Navigating Pre-Launch Investments

Michelle Valentine is the Co-founder and CEO of Anrok, the sales tax platform for software companies.

We talked trends in software consolidation, lessons working with Anrok’s first customers, advice on fundraising, scaling a sales team, and early tricks for founders to avoid future tax-related headaches.

Timestamps

(00:00) Intro (02:19) The trend of software consolidation (03:00) Why billings and payments isn’t consolidating (06:09) Early tricks for avoiding future tax headaches (08:42) Founder lessons from first being a VC (09:28) The two catalysts that led to Anrok (17:15) How software companies used to figure out sales tax (22:51) Raising Anrok’s Seed round in 48 hours (25:42) How to join a VC's scout program (28:24) Fundraising lessons from being an investor (34:24) Surprising results from the very first “easy file” product (38:30) Lessons getting the first customers from outbound (40:19) Why you should make your first two sales hires at the same time (41:50) Sales advice when scaling into enterprise customers (46:19) How your Seed round helps raise your A and B (47:24) The reason AI and LLMs are so hard to predict (50:58) Michelle’s favorite Claude use cases (53:51) Predicting market sizes, and why Figma’s seemed small (57:39) How to invest in AI right now (1:01:01) Advice on changing your opinion (1:04:10) Getting outside your comfort zone (1:05:04) Michelle’s go-to interview question (1:34:50) The most ridiculous SPACs (1:07:23) Lessons from Scott Cook, the founder of Intuit

Referenced Check out Anrok: https://bit.ly/3YTb0ED Anrok’s Journal Entries Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3AxrtUV Anrok Mid-year SaaS Sales Tax Review: https://www.anrok.com/resources/mid-year-saas-sales-tax-review-2024 Michelle’s Article on AI, Part 1: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fog-ai-what-investors-missing-part-one-michelle-valentine Part 2: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fog-ai-what-investors-missing-part-two-michelle-valentine Part 3: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fog-ai-what-investors-missing-part-three-michelle-valentine Superintelligence: https://www.amazon.com/Superintelligence-Dangers-Strategies-Nick-Bostrom/dp/1501227742

Where to find Michelle: Twitter: https://twitter.com/_vltn LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellevalentinehk/

Where to find Turner: Twitter: ⁠https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/⁠ Newsletter: ⁠https://www.thespl.it/