Unicorn Builders

Pilot has transformed how startups and SMBs handle their financial back office operations, combining technology with human expertise to deliver end-to-end accounting and tax services. As a tech-enabled services company serving thousands of businesses, Pilot represents a new category of back office automation that goes beyond traditional software solutions. In this episode of Category Visionaries, I sat down with Waseem Daher, Founder and Executive Chair of Pilot, to explore how the company built a trusted brand in a high-trust industry and scaled through strategic GTM decisions. Topics Discussed: Pilot's $400K domain purchase decision and its impact on brand credibility The evolution from startup-focused to full SMB market expansion Building a tech-enabled services model in an era obsessed with pure software Creating highly targeted, industry-specific marketing campaigns Scaling customer acquisition beyond founder networks through quality and word-of-mouth The strategic decision to stay in the weeds with customer interactions GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Plan for success with brand investments: Pilot spent $400K of their seed funding on the pilot.com domain, representing about a third of their raised capital. Daher explained their rationale: "You kind of need to plan for success, meaning in the case that the company is doing super well in a decade, you'll be super happy to be owning your brand." For high-trust service businesses, credibility signals like premium domains become essential sales assets. B2B founders should consider that brand investments may not show immediate ROI but compound over time, especially in industries where trust is paramount. Focus on secondary trust signals for complex purchases: When customers can't easily evaluate service quality, they rely heavily on secondary signals. Daher drew parallels to choosing a doctor: "It's like well, is the office clean? Is it convenient to me, like do they wear a white coat? Do my friends say they're good?" For B2B services that require deep trust, founders should invest in every touchpoint that signals credibility and professionalism, from domain names to office presentation to customer testimonials. Use the hardest customer segment to build generalized solutions: Pilot deliberately targeted startups first, not because they were the best fit, but because they represented the most challenging version of the problem. Daher noted: "The startup ranges from literally we support people that are like the day after they have incorporated...and we support companies with many hundreds of people with a VP of finance and a controller." By solving for the extremes, they built a platform that could serve any customer in their target market. B2B founders should consider starting with the most demanding segment to stress-test their solution's flexibility. Create marketing that only you can execute: Pilot's most successful marketing campaigns leveraged their unique position and expertise. Their Delaware franchise tax campaign exemplified this - they identified when scary tax letters would arrive, provided genuinely helpful education, and offered free assistance. Daher emphasized: "The things I like the most are when we have gotten very into the mind of the buyer to ask genuinely, what do they care about and how can we help them?" B2B founders should develop marketing strategies that leverage their unique insights and capabilities rather than generic approaches any competitor could copy. Stay customer-proximate even as you scale: Despite Pilot's growth, Daher still personally responds to customer emails and participates in sales calls. He sold the first 100+ accounts himself and continues staying close to customers. "I think it is tempting to believe, oh, I just hire the head of sales and I hire the marketing and like they'll just go and figure it out...I think that's a huge mistake." For B2B founders, maintaining direct customer contact prevents developing an outdated understanding of buyer needs and market dynamics as the company grows. Embrace tech-enabled services over pure software: While the market favored pure software solutions, Pilot chose a hybrid model combining technology with human expertise. Daher explained their reasoning: "I have never, ever talked to a business owner who has said like, gosh, I really want to buy accounting software. It's like, no, just like solve the problem for me." B2B founders should focus on delivering complete solutions rather than tools, even if it means accepting lower margins initially, as customers increasingly value outcomes over features.       //   Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io   The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co

