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Alex Konrad

@alexrkonrad • 89,716 subscribers

Founder and editor of @upstartsmediaco, a new tech publication focused on the startup ecosystem. Previously @Forbes senior editor. Email: [email protected]

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"In the Series A, the Sequoia rejection included a line about how inspiring it was that I had two little kids at home while I was pitching them." -- WRITER CEO May Habib (May Habib) with some real talk on being a working mom in Silicon Valley 👀 "Everybody wants to hear you say that there is nothing more important to you than being a billionaire," she says. "And the reality is, my kids are more important than that." Now, when investors ask Habib about her family, her instinct is to stress that her in-laws take care of the kids, while she works 90 hours a week. "It's sad that's the instinct. At the same time, I know that if I weren't working that hard, if our whole team weren't working that hard, it would have been much harder to get to where we are today." Catch the full interview on The Upstarts Podcast, presented by Rippling 👇

"In the Series A, the Sequoia rejection included a line about how inspiring it was that I had two little kids at home while I was pitching them." -- WRITER CEO May Habib (May Habib) with some real talk on being a working mom in Silicon Valley 👀 "Everybody wants to hear you say that there is nothing more important to you than being a billionaire," she says. "And the reality is, my kids are more important than that." Now, when investors ask Habib about her family, her instinct is to stress that her in-laws take care of the kids, while she works 90 hours a week. "It's sad that's the instinct. At the same time, I know that if I weren't working that hard, if our whole team weren't working that hard, it would have been much harder to get to where we are today." Catch the full interview on The Upstarts Podcast, presented by Rippling 👇

59,087 просмотров • 1 день назад

Salespeople have a problem: they only spend 21% of their time actually selling to customers 🤝 Mutiny CEO Jaleh Rezaei (Jaleh Rezaei) thought she'd found a way to fix it. She worked with customers like Snowflake and Uber. Revenue reached 8-figures 📈 Which makes what happened next all the more shocking: she burned it all down 🔥 On The Upstarts Podcast, Jaleh shares why she took the tough decision to fire her customers, slash headcount and re-found her startup around an AI agent. We go into AI's disruption of SaaS; her favorite advice from Fin's Des Traynor on pivoting and from Y Combinator's Garry Tan on showing the chart you don't want people to see; how to get over "Claude Spookies," and why speed is (mostly) all you need. This season of the show is presented by Rippling 🫡 CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 2:41 An AI agent for sales 7:04 Why an AI ‘blank canvas’ doesn’t work 10:38 Jaleh’s founder journey and Gusto lessons 17:01 Mutiny’s early software success 22:51 Jaleh’s Upstart Moment: tearing it down 24:42 Why you can’t rebuild a business halfway 27:15 Intercom’s founders share valuable advice 30:44 Focus on the business, not the optics 34:53 ‘Speed is the only thing that matters’ 37:40 ‘Claude spookies’ in the AI app layer 43:59 Second-time founder advantage Thanks for watching!

Salespeople have a problem: they only spend 21% of their time actually selling to customers 🤝 Mutiny CEO Jaleh Rezaei (Jaleh Rezaei) thought she'd found a way to fix it. She worked with customers like Snowflake and Uber. Revenue reached 8-figures 📈 Which makes what happened next all the more shocking: she burned it all down 🔥 On The Upstarts Podcast, Jaleh shares why she took the tough decision to fire her customers, slash headcount and re-found her startup around an AI agent. We go into AI's disruption of SaaS; her favorite advice from Fin's Des Traynor on pivoting and from Y Combinator's Garry Tan on showing the chart you don't want people to see; how to get over "Claude Spookies," and why speed is (mostly) all you need. This season of the show is presented by Rippling 🫡 CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 2:41 An AI agent for sales 7:04 Why an AI ‘blank canvas’ doesn’t work 10:38 Jaleh’s founder journey and Gusto lessons 17:01 Mutiny’s early software success 22:51 Jaleh’s Upstart Moment: tearing it down 24:42 Why you can’t rebuild a business halfway 27:15 Intercom’s founders share valuable advice 30:44 Focus on the business, not the optics 34:53 ‘Speed is the only thing that matters’ 37:40 ‘Claude spookies’ in the AI app layer 43:59 Second-time founder advantage Thanks for watching!

