Sit Down Startup

Back in 2008, when mobile apps were the talk of the town, Mark Ghermezian had an idea: build a bridge between app developers and users. That was the seed for Braze, a customer engagement platform, which has grown to 1200+ employees and 3.5M+ monthly active users. 

In this episode, Mark tells his story and teaches us a few lessons:

• Iteration is key. Listen to feedback from designers and people using your app in order to innovate. 

• Trust the process. Sometimes the market won’t be ready for your product, but when it is, you’ll be ready to deliver. 

• Choose your market. Every customer requires a specific approach — whether they are enterprise, long tail, or mid-market.

Cristina Fonseca, our very own VP of Product, knows a thing or two about being a founder. She has set up two companies specializing in CX: Talkdesk, back in 2011 (right after college!), which went on to raise over 250M USD; and Cleverly in 2017, now acquired by Zendesk. 

In this one-to-one with Adam, she shares her experience: 

• Build trust. Stay present and proactively communicate with your customers. 

• Be aware of the market. If there is more than one company offering the same product, that means the demand is there.

• Share your knowledge. Make sure your team is aware of what the goal and product are, and use disagreements as an opportunity to reach compromises.

When Ashutosh Garg founded talent intelligence platform Eightfold AI in 2016, he had one clear goal in mind: to help businesses hire and retain the best professionals out there. The company has since grown to almost 700 employees and has raised $400M.

Ashutosh sat down to discuss Eightfold’s journey with Adam, sharing a few learnings along the way:

• Strike the right balance. Both a lack of and overconfidence will stop you from going anywhere.

• Keep evolving. Adapting to market changes in order to maintain product market fit is crucial.

• Come up with your pitch market fit first. Do you have a story and vision that the market needs?

Howard Lerman founded tech company Yext in 2006, recording revenues of $100M during his final quarter as CEO. In November 2022, he started building his next project: Roam, an all-in-one Cloud HQ — and predicts it’s going to be even bigger. 

The entrepreneur joined Adam for a chat to share some key insights and strategies from his +20 years’ experience: 

• Make customers love you. Happy clients will get you everywhere.
• Try and try again. There’s no single magic trick to growth — except to try everything.
• Growth isn’t the be all, end all. There are other ways to measure success.

In 2013, e-commerce platform Shift set out with one simple mission: to make car sales and purchases a seamless experience. The company began accelerating in late 2015 before they went public in 2020, and last year recorded revenues of 630M USD, selling vehicles in all 50 US states.

Co-Founder Toby Russell joined Adam to share a few insights from their journey:  

• Keep it simple. When scaling, don’t try to do too much at once.
• Make your mission matter. Will your idea have an impact on people’s everyday lives?
• A little humility goes a long way. Trust in your team instead of doing everything yourself.

Carbon emission tracking company Sweep was founded in June 2020. In just over two years, they have evolved to employ +80 people across Europe and the United States and, in less than 12 months, raised an impressive 100M USD.
We sat down with Co-Founder & CEO, Rachel Delacour, who shared some key learnings:  

• Test your product with friends. Get in touch with past clients or contacts to present your new idea.

• Pick up the phone. Talk to big brands to get your product out to the markets and generate trust.

• Understand the need. Make sure that you are supplying a solution to an actual need in the industry. 

Founded in 2019 with the goal of offering a simple solution for hiring freelancers and contractors internationally, Deel pivoted just a week before demo day. They restructured their program and grew to over 1,900 employees, 10K+ customers worldwide and raised $600M+. 

Here are the key takeaways from our chat with Co-Founder & CEO, Alex Bouaziz:

• Time is money. Move fast and see what sticks — you are defined by your growth. 
• Be customer-centric. Have strong customer empathy and work hard to maintain their appreciation for your product.
• Put your hands in the “mud”. You need to be able to fully understand and do the job yourself before you hire other people.

Mercury, a banking service for startups, was launched in 2019 but their business idea had been brewing since 2013. Mercury has now grown to 357 employees and tens of thousands of customers. 

CEO & Co-Founder Immad Akhund joined us to share some advice:

• Classic strategies work. Encourage your investors to talk about you on social media to get word-of-mouth going.

• Show ambition. Make sure your message encapsulates the scale of what you’re trying to achieve. 

• Get talking. Participate in podcasts or start your own and chat with other founders.

Founded in 2017, Pilot is a platform that offers bookkeeping, tax and CFO services for growing businesses. From a team of 10 to now 400, Pilot helps thousands of startups — crediting their speed, responsiveness and going above and beyond for customers as key to their growth.

We sat down with CEO & Co-Founder, Waseem Daher, who shared his biggest takeaways:

• Be ‘in the weeds’. Stay close to the delivery of your product or service and know what your customer base is up to.
• Engage with your customers. Talk to them to understand what they are thinking and feeling.
• Move fast and get things done. Pick up on common themes from sales calls or support tickets and quickly address them.

In 2010, Beats by Dre saw a huge opportunity to pivot and make a mark. They were able to uniquely combine the world of sports and music in a way people hadn’t seen before. A clear vision and authentic messaging helped differentiate themselves. 

We talked with former CMO, Omar Johnson, who shared insights from Beats’ early days: 

• Set clear objectives. Find an authentic place for your product. 

• Discover interesting ways to tell the same story. Come up with a clear and simple focus and apply that message to different contexts.

• Listen to people’s needs. Pay attention to real human behaviors — listening is what sparks big ideas.