Gusto has taken a radically different approach to B2B software for small businesses. While most companies serving SMBs treat them as a stepping stone to enterprise markets, Gusto has made small businesses their forever home. Founded in 2012 as ZenPayroll, the company now serves over 400,000 customers with a valuation exceeding $9 billion. In this episode of Unicorn Builders, Tomer London, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Gusto, reveals the unconventional go-to-market playbook that built one of the most beloved software companies in the SMB space. Topics Discussed: Gusto's consumer-first approach to B2B software design and marketing The evolution from invite-only beta to 300,000+ customers Building customer obsession through emotional journey mapping Scaling customer feedback loops from 10 to 2,000+ employees The strategic decision to stay focused on SMBs instead of moving upmarket Multi-phase go-to-market strategy from word-of-mouth to paid channels Brand development focused on personality over positioning The launch of Gusto Embedded for platform partnerships Future expansion into compliance automation for small businesses GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Treat SMBs like consumers, not enterprises: Tomer's most important insight was recognizing that small businesses make purchasing decisions more like consumers than enterprises. Instead of deploying traditional B2B tactics like cold calling and enterprise sales processes, Gusto focused on building a product people love, measuring success through NPS, and relying on word-of-mouth growth. This consumer-oriented approach enabled them to scale to hundreds of thousands of customers without heavy reliance on human-driven sales processes. Map the emotional journey of every user interaction: Gusto institutionalized customer empathy through design critiques that plot the emotional ups and downs of user experiences. They ask: "Where can we make the highs higher and help lift people from emotional lows?" For example, they celebrate moments like getting paid while providing extra support during difficult tasks like layoffs. B2B founders should systematically examine every customer touchpoint and design experiences that acknowledge the human emotions involved in business processes. Create listening posts throughout your organization: Early on, Gusto's entire team heard every customer support call in their shared workspace. As they scaled to 2,000+ employees, they built systematic "listening posts" - Slack channels that automatically funnel customer feedback from NPS surveys, social media, and in-app interactions to the entire building team. This ensures great ideas come from everywhere and keeps the entire organization connected to customer voices. Focus relentlessly on where customers are happiest: Rather than trying to serve all SMBs equally, Gusto measured where they had the highest NPS scores, strongest referrals, and most organic growth. They doubled down on these segments and industries for several years until reaching $10 million ARR. B2B founders should resist the temptation to expand too broadly and instead identify their happiest customer segments and go deep with them first. Phase your go-to-market strategy deliberately: Gusto's GTM evolved through distinct phases: (1) Invite-only with 20-50 design partners focused on product development, (2) Opening the funnel while testing different channels with one person, (3) Going all-in on what worked (PR, content, social media), (4) Adding paid channels years later, and (5) Building strategic partnerships with accountants. Each phase had clear success metrics and graduation criteria before moving to the next.     //   Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io   The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co

Alex Israel, Co-Founder and CEO of Metropolis, is at the forefront of transforming parking with AI-powered technology. He discusses how they evolved from a small startup to the largest parking operator in the U.S., fueled by a unique Growth Buyout strategy. Israel shares insights on taking a public company private with $1.6 billion in funding and the bold expansion into drive-throughs and gas stations. He highlights the importance of modernizing traditional businesses and offers valuable GTM lessons for founders navigating growth challenges.

ScienceLogic is transforming IT operations through its innovative AI ops and observability platform. With over $140 million in funding and a 22-year journey, ScienceLogic has evolved from a bootstrapped startup to an industry leader competing successfully against tech giants like IBM, HP, and Broadcom. In a recent episode of Unicorn Builders, we sat down with David Link, CEO and Co-Founder of ScienceLogic, to learn about the company's contrarian approach to product development, its capital-efficient growth strategy, and how it built a partner-led sales model that now drives 75-80% of revenue. Topics Discussed: ScienceLogic's origin solving the fragmented IT monitoring landscape The "opposite day" approach to product differentiation Evolution from an appliance-based solution to cloud services Bootstrapping for 7 years before taking institutional funding Building a partner-first go-to-market strategy Multiple platform reinventions to stay ahead of technological shifts The integration of generative AI capabilities   //   Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io   The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co