97,675 просмотров • 9 дней назад

"This is not a product category." "They're not actually going to work on this." "They're going to acquihire themselves to somebody." When Christina Cacioppo (Christina Cacioppo) first pitched her startup in 2018, investors couldn't believe anyone would want to build compliance software. Eight years later, Vanta works with 16K+ customers from Lovable to Icelandair, earning a $4.2B valuation. Now, she faces the opposite question: With AI, can't anyone build this? How does Vanta stay ahead of a new wave of hype-y startups? "I subscribe to the 'never let them see you blink' school of thought, she tells me. On The Upstarts Podcast, Cacioppo shares how she created value in a sleepy category; how she prioritizes “infinity things” as a startup unicorn CEO; and why when it comes to good security hygiene, we could all spend more time brushing our teeth. Plus, she shares her Upstart Moment: working to re-think, and future-proof, Vanta's software business in the face of powerful AI models. This season is presented by Rippling 🫡 CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 1:39 What Vanta does 5:26 Selling to other startups 9:28 How AI agents change ‘pretty much everything’ 14:06 Christina’s *real* founder origin story 16:23 Underdog fundraising and gaming VCs 18:59 The problem with startup valuations 24:08 Turning LinkedIn ‘cringe’ into customer traction 26:41 Reinventing Vanta with AI 33:43 Whether AI could clone Vanta 35:23 ‘Never let them see you blink’ 37:24 Avoiding burnout with ‘infinity things’

"This is not a product category." "They're not actually going to work on this." "They're going to acquihire themselves to somebody." When Christina Cacioppo (Christina Cacioppo) first pitched her startup in 2018, investors couldn't believe anyone would want to build compliance software. Eight years later, Vanta works with 16K+ customers from Lovable to Icelandair, earning a $4.2B valuation. Now, she faces the opposite question: With AI, can't anyone build this? How does Vanta stay ahead of a new wave of hype-y startups? "I subscribe to the 'never let them see you blink' school of thought, she tells me. On The Upstarts Podcast, Cacioppo shares how she created value in a sleepy category; how she prioritizes “infinity things” as a startup unicorn CEO; and why when it comes to good security hygiene, we could all spend more time brushing our teeth. Plus, she shares her Upstart Moment: working to re-think, and future-proof, Vanta's software business in the face of powerful AI models. This season is presented by Rippling 🫡 CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 1:39 What Vanta does 5:26 Selling to other startups 9:28 How AI agents change ‘pretty much everything’ 14:06 Christina’s real founder origin story 16:23 Underdog fundraising and gaming VCs 18:59 The problem with startup valuations 24:08 Turning LinkedIn ‘cringe’ into customer traction 26:41 Reinventing Vanta with AI 33:43 Whether AI could clone Vanta 35:23 ‘Never let them see you blink’ 37:24 Avoiding burnout with ‘infinity things’

57,297 просмотров • 22 дней назад

"When you start a company, the expectation is failure." You can't build a great product. You can't hire great people. You'll never get good investors. You can't raise a Series A. You can't raise a Series B. Mutiny CEO Jaleh Rezaei (Jaleh Rezaei) had heard all of those doubts. She'd done all of it. And she started over anyway. "It's really hard to accept that you're going to burn that to the ground for the possibility of a better future," she says. After a year of working to add new AI capabilities to Mutiny's software, Jaleh felt she was "mashing" two different products together. On a walk along the Hudson River in November, she told co-founder Nikhil Matthew they had to make a radical change. Catch the full story on The Upstarts Podcast, presented by Rippling 🫡

"When you start a company, the expectation is failure." You can't build a great product. You can't hire great people. You'll never get good investors. You can't raise a Series A. You can't raise a Series B. Mutiny CEO Jaleh Rezaei (Jaleh Rezaei) had heard all of those doubts. She'd done all of it. And she started over anyway. "It's really hard to accept that you're going to burn that to the ground for the possibility of a better future," she says. After a year of working to add new AI capabilities to Mutiny's software, Jaleh felt she was "mashing" two different products together. On a walk along the Hudson River in November, she told co-founder Nikhil Matthew they had to make a radical change. Catch the full story on The Upstarts Podcast, presented by Rippling 🫡

15,965 просмотров • 6 дней назад

Last week, Flexport released an AI agent that can audit bills from shippers and truckers against the actual logs to ensure its customers are invoiced correctly. The product was just an idea 3 days before. "We probably pivoted 30% to 40% of our engineers now just to building agents," founder Ryan Petersen (Ryan Petersen) says. "There's way less planning than there used to be at Flexport in the roadmap. It used to be a one year strategic plan. Now you're like, ‘Alright, let's go see if you can make this work, come back to me two days later.' And it works, because of AI.” Catch the full interview on The Upstarts Podcast: YouTube: Apple: Spotify:

