Bootstrapped to nearly $100M exit to Citrix; Jesse Lipson; knowing when to ignore the “smart” advisors vs. just building
Release Date: 03/29/2023
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[$200M+ Raised] Self-Doubt & Worry to Thriving Through Startup Challenges; Electric.ai's Founder, Ryan Denehy
Sit Down Startup
Ryan Denehy discussed the importance of overcoming self-doubt in the early stages of a startup. He shares his own experiences, practical advice, and data-driven insights that can help founders navigate the competitive business landscape. The Early Days: Selling the Product and Finding Customers Understanding Product-Market Fit Avoiding the Pitfalls of Scaling Practical Strategies for Prioritization and Focus The Importance of Customer Conversations and Self-Awareness Aktie Now has a special offer for startups joining the Zendesk for Startups program: Zendesk Express implementation...
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The Founder-led Content Formula; Atrium’s Founder Pete Kazanjy
Sit Down Startup
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[$1.2B Val] Epidemic Sound's Founder, Oscar Hoglund: Overcoming Gov Regulations & Launching A Marketplace
Sit Down Startup
The success of Epidemic Sound, a platform for content creators and music artists, is a testament to the skill, and creativity of Oscar Hoglund and his team. Despite the numerous legal and financial obstacles they encountered, they refused to give up on their mission and took the fight to Brussels to change copyright laws and protect artists from exploitation. The key to their success was their passion for the project and the support of those around them. Through their dedication, they were able to create a platform that grants content creators easy access to music while ensuring artists are...
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Tailscale's $113M Success: Developer-Led-Growth
Sit Down Startup
Tailscale has been a huge success, raising over $113 million and growing to 80 employees. They discovered that if developers love the product, they will tell their decision makers in their organization to buy it, and the money will follow. To ensure customer satisfaction, they use Net Promoter Score to move people from the middle to the top and offer free support for everyone, even those on the zero dollar plan. NachoNacho is a marketplace for B2B SaaS, a single platform for you to manage all your SaaS payments using virtual credit cards, discover new & relevant SaaS using AI and deep...
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[$161M Raised] From Series A Struggles to 400 Employees: LinkSquares' Growth Strategies with Founder Vishal Sunak
Sit Down Startup
Vishal Sunak, Founder of LinkSquares, shares his journey of building software for legal teams. Listen as he speaks to Sit Down Startup's host Adam O'Donnell about raising $161 million over five rounds of venture capital, overcoming fundraising struggles, and unlocking the secrets to growth. Discover the importance of building a strong product, founder-led sales, and knowledge assembly, as well as how to validate product ideas before building solutions. Vishal also gives invaluable advice on understanding buyers as well as his superpower as a founder. Don't miss out on this engaging...
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Bootstrapped to $100M+ Exit: Pardot’s Founder, David Cummings' Startup Journey
Sit Down Startup
Join Adam O'Donnell on Sit Down Startup as he sits down with David Cummings, the founder of Pardot, which eventually sold to Salesforce. In this episode, they discuss pivoting from unsuccessful strategies, customer discovery, and marketing automation platform, while sharing their personal stories of startup challenges.
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Instacart's Former Chief Growth Officer; Building a Successful ML Startup: Anomalo's, Founder, Elliot Shmukler
Sit Down Startup
Adam O'Donnell sits down with Elliot Shmukler, former Chief Growth Officer at Instacart and co-founder of Anomalo, to discuss the challenges data teams face in detecting and solving data quality issues using machine learning. Despite the initial failure of their product to meet customer needs, Anomalo was able to grow 10x ARR during the big recession by listening to customer feedback and building a fully-featured product to address gaps in their initial product. Elliot emphasizes the importance of talking to customers regularly and trusting your gut when experimenting with ideas. Through a...
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$0 to 100M ARR in 18-months: Revolutionizing Cloud Security With Base Thinking; Wiz’s Co-Founder, Ami Luttwak
Sit Down Startup
Welcome to the Sit Down Startup podcast, where host Adam O'Donnell interviews entrepreneurs and startup founders about their inspirational stories. In this episode, Adam brings in Ami Luttwak, the CTO and co-founder of Wiz, one of the largest cloud security companies. Ami shares the hands-on culture of the company, where all managers do the work themselves, and explains how they identified a gap in the market by combining vulnerability, application, network exposure, and identity analysis. Together, they discuss the success of Wiz, how the COVID-19 pandemic was actually beneficial to their...
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($155M raised) Glean’s Founder, Arvind Jain: How to close enterprise deals from day one
Sit Down Startup
Glean was founded in 2019 as an AI-powered workplace search engine aimed at helping people browse through their company apps to find the information they need and boost productivity. Since then, Glean has raised $155M+ and grown to 200+ employees while staying true to its initial mission. In this episode its founder, Arvind Jain, shares his experience and provides a few key insights: Ask the hard questions. Make sure prospective clients are willing and able to implement what you’re offering. Quantify the problem. Prove the value of your product by quantifying the problem your customers...
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Bootstrapped to nearly $100M exit to Citrix; Jesse Lipson; knowing when to ignore the “smart” advisors vs. just building
Sit Down Startup
Jesse Lipson initially thought he would become a philosophy professor — until he took a job with a startup that changed his career path. After founding his first company Sharefile in 2005, he sold it to Citrix in late 2011 for almost $100M. And in October 2017 he established Levitate, which helps relationship-based businesses keep in touch with clients in a more personal and authentic way. This entrepreneur offers a few insights from his career to date: Acquisitions are a rollercoaster. Deals can take months to finalize and it’s important to maintain focus while they’re ongoing. Do...
info_outlineJesse Lipson initially thought he would become a philosophy professor — until he took a job with a startup that changed his career path. After founding his first company Sharefile in 2005, he sold it to Citrix in late 2011 for almost $100M. And in October 2017 he established Levitate, which helps relationship-based businesses keep in touch with clients in a more personal and authentic way.
This entrepreneur offers a few insights from his career to date:
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Acquisitions are a rollercoaster. Deals can take months to finalize and it’s important to maintain focus while they’re ongoing.
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Do the hard work. Attracting customers doesn’t happen overnight, so be prepared to go the extra mile.
- Be data-driven. The benefits of testing and measuring everything outweigh the costs.