PMF Podcast listeners' survey: https://rebrand.ly/zo6kxgy The topic of this episode is Fintech and how Treasury Prime is changing the banking system in the US. Selling 3 startups before Chris shares practical advice for founders on building good relationships with partners and investors, working lifestyle, scaling their business, and whether money buys happiness. I absolutely love this conversation with Chris and hope you enjoy it too. Topics covered include: Fintech businesses. Crypto and Blockchain. The recent banking crisis. Growth strategies for marketplaces fundraising. Chapters: (00:00) Intro (02:12) What is the best thing in the FinTech market today? (02:49) FinTech reform (05:07) What is Treasury Prime? (07:31) Treasury Prime growth (09:07) The relationship between banks and a FinTech company (09:50) Treasury Prime products (10:28) Difference between Treasury Prime and a bank (11:46) Is the US finance industry ahead or behind? (14:45) The new banking scene (17:12) SVB collapse explained (19:15) Don't put all the eggs in one basket (22:24) Crypto and Blockchain (25:47) Great people stick together (Investors Edition) (27:07) Workaholic lifestyle (29:09) Does money buy happiness? (31:45) Scaling Treasury Prime (34:24) Pricing model (36:48) Raising capital (39:56) Treasury Prime future plans (41:10) Investment allocation (43:11) Lightning round Guest Contact Info: ⁠Website⁠ ⁠twitter.com/chrisdean linkedin.com/chrisdean Sponsor: This podcast is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠grwth.co⁠⁠⁠. Grwth offers fractional CMOs, paired with best-in-class digital marketing execution to support early-stage startup success. With a focus on seed and series A companies, Grwth has helped a number of SaaS, digital health, and e-commerce startups build their go-to-market function and scale up. To learn more and book a free consultation, go to ⁠⁠⁠grwth.co⁠⁠⁠. Get in touch with Mosheh: ⁠⁠⁠linkedin.com/in/moshehp⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠twitter.com/MoshehP⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠hello@pmfpod.com ⁠⁠⁠⁠www.pmfpod.com

The topic of this episode is Tom’s most recent book, generative ai, how Chat GPT and Other AI Tools will Revolutionize Business. Tom shares practical advice for how the average company should be approaching AI adoption. And finally, he provides some of his lessons learned as a repeat founder having exited multiple companies in the past. I'm very bullish on the future of AI and really enjoy this conversation. Topics covered include: The search words between Google and Bing. The future of foundational LLMs or large language models. Some fascinating innovations being built with AI and the race to immortality. Wrestling with some of the difficult questions as it relates to AI risks and regulations What happens to society when most jobs are automated? Chapters: (00:00) Intro (02:28) Why did you write the generative AI book? (04:25) Keeping up with the technology (05:48) Innovators Dilemma (08:28) The new searching habits (12:05) The new generation of AI startups (14:54) The AI race between tech giants (16:40) Different startups use cases (20:10) The optimism vs, the pessimism (22:55) The voice impersonation (23:40) Are we prepared for widespread automation? (26:02) AI Regulations (28:26) Using AI tools in your workflow (34:50) Tom's entrepreneurial lessons learned (38:56) Advice on starting your venture (42:02) Lightning round Guest Contact Info: Website twitter.com/ttaulli Generative AI Book Sponsor: This podcast is brought to you by ⁠⁠grwth.co⁠⁠. Grwth offers fractional CMOs, paired with best-in-class digital marketing execution to support early-stage startup success. With a focus on seed and series A companies, Grwth has helped a number of SaaS, digital health, and e-commerce startups build their go-to-market function and scale up. To learn more and book a free consultation, go to ⁠⁠grwth.co⁠⁠. Get in touch with Mosheh: ⁠⁠linkedin.com/in/moshehp⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠twitter.com/MoshehP⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠hello@pmfpod.com ⁠⁠⁠www.pmfpod.com

