Fund/Build/Scale

In this episode of Fund/Build/Scale, host Walter Thompson engages in a comprehensive discussion with Hantz Févry, co-founder and CEO of Stoovo, an AI-based geospatial data company.

Hantz shares invaluable insights into separating one's identity from their job, the importance of rapid execution in startups, and the journey from working at Google to launching his own company.

This episode targets tech workers aspiring to start their own businesses and immigrants in the U.S. on worker visas, highlighting the unique challenges and strategies for achieving entrepreneurial success. Hantz speaks on redefining success, Stoovo's pivotal evolution post-pandemic, and the critical importance of profitability and investment strategy.

Tune in to gain practical advice and inspiration for your startup journey.

Runtime: 36:23

2:26: “We realized that when it comes to the last hundred meters, there's a big gap.”

6:34: “I don't like to call it a pivot. I like to say that Stoovo evolved.”

8:35: “I do not think pivoting is a bad word. Actually, I think it's a sign of resilience.”

10:55: “By working together, it was very natural for the whole team to transition.”

15:07: “I was working at a company called Google, but I am Hantz, I'm not a Googler.”

17:10: “You might get there. You might not, but at least you were courageous enough to try.”

18:36: How Hantz defines work-life balance

22:20: Before he could launch Stoovo, “I had to wait until I had my green card.”

25:16: “I didn't have a uncle here, I do not have that famous garage where I can just sleep”

27:37: How Hantz and his co-founder Pierre connected with early investors

29:19: His framework for assessing founder-investor fit

33:38: Fundraising advice for Black and immigrant founders  

34:32: Why “you don't need to be in Silicon Valley to build a business.”

• Hantz Fevry, CEO/co-founder, Stoovo

🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fund-build-scale/id1719488387

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0EbC8PTUSfpZ4USPC9ErnN

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Thanks for listening!

– Walter.

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Enterprise companies like Salesforce, Oracle and Cisco use sales-led growth to drive revenue and build relationships with potential customers.

Early-stage startups can't afford to rely on traditional sales and marketing, which is where product-led growth (PLG) comes in. Instead of creating slick sales collateral and hiring aggressive go-getters, PLG presents the product itself as the primary driver for customer acquisition, expansion and conversion.

"It's an end-user-based revenue motion," said Laura Schaffer, VP of Growth at analytics platform Amplitude. "So you're trying to ultimately drive revenue growth by focusing on the end user."

I invited her on the podcast to talk about how founding teams with limited resources can build a robust PLG framework that gathers actionable data and drives engagement.

"If you think of payment, it's just a kind of friction. Just like completing a signup is friction. Just like learning a new product is friction," said Laura. "Payment and pricing and charging is just another friction."

• Introduction to Laura Schaffer and her background in sales and growth

• Laura Schaffer, VP Growth, Amplitude

Thanks for listening!

– Walter.

In this episode of Fund/Build/Scale, I interviewed Amex Ventures Managing Director Kevin Weber about some of the nuances between traditional VC and corporate venture capital.

It’s quite a mix: he’s looking for founders who can create value for individual American Express cardholders and the firm itself, so we talked about what types of opportunities he’s looking for, some of the problems he’s trying to solve, and the role risk plays in pushing organizational boundaries. 

“In many cases, I actually want to take more risk in some of the investments that I'm going to make because that risk and the investment that I'm making for the potential opportunity that I could have to American Express is likely worth the bet,” he said.

If you’re interested in pitching Amex Ventures or another CVC, listen in for insights on fintech, AI, and e-commerce investments, the importance of aligning startup strategies with corporate goals, and key advice for first-time founders on fundraising and market positioning.

