focal podcast

Why saying "no" is the secret to growing faster as a startup founderMost founders think raising $100M means spending aggressively. Adit Abraham raised $108M and spent only $1M - while landing Fortune 10 contracts very early on and having experienced zero enterprise churn to date.In this episode, he reveals the counterintuitive focus strategies that helped Reducto turn documents into data better than anyone else, including why they fired a $5K contract, limited engineers to one priority per week, and spent months recruiting a single PhD instead of scaling the team quickly.Adit Abraham is the co-founder and CEO of Reducto, an AI company that transforms documents into structured data for language models. He previously worked at Google and attempted other startups before Reducto, where he learned the hard lessons about focus that now drive his company's success. Reducto has raised over $100M from A16Z, Benchmark, First Round Capital, and Y Combinator.In Today's Episode We Discuss:02:04 - Pivoting from a viral product before Y Combinator even began05:48 - How free computer vision consulting revealed real product-market fit07:29 - The exact moment founders know they've found product-market fit08:03 - Why going one layer deep on ideas is the most dangerous founder trap11:10 - Choosing two PDF features over 35 file types competitors supported14:54 - Turning down construction document contracts worth millions in revenue17:10 - Past startup failures that became the blueprint for saying no successfully22:25 - Cutting engineer to-do lists from 10 items to 1 weekly priority27:45 - The doctor-patient framework that makes rejecting customers feel collaborative31:35 - Maintaining velocity while scaling from 4 to 20 high-agency employees36:08 - Prioritization without spreadsheets: qualitative judgment over point systems38:50 - Spending $1 million after raising $108 million from top-tier VCs40:52 - Why their first research hire is one of 10 best in world for document AI46:35 - The fitness trainer analogy every founder misunderstands about company building49:14 - When "stay lean" advice becomes the wrong strategy for your stage50:16 - Why full-time commitment creates space for different experiments than side projects52:04 - The VC conversation that made sharing bad news feel safe instead of scary

Every bottom-up PLG company faces this tension:PLG gets you in. Enterprise funds the future. They need vastly different products - how do you prioritize?If you try to please both motions at once, you starve both.How to balance PLG with enterprise is what I discuss with Feross Aboukhadijeh, the CEO and co-founder of Socket ($65M raised from a16z, Abstract, Dylan Field, Aaron Levie, and other).Socket, a developer-first security platform protecting code from vulnerable and malicious dependencies. Before Socket, Feross was an open source maintainer and developer who built widely-used libraries.In Today's Episode We Discuss:01:43 - How developer background dictated Socket's PLG-first strategy over enterprise04:50 - Building a GitHub app in 48 hours to avoid launching with zero user capture07:56 - The counterintuitive rule: launch with intentionally missing enterprise features10:53 - Why Socket deliberately ignored vulnerabilities despite every competitor offering it11:20 - The dirty secret of startup pricing pages most founders won't admit15:37 - How Socket mistakenly modeled pricing after GitHub's public/private repository strategy16:08 - Why cryptocurrency companies exposed a fatal flaw in Socket's pricing model18:19 - Going straight to enterprise sales to defend against fast-following competitors19:37 - Why product quality loses to inferior products with superior go-to-market21:36 - Socket's first enterprise deal was $500 and they kept doubling until pushback24:27 - When PLG and enterprise roadmaps become zero-sum resource battles26:27 - The strategic mistake of abandoning PLG motion after enterprise traction28:54 - How developer awareness creates unfair advantages in security tool evaluations29:23 - Enterprise handholding versus self-serve product design create opposing company muscles33:01 - Figma's playbook: how connecting free-to-enterprise destroys customer acquisition costs36:12 - The biggest regret: not building the PLG funnel before enterprise distraction hit40:57 - Getting SOC 2 on day one would have parallelized six months of enterprise delays41:00 - The monstrosity trap: second-time founders who hire VPs before product-market fit40:13 - Why the popular advice to limit cap table size is fundamentally wrong41:05 - Why Feross regrets turning away a $10K angel investment over ego43:24 - The technical founder's fatal mistake: choosing to code over customer conversations45:04 - Why selling before building feels wrong but saves months of wasted development45:13 - The Mom Test: the book that teaches founders how to extract honest customer feedback

