Dharmesh Mehta

Great session James Newell and thanks for hosting Jon Prentice and SVB! In terms of the answers and perspective shared from Voyager Capital and James…. The Good (for Seattle investing and VCs) —— * the opportunity in Seattle (and the wider PNW / Cascadia region) that Voyager is still capitalizing on, is that there is a ton of potential in Seed to Series A investing that isn’t as accessible elsewhere. * SF and other markets are saturated and less engaged as investors at this stage. * talent pool here is massive, especially on the engineering and product side. What would be a “Game Changer” for Seattle —— * there is a talent shortage especially in terms of sales and marketers locally. * Few sales and marketers want to do $0 - $1M journey again if prior successful. * Angels are more private here, and may not feel the need to give back to the start up community if that isn’t how they made their wealth Outside of Seattle specific feedback: —— * Founders need to be doers, not “leaders of leaders” (an issue with those coming from big tech); talent need to meet the stage and act accordingly. * AI as a tool and business foundation is only important in terms of delivering business value. * AI powered firms need to show they have an ability to access proprietary data or be linked intimately to workflows or both to be a sound investment [this is established consensus among investors] * Investing, especially very early stage, should be run as a process. Be your own best BDR for fundraising. And finally …. The top 2 pieces of advice most often given to founders…. 1) Try to avoid VC capital to the degree you can [which means you have a capital efficient business]. 2) find a co-founder to complement your skills vs doing it all on your own.

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We are all standing at the receiving end of so many incredible opportunities driven by generative AI. And this year at #MongoDBlocal NYC, we shared our vision to be your partners in making AI accessible but achievable for developers everywhere. ✅ With the new MongoDB AI Applications Program (MAAP), we've integrated our developer data platform with leading AI partners, so you have all the blueprints to build AI applications quickly and confidently. ✅ With our AI Strategy and AI Accelerator services, you'll have expert consultants to help you identify high-impact AI use cases and turn your AI vision into reality. ✅ From bringing vector search and full-text search to our Community Edition later this year, we have also announced Atlas Search nodes across all major cloud providers to give you the tools to build, scale, and optimise AI applications on your terms. #MongoDBlocal in NYC has been truly incredible and the next stop for this AI revolution is Sydney on July 30th. See you there! #MongoDB #artificialintelligence

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Being a founder means being 100% in it, all the time, especially through the lows. It was fun to run down memory lane with Sequoia and discuss how DoorDash navigated moments of uncertainty to empower local commerce on a global scale. Check out the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/gxmx2nhy

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V2MOM, SMART, LRP. PCT. Behind those acronyms are actionable concepts that helped Manu Gurudatha, Engineering Leader at PagerDuty skyrocket engineering productivity. And he shared his exact process in an in-depth article where you’ll learn: ◾ How to implement V2MOM (Vision, Values, Methods, Obstacles, Measures) and plan better. ◾ Why setting SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals can bring you clarity and success in eng projects. ◾ Tips for effective Long-Range Planning (LRP) that aligns daily operations with your long-term business goals. ◾ How to reduce Process Cycle Time (PCT) to accelerate project delivery. Click on the link below to go from slipping to shipping, with real life examples at PagerDuty 👇 🔗 https://lnkd.in/eHUAc6qJ

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Two Years, Three Cohorts, and Countless Transformations. ❤️ Last week, we onboarded another cohort of bright, eager Associates to the Genesis Program at Google🎉 Seeing their eager faces, I couldn't help but reflect on my own journey. It's hard to believe it's been two years since I stepped into this role at Google, a bit nervous, but overwhelmed with excitement. I remember just two weeks in, my director pulled me aside and said, "You know that you belong here." Those words meant the world to me then, and they still resonate today. Leading this program has been one of the most fulfilling experiences of my career. Witnessing the growth and impact our Associates make in just six month rotations across Finance is truly inspiring. It reminds me that transitions, while challenging, are also opportunities for incredible transformation. I know firsthand the mix of emotions that come with new beginnings. The thrill of possibility mingled with the fear of the unknown. The self-inflicted pressure to live up to this ideal version of yourself & success, as if anyone other than you worked to achieve it. It takes immense courage to step into anew, the unknown, the unfamiliar. It can feel like an ocean of uncertainty, so yes, I too used to believe the best approach was to perfect the way to fit in so that I wouldn't stand out. But as Brene Brown once said "The courage to be imperfect means the willingness to let go of who you think you’re supposed to be in order to embrace who you are". Knowing that transitions are a lifelong endeavor, here's what I've learned: Each of us brings unique gifts to the table. Your value isn't defined by comparison, but by the courage to step forward, the willingness to learn, and the passion to contribute. To our newest cohort, the entire Genesis Community and to all those navigating transitions, I say this 🎤: You will never rise above the opinion of yourself. So, embrace the uncertainty. Lean into your community. Know that you are enough. You belong. And together, we'll create something extraordinary. Here's to new beginnings, continuous growth, and the unwavering belief that we are all capable of incredible things. Huge appreciation to all that leaned in to support myself & Tony Francis with a successful Onboarding & Training for our newest “Kappa Cohort” in Chicago!! LaKesha Lundy, John Abney, CPA, MBA, Zach Llorens, Jordan Thomas, Sharon Storm, Mike Shores, Tony Muhawi + many more 💫 #NewBeginnings #CareerTransitions #Onboarding #Leadership #Community #Belonging #CareerDevelopment #2YearAnniversary #Gratitude

