Fund/Build/Scale

Sahitya Senapathy, founder and CEO of Endeavor AI, joins Fund/Build/Scale to talk about launching a solo-founded startup at the intersection of AI and heavy industry.

From building FEMA apps at age 11 to raising $7M before finishing college, Sahitya shares the hard lessons behind the headline.

We dig into:

– Selling AI solutions to manufacturers with no network and no co-founder

This is a candid look at what it means to hustle in deep tech without shortcuts or safety nets.

(2:25) How Sahitya’s parents gave him early exposure to manufacturing logistics and culture

(5:42) How working on resilience tech during natural disasters sparked his focus on real-world impact

(8:16) Lessons from Palantir and how the forward-deployed model shaped his customer-first mindset

(9:46) His two-month immersion on the shop floor of a steel factory

(12:05) Why forward deployment contradicts traditional product development models

(15:44) Building a network in legacy industries through conferences, mentorship, and cold outreach

(18:03) How strong references and early pilots drove initial traction

(21:34) “ Starting a company is an extremely hard leap for many people to make. And it just so happened that I almost accumulated all these skills over my life.”

(22:48) Hiring philosophy: high-agency, under-the-radar talent and long-term team-building

(24:39) How he de-risks himself for both investors and potential hires

(28:55) Learning to hire and manage people with more experience than you

(30:20) Why a rejected engineering candidate became Endeavor’s first full-time sales hire

(32:06) The toughest sales objection he’s had to overcome

(34:02) “ You cannot do the forward deploy model without personas.”

(36:11) “ I believe truly at the core that I have unlimited potential, and to that end, there's no point in ever believing that I could be limited by something.”

(38:23) “ The biggest risk you can take is not taking a risk, especially in this day and age.”

(40:43) How to validate your idea before leaving your job or taking a major leap

(44:42) One question he’d ask a CEO before joining an early-stage AI startup

📥 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7249143254363856897/

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fundbuildscale/

Thanks for listening!

– Walter.

Sophie Bakalar, partner at Collaborative Fund, joins Fund/Build/Scale for a candid conversation about early-stage investing in climate tech, consumer AI, and deep tech hardware. She shares how she evaluates “green” founders with limited experience, what kind of traction she looks for in pre-revenue companies, and why a passion for solving a real-world problem outweighs having a stacked resume.

We also cover:

This episode is packed with advice for founders navigating long development timelines, technical risk, and early go-to-market strategy — especially if you’re looking to raise money while keeping burn low and momentum high.

(2:24) “Like a lot of people in venture, I have sort of a windy path.”  

(6:47) Inside Collaborative Fund: “We all roll up our sleeves on everything here.”  

(7:55) Which industries and founder profiles Sophie is watching in 2025.  

(10:37) Where consumer AI hardware may be headed.  

(12:03) What her typical work week looks like.  

(15:05) In a people-driven industry, inexperienced founders need to de-risk themselves before doing investor outreach.  

(17:37) “We don't necessarily create a hard line or a clear box around what makes a climate tech investment.”  

(22:43) “There are a few things that investors in climate and energy tech are looking for.”  

(26:23) When it comes to solo founders, “expectations from funders [are] a little bit higher.”  

(28:28) What excites Sophie about working with first-time founders.  

(30:17) The most common reason why a team with a strong idea fails to execute.  

(33:31) Why a founder’s “adaptability quotient” is so critical to their success.  

(36:53) Personalities (and business models) that should avoid venture capital.  

(40:16) “I hope I've managed to retain a good amount of empathy.”  

(42:11) One piece of advice for VCs she returns to frequently.  

(44:37) “The only real seismic changes are going to happen when you start to see more female entrepreneurs build really successful companies.”  

(46:52) The blogger you need to read “before you kick off your fundraise.”  

(47:39) The one question Sophie would have to ask a CEO before accepting an offer from an early-stage startup.

📥 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7249143254363856897/

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fundbuildscale/

Thanks for listening!

– Walter.