Most startup founders discover they have a culture problem when things are already breakingToday, we discuss how to build the right culture before the wrong one costs you millions.Every founder thinks about culture, but almost none do it right. Abhi Sharma, a second-time founder / now the founder and CEO of Relyance AI, learned this the hard way after reaching several million in ARR. Things were breaking and he couldn’t pinpoint exactly why. Now he shares the exact framework he uses to build culture that actually scales - from defining your company's "invariant" to implementing tactical excellence across every department.Abhi Sharma is the co-founder and CEO of Relyance AI, a company building super intelligence for data security. To date, Relyance has raised over $60 million from top-tier investors including Menlo Ventures, Unusual Ventures, and Microsoft's M12 Venture Fund.In Today's Episode We Discuss:00:01:41 - Why culture always feels like an afterthought until systems break and you can't explain why00:03:35 - The exponential dissipation problem: how founder control over culture disappears faster than you think00:05:09 - Three catastrophic ways poor culture manifested at Relyance: hiring mistakes, product strategy disconnects, and enablement failures00:09:59 - Why shouting culture values from the rooftops fails: the unreasonable hospitality pivot that actually worked00:12:14 - The $X million ARR wake-up call: when Abhi realized he was getting hires wrong and had to define operating principles00:15:25 - From weekend reflection to company DNA: the exact process of distilling culture down to actionable principles00:17:11 - The one piece most founders iterate on after writing culture docs (and why examples matter more than principles)00:20:21 - Your company's invariant: why every startup is ultimately about one core idea that never changes00:23:56 - Stripe's GDP example: how the best companies anchor to fundamental human behaviors, not features00:25:14 - The Hedgehog Concept decoded: three components that create your competitive moat (straight from Jim Collins)00:28:06 - Data journeys as superpower: why Relyance's unique differentiator became their core product feature00:30:08 - Economic driver vs. pricing: why most founders confuse the two and how it kills scalability00:32:54 - Dominance friction: how misalignment between business model and customer value creates disruption vulnerability00:33:28 - Costco's profit-per-square-foot model: the counterintuitive pricing strategy that drives more volume00:37:30 - Why it took three years to figure out Relyance's economic driver (and why that's perfectly okay)00:38:50 - Culture is actions, not words: why cultural values without operating blueprints are worthless00:40:57 - The trust operating principle: Stockdale Paradox, job vs. responsibility, and good news fast vs. bad news faster00:45:20 - How job versus responsibility transforms employees into owners (and why most companies fail at this)00:47:23 - Why "you don't get credit for 80% to the moon" is the ultimate accountability framework00:49:16 - Making escalation a good word: rewiring team psychology around bad news and urgency00:51:41 - The belief system cherry on top: three statements that tie everything together and fit on a sticker00:55:19 - Tactical excellence: why Control-C, Control-V matters more than inspiration (and how to operationalize culture daily)00:58:20 - The monthly new hire ritual Abhi still does himself: why culture onboarding can never be delegated00:59:49 - Founder mode vs. micromanagement: Brian Chesky was right, but where's the line?01:01:22 - The X vs. X+Y million ARR question: why every growth gap traces back to cultural problems01:03:26 - Popular bad advice: why "hire executives and step away" is wrong and when founder instinct trumps expertise01:05:06 - The brutal honesty test: if you're not all-in, don't start a company (and why vanity startups fail 100% of the time)01:06:16 - Reflection time as competitive advantage: how America's polymaths and founding fathers made progress through going inward01:06:48 - The first five deals rule: why Abhi banned VC introductions for Relyance's initial customers (and why it was magical advice)01:09:36 - Product-market fit vs. AI hype: are you hacking your way to ARR or truly iterating toward customer pain?

The software industry's 30-year business model is becoming obsolete - this founder is betting his company on what comes next.Why listen: Jacob Beckerman reveals why the cost of code approaching zero means every software company needs to rethink everything - from margins to moats to hiring. He's open-sourcing his entire codebase, hiring poets alongside engineers, and building for a world where brand matters more than features.Jacob Beckerman is the founder and CEO of Macro, an AI workspace startup that has raised over $32 million from Andreessen Horowitz and Box Group. He previously conducted AI research at Penn and worked at Bridgewater Associates.In Today's Episode We Discuss:00:00 - Why everything you learned about building software companies is now obsolete01:47 - The three radical changes coming as software development costs hit zero05:47 - Why 93% gross margins are dead and cursor operates at 20%08:28 - The new rulebook: ambition, openness, and brand over features11:06 - Why being "principled" and narrow will kill your startup13:11 - From seven-figure PDF reader to replacing Slack, Notion, and Linear simultaneously17:19 - Open-sourcing your entire codebase as competitive advantage20:50 - Why you're selling integrations and intelligence, not software22:26 - Hiring poets and MFAs instead of MIT engineers27:50 - Software brands becoming like fashion: Salesforce as Kirkland30:34 - Traditional moats are dead—what actually matters now32:32 - "Would you rather wrap a database or superintelligence?"35:00 - Infinite demand for intelligence vs finite meeting summaries40:00 - Why zombie unicorns have their heads in the sand about AGI42:26 - Battle scars matter more than startup advice47:22 - "Get the hell out of the way and let me go on my journey"

