The Scaling Startups Podcast

On today's episode I talk with founder of Segment Ilya Volodasky. Segment is a customer data infrastructure company valued at 1.5 billion most recently raising 175M in funding. On today's show with Ilya we talk :

Pivoting from an education startup and the founding moment of Segment

How he built an early team at Segment

How to move from the startup segments to start selling to enterprise

Methodologies for hitting product-market fit

Psychological safety in engineering teams

Best practices for scaling early-stage companies with data analytics

Worst advice he has ever received as a founder

The art and science of early stage investing with Semil Shah. Haystack founder and Lightspeed venture partner.

On season 2 episode 6 I talk with Mark Cummins founder and CEO of Pointy.

We talk Mark's journey to becoming a Founder, how he exited his first company to Google and how he is scaling Pointy in globally and the US. We also discuss the how to create repeatable revenue, product market fit and his top tip for founders in scaling.

On Season 2 episode 5 I’m joined by Min Teo, Executive Director at Consensys Labs responsible for Consensys Labs investments in Europe. Min is also a former VP of Finance at rapidly growing fintech YoYo Wallet with a background in financing and private equity.

On today’s episode we talk about a bunch of topics starting with the proliferation of web 3.0 and the challenges with blockchain. Secondly we explore The future of distributed ledger technology, smart contracts and the main investment trends in blockchain along with Min’s perspective on what’s next in tech.

On Season 2 episode 4 I’m joined by Venture Capitalist Nicola McClafferty who is investment director at Draper Esprit as we dive into the world of venture capital, Nicola is a former founder of Covetique backed by retail giant Asos. We discuss a bunch of topics starting with the art & science of VC and how Nicola leverages her founder experience to be a successful investor. Secondly we dive behind the decision making process Nicola goes through to as she funds entrepreneurs. Finally we talk about the future of venture capital and where the VC model will evolve to over the next 10 years.

On season 2 episode 3 I talk to Founder of hit podcast EatSleepWorkRepeat and Vice President of Twitter Europe Bruce Daisley. Bruce has just published his new book on workplace culture The Joy of Work last week and is a UK Top 10 seller according to Nielsen. Bruce is a self-confessed culture addict and has built up a treasure chest of experience scaling early teams at YT, Google and Twitter.

We discuss a range of topics from productivity, deep work, flow and how to create positive effect in teams. We explore the culture of Netflix, Uber, Amazon, Google on what makes top-performing teams and lastly we look at the role of creativity in successful work environments.

On today’s episode season 2 episode 2 we have Eze Vidra. Managing Partner and founder at Remagine Ventures. Eze is a former founder and has invested a tremendous amount of his career in startups launching Google Campus globally back in 2012 and going on the become Google Venture’s first VC in Europe as a General Partner.

Eze also founded Techbikers a charity raising cash for RoomToRead an organisation focused on children’s literacy across the globe. On today’s episode we discuss how venture capital is evolving in Europe, North America, China and the venture model of the future. We also explore how startups can best navigate product market fit and the illusive balance of burn rate X scale. Finally we touch on a bunch of topics from startup ecosystems across the globe, portfolio and board management and Eze’s top lesson learned as a founder.

On Season 2 episode 1 I talk to Benedetta Lucini CEO and co-founder of Oval Money a fintech app aiming to revolutionize saving and investment for the mass market. Benedetta is a former banker at Credit Suisse where she brought many startups to public markets. More recently Benedetta has been an operator at Rocket Internet and General Manager at Uber building up a tonne of operational excellence on running and scaling fast growing businesses. Benedetta was also recently named on the UK FinTech Top 50.

On today’s episode we discuss a range of topics. We kick-off with Benedetta’s view on product market fit and the steps founders can take to achieve this. We then explore best practices in managing a board and the challenge for founders in building a balanced board with independents. Thirdly we touch on how to measure unit economics in a marketplace business and ensure you are scaling sustainably. Finally we explore the entrepreneurial lessons Benedetta learned at Uber working with Travis Kalanick and Uber’s approach to codifying playbooks for expanding aggressively.

On episode 11 I talk to Eren Ozagir, Founder of Push Doctor and C-suite of Sunday Times fastest growing company Entertainment Magpie.

On today’s episode we discuss Eren’s playbook for running and scaling technology companies. From the founding moment to product market fit to internationalization & scale. Eren shares his lessons learned in partnering with investors, how to build effective teams and the future of healthtech and e-commerce.

On episode 10 I have a conversation with Marie Outtier CEO and co-founder of Aiden.ai, the startup aiming to disrupt the 600 billion dollar global advertising industry funded by ParTech ventures and world’s leading angel investors like Sophia Bendz and Nicolas Pinto.

On today’s episode we discuss a range of topics from Marie’s perspective on how to find a co-founder and how to think about monetization & pricing.

We also discuss working with investors, product market fit, go-to-market strategy and Marie’s highs and lows of the founder journey.