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Founders know Rippling is where to go. Where to go to build your business from seed stage to IPO, but also where to go as a former founder if you want high accountability, runway, and an opportunity to build something big. Thanks for the shoutout Garry Tan! Let’s build together!👷🏼‍♂️🚀😀 https://lnkd.in/guAtia7i

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https://lnkd.in/guKyDZsf "And then you’d say, why is it that so called lack of focus strategy seems to be working for Amazon? And I think the fundamental underlying principle that he’s guiding his whole discussion of strategy is, he’s changed the rules of strategy. So the old rules of strategy were, the way you gained competitive advantage is by being better or cheaper. So if I am selling you a car, my car is better of cheaper. But the inherent assumption in that strategy statement is, I’m selling one product to one customer. And what Amazon is basically arguing is, the digital economy is all about connection. We have got to connect products and connect customers." "So connecting products, here the idea is, I can sell you, this is a classic razor and blade strategy. I can sell you a razor cheap in order to make money on the blade. So I can sell you Kindle cheap in order to make money on the ebooks. Now, at some level you might say, hey, razor and blade have been around forever. What’s so unique today? I think unique today is razor could be in one industry and blades could be in completely different industrys. So for example, if you look at Amazon’s portfolio of businesses, you sort of say, not only Amazon is an e-commerce player, but also is making movies and TV shows, its own studio. Well, why does it make sense for an e-commerce player, an online retailer to compete with Hollywood. Well, Walmart doesn’t make movies. Macy’s doesn’t make movies? So why does it make sense for Amazon to make movies?" And I think once you dig into it, the answer becomes clear that the purpose of the movies is to keep and gain the Prime customers. Two day free shipping is fine, but if you ask me to pay $99 or $119 for two day free shipping, I might start doing the math in my head, and say, OK, how many packages do I expect to get next year? And is the Prime membership worth it or not? But once you throw in, in addition to the two-day free shipping, you throw in some TV shows and movies that are uniquely found only on Amazon, I can’t do this math. And why is Prime customers important to Amazon? Because Prime customers are more loyal. They buy three or four times more than the non-Prime customers, and they’re also less price sensitive. And in fact, Jeff Bezos has said publicly that every time we win a Golden Globe Award for one of our shows, we sell more shoes."

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🍜Anybody up for some ramen? I am excited to share that I am back in the garage, building again (it’s actually a house in the Berkeley Hills). We are taking the wraps off of Supercog AI, a new startup focused on solving Application Integration using LLM powered agents. My co-founder in this new venture is a great friend of mine (and a former co-founder partner), Alex Osborne. Alex and I have worked around the application integration space for a long time, and we are unrealistically excited about applying the GenAI stack to this problem. Not many people relish the task to get some bits to move from system A to system B. But it’s a critical job to be done, and that’s led to a lot of brittle scripts, a myriad of inflexible “no code” tools, and a lot of hand crafted SQL. But the power of the Large Language Model, trained on a huge corpus of information, offers a remarkable tool to solve this problem. The LLM you use today already knows the APIs of hundreds of popular systems. It knows the SQL dialects of every major database. It understands the semantics and data schemas of many popular SaaS systems. It understands much of the specific domain in which your business operates. I like to call the AI revolution “the last platform shift”. That may turn out to be hyperbole, but I definitely believe we are in the very early stages of seeing what this new stack can enable. I know we are hardly the first folks to claim that “amazing stuff is coming!”. But this is why Alex and I have decided to focus on a real and hard problem. If we can prove that LLMs can power a new way to solve this problem, it will be the first successful *new* approach in 15 years.. We will have much more to share about this new platform soon. In the meantime, if you’re interested in getting a peek - or even better if you have application or data integration tasks that you would like some help with - please reach out because we want to help. #genai #startups #backinthegarage