Recorded in July 2024, Aimi founder Edward Balassanian joins Fund/Build/Scale to share how his AI-powered platform creates generative, copyright-safe music for enterprise clients. He explains how customer discovery with DJs shaped Aimi’s tech, why compliance is core to their strategy, and why the company downsized after hitting product-market fit — all while inventing a market where AI music solves problems humans can’t.

(4:17) “ I consider myself a platform person. I build operating systems.”

(7:39) “ It's incumbent on a founder in a space like this to be well-versed in not only the art of the music, but the science of the music as well.”

(9:14) “ We see a song as a medium between fans and artists. We're not in the song business.”

(11:03) How Aimi is building a library of licensed content: “We’ve been pretty methodical.”

(14:59) “ We see ourselves as kind of uniquely in the business of music AI for creation, not for imitation.”

(16:46) “ We de-risk the use of music. That's one of the biggest selling points for enterprise customers.”

(18:44) “ Like most tech people, I would say we're always going to be in beta.”

(21:58) Why Aimi raised its $20M Series B in 2021.

(24:01) Downsizing after reaching PMF “ was the best decision that we that we could have made.”

(28:05) “ I think what's really interesting is building platforms, and any platform today is going to have to incorporate AI into it.”

📥 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7249143254363856897/

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fundbuildscale/

Thanks for listening!

– Walter.

In this episode of Fund/Build/Scale, Nectir co-founder and CEO Kavitta Ghai shares how she turned her frustration as a college student into a fast-growing, VC-backed edtech startup. Kavitta discusses the leap from student to founder, how she built an AI-powered tool for classrooms without a technical background, and the tactics that helped her and her co-founder land paying customers early. She also opens up about navigating the venture world as a first-generation founder and reframing risk as a competitive advantage.

(1:57) “ One day we said, ‘what if we stopped complaining and we actually did something about it?’”

(5:57) “ The idea for Nectir initially just sort of fell into my lap.”

(10:29) “ I was a communication major. He was an environmental studies major. We had no technical background at all.”

(12:50) “ To go from a broke college student to being a broke founder really doesn't feel like that big of a difference.”

(14:12) How they landed Nectir’s first customer — UC Santa Barbara.

(20:50) “ We have this philosophy that I call our ‘zones of genius.’”

(23:46) Why customer discovery should “ every single person on the team for as long as you possibly can.”

(27:03) “ When I go back and think about what we did best in that beginning period of time, it was starting with a very basic MVP.”

(30:47) “ It was a huge surprise and it was terrifying when I realized, ‘oh shit, I'm the salesperson.’”

(34:47) Kavitta shares her top recommendation for free founder advice — and one she had to pay for.

(38:43) “ I actually came into building Nectir with zero understanding of what VC funding even was.”

(43:38) “ You have to be willing to ask for what you want and it's the only way to get it.”

(47:24) “ Right this second is the best possible time to start your company.”

(51:50) “ It's not the thought of me sitting on a yacht one day that motivates me.”

(53:09) Nectir’s pilot program with the California Community College system.

(56:49) The one question Kavitta would have to ask a CEO before she’d take a job at their startup.

📥 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7249143254363856897/

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fundbuildscale/

Thanks for listening!

– Walter.

Would you leave a stable, high-paying job at Google to build something that competes with NVIDIA, Intel, and AMD?

(1:26) “We are building a new accelerated execution platform for compute.”

(6:41) “ It will exist all over the place and it already does, but AI will be everywhere that compute is.”

(11:18) “ You only you only have so much time in a week. What is the thing that you're best at?”

(15:13) “ We have decided to start from the hardest part of the software stack.”

(22:44) “For the most talented people in the world, the risk is actually not as great as what you think.”

(30:24) “ Growing up in Australia, my view of the of the United States was very much driven from the media and from Hollywood.”

(33:26) “ I sat in a room for six weeks and just met everyone that I could. And that really was the beginning of a journey to the United States.”

(37:48) “ I still think there's a special place in the Bay Area, and in the United States, there is a different risk appetite.”

