Welcome to Season 3 of Spotlight On: a podcast about how companies are built, from the people doing the building.When we talk about startups, we talk a lot about the big milestones: founding, funding, and going public. We talk less about what happens in between: the firsts, the mistakes, and the messy, exhilarating decisions the people building these companies have to make every day. This is a podcast that takes you behind the scenes to hear from founders and builders about what they did, what they learned… and what they’ll never do again. Subscribe to get a new episode every Tuesday.

David Cramer, co-founder and CPO of Sentry, shares how his teenage passion for gaming led to creating a game-changing error-logging tool. He reflects on the journey from a humble Open Source project to a $3 billion business used by over 100,000 organizations. David emphasizes the importance of design in tech and discusses the Open Source Pledge, a significant initiative aimed at better supporting Open Source maintainers. His insights reveal the challenges and successes in balancing ethics with entrepreneurial growth in the tech industry.

Karri Saarinen, CEO and Co-founder of Linear, leads a project management suite loved by top AI companies and Y Combinator graduates. He discusses how his team prioritizes quality over hyper-growth, taking a deliberate approach to scaling and culture. Karri emphasizes the need for innovative hiring practices and balancing speed with thoughtful product development. He also shares insights on raising capital when profitable and the importance of building a high-functioning team instead of merely increasing headcount.

Jeff Shiner, CEO of 1Password, shares insights from leading the company’s impressive growth from a small team to over 1,200 employees. He discusses the strategic pivot from a consumer app to a robust B2B platform in response to market changes. Shiner emphasizes the importance of purpose behind funding decisions and navigating the tech landscape's evolving demands. He also delves into how AI is reshaping identity security, enhancing user experiences, and the challenges of balancing B2B and B2C customer needs.

Today, Marc Lore is synonymous with eCommerce. He is known for translating his bold visions into trailblazing companies like Diapers.com and Jet.com. As a serial entrepreneur, there are consistencies in Marc’s companies: they were born out of his own needs and focused on how we consume goods. But perhaps most notably – they are ideas so daring that some would call him crazy.   His latest endeavor, Wonder, is no different.  In this episode of Spotlight On, Marc joins Accel’s Sameer Gandhi to reflect on their long-standing partnership and Marc’s bold yet methodical approach to company growth. They unpack Marc’s vision for Wonder to become an AI-powered personal chef and, along the way, share lessons for new and seasoned founders on stage-by-stage growth, scaling a team, and building investor trust. The conversation offers an open look into Marc’s ambition and unshakable belief in the importance of founder naïveté when challenging new markets that nobody believed could be disrupted before. Conversation highlights: 00:00 – Recounting Marc’s and Sameer’s partnership over the years 04:00 – Marc’s early interest in entrepreneurship and atypical first investor 09:16 – Strategies for doubling the valuation of companies at each round  12:11 – Advice for new entrepreneurs on the power of naïveté 14:43 – How Diapers.com transformed e-commerce by redefining customer expectations 24:12 – Overview of Wonder and how it is redesigning the food supply chain 30:59 - Marc’s rubric for growth and the necessity of capital burn 35:10 – How Marc’s approach to interviewing and building a team has evolved 45:50 – Marc’s reflection on how to gain an advantage in the early days of your career Featured: Marc Lore, CEO of Wonder, and Sameer Gandhi, Partner at Accel

With any new technology, malicious actors exploit vulnerabilities and create uncertainty. But there are tools investigators, regulators, and cybersecurity professionals can use to fight back. In this episode, Chainalysis’ Jackie Burns Koven, Head of Cyber Threat Intelligence, shares how to mitigate risks and build trust in emerging spaces, drawing from her work across the cryptocurrency and blockchain landscape. Since Chainalysis launched in 2014, the platform has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and safely expand consumer access to cryptocurrency. Jackie joined Chainalysis in 2019 after serving as an Intelligence Officer in the U.S. Department of Defense. In this conversation, she reflects on the crucial role Chainalysis plays in enhancing blockchain safety and ensuring its viability. She also offers valuable advice on how early-stage startups and leaders can stay informed in the rapidly evolving tech ecosystem, and how they can think about implementing their own systems. The episode also explores the challenges new technologies like AI face from malicious actors, the importance of effective collaboration between technology and government agencies, and the steps needed to stabilize the crypto industry long-term. Conversation highlights: 00:00 – Introduction to Chainalysis  05:30 – Why Chainalysis is working with government agencies to fight bad actors  14:00 – How the blockchain threat landscape is evolving with AI 16:30 – The role of education in rising crypto threats, like pig butchering 29:10 – Advice for staying up to date on the rapidly evolving technology ecosystem 31:34 – Building a Cyber Threat Intelligence team; Jackie’s role Featured: Jackie Burns Koven, Head of Cyber Threat Intelligence at Chainalysis and Amit Kumar, Partner at Accel

In 2012, Netskope CEO and Founder Sanjay Beri was convinced that the security industry was on the brink of a massive transformation. Through countless conversations with CEOs, CIOs, and CISOs, he identified a significant shift towards the cloud, presenting a unique opportunity to redefine data network security for this new era. Thus, Netskope was born, starting small but with grand ambitions. Netskope’s early days exemplify the power of a clear vision and controlled growth. They began with specific SaaS products and steadily expanded into a comprehensive platform. Today, Netskope serves over 3,400 customers, tens of millions of users, including over 30 of the Fortune 100. In this episode, Sanjay shares insights into their steady strategy, intentional fundraising, and evolution into an industry-leading security platform. He also reflects on over a decade of leadership and people management, offering valuable lessons about team evolution as the company scales. Conversation highlights: 00:00 – Sanjay’s background at Juniper Networks and interest in entrepreneurship 03:23 – The reasons behind Netskope’s early focus on SaaS products 04:14 – How Netskope approached fundraising with a focus on relationships and differentiation 11:00 – Netskope’s shift from products to platform 15:30 – Learnings from over a decade of leadership and people management 25:00 – A new approach to startup innovation; from product to GTM to marketing 27:10 – Why Netskope incorporated AI into their platform from the early days 35:00 – Reflections on how the ecosystem has evolved since 2012

