Stay ConnectedExploring the world’s greatest startup stories.
Get a behind the scenes look into the founding stories of your favorite companies. Learn how the industries they operate in actually work, and learn playbooks and tactics you can use to launch and scale your own business.
Copyright: © Turner Novak
Gaurab Chakrabarti and Sean Hunt are the Co-founders of Solugen, which replaces petroleum based products with plant-derived substitutes without sacrificing affordability or performance. They met playing poker in college, kickstarted the company with $10k from an MIT pitch competition, and have since scaled the business to over nine-figures in revenue.
Solugen has raised over $642 million from investors like Fifty Years, Lowercarbon Capital, Founders Fund, Refactor Capital, and Cantos Ventures.
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Jonathon Barkl is the Co-founder and CEO of AirGarage, a full-stack parking management company that helps real estate owners increase their income.
Jonathon and his co-founders Chelsea and Scott started the company in 2017. They’ve since raised roughly $15 million from investors including Founders Fund, Floodgate, a16z, Abstract, and prior guest of the show Ryan Delk.
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Dan Lorenc is the Co-founder and CEO of Chainguard, the best way to secure your open source software. Dan and his co-founders Kim, Matt, and Ville started the company in 2021 after spending a decade working together at Google on all things open source and software security. They’ve since raised $116 million from investors including Spark (led Series B), Sequoia (led Series A), Amplify (led Seed), The Chainsmoker’s Mantis VC, Banana Capital, and dozens of angels in the cyber security and open source communities. — Topics discussed: What is the “software supply chain”? How the SolarWinds breach created the software supply chain security market The history of open source software Why open source software makes software supply chains even less secure The moment Dan and his co-founders decided to start Chainguard Why they started selling consulting services before even building a product The reason their first two products solved completely different problems (top-down and bottoms-up), and why the one that didn’t work at first is now their main business Why Chainguard decided to focus on a broad communications and marketing strategy so early on How Dan gets quoted in major media publications as an early stage startup founder Why Chainguard uses memes for marketing Why Dan thinks startups should “make content optimized for the group chat” How they raised their Seed round from Amplify a week after leaving Google Raising a Series A from Sequoia as the market started collapsing in Spring of 2022 Dan’s advice for founders on dealing with investor inbound when not fundraising Why he wish he hired sales reps sooner Raising a Series B from Spark Capital to accelerate their enterprise sales process — Referenced: https://www.chainguard.dev https://www.sigstore.dev/ Battling the Trojan Horse in Open Source: https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/dan-lorenc-chainguard-spotlight/ Chainguard Series B Announcement: https://www.chainguard.dev/unchained/series-b-funding Dan’s favorite open source project: https://github.com/jqlang/jq Reflections on Trusting Trust: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_ReflectionsonTrustingTrust.pdf — Where to find Dan: Twitter: https://twitter.com/lorenc_dan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danlorenc — Where to find Turner: Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak Banana Capital: https://bananacapital.vc — Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io — Want to sponsor the show? https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform
Nichole Wischoff is the founder of Wischoff Ventures, a Pre-Seed and Seed firm that invests up to $1 million in non sexy industries. Nichole closed her first fund in 2021, and previously was an early employee at Blend (NYSE:BLND), One (acquired by Walmart in 2022), and Built.
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Topics discussed include:
• Growing up on food stamps in Arkansas
• How studying abroad in Belgium changed Nichole’s life
• How falling in love with running got her into college and her first job
• Why Taylor Swift could be the first female President
• Opening a bakery to pay rent while teaching English in Spain
• Getting her first job at Citi’s non-profit housing financing team
• Leveraging that experience to get a job in fintech
• Making her first angel investment in Vesta
• How Nichole got One Financial its first 25k users
• Helping sell One Financial to Walmart
• How Lee Fixel and Chad Byers helped raise her first $5m fund
• Lessons learned going from a $5m to $20m fund in 2022
• Nichole’s advice for anyone raising their first fund
• Behind the scenes of her viral “Third Tier VC” moment
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Referenced:
•Taylor Swift (Acquired’s Version): https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/taylor-swift-acquireds-version
• Nichole’s $20m Fund Announcement https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/16/solo-gp-nichole-wischoff-raises-20m-fund-backed-by-peter-thiel-to-invest-in-unsexy-businesses/
• J Cal’s “3rd or 4th Investor in Uber” Montage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK4Mku_s4H4
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Where to find Nichole:
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/NWischoff
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholewischoff
• Wischoff Ventures: https://www.wischoff.com/
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Where to find Turner:
• Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
• Banana Capital: https://bananacapital.vc
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Waseem Daher is the Co-founder and CEO of Pilot, the bookkeeping, CFO, and tax provider for startups and fast growing businesses. Prior to Pilot, Waseem and his co-founders Jeff and Jessica sold companies to Oracle and Dropbox.
