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

Before Webflow, creating a website required both a designer and a coder. Now, designers can build websites without code or sacrificing their artistic vision.

Listen, as Co-Founder of Webflow, Bryant Chou talks about his journey turning a simple idea of simplifying website-creation into a $4 billion dollar company.

Join us as we discuss:

• Webflow’s organic marketing strategies

About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun.

About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya ) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/). 

Further reading:

• Creating a product roadmap: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/pmf-creating-product-roadmap 

SOC2 certification is a daunting process for startup founders but increasingly necessary to land customers. Our guest today was among the first to understand how startup founders thought about security and compliance and set out to create the automated compliance category.

Listen in as Christina Cacioppo, CEO and co-found er of Vanta talks about her journey to creating the leading automated security and compliance platform that is valued at $1.6B today.

Join us as we discuss:

• How Christina approached finding product-market fit for Vanta

About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun.

About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/). 

Further reading:

• CEO/Founder prioritization tool: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/leadership-ceo-and-founder-prioritization

The SQL database that sits under most applications in the world is old technology that was not built with the Cloud in mind. Now we live in a Cloud-Native world and it's important for developers to have a database that offers the same guarantees as legacy SQL database technology while also taking advantage of life in the cloud.

Listen in as Peter Mattis Co-founder and CTO at Cockroach Labs talks about the cloud-native, distributed SQL database that provides next-level consistency, ultra-resilience, data locality, and massive scale to modern cloud applications.

Join us as we discuss:

• What were the unique insights that Peter and his team felt that drove them to creating a new database

About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun.

About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/). 

Further reading:

• How to stand out in an established open-source community: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/stand-out-in-an-open-source-community 

In today's episode, we hear from Andy Rachleff, who coined the term “product-market fit” which served as the inspiration for this podcast.

Andy Rachleff is a legendary Venture Capitalist who originally coined the term "product-market fit." Andy has had an incredibly accomplished career in the tech industry, co-founding Benchmark Capital in 1995 and Wealthfront in 2008. Andy has mentored and guided hundreds of founders and investors, and in this episode talks about why understanding product-market fit is the only thing that matters and all the pitfalls founders face along the way.

Join us as we discuss:

• How Andy got into venture capital and ended up starting Benchmark

About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, 
and Vivun.

About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).

Further reading:

• Building conviction in a startup: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/building-conviction

Early revenue can sometimes fool you into thinking that you have product-market fit. Startups begin to focus on growth without having solved the core problem their customers are playing them to address.

In this episode, we are joined by Lars Albright, a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, where he leads investments in vertical SaaS and fintech startups. Lars is a three-time founder of enterprise software companies, having sold two of his companies to Apple and Mastercard. Today, Lars joins us to talk about his last startup SessionM, a pioneer in mobile loyalty, and even today, powers the loyalty infrastructure for Fortune 1000 brands.

Join us as we discuss:

• How SessionM needed to find product-market fit with 3 different customer stakeholders

About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, 
and Vivun.

About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).

Further reading:

• Customer validation: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/pmf-customer-validation

Successful startups need to solve a problem, but there is a big difference between a founder knowing a problem exists in the abstract and a founder experiencing the pain points firsthand and developing ways to solve it.

Laura Behrens Wu is the Founder and CEO of Shippo, a shipping platform designed to give every merchant access to the best-in-class tools and technology reserved for retail giants. Over 100k brands trust Shippo to ensure their customers love how their products are delivered. In this episode, Laura takes us through the product-market fit journey of Shippo and her journey of evolving as its CEO.

Join us as we discuss:

• The origin story of Shippo when Laura first launched the company in 2014

About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, 
and Vivun.

About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).

Further reading:

• Customer validation: https://www.field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/pmf-customer-validation

Since the rise of COVID-19, every company has adopted remote work, and our guest's mission is to create a more equal world by making it possible for talented professionals to work from any country they choose to.

Tony Jamous is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of Oyster, a global employment unicorn that helps companies hire employees and contractors anywhere in the world. Before Oyster, Tony was the founder of Nexmo (2010), a Twilio competitor that was acquired by Vonage in 2016 for $230M. In this episode, Tony takes us through the product-market fit journey of Oyster.

Join us as we discuss:

About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services.  Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, 
and Vivun.

About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).

Further reading:

While some startups experiment and pivot their way into product-market fit, others have founders with a unique insight that needs persistence. After a rough  6 year start as a company between 2012-2018, Arctic Wolf hit a tipping point driven by market awareness. In the past 4 years, the growth rate of the business has been phenomenal. Founder Brian NeSmith joins us to discuss his conviction to keep going and how he kept his talented team together even when results weren't what they expected.

Brian NeSmith is a cybersecurity industry veteran, having led three successful companies - the latest of which is Arctic Wolf Networks. Last valued at over $6BN, Arctic Wolf is the leader in the cybersecurity category known as MDR - Managed Detection and Response, provided as a service.

In this episode, Sandhya is joined by co-host John Vrionis, her partner and founder of Unusual Ventures. John led the first venture investment in Arctic Wolf, a $7.5M round by Lightspeed when Brian first started the company.

Join us as we discuss:

• The origin story of Arctic Wolf and why John backed Brian

To learn some of the skills Brian and John discussed, explore the Field Guide modules on:

• Raising a Seed or Series A round

About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, 
and Vivun.

About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).

StackRox is a security startup born in 2015. After many initial setbacks, StackRox went on to become a leader in container security, riding the Kubernetes wave and helping cloud-native companies secure their software. Wei Lien Dang joins us today to discuss how StackRox found product-market fit.  

Wei Lien Dang is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures. Before joining the venture capital firm, Wei was the Co-Founder of StackRox. StackRox became one of the first startups in the container security world to offer a Kubernetes-native solution and in 2021, was acquired by Red Hat.  

Join us as we discuss:

• What drew Wei to StackRox and his transition from being a product executive to a founder?

About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, 
and Vivun.

About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).

Henry Ward joins us to talk about how his team of fewer than 20 employees scaled their startup, then known as eShares, to product-market fit and eventually became a household name in equity management software.

Henry Ward is the Co-Founder and CEO of Carta. This $7.4B business has created a new category of software in equity management by helping companies and investors manage their cap tables, valuations, investments, and equity plans. Henry gives us insight into the early stages of Carta: the initial products that Carta built, gaining validation through investor networks, closing their first 100 customers, and how they found product-market fit on their way to acquiring 28,000 customers.

Join us as we discuss:

• How Carta built products designed to get distribution

Go further:

• Learn how Carta won their first 100 customers: https://www.unusual.vc/post/how-carta-won-their-first-100-customers

About Unusual Ventures — Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building infrastructure software and application-level companies. Unusual was founded in 2018 with the mission to reinvent the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with an unprecedented level of hands-on services. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders and teams building innovative products. With offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, and Boston, Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, Harness, 
and Vivun.  

About Sandhya Hegde — Sandhya is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in enterprise SaaS companies. Previously an early employee and executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sandhya) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhyahegde/).