focal podcast

Don Muir turned down his dream job at Apollo to build the AI-powered bank Arc.This episode goes through the exact playbook the former BCG consultant and private equity investor used to de-risk his leap into entrepreneurship - including his 3-point checklist that allowed him to say no to Apollo. Don shares hard-won lessons about finding product-market fit, recruiting world-class talent, and why it took 190 rejections to get to his first 10 customers.Don Muir is the co-founder and CEO of Arc, a zero-asset commercial bank powered by AI that offers intelligent capital management and private credit to ambitious businesses. To date, Arc has raised over $180M in debt and equity.In Today's Episode We Discuss:01:30 - Why I chose debt over equity and existing markets over new ones04:10 - The bottoms-up approach to finding your unique right to win08:44 - From crowdfunding communities to non-dilutive capital: 4 pivots to product-market fit11:42 - Execution over innovation: Why first-time founders shouldn't reinvent the wheel14:14 - The 3-point checklist before rejecting Apollo's offer16:26 - Getting 10 CEO signatures with just a Stanford email address21:49 - 190 rejections, then 10 straight wins: The LOI breakthrough moment23:29 - Finding fast-moving waters: When to pivot vs. persevere25:28 - The Stanford.edu email hack that opened CEO doors32:25 - Why technical co-founder pedigree is overrated (but VCs disagree)38:07 - How one $100k check turned hundreds of "no's" into "yes's"42:32 - The sleepless nights that forced the Apollo phone call45:59 - When your biggest rejection becomes your largest partner49:41 - Why the "safe path" is actually the riskiest choice52:55 - The venture capital myth: Why most startups don't need VC money

Anis Bennaceur, Co-founder & CEO of Attention, shares invaluable insights from his journey as a second-time founder. He reveals the 'Triangle of Talent,' why most startups fail in hiring, and how to spot candidates with founder-like qualities. Anis highlights innovative interview techniques, including the midnight email test and the anti-selling strategy to filter out non-committed candidates. The discussion emphasizes that true stars can't be trained and why work-life balance might hinder startup success.

Russ Thau, a seasoned revenue leader with experience at companies like Intercom and Box, shares insights on improving sales rep productivity. He emphasizes that time management is crucial and discusses the importance of preparation and follow-up in sales calls. Thau reveals valuable strategies for scaling revenue and hiring effective sales teams, stressing that reps are human beings, not just metrics. He also tackles the pitfalls of conversion rates and offers a framework for founders to enhance their sales processes.

What got you here won't get you there - the brutal truth about scaling from $1M to $50M in revenue.If you keep doing what you were doing to get to $1M ARR, you won’t get to $3M ARR. What got you to $3M won’t get you to $10M, what got you to $10M won’t get you to $20M, and so on. The hard truth about rocket ship startup growth is that you have to reinvent yourself at every major revenue milestone you reach. But unfortunately, most founders can't do it. They cling to what worked, scale what's broken, and wonder why growth stalls.In this episode, I sit down with Russ Thau, a former founder and seasoned revenue leader specializing in scaling companies from $1M to $50M in revenue, to discuss what you have to do when on the Sales side to reach $50M+ in revenue as fast as possible.Russ has has scaled revenue from single digit millions to $150M+ and two IPOs at companies such as Intercom, Box,  and Envoy, and he's also advised companies like Airtable and LaunchDarkly since they were sub-$1M in revenue.In Today's Episode We Discuss:02:02 - Why being a good salesperson is actually bad for getting to $1M revenue04:31 - The counterintuitive shift from "do everything" to "go extremely narrow" at $1M07:34 - How to identify role model customers that create herd momentum11:16 - The dangerous TAM trap: why you DON'T need a billion-dollar market early on16:48 - When to stop narrowing and start widening your ICP at $3M+20:33 - The "premature scaling" mistake that kills momentum at $3M27:54 - Why the bowling pin strategy beats boiling the ocean from $3M to $10M32:01 - When "good chaos" signals it's time to implement real processes38:22 - The 5 critical metrics every revenue leader needs at $10M44:08 - How Box bet the entire company on enterprise at $20M (and won)50:52 - The 3 types of startup employees - and why nobody spans all three54:08 - Where to find entrepreneurial salespeople (hint: failed startups)1:01:08 - When to start "sprinkling in" process-oriented people vs entrepreneurs1:04:59 - The founder-to-sales-leader handoff: optimal timing and structure1:11:30 - Why agility beats everything else in startup revenue growth

