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20VC: Why Pre-Product Market Fit Is About Systems Design Not Engineering, The Right Way For Leaders To Approach Wartime Leadership Today & A Guide To Recruitment Forward Planning with Ryan Denehy, Founder & CEO @ Electric

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Nov 8, 2019

Ryan Denehy, Founder & CEO of Electric.ai, shares his entrepreneurial journey, starting at just 17. He emphasizes the significance of systems design over traditional engineering in achieving pre-product market fit. Denehy discusses the challenges of wartime leadership and how he balances speed and quality in execution. He reflects on the common mistakes first-time founders make and stresses the importance of strategic planning in recruitment to scale effectively. With an optimistic vision for Electric, Denehy is committed to shaping the future of IT solutions.

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ANECDOTE

Early Ventures

Ryan Dennehy started his first company at 16, producing mountain biking videos.
He later founded Swarm, a foot traffic analytics company, and Electric, an IT solutions provider.

ADVICE

Speed and Focus

Maintain speed and focus in your business.
Prioritize reaching the next inflection point.

INSIGHT

Inflection Points

Venture-backed B2B SaaS businesses have clear metrics and inflection points.
These points depend on the stage and investor expectations.

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Ryan Denehy is the Founder & CEO @ Electric.ai, the company that provides a world-class IT solution that's centralized, secure, and lightning-fast. To date, Ryan has raised over $37m in funding from some dear friends of the show in Rich @ GGV, Bessemer, Primary, Bowery, just to name a few. As for Ryan, he started his career at the tender age of 17 launching an action sports video production company, which was acquired just 4 years later. Ryan then spent 5 years at USA Today in numerous different roles. Following USA Today, Ryan started his second company, Swarm, acquired by Groupon just 3 years later.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Ryan made his way into the world of startups from launching an action sports video production company at the age of 17?

2.) Having founded 2 prior companies, would Ryan agree with Joe Fernande @ JoyMode in saying that "serial entrepreneurship is overrated"? What did he do right in the first 2 companies that he would look to do again? What did not work that he is avoiding? Where does Ryan most often see first-time founders make mistakes scaling?

3.) How does Ryan think about and assess wartime leadership? What is the right leadership style and approach to battle through the really tough times? Ryan's investors talk of his speed of execution, how does Ryan balance the speed with the quality when it comes to execution? How has Ryan seen both his role and the way in which he executes it change with the scale of the company and of himself?

4.) How does Ryan thnk about and assess forward planning when it comes to recruitment? How should this recruitment planning align to fundraising? Why must it start before the fundraise? How does Ryan think about levelling up individuals internally vs hiring external candidates? How does Ryan think about and present internal expectation setting?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Ryan’s Fave Book: Barbarians At The Gate

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