In the immortal words of Andy Grove, “Training is one of the highest leverage activities a manager can perform.”  WorkRamp is the learning cloud for leading B2B companies such as Box, Lattice, Loom, and Intercom. The company has raised almost $70M across multiple rounds from top VCs and angels including Jack Altman, Elad Gil, Initialized Capital, Y-Combinator, and Susa Ventures to name a few.  I absolutely loved this conversation with WorkRamp’s founder and CEO, Ted Blosser, and have no doubt that you will walk away with a ton of actionable ideas.  Topics covered include:  How the company struggled with PMF early on and how they overcame it The importance of vision and the framework he learned from the CEO of Cisco How the best SaaS businesses leverage customer education for acquisition, activation and retention Why “being 10x better” is terrible advice for startups How to break into an existing market and compete against incumbents Why it’s so important in this economy for everyone in the company to be a seller  How AI is poised to change education (in a corporate setting and for children) Chapters: 00:00 Intro 02:42 What is WorkRamp? 03:45 WorkRamp in numbers 04:51 Struggling with PMF 06:26 Finding PMF 10:03 Grand Vision 12:49 What did your background have to do with founding WorkRamp? 15:09 The founding story 16:33 Advice on entering an incumbent category 19:13 Selling strategy 21:40 Onboarding switching clients 24:45 How do customers use the LMS? 29:37 WorkRamp growth channels 34:09 Finding PMF multiple times 37:24 New products 38:13 Employee learning categories 40:20 How do founders leverage enablement training? 43:30 How is AI changing the educational space? 46:27 Lightning round Guest Contact Info: WorkRamp linkedin.com/tedblosser Learn Podcast Sponsor:  This podcast is brought to you by ⁠grwth.co⁠. Grwth offers fractional CMOs, paired with best-in-class digital marketing execution to support early-stage startup success. With a focus on seed and series A companies, Grwth has helped a number of SaaS, digital health, and e-commerce startups build their go-to-market function and scale up. To learn more and book a free consultation, go to ⁠grwth.co⁠. Get in touch with Mosheh: ⁠linkedin.com/in/moshehp ⁠⁠twitter.com/MoshehP ⁠⁠hello@pmfpod.com⁠⁠www.pmfpod.com

Here I speak with Hadi Radwan, Serial Entrepreneur and co-founder at Asteya, a startup on a mission to make income insurance accessible to all. We begin by diving deep into the insurance industry, what the US market looks like, what income insurance is, and how it differs from life insurance. We then discussed the B2B2C and D2C insurance business models and their pros and cons. Hadi also reflects on his +10 years of experience that enabled him to start Asteya along with his co-founder and how they manage the business. Hadi is a great podcaster as well so we wrapped up our conversation with an exciting conversation about tactics around why he started the First 100 podcast, how he prepares for episodes, and the fun part how he consumes so much podcast content as a listener. Chapters: (00:00) Intro (02:36) What is Asteya? (04:24) Life insurance vs. Income insurance (09:47) Asteya Business Model (10:58) Asteya's b2b2c Model (17:53) The third number that only exists in the insurance industry - CAC, CLV, and? (22:59) How to innovate in the insurance industry? (26:36) The one way to disrupt the insurance industry (29:43) Gender neutral insurance (31:54) Asteya's origin story (35:16) How did Akid experince affected you building Asteya? (37:36) Customer validation (38:11) Onboaring brokers (40:48) Hadi's podcasting experience (46:53) Lightning Round Guest Contact Info: Asteya.world linkedin.com/hadiradwan The First 100 Podcast Principles Friday Newsletter Sponsor:  This podcast is brought to you by ⁠grwth.co⁠. Grwth offers fractional CMOs, paired with best-in-class digital marketing execution to support early-stage startup success. With a focus on seed and series A companies, Grwth has helped a number of SaaS, digital health, and e-commerce startups build their go-to-market function and scale up. To learn more and book a free consultation, go to ⁠grwth.co⁠. Get in touch with Mosheh: ⁠linkedin.com/in/moshehp ⁠⁠twitter.com/MoshehP ⁠⁠hello@pmfpod.com⁠⁠www.pmfpod.com