Last week, Flexport released an AI agent that can audit bills from shippers and truckers against the actual logs to ensure its customers are invoiced correctly. The product was just an idea 3 days before. "We probably pivoted 30% to 40% of our engineers now just to building agents," founder Ryan Petersen (Ryan Petersen) says. "There's way less planning than there used to be at Flexport in the roadmap. It used to be a one year strategic plan. Now you're like, ‘Alright, let's go see if you can make this work, come back to me two days later.' And it works, because of AI.” Catch the full interview on The Upstarts Podcast: YouTube: Apple: Spotify:

121,920 просмотров • 3 месяцев назад

Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen still thinks about a 2012 essay written by Paul Graham called 'Schlep Blindness.' Every startup founder of a certain era of went through the misery of applying to accept credit card payments. But only Patrick and John Collison (Patrick Collison and John Collison) started Stripe. "There was a $100 billion opportunity available to every entrepreneur," says Petersen. "The worst problems in your life, your conscious brain is unable to focus, to think about them at all. You're just completely blind that this problem exists." More recently, Petersen (Ryan Petersen) says that PG (Paul Graham) has described his company, Flexport, the same way. "Anyone who ever imported anything wen through this pain, saw it's a nightmare to fill out paperwork, and no one call tell you where your stuff is, or when it's going to arrive." Catch the full discussion on The Upstarts Podcast 👇 YouTube: Spotify: Apple:

Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen still thinks about a 2012 essay written by Paul Graham called 'Schlep Blindness.' Every startup founder of a certain era of went through the misery of applying to accept credit card payments. But only Patrick and John Collison (Patrick Collison and John Collison) started Stripe. "There was a $100 billion opportunity available to every entrepreneur," says Petersen. "The worst problems in your life, your conscious brain is unable to focus, to think about them at all. You're just completely blind that this problem exists." More recently, Petersen (Ryan Petersen) says that PG (Paul Graham) has described his company, Flexport, the same way. "Anyone who ever imported anything wen through this pain, saw it's a nightmare to fill out paperwork, and no one call tell you where your stuff is, or when it's going to arrive." Catch the full discussion on The Upstarts Podcast 👇 YouTube: Spotify: Apple:

69,560 просмотров • 3 месяцев назад

What happened when startup Axiom took the Putnam Competition, the world's hardest college-level math test? "We got the exam, and we are like, 'We are screwed,' CEO Carina Hong (Carina Hong) remembers of that December day. Famed mathematician Ken Ono (Ken Ono), who now works at Axiom, rallied the troops: There's no room for purity! We are in a sports situation! "It's really funny for a pure number theorist to say that," says Hong. At 3:58pm, two minutes before the deadline, Axiom solved its 8th problem. Hong really wanted 9. She debated whether to announce the news. "So the next morning, I just did the right thing, I announced it on Twitter. Two hours later, we got the ninth." Catch the full interview on The Upstarts Podcast.

What happened when startup Axiom took the Putnam Competition, the world's hardest college-level math test? "We got the exam, and we are like, 'We are screwed,' CEO Carina Hong (Carina Hong) remembers of that December day. Famed mathematician Ken Ono (Ken Ono), who now works at Axiom, rallied the troops: There's no room for purity! We are in a sports situation! "It's really funny for a pure number theorist to say that," says Hong. At 3:58pm, two minutes before the deadline, Axiom solved its 8th problem. Hong really wanted 9. She debated whether to announce the news. "So the next morning, I just did the right thing, I announced it on Twitter. Two hours later, we got the ninth." Catch the full interview on The Upstarts Podcast.

42,894 просмотров • 2 месяцев назад

Harvey CEO Winston Weinberg's big regret: not building in public. "There was a lot of secrecy in the beginning. If I would do things over again, I would have figured out how to build in public faster." Being secretive wasn't deliberate or a marketing ploy, but a function of being heads down trying to keep up with customers, Winston Weinberg says now. But it's contributed to some people accusing $11B-valued Harvey of selling "snake oil" to this day. "I think that a lot of folks in Silicon Valley, they don't know that many lawyers," he adds. "They think that oh, if you can just automate code development, you can for sure automate law immediately after." Catch the full episode on The Upstarts Podcast.

