Gururaj Pandurangi’s Post

#BuildingInPublic 20: VCs advice founders to focus and build a single product to $10M ARR. However, more and more founders these days advise on multiple products as early as possible. Met with Girish Mathrubootham today and his advise was... Be a Multi-product company. Happy to say.. Tick, ThriveStack is a Multi-product company from get go! Of course his second advise was, Win and retain Customers.. We have lot to work on there 😊

⭐️ There is 1 reason that Pre-PMF founders struggle to report progress to investors: there are no *true* metrics to tell you if you've hit PMF. But I solved this with the NFX Pre-PMF Founder Framework. Every quarter for almost 2 years I would go to our seed investor & board member James Currier and feel like a failure. We hadn't figured it out. We were on our way but weren't sure whether we were making progress. Some revenue here. Some happy customers there. Unclear. It hurt because my whole life I was used to winning if I just worked hard enough. But startups aren't like that. So James gave me the greatest gift 🎁 a first time founder can get; a rubrik for how to measure myself. This rubik, I'll call it the NFX Framework for Pre-PMF Founders, allows me to grade my cofounders and myself on 11 Key Factors. Each Factor is key because it makes up the various components and focuses that founders can take when they're in search of PMF. Each quarter you re stackrank the factors on their priority to you and you can see whether or not you're getting closer. It's not a solution to PMF but is a wonderful orientation. It leads to the kinds of conversations that can only happen heart to heart between Investor & Founder. The 11 Factors are: ↳ Product-M-Fit Progress* ↳ Revenue/User Growth ↳ Product excellence ↳ Marketing/language ↳ Team Quality ↳ Coachability ↳ Speed ↳ Strategic Customer/Partner Acquisition ↳ Don't overspend ↳ Team Size ↳ Fundraising *I understand you shouldn't put the term in the definition haha but this one is a qualitative guess that you share For each Factor you rate yourself high/medium/low. Here's a screenshot from my board deck 3 quarters ago where Warmly, progressed less towards PMF than the quarter before. Admitting this to my board members led to the tough, honest and useful conversations that lead us to closer to PMF every quarter. ♻️ Repost this if you think it'll be useful to the founders in your network Grading: ↳ P1 = 4 points, P2 = 3 points, P3 = 2 points, P4 = 1 point ↳ High = Multiply by 3, Medium = Multiply by 2, Low = Multiply by 1 #saas #founder #productmarketfit #boarddeck #startup

"If I step back and answer your question I think which was about how do they pitch differently does a man versus a woman pitch differently I would say that frequently a male entrepreneur fits into the category that's known as "fake it until you make it." I don't know if you've heard that term before but it's it's really about a lot of self-confidence about the ability to bluff a little bit to be a little bit have a little bit of hubris about their capabilities and women tend in general-I don't want to overly generalize here- but women more generally are more realistic and more fact-based and so they don't try to claim something they haven't already achieved whereas a male might think I know I can do that so I'm going to claim that I'm gonna grab that territory and call it mine and a woman might say I need to go prove it first and then I'll be willing to talk about it."  Love your insights, Cindy! Cindy Padnos Women entrepreneurs, take note! Not that you should bluff - but be confident in your abilities. #innovation #entrepreneurship

Next in the spotlight for our #FoundersPlaybook is Scott Law, who spoke to us about his experiences as Head of Ventures at Quadri Ventures where he leads post-investment growth for B2B SaaS companies built on AWS.   Scott offered a wealth of practical insights:   🔑  Founders play a crucial role in investment decisions - their experience, background, and personal qualities are key factors 📣 For B2B SaaS startups, establishing credibility through PR and marketing is fundamental for attracting enterprise customers ⏳ Relationship building is essential in the pre-investment phase, with VCs nurturing potential deals 6-12 months in advance 🎯 When pitching, demonstrate not just financial projections, but also a comprehensive go-to-market strategy   Check out Scott's full spotlight Q&A here: https://lnkd.in/gBfkxZy9. #MeetTheExpert #ExpertInsights #IndustryInsights #FoundersPlaybook #PitchDeck

For any founders in my network, Max is an awesome follow and provides a really transparent look at Warmly along with useful info like this framework!

VCs should be doing more commercial DD. Doing this can impact the high failure rate in SaaS. I speak to Founders every week that have raised a seed round 6-12 months ago and it’s clear that the odds are stacked against them. The Founders sales ability isn’t strong enough. The TAM is not big enough. The pipeline isn’t a real pipeline. The GTM motion isn’t defined. Knowing these at DD stage and having a plan to improve on those findings is key. Otherwise the Founder is left with an unrealistic way to achieve the more aggressive targets, and this only becomes compounded with the greater VC pressure, and it can easily become a quick fire way to burn cash and reduce runway. Founders - What commercial DD would you like from VCs? VCs - What can be done to improve commercial DD? #vc #founders

What do repeat #founders do differently from first-time founders? Audrey Miller of Tapestry VC did a presentation about that at SaaStr Europa, and it was fascinating. These are the top 7 mistakes founders don't make a second time: 1. Chase glory metrics. There are so many metrics that make you feel good about the way your business is growing. Repeat founders focus on data that moves the business rather than things like the number of followers, being on a CB Insights list, or named to 30 Under 30. 2. They don't fish in small ponds. It's as hard to build a small business as a big one, so they look for a large TAM. 3. They don't overbuild. They know that sales come from being customer-obsessed, and they focus on building the essential features customers need. 4. They don't waste time. If they need to fire they fire early. They know that a great hire will wow you in the first two weeks. 5. They don't ignore business models. They pay attention to unit economics and don't chase hype. 6. They don't ignore stakeholders. They are hyper-responsive to investors, sharing monthly or quarterly updates openly and on time. 7. They don't raise just because they can. They start conversations months before they are ready to raise, and they don't do it until they are ready to spend 5-10 years on it and have validated the product. What do you think? What else do repeat founders do differently?

Founders everywhere here is Patric Hellermann and Shubhankar Bhattacharya seminal podcast on founders’ traits and behaviours. As a customer and an investor this makes a lot of sense.

Ever wondered how startup founders tackle tough investor questions? Just Herbs' Arush Chopra has a go-to strategy, while Sauce.vc's Manu Chandra takes a hilariously unconventional approach. Dive into this video for a blend of wit, wisdom, and laugh-out-loud moments! Wanna watch the full conversation? Tap the link (🔗) shared in the comments! Simpl D2C Simplified #Founders #Investors #D2C #D2CSimplified

Got this email from a Top 3 VC firm yesterday (based on AUM). I get one of these every few weeks. I take the calls to 1) build relationships for if/when we raise another round 2) for biz dev - and get them to refer portcos as customers. When you’re profitable, you maintain leverage. Because you can basically operate indefinitely. My process is build an mvp -> acquire customers -> get feedback -> add features -> get more customers -> get more feedback -> repeat over and over again. What I tend to see is founders building for perfection, let ego get in the way of acquiring customers, skip the feedback process and then try and raise capital 🤦♂️ The bottom line is shit will never be perfect, you will get your feelings hurt, you will piss some people off. If things feel safe or comfortable, you aren’t growing. Period.