Pump.co is one of the fastest growing YC companies. They got there partially by building an incredible sales team, stacked with talent that was overlooked by many.In this episode, Paul Russo, a sales leader at Pump unpacks a sales-hiring system built for aggressive, early-stage growth. You’ll hear how to source elite junior talent, pressure-test them with mock cold calls, and ramp them into technical AEs who still outbound hard. He also shares promotion gates, call quotas, and the culture required to chase incredibly ambitious goals.Our guest Paul Russo is employee #1 and a sales leader at Pump.co, the company that helps startups save up to 60% on cloud costs - for free.In Today’s Episode We Discuss:05:09 - The “weird” target formula forcing 20% month-over-month revenue growth.07:48 - Do individual-sport athletes outperform team players in enterprise sales?09:10 - Outbound-first: hire technical AEs over “been-there enterprise” veterans.11:22 - Why we prefer scientists over business majors for AWS selling.11:43 - Recruit “future founders” and frame the role as founder school.13:24 - Scale with hungry rookies led by seasoned pod leaders.15:24 - YC Bookface + Top-20 schools: an elite sales-athlete pipeline.20:02 - Cold-call candidates with traction—sell the unicorn vision first.23:10 - COO screen routes talent; extroverts go sales, introverts to ops.26:01 - Mock cold calls, no context: test grit, tone, coachability fast.29:09 - Demand real conflict stories—“I never fight” is a red flag.29:52 - Assess disciplined routines: 4:30am calls require athlete-like habits.31:10 - Explain FinOps simply: reserved instances are leases, not compute.35:39 - Cultural bar: 12–16-hour days, aiming for a 2028 IPO.37:48 - Onboarding: Pump University, daily mocks, Nooks-powered 750-call days.40:36 - Two-month ramp; PIPs are coaching tools, not pre-firing.43:04 - Promotion ladders with hard gates; AEs still dial 250/day.47:08 - Friendly pod rivalry + “rebuttal ball” spreads best practices.53:41 - First sales hire playbook: top-school hunter, athlete, founder-aspiring—equity-heavy.

Most founders wait too long to invest in marketing—and by the time they realize their mistake, they've already lost the race. That’s why Paul Veugen challenges the conventional wisdom that marketing should wait until product-market fit, arguing that building your growth engine from day one is the only way to achieve predictable, scalable growth.Paul Veugen is a serial entrepreneur and investor currently building Detail, a video creation platform that enables everyone to share their story faster. He previously founded and led Human to an acquisition by Mapbox, and Usabilla which sold to SurveyMonkey for $100 million in 2019. He also led product and go-to-market at Color, which has raised close to $500 million from top-tier investors.In Today's Episode We Discuss:02:01 - Why "don't invest in marketing until product-market fit" is terrible advice for founders03:37 - How marketing experiments are actually customer discovery in disguise07:26 - Why cold outbound is dead and founders need to build momentum before reaching out13:27 - The brutal math: You need 20% month-over-month growth to hit $1M ARR in 12 months19:05 - How to brute force your way to finding winning marketing channels26:05 - Why marketing channels take 90+ days to show results (and most founders give up too soon)34:13 - Overcoming the fear of looking stupid in public when building in public40:58 - How positioning drives product decisions, not the other way around47:44 - Why AI features are attention grabbers, not value drivers49:18 - The messy middle: Why channels feel broken before they explode55:05 - How being an investor makes you a better founder (and vice versa)57:58 - The problem with MVPs and why testing individual ingredients is useless01:02:23 - Why building a startup is an endless expedition, not a sprint

If you don’t enforce the bar, you lower it.This episode tackles the uncomfortable line between being humane and looking out for employees while also being a high-performing organization - and what a real culture reset looks like when you’ve let it slip.Our guest is Cat Noone who went through such a major reset herself with the company she co-founded, Stark - which is trusted by over 50,000+ companies and >$10M raised from Uncork and us at focal.In Today's Episode We Discuss:01:46 - How being hell-bent on mission while avoiding "bro culture" backfired03:54 - The early warning signs that performance was drifting at Stark04:14 - Why I stopped doing reference checks and paid the price08:38 - How the lowest performer sets your company's bar, not the best09:17 - When busy work replaces real productivity in remote teams12:32 - You can't have shitty input AND shitty output - pick one15:01 - Why founder insecurity about being "employee friendly" kills companies18:28 - The brutal emotional cost of firing people you've worked with from day one25:00 - How to communicate layoffs to survivors and rebuild momentum29:39 - Why urgency beats speed for maintaining quality standards33:38 - Demo Thursdays as quality control checkpoints, not show and tell37:06 - The four-day work week experiment and why Fridays aren't free40:01 - Why most startup principles are worthless wallpaper44:12 - If you're going to cut deep, cut deeper - don't play it safe45:58 - Move fast and break things is an excuse to ship shit48:34 - Get an executive coach before you think you need one

