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KarmaCheck CEO Eric Ly on Customer Discovery + Early Product Development
Season 2 Episode 38
Eric Ly is the CEO of KarmaCheck, where he’s tackling a problem he first noticed years ago as a co-founder of LinkedIn:
People don’t always tell the …
1 year, 2 months ago
Inside Acceldata: CEO Rohit Choudhary on Building a Leading Data Platform
Season 2 Episode 37
Most early-stage founders I talk to are focused on getting their first customers, hiring their first employees, or maybe, if they’re lucky, closing t…
1 year, 2 months ago
Vouch CEO Sam Hodges on Mitigating Startup Risk and Maximizing Growth
Season 2 Episode 36
Startups face unexpected risks every day — cyberattacks, lawsuits, market shifts —but many entrepreneurs don’t think about risk management until it’s…
1 year, 2 months ago
Navigating Blue Oceans: Key Insights for Emerging Founders from Vectara CEO/co-founder Amr Awadallah
Season 2 Episode 35
Amr Awadallah is the CEO and co-founder of Vectara. Previously, he co-founded Cloudera, which went public in 2017 and was acquired for $5.3 billion, …
1 year, 3 months ago
2025 Cybersecurity Trends, Insights and Storytelling Advice from YL Ventures' Andy Ellis
Season 2 Episode 34
In this episode of Fund/Build/Scale, I talked with YL Ventures Partner Andy Ellis (a former CISO) about his approach to storytelling, tactics for fou…
1 year, 3 months ago
Lessons from Operant AI's Startup Journey: “ We're not wasting time on wheel spinning.”
Season 2 Episode 33
Two of the three co-founders of Operant AI — CTO Dr. Priyanka Tembey and CMO Ashley Roof — joined me to talk about building the first runtime applica…
1 year, 3 months ago
Mercury Raise 2024 Survey: Founder Challenges, Fundraising Trends, and the AI Hype Cycle
Season 2 Episode 32
Startups are built on grit, vision, and — surprisingly — a lot of peer advice. In this episode, I sat down with Mallory Contois, Head of Community at…
1 year, 4 months ago
Rusty Ralston and Jay Patil of Swell VC: A Hands-on Approach to Building Startups
Season 2 Episode 31
In October 2024, New York-based Swell VC announced its second fund with $11.5 million in commitments.
Co-founded by general partners Jay Patil and R…
1 year, 4 months ago
Seed-stage Valuation Insights from Lightspeed's Nnamdi Iregbulem
Season 2 Episode 30
If a team hasn’t built a minimum viable product, secured paying customers, or demonstrated strong unit economics, what exactly are seed-stage investo…
1 year, 4 months ago
Dan DeGolier: How Fractional CFOs Become a CEO's 'Strategic Teammate'
Season 2 Episode 29
In the startups I worked at, we never had spare laptops.
When we hired someone, we’d order their laptop that day. That’s Startup Cashflow 101: don’t…
1 year, 4 months ago