(40:41) The one question Tim would have to ask the CEO before he’d take a job at someone else’s early-stage startup.

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

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

📥 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7249143254363856897/

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fundbuildscale/

Thanks for listening!

– Walter.

Building a startup in Europe presents a unique set of challenges, like fragmented markets, cultural differences in risk-taking, and a VC ecosystem that’s still maturing compared to Silicon Valley. But things are changing fast.

For this episode of Fund/Build/Scale, I sat down with Lucile Cornet, partner at Eight Roads, a global VC firm that invests across Europe. We dive into:

🚀 How European founders are breaking away from Silicon Valley’s playbook

Lucile also shares the biggest mistakes founders make when fundraising and scaling, plus the one question she’d ask a CEO before joining an early-stage startup.

If you’re building — or thinking about building — a startup in Europe, this episode is for you.

(3:22) Building long-term relationships with founders – “We really track to get to know people, entrepreneurs early and track their success.”

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

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

📥 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7249143254363856897/

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fundbuildscale/

– Walter.

Journey founder and CEO Stephen Sokoler appeared on Fund/Build/Scale in June 2024 to talk about how his startup pivoted from B2C meditation services to a B2B mental health platform, along with what that shift revealed about selling to enterprise clients. He breaks down the challenges of high customer acquisition costs, the trade-offs of venture capital, and the key lessons founders should know before making a major business model shift.

(2:20) Why Stephen decided to found Journey — identifying the need for accessible mental health solutions.

(5:07) “We probably had five or six different products that worked and didn't work until we got to where we are today.” Lessons from early iterations and failures.

(7:32) Pivoting to B2B “was definitely a safer bet than to continue doing consumer, which just seemed like a dead end.”

(9:26) Landing early customers like Warby Parker — how this helped de-risk Journey for enterprise clients.

(11:37) Why he sought out venture capital in the company’s early days — and what he learned from the process.

(13:56) Knowing what he knows now, would he still have pursued VC?

(17:11) Reaching product-market fit “changes the fundamentals of the business significantly.”

(19:00) “One of our core pillars is that it's a global offering rooted in diversity and inclusion.”

(23:17) We think it's really important to make mental health part of the fabric of working at a company, versus a random benefit.”

(25:17) The three key data points Journey tracks to measure impact and effectiveness.

(28:25) “You can decide: Do you want it to be a lifestyle business? Do you want it to be a unicorn?”

(31:49) Work-life balance vs. work-life integration — “I don't like the term ‘work-life balance,’ because then it feels like something's always kind of out of whack.”

(34:29) How Stephen has learned to manage the mental toll of entrepreneurship.

(37:25) “Not every business should be a venture-backed business.” Key insights on whether VC is the right path.

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

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

📥 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7249143254363856897/

📓Substack: https://fundbuildscale.substack.com

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fundbuildscale/

Thanks for listening!

When you accepted the offer, maybe you imagined being in the group photo when your boss rang the bell at NASDAQ.

But five years later, your company just raised its Series C, and an IPO isn’t on the horizon. Meanwhile, you need liquidity — whether it’s for a down payment on a house, starting a family, or another major life event.

The stock options you’ve earned are fully vested, but they’re just sitting there. So how do you turn them into cash?

If your company allows it, you can sell your shares to an accredited investor, assuming you can find a buyer who’ll meet your price.

That’s where the secondary market comes in. I spoke with Phil Haslett, founder and Chief Strategy Officer at EquityZen, a platform that helps startup employees sell a portion of their equity to investors looking to get in on high-growth companies before they go public.

We took a deep dive into how the secondary market works, its risks and rewards, and how aspiring founders can even use it to bootstrap their own startups.

Disclaimer: This interview is for informational purposes only. Nothing Phil says should be interpreted as financial advice.

(0:00) I used Descript to create an elaborate cold open for this episode, please listen.

(3:19) The specific pain point that led Phil and Atish to start EquityZen.

(5:11) “ I've kind of gone through maybe two or three evolutions of the IPO markets since EquityZen started.”