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In my latest episode of The Expertise Economy Podcast, Gina Bianchini, CEO of Mighty Networks, dropped some serious insight on what’s *really* been driving growth in Silicon Valley for the last 25 years. It’s not about content. It’s not even about building an audience. The real asset? Network effects. A network effect happens when you bring people together in a community, and with every new member who joins and contributes, the community becomes more valuable for everyone involved. This creates something incredibly sticky and self-sustaining—the gold standard for building lasting value in today’s digital world. If you’re a creator, entrepreneur, or community builder, this is a game-changing concept you can’t afford to ignore. Tune in to this episode to learn how you can harness the power of network effects to build stronger, more engaged communities 🎧 #NetworkEffects #CommunityBuilding #Entrepreneurship #MightyNetworks #DigitalCommunities #Podcast

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Lessons from Palantir alums about building a tech company by Sanjay Saraf, is an awesome read! I love what he had to say about winning and success: * success was the only goal * we would do anything to win The only section I'd offer a friendly critique of is "deals started at the top". That wasn't my experience. Because half our engineers were forward deployed (traveling, spending time at customer sites, getting important things done WITH our customers) we had a ton of exposure to new problems and customers that would often turn into new deals. For example: 1) Once on a flight to Iraq, via Kuwait, I just happened to be seated (in coach) next to a three star general running a massive defense org. I told him what I was up to in Iraq and showed him a few things on my laptop. He was interested and invited me to present to him and his staff at HQ when my work in Iraq was done. We did that and it turned into a new deployment (customer). 2) I spent three months in Kandahar in 2010 working with an Army brigade. They were part of an "intelligence fusion center" with partner agencies and allied nations that they worked with. Naturally, many heard about the good work we were doing and paid a visit to our tent to see what the fuss was about. Several became customers. Nobody asked me to do these things. I remember CEO Alex Karp telling us once, "we hire smart people so we don't have to tell them what to do". It was true, and the personal agency at Palantir was incredible — which probably leads to these quite varied experiences and reflections. Hobbits, keep the hits coming, I'm loving all this content! https://lnkd.in/g78tvueB

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It’s exciting to witness how the hyperscalers are enabling a hyper-collaborative marketplace ecosystem that allows the multiplication of revenue opportunities. I see this happening in two ways 1️⃣ ISVs are being encouraged by hyperscalers to build with interoperability in mind 🔧 All three #hyperscalers have, over the course of the last few years, incrementally deepened their partnerships with on-page "competitors" like Salesforce and Snowflake to break data silos and leverage #GenAI on more comprehensive data sets. AWS, GCP and Azure are not just strengthening their own associations, but they are also actively encouraging collaboration between these ISVs to drive interoperability, aimed at the creation of joint solutions that significantly expand the universe of customers who can benefit. Snowflake’s most recent Polaris Catalog launch also reaffirms its commitment to interoperability with a wider library of industry players (beyond the three clouds) including hyperscaler partners like Salesforce and Confluent. That brings me to point 2…. 2️⃣ Hyperscalers are actively inviting the participation of channel partners to piece complementary solutions together 🤝 As ISVs focus on creating compatible offerings with each other, and with hyperscaler services, buyers have the opportunity to find end-to-end solutions for specific use cases right from the marketplace catalog. To do so, they’re relying on partners to identify, connect and manage these increasingly complex technologies. This presents a tremendous opportunity for channel partners to add value to these marketplace-led deals by helping piece solutions together into a comprehensive whole. Hyperscalers are also cognizant that the “channel is the glue between them and the lower enterprise, midmarket and SMB,” as I’ve hear my friend and founder of Ultimate Partner Vince Menzione put it, and are actively developing strategies to incorporate channels into marketplace deal workflows. There’s a clear signal to shift the perception of marketplaces from being potential threats to traditional partnership associations, to what they really are – growth opportunities. Channel partners who recognize this sooner rather than later, have biggest opportunity to capture net new business.

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What a pleasure it was to have Aaron Smith, Chief Product Officer at Pattern®, join me in this latest episode of Product Thinking! 💫 Aaron shared so many insightful lessons from his impressive product career, including his time at Amazon, Grubhub, and Nordstrom. Some highlights from our conversation: ► Aaron's learnings from Amazon's customer obsession, data-driven decision making, and flexible, autonomous planning approach. He emphasized the importance of being results-focused rather than overly committed to one plan. ► The cultural adaptation challenges ex-Amazonians face when joining other companies. Aaron stresses the need for humility - it's about finding the best of both cultures, not just trying to replicate Amazon. ► Aaron's "pain-point alchemy" leadership principle - truly understanding customer needs, even when they're not articulated, to uncover innovative solutions. ► Fostering a culture of innovation through consistency and giving employees the chance to share their best ideas, just like Amazon's "operational planning" process. Product leaders can learn so much from Aaron's wealth of experience at some of the world's top customer-centric companies. If you're a product leader looking to level up your skills, you won't want to miss this conversation! 🎙️ How do you plan to implement customer-centric strategies in your product leadership role? I’d love to hear your insights! Listen now: https://lnkd.in/esYQdddE #ProductThinking #ProductLeadership #CustomerCentricity #InnovationInsights