Density began with a simple problem: wanting to know how busy a coffee shop was before trekking through the snow. Eleven years later, it has evolved into a company measuring human occupancy across some of the world's most valuable real estate. In this episode of Unicorn Builders, Andrew Farah shares Density's journey from a side project to a pioneering force in measuring how space is used. Andrew explains how Density overcame the five critical challenges in people-counting technology—being real-time, accurate, anonymous, low-cost, and self-installable—and how these innovations are now transforming how organizations understand and design their physical spaces. Topics Discussed: The origin of Density as a solution to check a coffee shop's busyness Why existing people-counting technologies failed in real-world applications The evolution from serving coffee shops to corporate real estate giants Density's expansion into airport lounges, universities, and government buildings The five critical requirements for effective people-counting technology How Density's insights revealed that 40% of commercial real estate goes unused The impact of the pandemic on office utilization measurement The monumentally inefficient use of federal buildings (9% peak utilization)   GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Compress your sales cycle by building a "sales-ready" product: Andrew referenced Jim Goetz's "Templeton Compression" philosophy, which advocates for products that can close deals in the first meeting. The ideal B2B product should allow prospects to immediately see themselves using it, turning everything after that initial demo into "just paperwork." B2B founders should design products that create those "aha moments" for prospects as quickly as possible. Design your product to accelerate the sales cycle: Andrew emphasized that "your sales motion is an outflow of the product you build, more so than the team you construct." When Density finally achieved all five critical attributes (real-time, accurate, anonymous, low-cost, and self-installable), it dramatically changed their sales cycle and motion. B2B founders should prioritize features that remove friction from the buying process over those that merely add capability. Demonstrate real-world problems to prospects with data they can't ignore: Density's most powerful sales moments came from showing customers data they couldn't access elsewhere - like when Linkedin's workplace strategist realized he had no visibility into how their buildings were used despite managing millions in real estate. Effective GTM strategies often involve revealing to prospects what they don't know about their own operations. Turn side quests into viral marketing opportunities: Density's public visualization of federal building utilization generated 9.7 million impressions in 24 hours after being amplified by Elon Musk. The project began as a "side quest" analyzing public data about government building usage. B2B founders should look for opportunities to repurpose their core expertise into shareable, data-driven content that demonstrates their unique insights. Find problems hiding massive inefficiencies: Density discovered that 40% of commercial real estate (worth $150 billion) sits vacant but paid for—a problem that existed before the pandemic but wasn't visible to decision-makers. B2B founders should look for high-value problems where crucial data is missing, as solving these visibility gaps can unlock enormous customer value.   //   Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io   The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co    

Sean Henry founded Stord at just 18 years old to solve a critical pain point for e-commerce brands: competing with Amazon's logistics capabilities. What began as a network of third-party warehouses has evolved into a comprehensive commerce enablement platform that helps brands deliver Amazon-like customer experiences. In this episode of Centaur Builders, Sean shares how Stord grew from a bootstrapped startup to managing 11 warehouses with over 3 million square feet, serving leading brands like Athletic Greens, Seed Health, Native, Tula, and Fly by Jing. Topics Discussed: Starting Stord at 18 years old after a decade of e-commerce experience Evolving from a third-party warehouse network to a full commerce enablement platform Building and scaling physical infrastructure alongside sophisticated software Expanding from B2B retail fulfillment to omnichannel e-commerce Creating a new category in the commerce infrastructure space Implementing executive-led sales as a growth driver Developing a marketing strategy that showcases customer success   GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Start with a wedge product, then expand: Stord began by tackling one critical component of the supply chain—warehouse placement—before expanding to a full-stack solution. Sean explains, "Day one, we kind of stepped back and said, what is the most unique element of [Amazon's] operation and their supply chain? And it's how they place inventory across a network close to consumers to mitigate shipping costs and enable fast speeds." B2B founders should identify a specific high-impact problem, solve it exceptionally well, and use it as a platform for broader expansion. Turn cost centers into value engines: Stord's most effective pitch is showing brands how to transform an inevitable cost (shipping and fulfillment) into a competitive advantage. Sean shared, "Our best sales pitch ever to a brand is, 'You're going to spend 10 to 15% of your revenue on your end-to-end shipping, fulfillment, returns... Let us take that from you and take it from being a fragmented, clunky cost center where you are shipping too slow, spending too much... to a value engine.'" B2B founders should focus on transforming existing, unavoidable expenses into strategic assets rather than creating entirely new cost categories. Evolve your ICP strategically: Stord initially cast a wide net to gain volume, then narrowed their focus as they scaled. Sean advises, "Let's actually start with a wide aperture... We want to handle anyone who agrees with the problem we're solving and can get volume flowing in our network." For flywheel businesses that depend on scale, B2B founders should consider prioritizing early volume over extreme ICP precision, then refine as they grow. Commit to executive-led sales: Stord attributes much of their growth to founder and executive involvement in sales. "Every deal at Stord has a named executive sponsor... It doesn't feel the most scalable. But then you step back as a founder and you go, okay, if 50% of my valuation or my business is driven by growth, how much time am I really investing in growth?" B2B founders should institutionalize executive involvement in key deals rather than fully delegating this crucial function too early. Map and measure customer ROI meticulously: Stord focuses intensely on documenting specific ROI metrics for each customer. Sean cautions, "If we don't have a specific ROI mapped out for them... if we don't know every time we look at them, this is the feature and ROI they're getting the most... we should consider them pre-churn because they will leave." B2B founders should develop robust ROI tracking systems that demonstrate their solution's specific value to each customer.

