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Village Global Podcast

By: Village Global
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  • Summary

  • The Village Global podcast takes you inside the world of venture capital and technology, featuring enlightening interviews with entrepreneurs, investors and tech industry leaders. Learn more at www.villageglobal.vc.
    Village Global
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Episodes
  • How to Nail Product-Market Fit and Scale a B2B Company with Thejo Kote of Airbase

    How to Nail Product-Market Fit and Scale a B2B Company with Thejo Kote of Airbase
    Apr 25 2024
    Thejo Kote (@thejo) talks to Village partner Ben Casnocha. Thejo is a two-time founder and CEO. His current company, Airbase, is a spend management platform serving companies with 100 and 5,000 employees like Coda, 15Five, Front, Marqueta, CaptivateIQ, Abnormal, and more. Airbase has raised over $200 million, has tens of millions in ARR, and is consistently ranked as a top spend management company by G2.

    Highlights:

    - Rather than jumping into building Airbase, he built high-fidelity mockups and went back to prospective customers and asked if they’d buy it to “pre-sell” it.

    - In B2B, build for a specific, recognizable buyer. You want to sell to a specific role within the org who will be your champion. Ideally this is someone who also has influence within the org.

    - Select the kinds of customers who aren’t likely to switch in the early days. Team with early customers who actually want to be partners and are motivated by the relationship. Flatter them by asking: “are there any other innovative, forward-thinking leaders you know who I should also talk to?”

    - 6-8 months later after proving value and showing they could be a good partner, he said “hey, I want to get your feedback on our pricing model. Is this fair for the next set of customers?” 100% of the customers converted when he asked if they were willing to opt in to the pricing structure with a significant discount for their initial partnership.

    - When hiring salespeople, Thejo focuses more on personality traits rather than prior experience selling to the same segment. Also, if candidates are drawn to the liquid comp at a large, public company, they’re likely going to have a hard time transitioning to a startup. Find people who have been comfortable taking risks.

    - Airbase is fully remote and Thejo doesn’t think in terms of onshore vs. offshore within the company because that instantly creates a class system. Anyone anywhere in the world is part of their single, remote team, which has the internet as its headquarters. Each member of the team is “equitably inconvenienced” in his words.

    Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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    58 mins
  • Encore: Cloudflare Co-Founder Michelle Zatlyn’s Advice on Hiring, Fundraising, Scaling, and more

    Encore: Cloudflare Co-Founder Michelle Zatlyn’s Advice on Hiring, Fundraising, Scaling, and more
    Apr 17 2024
    Michelle Zatlyn (@zatlyn), co-founder, president, and COO of Cloudflare, joined Village Global co-founder and partner Ben Casnocha for a masterclass with our founders in late 2020.

    They discussed:

    - The origin story of Cloudflare, including how the co-founders met, and how Michelle realized that she too could start a company.

    - Her advice on fundraising after raising more than $300M for Cloudflare, including why you should keep the rest of the VC partnership in mind, and how to show rather than tell in your pitch.

    - How they found the best talent, including why their blog brought them plenty of inbound interest, and why searching far and wide around the globe for engineers helped them build their team quickly.

    - Why they don’t use recruiters at Cloudflare.

    - How to turn a weakness into a strength.

    - How to process feedback and when it makes sense to ignore it.

    - Stories of extreme frugality in the early days of the company, including building their own Ikea desks.

    - How an emotional response by customers helped them know they had product-market fit.

    Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.

    Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

    Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup
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    50 mins
  • Lessons from the Early Days at Uber and Advice for Founders with Kevin Novak

    Lessons from the Early Days at Uber and Advice for Founders with Kevin Novak
    Apr 5 2024
    We're excited to launch a new EIR program for data science founders in partnership with Rackhouse Ventures, founded by Kevin Novak. Learn more about the program: https://www.villageglobal.vc/rackhouse-village-global-eir-program

    Kevin Novak (@novakkm), an early Uber employee, was instrumental in developing their data science program and was the creator of surge pricing.

    Highlights:

    - Kevin, originally a nuclear physicist, applied his analytical skills to develop Uber's first surge pricing model in three weeks—a task that would typically take six months in academia.

    - He says that founders shouldn’t wait until they have plenty of data to make decisions — instead, start with first principles thinking while also building a virtuous data cycle by ensuring you are collecting data that will inform future decisions.

    - He comments that AI might be “overhyped on average” at the moment. The first breakthrough product is essentially an API, which has led to incumbents responding more quickly and more aggressively. Kevin argues that if you are founding a generative AI company, you are effectively making the claim that incumbents won’t be able to respond and implement an LLM themselves.

    - Kevin cautions founders not to fall in love with any one idea too early. It’s better to hedge your bets and experiment with one or two. Through trial and error, you can eventually decide on one idea that has the potential to be a strong business.

    - For the Village Global-Rackhouse EIR program, we’re looking for founders with deep passion for founding a company. We don’t require you to have your idea and team established.


    Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.

    Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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    47 mins
Management Economics Personal Finance
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