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What does bold leadership look like in 2024? In this latest Product Thinking episode, I sit down with Margaret (MJ) Jastrebski, the SVP of Product at Tegus. We dive into the key strategies for uniting teams, breaking down silos, and leading with transparency. Margaret knows the investor research space inside and out from her work at Tegus, a platform that consolidates key company intelligence to help investors make smarter bets. With experience spanning product, sales, and marketing at companies like Stylitics and TXI, Margaret brought a unique 360-degree view. We discussed: ►Uniting fragmented teams behind one vision ►Breaking down silos between product, marketing, sales, etc. ►Leading with transparency to build trust and alignment Margaret emphasized the need for product leaders to externalize their decision-making process. By communicating rationale openly, you empower teams to truly understand and even constructively challenge your calls. Whether you're an up-and-comer or a seasoned pro, you'll want to hear Margaret's insights on casting a clear vision, tearing down organizational barriers, and inspiring teams to achieve big outcomes. What strategies have you found effective for aligning teams and leading with transparency? Share your insights below! Listen Now: https://lnkd.in/gAdV7k56 #ProductLeadership #Alignment #Transparency #BusinessStrategy

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I’m less enamored with Lean Startups than I was 16 years ago. I think it was a good philosophy when people were first starting to take advantage of the plunging costs of building software due to open source and the cloud. The idea of product-market fit is the most recognized concept to come out of the Lean Startup movement. Everyone wants to achieve product-market fit even if most people cannot define it.  I guess you know it when you see it... Every startup is in a rush to say they have product-market fit because that is what is demanded of them. Saying you haven’t achieved PMF is like broadcasting you’re incompetent. But the opposite of product-market fit is not failure or incompetence. You could be researching, learning and iterating (or pivoting). For early stage investors especially, those activities sound like they would build a lot of future value. As Steve Blank (quoting Tolkein) says, “not all those who wander are lost.” To build better companies, especially outside of software (eg deeptech) we need to value the wandering. It has to be wandering for a purpose. The timing of when a startup finishes wandering might not neatly line up with how we name funding rounds. True innovation usually resists standardized frameworks. Read my full post, Sceptic Mode Part II: https://lnkd.in/g2HqneVV

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🧠🧠🧠 Let's not forget that daily model updates does not mean marketers need to leverage their MMM every single day. It means that our data is ready when YOU need it, not when we feel like running the model. Does that cost more for us? Sure it does. But maybe doing things just a bit differently is what our industry needs. Reach out if you have questions 🤙🏼

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We're launching the inaugural edition of Beyond Benchmarks, a deep dive into the metrics and trends observed across the early-stage enterprise cloud market. This is the first look at some of the business data around GenAI in SaaS. Some initial observations: 1) 60% of SaaS companies have already integrated GenAI into their offerings (60% of these as part of their current product and 40% as a new product), and an additional 20% are planning to do so this year. Almost half aren't monetizing these features. Those that are are primarily experimenting with both usage-based and flat fee pricing models. 2) Most companies are utilizing OpenAI as their primary LLM, but many are experimenting with multiple models - and we are noticing an early trend towards intelligently routing GenAI inference requests to different models based on cost, performance, and security. 3) Though we are in the initial innings of GenAI, we are seeing some positive signals - companies that implemented GenAI had 7% higher NDR than those that did not. Still early days, but we'll be doing this benchmarking report regularly to track and share how things progress in this new era. Link to report in comments.

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Every VC firm has a "Top AI Companies List", but let's be real...there is only one list that matters and I'm glad Glean is on it :). In all seriousness, stuff like this is just noise. What's happening in AI right now is unprecedented. This is a software market that is barely two years old and is already producing billions in revenue and delivering significant value to customers. This is incredible and the market is growing at an unprecedented rate. Smart investors know that there will be multiple winners and the AI market will not be winner takes all. Nothing but respect to the OpenAI team and congrats to them on a monster fundraise. We are downstream consumers of their models (and many others) and are beneficiaries of all the groundbreaking developments coming out of their AI research lab. This is a great thing for AI progress and we are extremely optimistic for the future. https://lnkd.in/gqequrbr

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