Brian Trautschold is not your usual YCombinator alum, though he does credit his success in part to what he learned from the experience and the people he's met.

Talking about their recent funding round of $15.5 million, he and his cofounders built the company to be capital efficient, and this has enabled business model and outcome flexibility; they don't have to be the next unicorn to achieve their own ambitions for the company. And the risk of failing to achieve unicorn status and being absorbed at a low valuation by a competitor, which "sucks for everybody," is reduced.

We dive deep on business model, too, in particular about how integrations can help drive the business. Brian's take here is refreshing, too. He talks about customer needs set the prioritization of integrations rather than taking a look at the ecosystem and deciding to build integrations based on market penetration of the players. It's a really organic way to approach it, and the way he puts it is interesting, too.

This CEO conversation is notable for how open Brian is with his decision-making, especially with the hire of a marketing leader to help move the firm from founders doing too much to professionalizing the organization and enabling scale-up.

There's a lot to take away in this conversation, so I encourage a listen! And as always, there's a transcript on our blog if you'd prefer to read it.

Let me know what you think!

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