Here I speak with Hikari Senju, Founder & CEO of Omneky, a startup that enables you to generate multiple versions of ads using AI to show the perfect ad for each customer. Today's episode focuses on performance marketing and the impact AI has on personalization, privacy, and SEO. Hikari also reflects on his experiences attending Harvard & MIT, where he became fascinated with AI models, and how this inspired him to build Omneky. We wrapped up our conversation with a look at the evolving roles powered by AI, his perspective on the startup ecosystem, and how reading biographies can make your life easier. Chapters: (00:00) Intro (02:15) What is Omneky? (02:45) Backstory behind the idea (06:02) Omneky core technology (07:31) What’s the company’s ICP? (08:11) The grand vision for Omneky (09:03) Personalization and Privacy (11:12) Personalization on the edge explained (14:40) Omneky AI models (15:19) Fine tone LLMs vs. Foundation models (18:25) Thinking about the competitive landscape (22:44) AI is changing the work environment (24:38) New work roles powered by AI (26:04) Endless personalized creative content (27:59) Finding PMF (30:09) Startup Battlefield (31:26) Other channels for customer acquisition (33:11) SEO new landscape (36:19) Performance marketing (38:05) Digital ad platforms (38:30) New products (39:22) Democracy and capitalism (41:37) Ligting Round Guest Contact Info: linkedin.com/hikari-senju Omneky.com Sponsor:  This podcast is brought to you by ⁠grwth.co⁠. Grwth offers fractional CMOs, paired with best-in-class digital marketing execution to support early-stage startup success. With a focus on seed and series A companies, Grwth has helped a number of SaaS, digital health, and e-commerce startups build their go-to-market function and scale up. To learn more and book a free consultation, go to ⁠grwth.co⁠. Get in touch with Mosheh: ⁠linkedin.com/in/moshehp ⁠⁠twitter.com/MoshehP ⁠⁠hello@pmfpod.com ⁠⁠www.pmfpod.com

In this episode, I sit down with Alexa Grabell, the Co-founder and CEO of Pocus, a startup that helps PLG companies to turn product data into revenue.  This episode is a deep-dive into all things product-led sales with practical lessons for any founder considering layering in this motion to their growth strategy.  Alexa also shares her journey of starting Pocus, how she and her co-founder spent 5 months on customer discovery and how that helped them in raising Seed and Series A rounds with a total of USD $23M in funding. Chapters: (00:00) Intro (02:09) What is Pocus? (02:59) Backstory behind the idea (05:03) Discovering product-market fit (06:54) Investment rounds (07:21) What’s the company’s ICP? (08:19) The grand vision for Pocus (09:08) Product-led growth (10:25) PLG and product-led sales explained (12:40) At what point does it make sense to layer in product led sales? (15:54) The user vs. the decision maker (17:12) Hiring a sales team (19:32) How Pocus helps PLG companies (23:10) Product qualified leads (PQL) (24:33) PCommon playbooks for PLS success (29:29) The challenge to shift from traditional sales to PLS (32:52) What is Pocus’ primary growth motion?  (34:00) Content and community growth strategies (35:29) Marketing’s role in product-led sales (37:33) Navigating partnerships (39:04) Thinking about the competitive landscape (40:53) Key takeaways to start on PLS motion  (42:32) Lightning Round Further listening: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-product-led-sales-elena-verna/ Guest Contact Info: linkedin.com/in/alexagrabell/ twitter.com/alexa_grabell pocus.com pocus.com/community pocus.com/playbook-library Sponsor:  This podcast is brought to you by ⁠grwth.co⁠. Grwth offers fractional CMOs, paired with best-in-class digital marketing execution to support early-stage startup success. With a focus on seed and series A companies, Grwth has helped a number of SaaS, digital health, and e-commerce startups build their go-to-market function and scale up. To learn more and book a free consultation, go to ⁠grwth.co⁠. Get in touch with Mosheh: ⁠linkedin.com/in/moshehp ⁠⁠twitter.com/MoshehP ⁠⁠hello@pmfpod.com ⁠⁠www.pmfpod.com

