Welcome to the latest episode of Sit Down Startup, where host Adam O'Donnell explores FLYR Labs’ founder and CEO Alex Mans' meteoric rise with $400M raised, #boom! Transitioning from a consumer-focused model predicting ticket prices to a B2B powerhouse, they're now strategically collaborating with airlines to optimize pricing. Adam and Alex discuss why pivoting to high-margin, recurring revenue streams with big companies was a game-changer for their business model. Also critical to success...

In this episode of Sit Down Startup, join Laura Behrens Wu, founder of the multimillion-dollar shipping platform Shippo, as she reveals the pivotal moments that led to staggering growth and product-market fit success. Discover Shippo's journey using customer retention tactics (8:12), an API-first strategy (13:33), and conquering the Shopify App Store with a savvy inbound marketing approach (00:35:15). Listen to this interview for a deep dive into the game-changing approaches Shippo took to...

In the latest episode of Sit Down Startup, uncover Sami Inkinen's entrepreneurial journey, [00:11:28] beginning with how seizing the opportunity in his 20s set the stage for a phenomenal career. Sami shares his groundbreaking strides in [00:19:51] revolutionizing residential real estate with interactive maps, helping Trulia achieve an unparalleled product-market fit. Venturing into health tech, [00:36:53] Sami discusses Virta Health's mission to reverse diabetes through nutrition, not...

Sam Li, co-founder and CEO of Thoropass, has a rich background. His perspective on achieving product-market fit as a startup founder is rooted in resourcefulness, curiosity, and adaptability. Here are some cool parts of the episode to check out! (00:02:18) Navigating Rookie Mistakes as a Founder (00:07:48) The Importance of Intellectual Honesty in Pivoting (00:12:36) Discovering Customer Pain Points for Product Market Fit (00:19:50) Framework Thinking and Curiosity: Sam Li's...

In this insightful episode, Red Panda's founder, Alex Gallego, embarks on a comprehensive exploration of the entrepreneurial journey. [00:02:33] He reveals the intertwining of personal struggles and leadership challenges, while advocating for a more supportive startup community. [00:10:36] Alex unpacks his ever-evolving CEO priorities; from achieving product-market fit in the early stages to focusing on team recruitment and understanding market structure later on. [00:18:49] He underscores...

Sit Down Startup is back with Arjun Narayan, founder of Materialize, who shares how they nearly hit product-market fit before their MVP was ready! Host Adam O'Donnell dives into Arjun's journey from India to raising $100M+ (1:40) and revolutionizing real-time data processing with Materialize (00:45). Founders will appreciate the dialogue on tech database funding and the role of investor expertise (16:16). Tune in for more! Shoutout to this episode's partners Capchase and...

In this new episode of Sit Down Startup, Adam interviews Sentry's founder David Cramer, who shares insights from his illustrious journey that led to successfully raising $217 million. Tune in as David delves into diverse topics such as unraveling unique product monetization, cultivating unwavering belief in success (00:05:41), the power of focus and core concepts (00:08:45), and managing feedback at scale (00:18:37). The conversation touches upon customer engagement wisdom: distinguishing...

In this week's episode of Sit Down Startup, get to know Donald Muir, the creator and driving force behind Arc, a digital bank crafted for the tech-savvy crowd. As an experienced business leader with a keen desire for breakthroughs, Muir's interpretations of the explosion and teamwork in online banking post-SVB collapse (2:45) come from his hands-on experience of building Arc from scratch. Muir underlines the value of a dynamic digital bank that blends the personalized touch of a bank like...

Join us for the latest episode of Sit Down Startup! Anyone want to order a pizza? You're in luck. This week's guest Ilir Sela is the founder and CEO of Slice, a platform that "builds innovative tech to empower America’s independent pizzerias." Sounds delicious! Ilir dives into... Fax-machine-MVP - meet the customer where they areWhy he bootstrapped to $40M GMV vs. raising soonerWhat he looked for in a VC partnerAnd more! Shoutout to our partners DocSend and The Launch Box! DocSend: DocSend...

Jeremy Wood's solution, OpenStore, offers these founders the option to sell their businesses or have OpenStore operate and run the stores on their behalf. This innovative approach has not only provided a lifeline for many e-commerce founders but has also positioned OpenStore as a major player in the e-commerce market. Join Adam O'Donnell and Jeremy Wood as they delve deeper into this topic on the next episode of Sit Down Startup. Lark is a next-generation team productivity suite that boosts...

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. Thank you to this week's partners Aktie Now and WorknetGPT! Aktie Now has a special offer for startups joining the Zendesk for Startups program: Zendesk Express implementation - Have your Zendesk up and running, fully configured to your processes, including...

Atrium, a software company co-founded by Pete Kazanjy in 2016, has achieved more business success with fewer Sales Development Representatives (SDRs). This accomplishment can be credited to their strong inbound game and their valuable content that educates and provides insights to their community of 35,000 members.  Atrium's software helps businesses implement data-driven sales management by monitoring KPIs and providing alerts. Host Adam O'Donnell also discusses the challenges of business...

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...

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...

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...

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.

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...

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....

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...

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....

During Truora’s first year, they raised no money. Four years later, this customer-engagement and WhatsApp-first startup has come a long way, with 8M USD in ARR, 14M USD in revenue, and presence across seven Latin American countries. Co-Founder and CEO Daniel Bilbao shares his tips for founders looking to succeed:   Hire the best people you can. Talent comes first; good recruiting never fails. Do the homework beforehand. Spend time on the setup and talk to founders before going to...

When Chris Ebeling co-founded entertainment company Virtually Human back in 2018, Blockchain was just becoming popular. Since then, the company has raised $21M+ and their online horse racing game ZED RUN gained an impressive following.  In this episode, Chris talks to Adam about his experience launching in the digital world and shares a few tips:   Innovation comes with risks. Don’t be afraid to seek advice; be transparent and self-critical. Nothing is permanent. If you believe in an...

Zapier has one mission: to help companies use automation to connect tools and apps so data can automatically move between them. The business was founded in 2012 and their remote team has since expanded worldwide across 40 countries. Founder Mike Knoop shared some takeaways from their 11-year journey so far: Stay patient. Growth is organic, so be prepared to play the long game. Tap into search. Creating landing pages will make your product more visible to potential customers. Always...

Back in 2008, when mobile apps were the talk of the town, Mark Ghermezian had an idea: build a bridge between app developers and users. That was the seed for Braze, a customer engagement platform, which has grown to 1200+ employees and 3.5M+ monthly active users.  In this episode, Mark tells his story and teaches us a few lessons: Iteration is key. Listen to feedback from designers and people using your app in order to innovate.  Trust the process. Sometimes the market won’t be ready...