00:19 Meet Kevin Weber: Amex Ventures' Managing Director

00:42 The Role of Corporate Venture Capital

01:24 Kevin's Career Journey

02:53 Amex Ventures' Investment Strategy

03:06 Differences Between Corporate and Traditional VC

04:05 Strategic Value and Partnerships

05:30 Focus Areas and Portfolio Companies

07:49 AI and Machine Learning in Venture Capital

09:29 Investment Process and Founder Relationships

15:11 Turning Investments into Partnerships

20:23 Collaborating with Businesses to Achieve Goals

20:39 Addressing Pain Points and Future Trends

21:10 Focus on AI

22:23 Business Goals and Fraud Prevention

24:09 Investment Strategies and Pivots

25:37 Exit Strategies and Acquisition Policies

31:40 Working with Accelerators and Incubators

34:44 Advice for First-Time Founders

39:07 Risk Tolerance in Corporate Venture Capital

• Kevin Weber, Managing Director, Amex Ventures

Thanks for listening!

– Walter.

Everyone's looking for ways to implement AI solutions, but integrating them into existing systems means entering uncharted territory. 

Despite the hype cycle, a majority of enterprise customers “are spending 70-80% of their capacity maintaining legacy application infrastructure,” said Jeremiah Stone, CTO of SnapLogic.

As a result, these companies often lack the necessary talent to effectively assess or integrate AI, making compliance and security the two biggest challenges for AI-first founders.

To overcome these and other adoption barriers, early-stage CEOs need to become educators and great listeners before they can ever act as salespeople.

In this episode, I interviewed Jeremiah to learn more about identifying and overcoming barriers to AI adoption, strategies for effective customer engagement and the importance of transparency and iterative experimentation in AI development.

• Security and compliance “are the two things that are challenging for adoption right now.”

• Jeremiah Stone, CTO, SnapLogic

Thanks for listening!

-- Walter.

Deb Kemper is a managing partner of Golden Seeds Ventures, a firm that focuses on backing early-stage, women-led companies.

She joined me on the podcast to share tactics with founders who want to build networks with investors outside of Silicon Valley and discuss some of the challenges facing anyone seeking follow-on funding these days.

We also talked about the criteria investors use to gauge the strengths of teams and their ideas.

“I know some investor groups do full-on psychological assessments of founders and their teams,” she said, noting that she prefers to learn through observation. One red flag: entrepreneurs who can’t easily explain their ideas aren’t ready to work with investors.

“If I go to a networking event and someone can't tell me in 60 seconds what they do — or even less — I'm done,” said Deb.

“They just want to talk to you and tell you everything about their company. And I walk away saying, “I still don't know what they do.’”

Episode breakdown

• How Golden Seeds Ventures works with Golden Seeds Angel Network

Links

• Deb Kemper, managing partner, Golden Seeds Ventures

Thanks for listening!

– Walter.

One of the first interviews I did for the podcast was with Renen Hallak, CEO and founder of AI infrastructure company VAST Data. 

The company launched in 2019, and three years later, it was ranked No. 5 on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500™. Today, its customer base includes massive organizations like Disney, Verizon, the US Air Force and the US Department of Energy. It’s one of the fastest-growing companies in its sector.

You can probably tell I was a little nervous.

Most of the questions I asked covered VAST Data’s first eighteen months: his customer discovery process, how his team worked to gain traction and build credibility with clients and also, why he looked for a co-founder who could take over go-to-market strategy.

Renen also spoke frankly about his previous experiences launching startups, which weren’t as successful.

When it came to fundraising, “I did not know how to do it,” he said. “I didn't understand the game. I thought that VCs judge ideas based on the merit of the idea. In fact, I think most of the weight goes to who you are, what you've done, and who vouches for you, in terms of who they choose to invest in.”

If you’re an academic or a worker in a technical role who’s thinking about starting up, you’ll definitely want to listen to this episode.

LINKS

• Renen Hallak, CEO/founder, VAST Data

EPISODE BREAKDOWN

• What VAST Data does

Viviana Faga is general partner at Felicis, a venture firm that invests in seed to Series B startups in several sectors. Since its founding in 2006, the company has backed breakout companies like Adyen, Canva, Shopify and Runway. 