Join me as I speak with April Underwood, an early-stage investor with an impressive operating history at Slack, Google, and Twitter. Together, we delve into the distinctive product development styles of these tech giants, unlocking valuable insights and lessons from visionary leaders like Stewart Butterfield and Dick Costolo.  Tune in to gain insights into emerging trends in product-led growth and sales, and discover investment strategies tailored for startups. Learn how to spot exceptional founders and navigate the ever-evolving technology landscape. Don't miss out on this insightful episode packed with practical advice and industry knowledge. Tune in now! Chapters: (02:11) The Unifying thread in April's remarkable career path: insights from Silicon Valley (04:52) Exploring commonalities and differences between Google, Twitter, and Slack (08:32) Differentiating product development styles: unveiling Google, Slack, and Twitter's unique approaches (13:40) Lessons from visionary Leaders: Stewart Butterfield and Dick Costolo (17:19) Revealing the most valued leadership traits: insights from April's journey (22:39) Evolving trends in product-led growth and sales: insights from a decade of experience (25:48) Overcoming the Initial network barrier in communication products (32:17) Building a successful platform: lessons from Slack's integration strategy (38:07) Navigating competition between Microsoft and Slack (41:11) Investing insights: balancing conviction and fundamentals in startup investments (44:19) Spotting early exceptional founders: traits to look for (46:40) Informed AI investments amidst trendy tech categories (48:50) Working with an operator-investor: pros and cons for founders (52:37) Fundraising tips for early-stage founders: navigating pitfalls Guest Contact Info: https://twitter.com/aunder linkedin.com/in/aprilunderwood Sponsor: This podcast is brought to you by ⁠grwth.co⁠. Grwth offers fractional CMOs, paired with best-in-class digital marketing execution to support early-stage startup success. With a focus on seed and series A companies, Grwth has helped a number of SaaS, digital health, and e-commerce startups build their go-to-market function and scale up. To learn more and book a free consultation, go to ⁠grwth.co⁠. Get in touch with Mosheh: ⁠linkedin.com/in/moshehp ⁠⁠twitter.com/MoshehP ⁠⁠hello@pmfpod.com ⁠⁠www.pmfpod.com

Danielle Dafni is the founder & CEO of Peech, a generative AI video editing platforms that turns content teams into unstoppable creators. Being a video editor inspired Danielle to start her venture. In today’s discussion, Danielle shares her journey to finding product market fit, product-led growth vs. product-led sales, content marketing in the age of generative AI, and her thoughts on competition. Tune in for a dynamic and informative episode packed with actionable advice and valuable knowledge. Chapters: (00:00) Intro (02:06) What is Peech? (04:08) Peech's ICP (06:45) Company stats & PLG vs. product-led sales (12:15) What’s the big vision? (15:25) Launching on Product Hunt  (17:37) User acquisition tactics (19:26) Implementing product-led sales (23:49) What channels do you plan to implement as you grow? (24:55) Content marketing in the age of generative AI  (29:25) Leveraging TikTok as a marketing channel (35:08) Marketing tactics: How to grow on YouTube? (37:42) Thinking about the competitive landscape (46:48) Lightning Round (55:13) Conclusion Guest Contact Info: linkedin.com/in/danielledafni Peech-ai.com Sponsor:  This podcast is brought to you by ⁠grwth.co⁠. Grwth offers fractional CMOs, paired with best-in-class digital marketing execution to support early-stage startup success. With a focus on seed and series A companies, Grwth has helped a number of SaaS, digital health, and e-commerce startups build their go-to-market function and scale up.  To learn more and book a free consultation, go to ⁠grwth.co⁠. Get in touch with Mosheh: ⁠linkedin.com/in/moshehp ⁠⁠twitter.com/MoshehP ⁠⁠hello@pmfpod.com ⁠⁠www.pmfpod.com