Harvey CEO Winston Weinberg's big regret: not building in public. "There was a lot of secrecy in the beginning. If I would do things over again, I would have figured out how to build in public faster." Being secretive wasn't deliberate or a marketing ploy, but a function of being heads down trying to keep up with customers, Winston Weinberg says now. But it's contributed to some people accusing $11B-valued Harvey of selling "snake oil" to this day. "I think that a lot of folks in Silicon Valley, they don't know that many lawyers," he adds. "They think that oh, if you can just automate code development, you can for sure automate law immediately after." Catch the full episode on The Upstarts Podcast.

44,134 просмотров • 2 месяцев назад

News: Canada-based AI company Cohere is combining with German AI co Aleph Alpha at a reported $20B valuation. Last week on The Upstarts Podcast, Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez (Aidan Gomez) said Cohere wants to take a "friends with everyone" approach that means he turned down early investment offers from hyperscalers like Amazon, Google or Microsoft. "Even before all this geopolitical stuff, one of the core value props of Cohere was independence," he says. "If you're a large enterprise, you don't want to be completely locked into your cloud provider, one ecosystem, because they're just going to keep squeezing you."

News: Canada-based AI company Cohere is combining with German AI co Aleph Alpha at a reported $20B valuation. Last week on The Upstarts Podcast, Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez (Aidan Gomez) said Cohere wants to take a "friends with everyone" approach that means he turned down early investment offers from hyperscalers like Amazon, Google or Microsoft. "Even before all this geopolitical stuff, one of the core value props of Cohere was independence," he says. "If you're a large enterprise, you don't want to be completely locked into your cloud provider, one ecosystem, because they're just going to keep squeezing you."

32,628 просмотров • 2 месяцев назад

Ryan Petersen (Ryan Petersen) has turned posting like he's tech's 'hurricane reporter' around all things shipping and trade into a big platform, with 310K followers on X. His lesson for startups: nobody cares. "In general, nobody cares about your startup," Flexport's CEO tells The Upstarts Podcast. "They care about things that are happening that are relevant in their world, and they're only gonna care about you to the extent that you are." Audiences are also wise to self-promotion, he adds. "You have to figure out, okay, what, what's the thing that we can provide unique insight into?" Catch the full episode 👇 YouTube: Spotify: Apple:

Ryan Petersen (Ryan Petersen) has turned posting like he's tech's 'hurricane reporter' around all things shipping and trade into a big platform, with 310K followers on X. His lesson for startups: nobody cares. "In general, nobody cares about your startup," Flexport's CEO tells The Upstarts Podcast. "They care about things that are happening that are relevant in their world, and they're only gonna care about you to the extent that you are." Audiences are also wise to self-promotion, he adds. "You have to figure out, okay, what, what's the thing that we can provide unique insight into?" Catch the full episode 👇 YouTube: Spotify: Apple:

40,072 просмотров • 3 месяцев назад

News: Upstarts is launching our flagship podcast 🚀 Behind every world-changing business, there's an Upstart -- a founder who took on the status quo to achieve big impact 🌐 On The Upstarts Podcast, I'll chat with an up-and-coming startup leader each week about their 'Upstart Moment' and how they beat the odds 💪 You'll gain insight into transformative new technology, as well as real strategies and tactical tips for any busy builder to apply to their own work 🛠️ Early guests include: ▪️Canva CEO Melanie Perkins ▪️Valar Atomics CEO Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors ▪️Loyal CEO Celine Halioua ▪️Star Catcher CEO Andrew Rush More founders in AI, aerospace, biotech, fintech and fertility to follow! Highlights and behind-the-scenes extras will be on Upstarts Media, too :)

News: Upstarts is launching our flagship podcast 🚀 Behind every world-changing business, there's an Upstart -- a founder who took on the status quo to achieve big impact 🌐 On The Upstarts Podcast, I'll chat with an up-and-coming startup leader each week about their 'Upstart Moment' and how they beat the odds 💪 You'll gain insight into transformative new technology, as well as real strategies and tactical tips for any busy builder to apply to their own work 🛠️ Early guests include: ▪️Canva CEO Melanie Perkins ▪️Valar Atomics CEO Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors ▪️Loyal CEO Celine Halioua ▪️Star Catcher CEO Andrew Rush More founders in AI, aerospace, biotech, fintech and fertility to follow! Highlights and behind-the-scenes extras will be on Upstarts Media, too :)

