpen the narrative: what matters, why now, who needs to care, and why they’re the right team to make it happen.

If you’re preparing for a raise, launch, important customer meeting, panel, or hiring push, I can help you pressure-test the story before the stakes get higher.

Visit the Fund/Build/Scale website to learn more, or email [email protected]

👉🏾 Learn more

📥 Get the Fund/Build/Scale newsletter on Beehiiv: https://fundbuildscale.beehiiv.com/

📺 Watch Fund/Build/Scale on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFFH4cs2B1BKatPGs8SFRJw

📸 Follow Fund/Build/Scale on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fundbuildscale/

Tamara Steffens is managing director of Thomson Reuters Ventures, where she invests in early-stage companies building around legal, tax, accounting, and enterprise workflow.

Corporate venture capital can look like a shortcut to customers, distribution, and credibility, but Steffens says founders need to understand what has to be true before strategic money can actually help.

In this conversation, we get into what happens after Thomson Reuters Ventures joins your cap table, how founders can turn a corporate investor into real product or go-to-market leverage, and why inflated TAM slides can work against you.

We also talk about what founders should do before and after the check clears, why some good businesses should avoid venture capital entirely, and why she says every founder should be thinking earlier about exit paths.

(1:53)    An Overview of Thomson Reuters Ventures

(3:57) CVC Expectations: When Strategic Capital Can Actually Help

(7:09) Why Your TAM Needs to Match the Product You Actually Have

(10:04) When Strategic Capital Becomes Product Leverage

(13:13)  What Founders Should Do Before and After the Check Clears

(22:18) How CVC Evaluates Founders When the Market Gets Frothy

(29:05) Building the Relationship Before Series A

(31:30) Why Exit Paths Matter Earlier Than You Think

Tamara Steffens

Thomson Reuters Ventures

Thomson Reuters

Fund/Build/Scale Founder Narrative Advisory

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