In this episode, we delve into the world of early-stage venture investment with Leo Polovets, a General Partner at Susa Ventures and former software engineer. Join us as we explore successful investment strategies in the rapidly evolving AI landscape and the transformative impact of AI on startups and society. Discover the essential entrepreneurial skills for different startup stages and how to avoid early-stage traps. Gain valuable insights from LinkedIn's early days working with Reid Hoffman and learn about the art of storytelling in investment presentations. Tune in now for a dynamic and informative episode packed with actionable advice and valuable knowledge. Chapters: (00:00) Intro (02:30) What is Susa Ventures' investment thesis? (05:24) Leo's background: from engineering to investment (07:37) Essential skills for engineers in venture capital (11:20) Quantum computing: progress and potential for commercial applications (11:50) Uncovering investment insights in the AI landscape (17:16) The impact of AI on startups and society (22:03) The Flexport success story: the winning pitch that revolutionized shipping (24:32) The art of storytelling in investment presentations (27:44) Required entrepreneurial skills for different stages of startups (33:45) Prioritizing pricing from day one: a key to success (39:11) Insights from LinkedIn's early days: lessons learned working with Reid Hoffman (42:28) Lightning Round Further reading: “Startups are risk bundles” “How to de-risk a startup” Recommended newsletter: Lenny’s newsletter Recommended book: 7 Powers Guest Contact Info: twitter.com/lpolovets linkedin.com/in/lpolovets susaventures.com leo@susaventures.com Sponsor:  This podcast is brought to you by ⁠grwth.co⁠. Grwth offers fractional CMOs, paired with best-in-class digital marketing execution to support early-stage startup success. With a focus on seed and series A companies, Grwth has helped a number of SaaS, digital health, and e-commerce startups build their go-to-market function and scale up.  To learn more and book a free consultation, go to ⁠grwth.co⁠. Get in touch with Mosheh: ⁠linkedin.com/in/moshehp ⁠⁠twitter.com/MoshehP ⁠⁠hello@pmfpod.com ⁠⁠www.pmfpod.com

GA4, Google's latest analytics tool, is shaking up the industry. In this Sunday Special, I speak with Danny Gavin, founder of Optidge and the host of The Digital Marketing Mentor Podcast, to discuss everything you need to know about GA4.  We will discuss its replacement of Universal Analytics, the key differences between the two, and what it means for your data.  We'll also share top-level recommendations for the transitioning phase and highlight common mistakes to watch out for in GA4 installation. Don't miss out on this informative and engaging episode! Chapters: (00:00) Intro (02:23) What is GA4 and why is it replacing universal analytics? (04:15) Say goodbye to Google Universal Analytics: key dates to remember (05:38) Key differences between Universal Analytics and GA4 (10:30) GA4 attribution models: the Good, the bad, and the ugly (15:59) GA4 integration with Google products (19:36) Multi-Device Attribution in GA4: understanding user behavior (21:15) How privacy concerns are changing data tracking? (25:08) Crafting unique user journeys in GA4 (27:09) Comparing data between UA analytics and GA4 (31:06) Getting Started with GA4: essential implementation steps (32:29) Top recommendations for GA4 transition (36:18) Common mistakes in GA4 installation (39:48) Unexpected surprises in the podcasting journey (47:21) Conclusion Resources: Danny's course on GA4 — https://offers.odeoacademy.com/offers/gBLYAxvF/checkout Google updates — https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9164320?hl=en Guest Contact Info: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dannygavin/ www.optidge.com www.odeoacademy.com thedmmentor.com Sponsor: This podcast is brought to you by ⁠grwth.co⁠. Grwth offers fractional CMOs, paired with best-in-class digital marketing execution to support early-stage startup success. With a focus on seed and series A companies, Grwth has helped a number of SaaS, digital health, and e-commerce startups build their go-to-market function and scale up. To learn more and book a free consultation, go to ⁠grwth.co⁠. Get in touch with Mosheh: ⁠linkedin.com/in/moshehp ⁠⁠twitter.com/MoshehP ⁠⁠hello@pmfpod.com⁠⁠www.pmfpod.com