(7:57) All things being equal, early-stage tech workers take on more risk than founders or investors.

(9:12) Few workers are well-informed about the secondary market, “but it’s not their fault.”

(11:38) “ At some point, employees start to decide that maybe where they want to work — or maybe where they want to keep working — might be informed a bit by what they can or can't do with their equity.”

(13:06) Should we keep the traditional four-year vesting schedule, or scrap it for something new?

(14:14) Typical reasons why sellers turn to the secondary market.

(16:25) EquityZen’s typical selling size and average investment size, as of November 2024.

(18:52) ” You're probably not gonna get a billion-dollar valuation for your shares purely based on structure alone.”

(20:45) Keep close track of your equity, especially if you think you’re going to be laid off.

(22:20) Consult a financial services professional before you start the process.

(24:16) “ The first steps are kind of just also learning if you can sell your shares.”

(27:04) “ The company that you held shares in, if it went to zero: would you regret that you didn't sell?”

(30:10) A framework for figuring out whether the secondary market is worth the time and trouble.

(33:25) Offer your employees liquidity without jeopardizing morale or financial stability.

(36:27) Phil’s founder pitch: “ We're gonna support you all along the way. We can help you with liquidity in the future.”

(39:16) Tips for approaching your CEO to ask about liquidity options.

SUBSCRIBE

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

📥 LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7249143254363856897/

📓Substack: https://fundbuildscale.substack.com

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fundbuildscale/

Thanks for listening!

– Walter.

Do you want to know the difference between marketing and PR?

Marketing is when you say something nice about yourself;

PR is when other people say nice things about you.

Jenna Guarneri is the founder of JMG Public Relations and author of the bestseller "You Need PR." In this episode, she shares DIY PR tactics that help founders establish themselves as experts, attract customers, and raise their profile with investors — without spending a fortune on an agency.

If you’ve ever wondered why reporters never get back to you, we cover that, too.

Key takeaways from this episode:

If you’re trying to take control of your PR strategy and attract positive attention, listen in.

(1:52) How Jenna sets client expectations on what PR can and cannot accomplish.

📥 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7249143254363856897/

📓Substack: https://fundbuildscale.substack.com

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fundbuildscale/

Thanks for listening!

– Walter.

Building a startup in Africa isn’t the same as doing it in Silicon Valley.

Some challenges overlap, but many don’t, like currency volatility, limited early-stage funding, and investors who expect you to scale faster than the market allows.

So how do you grow beyond your home market? How do you raise funds when VC is scarce? And what do African founders need to do to make their startups more venture-backable?

To find out, I spoke with Mobola da-Silva, a partner at Capria Ventures who’s based in Nairobi, Kenya. She’s been investing in Africa and other emerging markets for nearly two decades and knows exactly what separates startups that thrive from those that stall.

She shares practical insights on navigating currency risk, securing funding, and preparing for Series A — even if you don’t have a deep-pocketed network to lean on.

If you’re an African founder trying to build a company that investors take seriously, this episode is for you.

(2:03) How Mobola got her start in VC and the path that led her to Capria Ventures.

(4:09) Capria Ventures' investment thesis.

(5:32) The regions and sectors where generative AI is creating real value.

(10:41) The best way to pitch Capria Ventures — and what investors want to see.

(12:26) “A venture-backable business has to be able to achieve significant scale.”

(15:13) “We're getting a bit more creative in Africa around funding for startups.”

(16:20) How currency volatility impacts valuations — and strategies for mitigating risk.

(22:18) “To pitch successfully, you have to be able to tell a story, right?”

(23:51) Why Capria Ventures avoids solo founders and what investors look for in teams.

(28:33) “Many investors don't think of product-market fit as a binary thing.”

(31:29) The key metrics that signal true product-market fit.

(33:49) “Make sure that you have a strong business before you try to start to move it to another market.”

(37:49) “Silicon Valley looms larger than life in Africa.” How founders should interpret this influence.

(42:46) Mobola’s top advice for early-stage founders in Africa looking to scale and raise capital.

Thanks for listening!

– Walter.