How to nail partnerships from Day 1Get insights into the counterintuitive playbook that defies conventional wisdom about when startups should pursue partnerships with Natasha Ratanshi-Stein, Founder and CEO Surfboard, who nailed partnerships as their main GTM channel almost from Day 1 and eventually generated 55% of revenue through partners. Surfboard is a workforce management platform for customer service teams. After raising a $5 million seed round in 2022, they successfully exited to Dialpad in 2024 - a company they started engaging with as a partner first.In Today's Episode We Discuss:01:17 - Why partnerships before customers isn't crazy02:20 - Which partners actually move the needle for early startups?04:55 - How to convince big partners when you have zero revenue08:20 - The exact story framework that opens partnership doors10:17 - From informal to 20% revenue share: partnership evolution13:37 - Critical enablement mistakes that kill partnerships19:38 - Running partnership meetings that actually drive revenue21:41 - Do your partners even watch your enablement videos?22:39 - The Series B to pre-IPO partnership sweet spot27:17 - Early signals a partnership will fail29:31 - Negotiating partnership agreements: what founders miss33:53 - Why paying marketplace listing fees is usually worthless37:38 - When partnerships generated 55% of total revenue39:40 - The hidden partnership integration tax nobody discusses40:30 - Launching 20 partnerships, 5 worked43:29 - The dangerous 20% rule for partnership dependency45:21 - When Zendesk bought our competitor: partnership nightmare52:18 - The one hiring mistake every founder makes

Guillaume Jacquet, co-founder and CEO of Vasco, brings expertise from scaling B2B startups through the crucial $1M-$10M journey. He discusses the perils of relying on 'founder magic' and the necessity of specialization in hiring. Jacques reveals why customer success should precede sales and the importance of a structured sales pipeline. He highlights that 80% of growth success is science, not magic, insisting that startups should avoid reinventing the wheel to achieve predictable outcomes.

In this discussion, Alexa Grabell, co-founder and CEO of Pocus, shares her journey of building a successful revenue acceleration platform, emphasizing the crucial role of design partners. She reveals how embracing skeptics over enthusiasts can lead to better product validation. Alexa explains the importance of structured customer discovery and why charging too early can hinder startup growth. Learn how firing the wrong-fit customers can actually enhance retention and why curiosity is key in sales – a game-changer for startups!

Mastering the pivot playbook after 14 months of chewing on glass.Han Wang, Co-Founder and CEO of Mintlify, knows pivoting better than pretty much anyone. Mintlify pivoted 8 times during their first 14 months before finding Product-Market-Fit and eventually raising > $20M from a16z, Bain Capital Ventures, and YC.While those 14 months felt like “chewing on glass”, Han learned a lot of valuable lessons he shared with me during our conversation, including why to bet on a space you care about, not a specific idea, if, when, and how to pivot, and why speed is your only advantageIn Today's Episode We Discuss:00:00 - You really don't know what the market wants01:24 - Why build for an idea space, not a specific idea03:28 - Waking up and realizing you don't care about your customers06:32 - The 8 pivots that led to Mintlify10:24 - Figstack: 5,000 users on day one, then complete failure13:55 - Pivoting 3 days before the YC interview17:26 - Retention is everything - virality means nothing26:45 - Building Mintlify over a weekend out of desperation31:33 - When you're embarrassed to use your own product34:07 - Ship fast or die - the real MVP mindset36:51 - How to know when to pivot vs persist40:00 - 14 months of chewing glass before success45:36 - How to recognize product-market fit in one week49:05 - Launching without an edit button and still closing sales53:04 - Why falling in love with ideas kills startups55:07 - Throw 100 darts fast vs calculating 2 perfect throws

Santiago Suarez Ordoñez, CEO and co-founder of Momentum, shares his journey from engineer to startup founder, emphasizing that revenue is the only signal that matters. He discusses how to turn advice-seeking into actual sales, noting it often takes 100 meetings to secure just 3 design partners. Santiago also highlights the pitfalls of seeking validation through friends and the importance of crafting a robust sales strategy before achieving product-market fit. With practical tips, he offers a refreshing perspective on navigating the challenges of startup life.

Austin Hughes is the co-founder and CEO of Unify GTM, a platform powering warm outbound for growth, marketing and sales teams. Previously, Austin was an early growth leader at Ramp, where he helped scale from a few hundred to over 12,000 customers in just two years. Unify GTM has raised over $30 million from investors including OpenAI, Thrive Capital, and Emergence Capital, as well as founders from Ramp, Flexport, Box, and others.In Today's Episode We Discuss:01:30 - Why experimentation culture, not strategy, is the real growth secret at billion-dollar startups03:32 - How running 100+ quarterly experiments creates massive competitive advantage—even with 70% failure rate04:48 - Why your multi-week engineering sprints are killing growth—scope experiments to hours, not weeks06:28 - Traditional growth channels beat moonshot virality—forget going viral, here's what actually works09:00 - Why all your growth knowledge becomes useless when starting from zero revenue12:28 - The exact customer threshold when traditional growth strategies finally start working14:14 - Most companies kill experiments too early—why "this doesn't work" is your biggest growth obstacle16:57 - What HubSpot's early growth tactics reveal about the counterintuitive power of partnerships24:51 - The mathematical formula for prioritizing growth experiments nobody talks about31:14 - Why most growth teams waste 90% of their time on the wrong activities34:52 - How acting on website signals within 15 minutes can dramatically increase conversion rates41:01 - Why growth hires—not engineers—will be the most crucial startup hires in coming years42:28 - The costly mistake Austin would fix if restarting Unify: investing in growth 6 months earlier45:16 - The surprising truth about what makes social media posts go viral for founders48:19 - Why hiring growth talent from consulting and banking beats traditional marketing backgrounds51:06 - The dangerous myth that you should perfect your product before selling it