33,267 просмотров • 4 месяцев назад

"Speed should get you to somewhere that has more long-term advantages." - Decagon CEO Jesse Zhang (Jesse Zhang) At $4.5B-valued Decagon, speed is an advantage, not a moat. "If everyone is at the same starting line in the early days, it's just, how fast can you go?" Zhang tells Upstarts Media. "We really pride ourselves on our go-to-market execution, but that's not a long-term differentiator." So why does Decagon win accounts like big banks, airlines and telcos over competitors? While rivals are "hedging across a bunch of different approaches," Decagon takes an opinionated approach to encouraging customers to iterate within the product, Zhang argues. "They're like, 'Okay, yeah, we believe in this,'" he says. Catch the full interview on The Upstarts Podcast (links below) 👀

"Speed should get you to somewhere that has more long-term advantages." - Decagon CEO Jesse Zhang (Jesse Zhang) At $4.5B-valued Decagon, speed is an advantage, not a moat. "If everyone is at the same starting line in the early days, it's just, how fast can you go?" Zhang tells Upstarts Media. "We really pride ourselves on our go-to-market execution, but that's not a long-term differentiator." So why does Decagon win accounts like big banks, airlines and telcos over competitors? While rivals are "hedging across a bunch of different approaches," Decagon takes an opinionated approach to encouraging customers to iterate within the product, Zhang argues. "They're like, 'Okay, yeah, we believe in this,'" he says. Catch the full interview on The Upstarts Podcast (links below) 👀

18,276 просмотров • 2 месяцев назад

"I don't think you need to worry about internal morale based off of external things that you see on Twitter." -- Harvey CEO Winston Weinberg (Winston Weinberg) His advice for founders: Structure your startup so that every employee has a good pulse for customer satisfaction. It'll be a better barometer than whether you're getting love on social media. That's the case at Harvey, where Weinberg says employees can find it jarring that despite lots of hype and a $11B valuation, he still sends memos telling everyone to move faster. "As long as your customers are happy, that's all that matters." Catch the full interview on our latest episode of The Upstarts Podcast from Upstarts Media 👀

"I don't think you need to worry about internal morale based off of external things that you see on Twitter." -- Harvey CEO Winston Weinberg (Winston Weinberg) His advice for founders: Structure your startup so that every employee has a good pulse for customer satisfaction. It'll be a better barometer than whether you're getting love on social media. That's the case at Harvey, where Weinberg says employees can find it jarring that despite lots of hype and a $11B valuation, he still sends memos telling everyone to move faster. "As long as your customers are happy, that's all that matters." Catch the full interview on our latest episode of The Upstarts Podcast from Upstarts Media 👀

19,832 просмотров • 3 месяцев назад

Talked about the endorphin rush of breaking scoops with my guys John Coogan and Jordi Hays at TBPN. It can feel good to flex the muscles with a juicy one occasionally, but it's not my focus at Upstarts. I gladly leave the heavy lifting to 'scoop athletes' like Katie Roof 💪

Talked about the endorphin rush of breaking scoops with my guys John Coogan and Jordi Hays at TBPN. It can feel good to flex the muscles with a juicy one occasionally, but it's not my focus at Upstarts. I gladly leave the heavy lifting to 'scoop athletes' like Katie Roof 💪

18,546 просмотров • 3 месяцев назад

"I was like, 'Yeah, of course, dude!' But it's very non-obvious if you haven't had that problem before." Loyal founder Celine Halioua shares on The Upstarts Podcast how one VC's mind was blown when they asked dog owner friends what they'd pay for her longevity drug 👀 Catch the full episode on YouTube: Apple: Spotify:

"I was like, 'Yeah, of course, dude!' But it's very non-obvious if you haven't had that problem before." Loyal founder Celine Halioua shares on The Upstarts Podcast how one VC's mind was blown when they asked dog owner friends what they'd pay for her longevity drug 👀 Catch the full episode on YouTube: Apple: Spotify:

16,445 просмотров • 4 месяцев назад

Why do must nuclear energy startups fail? "I think it's actually been a mindset problem," says Valar Atomics founder Isaiah Taylor (Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors). "I was totally shocked to find that no nuclear startup had ever built a reactor and turned it on." Catch the fully kinetic convo on The Upstarts Podcast: YouTube: Apple: Spotify:

Why do must nuclear energy startups fail? "I think it's actually been a mindset problem," says Valar Atomics founder Isaiah Taylor (Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors). "I was totally shocked to find that no nuclear startup had ever built a reactor and turned it on." Catch the fully kinetic convo on The Upstarts Podcast: YouTube: Apple: Spotify:

14,533 просмотров • 3 месяцев назад

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