 Stop pitching the end state. Sell the smallest step that proves you can provide value.This episode dives in on how to decouple a north‑star company vision from a scrappy, testable product pitch that customers can adopt today. You’ll learn how to use positioning as your lever - choose sharper category language, cut scope to true table stakes, and listen for unsolicited buy signals- to move from zero traction to real pull. On top, you’ll learn what the slowest, costliest way to validate an idea is; how to identify table stakes; and the signals that tell you when to broaden your ICP. In Today’s Episode We Discuss:01:35 - From “Stripe for Support” to reality: what we missed03:48 - API‑first exposes every seam; validation speed plummets07:59 - The worst enterprise pitch: “engineers, please write more code”11:23 - Name your category—or wear Zendesk/Intercom’s handcuffs16:06 - Set true table stakes; timebox the MVP ruthlessly21:02 - Buy‑now signals: users volunteer payment without a hard sell23:49 - Ethical pre‑selling: describe the future, then sprint to it25:12 - Turn case studies into copy—speak customers’ exact language27:38 - Vertical → use case → market: DevTools → Technical Support → B2B30:54 - Outrun feature spreadsheets with a customer collaboration thesis40:41 - What collaboration means: Slack escalations, issue trackers, shared context47:15 - Map features to FRT, CSAT, retention—not “shiny UI” claims50:34 - Homepage discipline: kill vanity metrics and shortcut bragging52:21 - 70/30 rule: discovery + founder conviction against higher‑order shifts

You have to be so much better than the incumbent if you want to have even the slightest change.This episode is a tactical masterclass on early-stage B2B sales. You’ll learn how to nail the first meeting, architect modular demos, multi‑thread like a pro, and turn proposals into “Champion Empowerment” decks that actually close. We also cover ROI modeling, executive sponsorship, outbound strategy, and the exact behaviors that separate A‑players from everyone else.Our guest is Greg Costigan leads the sales team at Performica and has built and led GTM organizations at Box, Zuora, Zenefits, LearnUp, Hone, and MindGym. He’s closed complex enterprise deals, championed award‑winning programs (e.g., Pinterest’s Brandon Hall–recognized L&D initiative), and specializes in taking startups from founder‑led sales to scalable processes.In Today’s Episode We Discuss:01:33 - Sales process is a science—ditch gut feel for repeatable rigor.04:51 - Stop skipping steps—credibility beats the ‘one‑call close’ myth.07:01 - First meeting playbook: GGGA, pre-read, ruthless prep.10:57 - Lead with a hypothesis—change the buyer’s frame (Challenger).13:32 - First-call exceptionalism: come in hot and create momentum.14:51 - Yes, demo on call one—and land a clean close.19:44 - Multi-thread fast: champion texting, exec sponsors, rule of threes.22:19 - Demo excellence: send agenda early, close BANT/MEDDICC gaps.23:59 - Modular demos: tailor admin, user, integrations to stakeholders.27:51 - End every demo with a scoping or proposal—never ambiguity.34:14 - Turn proposals into a Champion Empowerment deck that sells itself.36:54 - No exec sponsor? You’re at risk—fix it before forecasting.38:20 - Build a simple ROI model—finance will ask, be ready.54:49 - Outbound isn’t dead—SDRs matter more than ever.

Moving upmarket, the right wayWhen should a startup go from SMB to enterprise - and when should you not?I break this down with a former revenue leader at Box, SurveyMonkey, Asana, etc - Matt Harmon (ex‑Box, Asana, SurveyMonkey). We discuss the real signals for enterprise readiness, why security/compliance readiness matters, and why “we’ll build it if you buy it” kills confidence. We also compare playbooks for existing vs. new categories, the land→expand reality, and how to balance self‑serve revenue with enterprise ambitions.In Today's Episode We Discuss:1:42 Why the “go upmarket” conversation starts early4:53 Company readiness: security, compliance, SEs, forecasting shifts10:57 Signals it’s curiosity-only vs. a real enterprise opportunity16:45 “Is it someone’s KPI?” and the need for true pain/need18:36 Existing category = one path to buy (ripping/replacing)22:52 New category upmarket: shared services & proving uniqueness28:28 Land→expand and product-led reality33:08 Don’t force a model—map the customer journey first37:57 Positioning and intellectual honesty at ~$1M ARR40:00 Category creation vs. innovating in an existing one45:07 Why not to fear SMB/self-serve revenue47:15 Don’t over-index on “sell to pain” for new categories50:15 Founder advice: embrace ambiguity and EQ52:25 What great VCs do: back leaders who can hire leaders