Startup Field Guide by Unusual Ventures: The Product Market Fit Podcast

Material Security is an email security company that protects an organization's users and data particularly across Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. Last valued at $1.1B, Material has over 100 enterprise customers, including Doordash, Lyft, and Fox. 

In this episode, Sandhya Hegde and Wei Lien Dang chat with Abhishek Agrawal, CEO and co-founder of Material Security.

Join us as we discuss: 

00:00 Preview: Seeking validation for a B2B product

1:36 Founding Material Security

5:31 Identifying the Gap in Existing Solutions

10:00 Validating the Thesis 

12:41 Product Vision and Initial MVP

19:56 Go-to-Market Strategy for the First Million in ARR

25:40 Product Vision and Impact of AI

31:50 Advice for Founders Starting Companies in 2024

Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at [email protected].

Wei Lien Dang is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures and leads investments in infrastructure software, security, and developer tool.  Wei was a co-founder of Stackrox, a cloud-native security company prior to its acquisition by Red Hat. He can be reached at [email protected]

Abhishek Agrawal is the co-founder and CEO of Material Security

Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

Hightouch is a composable customer data platform. It helps companies collect and sync user data into ad platforms, CRMs, email tools etc. Last valued at over $600M, Hightouch has over 600 customers, including the NBA, Spotify, Plaid, Calendly, and more.

In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Kashish Gupta, co-CEO and co-founder of Hightouch. 

Join us as we discuss: 

00:00 Switching personas to find product-market fit

1:44 Evolution of the Data Integration Space

2:42 The Concept of Reverse ETL

5:41 The Origin Story of Hightouch

8:01 Exploring Different Business Ideas

12:06 Early Design Partners and Product Strategy

14:46 Transition from Founder Selling to Hiring Sales Team

16:48 Go-to-Market Motion and Marketing Strategy

18:39 Hightouch's Product Vision and Future Direction

22:55 Challenges in the Market and Building User Certainty

27:01 Co-CEO Arrangement and Founder Team Dynamic

31:04 Advice for Aspiring Founders in 2024

Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at [email protected] and 

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Kashish Gupta is the co-CEO and co-founder of Hightouch
Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

Notion is a productivity platform that blends all your workplace apps into a single platform, including team projects, wikis, and docs. Last valued at $10bn, Notion’s customers include teams at Amazon, Nike, Uber, Figma, Deel, and more!

In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Akshay Kothari, co-founder and COO of Notion.

Join us as we discuss: 

00:00 Preview: Building Notion 1.0

03:32 How Akshay met Ivan Zhao and invested in Notion

5:21 Lessons from the Pulse Journey

8:09 Building Notion’s first templates

12:43 Why Akshay joined Notion full-time

16:26 Akshay’s first few months at Notion

21:59 Evolution of Notion’s GTM strategy and Enterprise vs SMB

26:13 Akshay’s GTM learnings and challenges 

34:37 Launching AI Features in Notion

38:44 Customer Feedback and Future of Notion AI

Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at [email protected] and 

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LinkedIn 

Akshay Kothari is the co-founder and COO of Notion. 

Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

Domino Data Lab was founded in 2013 and was one of the early innovators in the space known as MLOps. It delivers a unified platform for enterprises to build, deploy, and manage machine learning workloads and provides access to data, tools, compute, models across any environment. Domino enables ML and data teams to collaborate, ensure governance, and reduce costs at scale.

In this episode, Wei Lien Dang chats with Chris Yang, co-founder and CTO of Domino Data.

Join us as we discuss: 

00:00 Introduction to Domino Data Lab

02:04 The Origin Story of Domino Data Lab

06:58 Balancing Authenticity and Customer Feedback

10:52  Open Communication and Collaboration Among Co-founders

14:24 The Importance of Engaging with Users

16:19  Building the First Feature: Enabling Compute Workloads in the Cloud

22:42 Discovering Unexpected Use Cases and Features

33:20 The Importance of Choosing a Target Market

35:44 The Evolution of MLOps and the Current AI Wave 

Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at [email protected].

Wei Lien Dang is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures and leads investments in infrastructure software, security, and developer tool.  Wei was a co-founder of StackRox, a cloud-native security company prior to its acquisition by Red Hat. He can be reached at [email protected].

Chris Yang is the co-founder and CTO of Domino Data. 

Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Julianna Lamb, co-founder and CTO of Stytch. Stytch is a comprehensive tool for identity management. Its auth and fraud prevention capabilities improve both security and user experience. Last valued at $1.0B, the company now works with over 1000 customers.

Join us as we discuss: 

00:00 Preview: early product surprises for the Stytch team

01:53 Introduction to Stytch and identity management

05:15 The founding insight for Stytch

10:27 Validating the idea and Minimum Viable Product

12:27 Choosing a customer segment and MVP

14:33 Surprises and patterns in early customers

17:57 Lessons from Plaid and building a flexible solution

19:46 Approach to developer marketing

22:20 Approach to developer awareness and hiring

26:32 Starting a company in an unusual environment

30:53 Impact of AI on authentication and fraud prevention

34:25 Advice for developers starting a company

Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at [email protected] and 

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LinkedIn 

Julianna Lamb is the co-founder and CTO of Stytch. 

Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Andy Byrne, co-founder and CEO of Clari. Clari was started in 2012 and last valued at $2.6B. Its revenue platform has been helping enterprise sales teams create visibility and predictability within their organization for over a decade. It helps over 1,500 companies including Cisco and Databricks improve their entire revenue process.