Because she’s a former operator with experience in positioning, branding and go-to-market strategy, I asked her to come on Fund/Build/Scale to talk about how she evaluates seed-stage AI investments and share some of the tactics she’s using to help founders “really focus on this idea of a defensible brand.”

• A look at Felicis’ strategy of investing across different sectors and stages

• Viviana Faga, general partner, Felicis

Thanks for listening,

– Walter.

• FBS on Substack

Fiat Ventures General Partner and co-founder Drew Glover fits the textbook definition of an emerging investor, but we had so much to talk about, the term itself never came up during our interview.

Founded in 2022, Fiat Ventures is nearing the end of its $25M Fund One, which has focused on seed-stage fintech startups. “Seed is really the space that's optimized to our process, which is to work with them prior to investment,” said Drew.

In addition to Fiat Ventures, he also co-founded full-stack consultancy Fiat Growth, along with Fiat Advisory, a business marketplace that connects founders with experienced operators. Working separately, Fiat’s three arms strategically support early-stage founders from talent spotting to market entry in a capital-efficient manner.

In our interview, Drew unpacked the firm's philosophy of assembling a consortium of experts tailored to each stage of a startup's growth, rather than relying solely on an in-house marketing team.

We covered a lot of ground: Drew talked about his journey from football at UC Berkeley to venture capital. Because he's a person of color who navigated unconventional paths into the industry, he emphasized his commitment to accessibility and mentorship for underrepresented founders and fund managers. He also explained how and why Fiat Ventures actively seeks talent beyond Silicon Valley.

“As a Black VC that had to find a backdoor into the VC space, I understand how few folks that look like myself are out there both as a fund manager, as a venture capitalist, as well as a founder of color,” said Drew. “I'm typically looking for ways to make myself as available as possible.”

• Founding Fiat Growth, and how it evolved into Fiat Ventures

• Drew Glover, GP, Fiat Ventures

Early-stage deep tech founders working in AI and ML, or sectors like mobility, robotics and semiconductors are generally better off raising funds, seeking mentorship and connecting with potential customers via investors who aren’t expecting rapid growth and expansion.

Because corporate VC looks for strategic plays that can accelerate their companies’ tech adoption and expand access to markets, they’re often more in alignment with deep tech startups. They also cast a wider net — while Y Combinator enrolls 1.5% of the applicants it receives, Intel Ignite is still highly selective, but it has a 4% acceptance rate and a broader global reach, says VP and GM Tzahi Weisfeld.

In this episode, we discussed his program’s selection and evaluation process, the kind of team Intel Ignite wants to mentor, and how they help deep tech founders overcome common challenges like feature prioritization and hiring.

“We look at the size of opportunity for Intel to be engaged,” said Tzahi. “And for us to look at this as a relevant thing, we would want to see a major impact.”

Interested in more corporate venture capital insights? I’m interviewing two more CVCs this season: Kevin Weber (managing director, Amex Ventures) and Nicolas Sauvage, (president, TDK Ventures), so please subscribe to Fund/Build/Scale on your preferred podcast platform.

Links:

• Intel Ignite

I’m Walter Thompson. After working for years in early-stage startups and as a journalist, here are three hard truths I’ve learned:

1. Success in Silicon Valley hinges on connections, hard work and luck.

There’s no such thing as “founder DNA.” If you’re willing to take on risk and invest years of your life in something that has maybe a 10% chance of paying off, you can be a startup founder.

Here’s why I founded Fund/Build/Scale:

1. To help founders make fewer mistakes.

This podcast is for anyone who’s interested in learning the basic skills required to launch a startup, secure initial funding and transform an idea into a sustainable business.

Interested?

Subscribe to Fund/Build/Scale and follow the podcast on LinkedIn or Substack to get articles, excerpts, transcripts and more.

Thanks for listening.