Alex Bovee sees three critical ingredients to building a high-growth startup: a founding team with innate grit for entrepreneurship, a good idea, and great timing. ConductorOne has all three. In this episode of Spotlight On, Alex shares his founding journey and encourages entrepreneurs to focus on building unique solutions that address unmet market needs. ConductorOne is an access control solution that helps companies secure identity across their cloud and on-premises apps and infrastructure. In 2020, Alex joined Accel as an Entrepreneur in Residence (and was our first virtual EIR, for obvious reasons) before we partnered for their Seed later that year. The episode covers the founding story, identity market, ConductorOne’s unique approach to building a company out of Portland, Oregon, and the advantages of getting a startup team together in the same room. Alex also discusses the challenges faced during the early iteration phases, the importance of timing, and the inspiration that can be found in competing against large incumbents. Conversation highlights: 00:00 – Alex’s background and early interest in entrepreneurship 04:51 – Identifying current gaps in the access control experience 07:44 – Complementary skillsets that make startup founders successful 08:50 – Transitioning from COVID to an in-person culture in Portland, Oregon 17:00 – Early iteration phase challenges 19:00 – Finding inspiration as an underdog competing against large incumbents 25:18 – Takeaways from RSA 2024 and the biggest trends in security, AI, and identity

In 2018, Barr Moses was looking to start a company but wasn't sure which idea to pursue. She decided to work on three different startup ideas in parallel to see which one gained the most traction with customers. One of those ideas was Monte Carlo, a solution to address the challenges around data reliability that Barr had experienced throughout her career— dealing with broken data products, wasted time, lost trust, and firefighting data quality issues. As Barr met with potential customers, it became clear that there was significant demand from technical leaders grappling with the consequences of data downtime across their organizations.  Today, Monte Carlo has successfully created a new category and firmly established itself as the end-to-end data observability platform for companies like Cisco, Fox, American Airlines, and more. Now, in the era of AI, the role of data quality has never been more critical.  In this episode of Spotlight On, Barr and Accel’s Steve Loughlin reflect on Monte Carlo’s unique origin story, explain “Hell Yeah Moments” as a company success metric, and dig into why they chose speed, focus, and customer impact as core values. Barr also peels the curtain back on why she decided to launch the company alongside an entirely new category—Data Observability—and the grit and determination it takes to build and sell a product that’s never been built or sold before. There’s no playbook for that, but Monte Carlo created its own. Conversation Highlights: 00:00: Monte Carlo’s origin story 3:54: How Barr discovered the idea of “data downtime,” which became the foundation for Monte Carlo and validated customer demand 7:19: Successfully raising Monte Carlo’s seed round and acquiring its first customers—despite a lackluster slide deck 10:31: The team’s maniacal focus on making just one customer happy and how that informs PMF 12:00: “Hell yeah” moments as a metric to measure customer success 13:40: What are the signals to move from a freemium to a paid product? 15:58: How Barr’s leadership style has evolved as the company has scaled 18:26: Why competition in a new category is a good thing 22:48: What it’s like building and selling a product that’s never been built before, and how Barr screens for “risk-takers”  29:46: The future of the Data Observability category and the crucial role that quality data will play in enabling safe and accurate generative AI 33:10: The most rewarding part of Barr’s entrepreneurial journey thus far Featured: Barr Moses, Co-Founder and CEO at Monte Carlo, and Steve Loughlin, Partner at Accel. Learn more about Accel’s relationship with Monte Carlo: Launching the Data Reliability Category with Monte Carlo Secrets to Scaling with Monte Carlo’s Barr Moses

In a landscape dominated by incumbent players, Gamma takes a bold approach: instead of trying to be better than the existing players, they aim to be an entirely different tech company. They've reimagined the very essence of presentation tools and the creative possibilities they offer. In this episode of Spotlight On, Gamma’s Co-Founder, Jon Noronha, delves into the team’s journey, from an early acquisition at a former startup to somewhat coincidentally building a product that dovetails perfectly with AI. He also unpacks the challenges and opportunities early-stage companies face navigating today’s landscape. While still in the early innings, Gamma’s journey underscores the importance of staying nimble and ahead of the curve. They’ve learned to anticipate and adapt to advancements in AI models and how to prevent the common (yet often surprising!) misuse of artificial intelligence products. On the heels of their Series A round, the discussion offers advice for early-stage startup founders on overcoming hurdles in aligning a product with market needs, fundraising in different economic climates, and more. Conversation Highlights: 00:00 - Introduction to Gamma 03:10 - The foundations Gamma had in place to take advantage of the AI wave 08:42 - Structuring early-stage teams to leverage AI UX designers 14:31 - Outpacing powerful incumbents by embracing uniqueness to earn market share 23:02 - Building an AI company with customer data sensitivity in mind 30:02 - Overcoming challenges of fundraising during boom times 32:08 - Reflecting on the importance of a lean early-stage team Featured: Jon Noronha, Co-Founder at Gamma, and Vas Natarajan, Partner at Accel