Omnicell pioneered automation technology in healthcare, transforming from a startup in Randy's house to a publicly traded company worth over $3B. In today's Unicorn Builders episode, Randy shares his journey from identifying a critical need in healthcare while his daughter was in the ICU, to building and scaling a company that has lasted over three decades. Topics Discussed: Building and launching a healthcare tech company in the 1990s Going public during the dot-com crash after three attempts The evolution from on-premise solutions to cloud-based systems in healthcare Transitioning from product-focused to solution-based offerings with onsite expertise The future of autonomous pharmacy and AI integration Maintaining relevance and growth over a 30-year journey   GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Build trust through personal connection and domain expertise: Randy's background in healthcare and industrial engineering, combined with his personal experience in hospitals, helped him build credibility with early customers. He emphasized the importance of personally visiting customers and sharing his story to create trust in a conservative industry. Find the right milestone that creates value: Randy's team built a working prototype with just $75,000, which immediately attracted VC interest. He notes, "The key in winning in any of these games is get to the right milestone that creates value. It's not the ultimate finished product... but it's a milestone someone can look at and say, 'Wow, this company is going to make an impact.'" Make complex technology accessible through familiar comparisons: When marketing their solution, Omnicell found success by comparing themselves to established players: "Because we compare it to their story, to our story, that just allowed people to easily understand." While Randy didn't love referencing competitors in his pitch, it helped quickly establish credibility and understanding. Evolve your service model based on customer outcomes: Omnicell discovered that having their experts onsite led to twice the productivity compared to customer-operated systems. This insight drove their evolution from a pure product company to a solutions provider: "Many of our products today come with experts and people on site to help you get the outcomes you want." Think in decade-long horizons while executing in three-year cycles: Randy emphasizes the importance of having both short and long-term vision: "If you only think in two to three year increments, you're going to get to the end of one of those nodes and then you'll have nowhere to go. You need to at least have some thesis on what 5 and 10 years looks like." Embrace constant reinvention: Randy attributes his longevity to continuous personal and professional development: "You really have to reinvent yourself every three years. What's got me to this point isn't going to do for the next three years." He recommends seeking feedback from board members and advisors who will challenge you to improve.   //   Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io   The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co  