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Waseem, Jeff, and Jessica started Pilot in 2017, and have since raised over $160 million from investors like Index Ventures, Stripe, Sequoia, Whale Rock, Jeff Bezos, and over 40+ angel investors.
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In this episode, we discuss:
• Why Waseem’s building a startup that does your accounting
• The reason he first started doing his own bookkeeping, and why he doesn’t recommend it to other founders
• When startups should build something themselves and when to outsource
• All the mistakes Waseem made building and selling his first two startups to Oracle and Dropbox
• How to avoid “fake work”
• How to get ROI from conferences
• His disastrous first ever meeting with a VC
• Why the best fundraising advice is to build a business that doesn’t need to raise money
• “Companies are bought, not sold” and his framework for startup M&A
• Why it’s a mistake to build your startup just to be acquired
• Why consensus startup ideas rarely work, and the best startups need some secret or structural change that no one else has noticed yet
• Why tech-enabled service businesses are so hard to scale
• How Pilot got its first customers
• Pilot’s unique approach to raising its Seed round
• The initial scare when raising their Series A
• Why its Series B was half of what they could have raised
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Where to find Waseem:
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/waseem
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wdaher
• Newsletter: https://waseem.substack.com/
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Where to find Turner:
• Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
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Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io
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For sponsorship inquiries: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform
Vlad Magdalin is the Co-founder and CEO of Webflow, software that empowers designers to build websites without code. Vlad started the company with his co-founders Sergie Magdalin and Bryant Chou in 2013, and has since raised roughly $335 million supported by investors like Accel, Khosla Ventures, YCombinator, Capital G, and Eric Bahn.
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Topics discussed include:
• The history of web browsers, websites, and web design
• Why websites are the ultimate economic enablers
• How Webflow empowers anyone to design websites without code
• Why website design is a gateway into programming
• How the movement to CSS and web standards in the 2000’s and 2010’s created the opportunity for Webflow to build a product around responsive design
• Moving to the US with his parents and five siblings as refugees from the USSR at nine years old
• How losing half of their luggage and immigration documents in the move enabled his dad to buy the family’s first computer
• The first website Vlad ever designed for a Brad Pitt movie
• How his experience dropping out of a computer science degree to work in 3D animation at Pixar, then going back to school gave him the idea for Webflow
• Failing to build Webflow three times between 2005 and 2008
• Why the spouses and partners of founders are the unsung heroes of startups
• The moment he immediately quit his job and attempted Webflow for the fourth time
• Burning three months of runway on a Kickstarter that never went live
• Liquidating his retirement account, paying rent with credit cards, and selling and leasing back the family car’s to keep the business running
• Vlad’s exuberant optimism that kept him going for 10 years
• Failing to get into YC, and the crazy story behind getting accepted the second time
• The trajectory-altering customer and fundraising advice they got from Paul Graham
• The “Investing on Principle” contract they signed with Accel who led Webflow’s Series A
• Why Vlad thinks every startup founder should operate with the assumption they’ll never be able to raise money again
Referenced:
• Inventing on Principle (Video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUv66718DII
• Inventing on Principle (Transcript): https://jamesclear.com/great-speeches/inventing-on-principle-by-bret-victor
• The Infinite Game: https://simonsinek.com/books/the-infinite-game/
Where to find Vlad:
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/callmevlad
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vladmagdalin
Where to find Turner:
• Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io
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Keith is the Co-founder and CEO of OpenStore, a portfolio of brands building its own shopping destination. Before starting OpenStore, Keith was an early executive at companies like PayPal, eBay, LinkedIn, and Square, a co-founder of OpenDoor, and an early investor in companies like DoorDash, Faire, Affirm, Webflow, Ramp, and Stripe, and is also currently a General Partner at Founders Fund Keith started the company in 2021 with co-founders Jack Abraham, Matt Lanter, and Jeremy Wood, and has since raised over $150 million supported by investors like Atomic, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, and Vine Ventures. — Brought to you by Packsmith, better fulfillment for growing brands. Sign-up here https://bit.ly/PacksmithBanana — In this episode, we discuss: • The 3-minute conversation that started OpenStore • All the problems that still exist in ecommerce • Why Instagram Shopping failed • What Keith and team are building at OpenStore • Why Wish failed • The margin profile of most consumer brands • A crash course on contribution margin and profitability for startup founders • How OpenStore gets 3x higher contribution margin than other consumer brands • As a VC, the one thing Keith looks for in the founders he backs • A framework for founders and investors to consider when incubating companies • Why Keith thinks no great SF-based startups has been founded since March of 2020 • The reasons he moved to Miami • Why he’s bearish on most AI startups • His favorite interview questions for candidates Referenced: • Email Keith - keith@foundersfund.com Where to find Keith: • Twitter: https://twitter.com/rabois • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith Where to find Turner: • Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it • Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io Want to sponsor the show? https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform
Natasha Vernier is the Co-founder and CEO of Cable, the all-in-one effectiveness testing platform for financial services. Prior to Cable, Natasha joined UK neobank Monzo when it had less than 100 customers. She built and led their financial crime team for five years, and is one of the most knowledgeable individuals in the world on financial crime, which amounts to over $4 trillion per year, or 4% of global GDP.
