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How Wiz grew to $500M ARR in 4 years—& could exit to Google for $23B (largest VC-backed exit in history)
Season 3 Episode 35
Google is in talks to buy cybersecurity startup Wiz for $23B (a 40x revenue multiple). Wiz is the company that in 2021 announced it grew from $0 to $…
1 year, 8 months ago
He built a farming robot that shoots weeds with lasers— then closed $10M in pre-sales before shipping a single one. | Paul Mikesell, Founder of Carbon Robotics.
Season 3 Episode 34
Paul built a startup that was acquired for $2.2B. He worked on AI at Uber and Oculus. But when a farmer told him about some of the problems he was fa…
1 year, 9 months ago
Tesla’s EV market share (finally) falls below 50%. Good news for founders— incumbents took 15 years to match 1 founder.
Season 3 Episode 33
Elon Musk single-handedly took on the entire automotive industry. No one, including me, thought he would succeed. But he's built an $800B company. Wh…
1 year, 9 months ago
YC founder raises $3.5M, keeps team to 3 people—then grows 10x to $2M ARR in 1 year. | Benjamin Encz, Founder of Ashby
Season 3 Episode 32
Last month, Ashby raised a $30M Series C. Ashby is used by customers like Notion, Ramp and Sequoia. Benji built Ashby as an end-to-end Applicant Trac…
1 year, 9 months ago
Pickleball grew 3x in 4 years to 14M players. Not by competing with tennis— but by creating a new market instead.
Season 3 Episode 31
AI startups don’t necessarily have to beat incumbents. Some will start entirely new markets instead.
Like Canva to Photoshop, Shopify to Amazon or Pi…
1 year, 9 months ago
He fought Al Qaeda in Iraq, turned down $250K at McKinsey—& built a $150M+ ARR unicorn. Here’s how it happened: | Blake Hall, Founder of ID.me
Season 3 Episode 30
"I was technically homeless at the time. I was sleeping on my buddy's couch. I had declined $250,000/ year at McKinsey... I had no idea what I was do…
1 year, 9 months ago
Each Google/OpenAI update kills more startups. Here’s how to make sure you're not next.
Season 3 Episode 29
Every startup needs to compete with incumbents. But it's different with AI.
AI startups need to create websites or apps from scratch and drive traffic…
1 year, 9 months ago
1st-time founder meets 120 VCs— closes $2.7M in 5 weeks, 10x oversubscribed. Here's the step-by-step guide to close a round. | Andrew Rea, Founder of Taxwire
Season 3 Episode 28
Andrew spoke with 120+ VCs to raise a $1.5M pre-seed round. He closed $2.7M and had demand for many millions more. He devoted 90% of his time to fund…
1 year, 9 months ago
Zoom hits an all-time low. Here's what AI startups can learn from the WFH hype cycle.
Season 3 Episode 27
Zoom was THE work-from-home stock. It's down 90% from peak. The same hype that fuelled work-from-home stocks is now fuelling AI. What happened to Zoo…
1 year, 9 months ago
He grew to $22M ARR in 4 years—but regrets spending so much on growth. | Chris Walker, Founder of Refine Labs
Season 3 Episode 26
Chris shares the story of how he grew Refine Labs to $22M ARR, what he did to grow so fast, and also why he regrets spending so much on growth instea…
1 year, 10 months ago