Coalition has revolutionized the cyber insurance industry by creating an entirely new category called "active insurance." From its founding in 2017, Coalition has grown to become North America's largest cyber insurance provider, surpassing incumbents who had been in the market for over 20 years. In this episode of Category Visionaries, Joshua Motta shares how Coalition transformed from a startup to a $5B+ company by shifting demand away from traditional insurance products and establishing leadership in a new category they created. Topics Discussed: The evolution from cyber security as a technology problem to a risk management challenge Creating and defining the "active insurance" category Building and scaling distribution through existing insurance broker channels The role of education and storytelling in category creation Coalition's expansion beyond cyber insurance to protect digital businesses' intangible assets International expansion strategy and future growth plans GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Create categories, don't compete for existing demand: Instead of fighting for market share in an existing category, Coalition created a new category of "active insurance." This allowed them to shift the conversation from product comparison to category versus category, where they could define the rules and measures of success. Focus on education over pure product marketing: Coalition recognized that their core challenge was an education problem - helping businesses understand cyber risks, insurance coverage, and the value of active risk management. This informed their go-to-market strategy across all channels. Leverage existing distribution channels effectively: Rather than building their own distribution network, Coalition convinced independent insurance brokers to adopt their new category of insurance by demonstrating 10x improvement over traditional products. Build category awareness through multiple channels: Coalition deployed a comprehensive strategy including webinars, in-person sessions, broker training, marketing materials, website content, and executive storytelling to establish their category. Ensure your category definition enables growth: When creating a new category, ensure it's either sufficiently broad to accommodate future expansion or intentionally narrow to drive focus. Coalition chose "active insurance" to allow expansion beyond cyber while maintaining their core differentiation. //   Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io   The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co

Welcome to another episode of Unicorn Builders. In today's episode, we're speaking with Oren Kaniel, CEO & Co-Founder of AppsFlyer, a mobile attribution and marketing analytics platform that has raised over $300 Million in funding. Here are the most interesting points from our conversation: Inception of AppsFlyer: Oren shared how his first experience with an iPhone in 2011 led him to realize the potential of mobile technology, sparking the idea behind AppsFlyer. Early Days and Challenges: He discussed the early challenges of convincing people about the growth potential of mobile, especially in a market still dominated by desktop and Blackberry users. Focus on Data Privacy: From the beginning, AppsFlyer was built with a strong emphasis on data privacy, which Oren recognized as a critical need for the future of mobile marketing. Bootstrapping Before Funding: Oren mentioned how the company was bootstrapped for its first few years, which instilled a strong discipline in the team and shaped the company's culture. Navigating Fundraising: The fundraising journey wasn’t straightforward. Oren shared key insights into how they strategically positioned AppsFlyer to attract significant venture capital investment. Building a Global Presence: Oren emphasized the importance of thinking globally from day one, highlighting how AppsFlyer expanded its operations to over 20 offices worldwide, ensuring a strong local presence in key markets. ​​   //   Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io   The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co

Welcome to another episode of Unicorn Builders. In today's episode, we're speaking with Satyen Sangani, CEO & Co-Founder of Alation, a data intelligence platform that has raised over $340 Million in funding. Here are the most interesting points from our conversation: Category Creation Challenges: Alation’s journey involved building a brand-new category from scratch, which took nearly five years to be recognized. The process was long and required articulating a problem customers didn’t realize they had — data understanding and accessibility. The Search for Product-Market Fit: Early on, the company focused on user interviews and trials, identifying that customers struggled more with writing SQL queries than data discovery. This discovery led to the development of their first product. Resisting Temptations to Fit into Existing Categories: Although Satyen considered repositioning Alation under the emerging “data governance” category, the team chose to stick to their vision, focused on enabling data consumption, which paid off in the long run. Building the Go-to-Market Motion: In the early days, marketing drove 90% of the company’s leads, while sales focused on enterprise deals. This inbound-heavy approach allowed them to grow without significant outbound efforts initially. The Evolution of Data Intelligence: Alation’s positioning evolved from a data catalog to “data intelligence” as competitors emerged and the need for a broader vision became apparent. This shift helped the company compete at a higher level. Fundraising as a Storytelling Exercise: Satyen emphasizes the importance of balancing the proof of success with the dream during investor pitches. Storytelling and the articulation of the long-term vision have been key to securing over $340 million in funding. //   Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io   The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co