Natasha started Cable in 2020 with her co-founder Katie Savitz, and has since raised over $16 million supported by investors like LocalGlobe, CRV, Stage 2, and Jump Capital.
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Topics discussed:
• How crime is a $4 trillion market
• Why 80% of crime is carried out for financial gains
• Why the UN estimates we only catch 0.2% of financial crime
• The reason banks are incentivized to stop fraud, but not crime
• Why it's so hard to stop financial crimes
• How $20B in financial crime was committed on crypto rails in 2022
• What “Synthetic ID Fraud” is, and why it's the fastest growing type of fraud in the US
• What Natasha thinks are the new frontiers of fraud
• Joining Monzo as one of the first employees and staying through a $4B valuation
• What it’s like to be fully invested in a startup when you’re not a founder
• Building Cable to enable regulatory and financial crime teams
• Raising a Pre-Seed round and signing the first customer without a product built
• Why compliance officers want to buy complicated products
• How Natasha diversified her cap table, raising a Seed round from CRV and a group of angels with broad skill sets, ethnicity, race, and sexuality
• How she got two funds to pre-empt her Series A
• Why founding a startup means getting punched in the face every day, and her biggest mistake is not enjoying the little things sooner
• The two founders she most looks up to
• The one interview question she asks every candidate at Cable
Referenced:
• Cable’s site: https://cable.tech
• Cable’s Seed round: https://community.cable.tech/weve-raised-5-3m-from-crv-localglobe-and-a-diverse-group-of-exceptional-angels/
• How They Built the Hoover Dam (Part 1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXFjLaUxpaw
• How Vegas Became VEGAS (Part 2): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QNuYHEzS2o
Where to find Natasha:
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/natashavernier
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natashavernier
Where to find Turner:
• Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io
Want to sponsor the show? https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform
Alex Bouaziz is the Co-founder and CEO of Deel, a full stack global HR and payroll platform. But the company didn’t start that way, and we’ll talk through Alex and his co-founder Shuo’s journey from zero to one, starting with a product that helped startups hire international employees.
Alex and Shuo launched the company one week before YC Demo day in 2019, and have since scaled to 20,000+ customers and raised over $685 million. They’re supported by investors like YC, a16z, Spark Capital, Weekend Fund, Coatue, SV Angel, Soma Capital, Quiet Capital, and angels like Lachy Groom, Nat Friedman, Ryan Petersen, Alexis Ohanian, John Zimmer, Dara Khosrowshahi, Rex Salisbury, Justin Mateen, and more.
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In this episode, we discuss:
• The initial insight around remote work that started Deel in 2019
• How they initially built the wrong solution
• Pivoting one week before YC demo day
• Listening to customers to build a better product
• Growing 20% every month for a year
• Being a default optimist
• Dealing with the emotional ups and downs of building a startup
• Moving at “Deel Speed”, and how the team operates so fast
• Deel’s remote-first approach and its “WeWork Squads”
• His advice to other leaders building remote teams
• Why founders shouldn’t share too much information with early investors
• How Alex’s approach to fundraising changed through his Seed to Series D rounds
• Why founders should always be selling their product
• How picking board members is a form of marriage, and what founders should prioritize when picking them
• Why Deel raised a Series A and B in a three month span despite only burning $300k since closing its Seed round
• How deep pocketed investors unlock optionality as a company scales
• The benefits to taking on lots of angel investors
• How Deel prioritized international expansion as it grew
• Deel’s new Visa / immigration and HR AI products
• Two things Alex would do differently if he could start over
• The founders he most looks up to
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Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/growing-deel-to-300m-arr-in-four
Where to find Alex:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Bouazizalex
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexbouaziz/
Where to find Turner:
Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
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Semil Shah is the Founder of Haystack, an institutional venture capital firm that backs outlier founders at the earliest stages. Semil started Haystack in 2013, and has since invested in X unicorns like DoorDash, Instacart, Figma, HashiCorp, Ironclad, Carta, Applied Intuition, and Opendoor.
This episode takes us behind the scenes of Semil’s two decade journey building Haystack from scratch. We’ll dive into how he raised and deployed each of the first six Haystack funds, including all the mistakes made along the way, plus the details around Haystack’s new $75 million and $25 million funds announced the date this episode was published.
Read Haystack's announcement here: https://semilshah.com/2023/09/10/announcing-haystack-vii-same-model-fresh-funds-and-new-era/
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