Join us as we discuss:

00:00 Preview: Gen AI’s impact on revenue ops

1:40 Origin Story and pain points

3:27 Early challenges and customer feedback

6:00 Surprises and feedback from design partners

10:01 Building for multiple stakeholders

13:16 Go-to-Market strategy

14:56 Identifying adjacent opportunities

18:00 Clari’s AI strategy

20:52 The future of sales and revenue

26:44 The evolution of CRM providers

28:34 Crowded sales tech landscape

32:59 Advice for new founders in GTM Tech

Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at [email protected] and 

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LinkedIn 

Andy Byrne is the co-founder and CEO of Clari.

Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

Further reading from Unusual Ventures:

Coming up with a founding insight

What are design partners?

In this episode, Sandhya Hegde and Wei Lien Dang chat about everything that happened in the world of AI Startups in 2023.

2023 was very much an Act 2 for Generative AI as GPT became a household name. We had a long Act 1 during Covid ending with some incredible launches in the second half of 2022 including Stable Diffusion and of course ChatGPT. We take a closer look at what the pivotal moments have been this year and more importantly what they mean for the startups ecosystem.

3:39 January 2023 — ChatGPT's Success and Consumer Adoption

7:16 February 2023 — Controversies and Legal Issues

12:09 March 2023 — GPT-4 Launch and Multimodal AI

16:04 April and May 2023 — Large infrastructure providers’ AI strategy

20:04 June 2023 — GPU Shortage and Infrastructure Challenges

22:41 July and August 2023 — Fine-Tuning and New Modalities

29:46 September 2023 — Governance and Safety Concerns

32:06 October 2023 — Revenue Generation and Open Source

33:18 November 2023 — OpenAI Leadership Changes

37:17 December 2023 — Google's Gemini and Future Predictions

Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor.

Wei Lien Dang is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures and leads investments in infrastructure software, security, and developer tool. Wei was a co-founder of StackRox, a cloud-native security company prior to its acquisition by Red Hat.

Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

Further reading from Unusual Ventures:

Whose responsibility is responsible AI?

How do you navigate AI security in an evolving landscape?

Autonomous AI agents could change the world, but what do they actually do well?

In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Shishir Mehrotra, CEO and co-founder of Coda.

Coda is a collaborative workspace that brings together teams and tools to create organized workflows in docs. Started in 2014, Coda serves over 80% of the Fortune 100. Last valued at $1.4B,  Coda is used by over 25,000 teams including ones at Figma, The New York Times, Square, Doordash, and Toast. 

00:00 Preview: Coming up with product insights

01:38 Shishir’s experience at YouTube

03:32 YoutTube Shorts versus Tiktok

06:03 Product-market fit is not a binary

08:04 The founding insight behind Coda

11:16 Positioning Coda against incumbent products

18:05 Coda’s alpha launch

24:36 PMF scores versus disappointment scores

29:53 Shishir’s approach to product rituals

38:05 The launch of Coda 4.0

43:50 Advice for new founders in enterprise productivity

Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at [email protected] and 

Shishir Mehrotra is the CEO and co-founder of Coda. Prior to Coda, Shishir was the Vice President of Product, Engineering, and UX at YouTube. 

Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

Further reading from Unusual Ventures:

MosaicML is the developer of open source infrastructure for training LLMs. The company was acquired by Databricks for $1.3 billion in July 2023. and has gone from 0 to over $30M in revenue this year in just 6 months.

In this episode, Sandhya Hegde and Wei Lien Dang chat with Naveen Rao, co-founder of MosaicML and now the head of Generative AI at Databricks

Join us as we discuss:

00:00 Preview: Future of foundation model companies

2:16 How Naveen’s previous experiences led to MosaicML

7:29 The core insight behind the founding of MosaicML

9:52 MosaicML’s approach to building an end-to-end platform

12:09 Why MosaicML focused on open models and LLMs

14:25 Why most foundation model companies will fail

15:52 How MosaicML found early adopters

18:14 Early use cases for MosaicML’s product

21:27 Impact of early feedback on MosaicML’s product roadmap

25:21 Why Naveen decided to move ahead with the Databricks acquisition

31:44 How Naveen sees the AI ecosystem evolving

34:08 Regulation of AI and the importance of open source

41:15 Advice for founding building AI infrastructure

Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor.

Wei Lien Dang is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures and leads investments in infrastructure software, security, and developer tool.  Wei was a co-founder of StackRox, a cloud-native security company prior to its acquisition by Red Hat.

Naveen Rao is the co-founder of MosaicML (now a Databricks company) and currently the head of Generative AI at Databricks

Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

Further reading from Unusual Ventures:

Starting an open source company

Open source customer development 

Full episode transcript here: www.unusual.vc/post/sprigs-product-market-fit-journey

Sprig is an AI-powered product feedback platform; it helps teams run in-product surveys and session replays with AI native analysis to help them build better products. Last valued at $330M, Sprig has hundreds of the largest and fastest growing tech companies as customers, including Notion, Figma, PayPal, Webflow, and Dropbox.

In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Ryan Glasgow, the founder and CEO of Sprig. 

Join us as we discuss:

01:13 Sprig’s origin story

05:26 Evolution of user feedback platforms

09:26 Building Sprig’s early team

12:37 Validating Sprig’s product hypothesis

15:37 Building relationships with early design partners

19:15 Iterating to MVP

23:19 Ryan’s approach to founder selling

29:11 Sprig’s early AI strategy

33:36 Sprig AI strategy post-ChatGPT

35:37 Ryan’s evolution as CEO

Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at [email protected] and 

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Ryan Glasgow  is the founder and CEO of Sprig. 

Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

Further reading from Unusual Ventures:

Defining your ideal customer profile (ICP)

Working with design partners

Validating your early product hypothesis