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Cyan Banister & Cristian Cibils Bernardes: Early Signals, Founder-Investor Fit, and Trustworthy Consumer AI
Description
Recorded live in San Francisco during TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 week, this Fund/Build/Scale session brings together Cyan Banister (Long Journey Ventures) and Cristian Cibils Bernardes (Autograph) for a practical look at building consumer AI and the investor-founder dynamics that make it work. We dig into pre-traction signals that actually predict momentum, how to validate a weird idea, raise smart money, and ship products people return to. Cristian shares Autograph’s first moment of value, retention indicators, and a trust-by-design stance; Cyan unpacks the decision rules and behaviors that earn a second meeting. Together, they outline small-budget experiments and the frameworks they use to create products that stick. For first-time founders and early operators, this episode delivers concrete steps you can start taking tomorrow.
Thanks very much to Jenna Birch and the team at SISU for co-hosting and making this live recording possible!
EPISODE BREAKDOWN(1:54) Why Cristian named Autograph’s AI agent “Walter.”
(3:37) When they connected, Cristian saw “a bunch of synchronicities along the way that just kept pointing in this direction.”
(4:59) Cyan: “When he showed up and we were sitting together having coffee, I immediately was like, ‘yes.’”
(6:03) The sheer number of coincidences linking these two is unsettling — “quantum entanglement” comes to mind.
(8:18) Cristian and Cyan share their non-consensus takes on consumer AI.
(10:53) Cyan describes the framework she’s using to assess early signals as an investor.
(12:51) “I will not look at your résumé. I won’t look at what you did. Whatever you tell me in that interview is what I’m going to go off of.”
(14:42) “Fundraising is grueling. It was 50 conversations before I met Cyan, and then I had, I think, another 30.”
(16:53) Cyan’s framework for backing vs. passing.
(18:26) The three essential ingredients Long Journey Ventures seeks in founders.
(22:00) What a “magically weird” founder looks like — and why they’re so valuable.
(26:15) A red flag that ensures you won’t get a second meeting with Cyan.
(27:52) A behavior that virtually guarantees a second meeting.
(29:45) Cristian describes Autograph’s moat.
(34:40) “This whole thing doesn’t work if the trust element isn’t there.”
(38:08) What founder-investor fit looks like in their working relationship.
(41:57) One experiment founders should run this week.
(43:10) The most underrated founder superpower.
(44:10) “If you were interviewing for a job at an early-stage startup, what’s one question you’d have to ask the CEO before you could take the offer?”
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Thanks for listening!
– Walter.
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