Fund/Build/Scale

Before Immad Akhund raised money for Mercury, he spent months talking to lawyers, investors, fintech founders and potential banking partners. He’d already experienced the problem he wanted to solve. The harder question was whether he could build the company to solve it.

Recorded at One Way Summit in San Francisco, this Fund/Build/Scale conversation puts 15 questions to Mercury’s co-founder and CEO about building the company, backing early-stage founders and finding opportunities others take for granted.

We discuss:

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/9mDAsf1STvU

(1:33) Are You Building Something That's Hard to Explain?

(2:09) Meet Immad Akhund: Founder and Investor

(3:23) The Startups He Wants to Back

(4:00) Why Mercury Took 18 Months to Launch

(7:09) Before fundraising, "I basically spent all that time de-risking."

(9:07) Who He Backs

(9:49) The Benefits of Being an Immigrant Founder

(13:20) Build Relationships, Not Just a Network

(15:05) An H-1B Layoff: What Comes Next?

(16:31) His Advice for Taking the Leap: Just Quit

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/

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

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

Before you raise money, hire a team or start building, how much should you already know?

Vineet Edupuganti, co-founder and CEO of Cogent Security, joins Fund/Build/Scale to break down the work his team did before committing to the company: talking with roughly 100 potential customers, studying previous attempts to solve the problem, mapping buyer pain and budgets, and identifying the assumptions that could derail the business.

We also talk how Cogent recruited its first employees, landed early design partners, decided when customer interest was strong enough to move forward, and learned to distinguish real demand from polite enthusiasm.

If you’re not sure how to recognize when it’s time to stop researching and start building, listen to this episode.

📺 Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/xVOcBgsuU2U

(2:02) Pick a Problem That Survives an 80% Budget Cut

(9:11) Build Conviction Before You Build the Company

(19:28) How to Recognize When You’ve Learned Enough to Start

(27:52) Why Early Customers Take the Risk

(34:23) The Signals That Demand Is Real

(38:41) Would You Invest $1 Million in Yourself?

Vineet Edupuganti

Cogent Security

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/

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

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

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

Why do some startups get taken seriously while others struggle to earn attention, even when they're solving similar problems?

Beck Bamberger, founder and CEO of startup communications agency BAM, joins Fund/Build/Scale to discuss how early-stage founders establish credibility before they have much traction.

We explore why conviction matters but can't substitute for evidence, what investors look for when customers and revenue are scarce, and why founders who've raised millions sometimes struggle to explain what their companies actually do.

Beck also explains the concept of narrative capital, how investors, customers and journalists evaluate startups differently, and what founders can do to earn trust and media attention without an established track record.

https://youtu.be/yqdmd7S7jR4

(1:50) Meet Beck Bamberger, Founder and CEO of BAM

(4:36) Why Some Founders Earn Belief Before Proof

(10:50) What Makes an Early-Stage Startup Credible?

(18:45) Your Startup Story Shouldn’t Take 17 Minutes

(24:35) Who Needs to Believe in Your Startup First?

(28:08) How to Get Journalists to Take You Seriously

(31:01) Practical Advice for Building Startup Credibility

Beck Bamberger, PhD

BAM

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]

👉🏾 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/

“Follow your dreams and quit your day job” is terrible advice.

That’s not me saying it. That’s Jon Keidan, founder and managing partner of Torch Capital, where he’s backed companies including Sweetgreen, Acorns and Zocdoc.

He has a better suggestion: before you blow up your life for a startup idea, find some proof that people actually want what you’re planning to build.

The bar may be lower than you think.

In this conversation, we break down how Jon evaluates consumer startups from the pain point up, what makes founders credible before there’s much traction, why he initially passed (twice!) on Sweetgreen, and how to tell the difference between focus and distraction.

We end with a 30-day experiment you can run while you still have a paycheck to find out whether strangers care about your idea before you go all in.

https://youtu.be/1VvBiLhvd_g

(2:39) Is the problem painful enough to build a company around?

(7:01) Start with a niche, but think bigger

(19:02) Don't quit your day job just yet

(24:17) The deli test: How to tell if your consumer product is venture-scale

(26:57) How much proof does a pre-seed investor need?

(28:43) AI is not a business model

(32:09) Where are the opportunities AI hasn't swallowed?

(35:04) Jon's 30-day experiment for consumer/CPG founders

Jon Keidan

Torch Capital

Sweetgreen

Acorns

Zocdoc

DigitalOcean

Ro

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/

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

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

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

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/

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

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

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

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/

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

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/

↔️Follow FBS on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7249143254363856897/

📺 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/

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

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

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

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