Startup Field Guide by Unusual Ventures: The Product Market Fit Podcast
Sandhya Hegde, Unusual Ventures
Recent Episodes
Perplexity is an AI-powered search engine that answers user questions. Founded in 2022 and valued at over $1B, Perplexity recently crossed 10M monthly active users and is growing fast.
In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Denis Yarats, co-founder and CTO of Perplexity.
Join us as we discuss:
00:00 Reactions to Perplexity’s prototype in 2022
1:33 How Arvind and Denis started working together
4:04 Building a text-to-SQL tool initially
6:34 Launch of ChatGPT and pivot to general search
9:46 Focusing on user data, and not on the foundation model
14:43 Perplexity’s early adopters
16:42 Early customer feedback
18:44 Perplexity’s core technical competencies
22:44 Subscription pricing and future gross margins
25:12 Perplexity’s hardware partnerships
29:49 Future product vision
32:50 Advice for founders in the AI space
Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at [email protected].
Denis Yarats is the CTO and co-founder of Perplexity.
Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
Everlaw is a legal tech company started in 2011 that helps law firms and corporations run what’s called “e-discovery”— essentially a process of investigating often massive piles of documents to find the key pieces of evidence, the smoking gun, and then to construct a narrative from it. Last valued at over $2B, Everlaw has over 1,000 customers over the world.
In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with AJ Shankar, CEO and founder of Everlaw.
Join us as we discuss:
00:00: The vision for Everlaw
0:36 Introduction to Everlaw
1:45 AJ Shankar's Journey to Starting Everlaw
4:43 The Vision and Early Years of Everlaw
6:41 Challenges in Fundraising and Building the Early Team
9:56 Understanding Customer Needs and Building Authenticity
11:38 Product Development and Technical Skills
16:22 Impact of Everlaw on the Legal Industry
20:36 Fundraising Challenges and Success
23:59 Adoption of Generative AI and its Implications
29:30 The Future of Everlaw and the Legal Industry
35:51 AJ Shankar's Evolution as a Founder and CEO
Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at [email protected].
AJ Shankar is the CEO and founder of Everlaw.
Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
Deepgram is a voice AI company that has built an incredible reputation in the market for the quality of its speech recognition. Last valued at over $250M, Deepgram has over 500 customers, including NASA, Spotify, and Twilio.
In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Scott Stephenson, CEO and co-founder of Deepgram.
Join us as we discuss:
00:00 Preview: Fully contextualized speech-to-speech is the future
01:07 Scott's background in particle physics and starting Deepgram
7:18 Scott's first years as a founder
13:17 How the Deepgram team gathered early customer feedback
17:38 Early use cases and product feedback
22:58 How conversational AI will impact the customer support industry
26:54 Specialized hardware in the AI Industry
30:34 How additional hardware specialization will impact Deepgram
32:14 Deepgram's product vision
36:46 Advice for Founders starting an AI company
Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at [email protected].
Scott Stephenson is the CEO and co-founder of Deepgram.
Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
Material Security is an email security company that protects an organization's users and data particularly across Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. Last valued at $1.1B, Material has over 100 enterprise customers, including Doordash, Lyft, and Fox.
In this episode, Sandhya Hegde and Wei Lien Dang chat with Abhishek Agrawal, CEO and co-founder of Material Security.
Join us as we discuss:
00:00 Preview: Seeking validation for a B2B product
1:36 Founding Material Security
5:31 Identifying the Gap in Existing Solutions
10:00 Validating the Thesis
12:41 Product Vision and Initial MVP
19:56 Go-to-Market Strategy for the First Million in ARR
25:40 Product Vision and Impact of AI
31:50 Advice for Founders Starting Companies in 2024
Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at [email protected].
Wei Lien Dang is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures and leads investments in infrastructure software, security, and developer tool. Wei was a co-founder of Stackrox, a cloud-native security company prior to its acquisition by Red Hat. He can be reached at [email protected]
Abhishek Agrawal is the co-founder and CEO of Material Security
Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
Hightouch is a composable customer data platform. It helps companies collect and sync user data into ad platforms, CRMs, email tools etc. Last valued at over $600M, Hightouch has over 600 customers, including the NBA, Spotify, Plaid, Calendly, and more.
In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Kashish Gupta, co-CEO and co-founder of Hightouch.
Join us as we discuss:
00:00 Switching personas to find product-market fit
1:44 Evolution of the Data Integration Space
2:42 The Concept of Reverse ETL
5:41 The Origin Story of Hightouch
8:01 Exploring Different Business Ideas
12:06 Early Design Partners and Product Strategy
14:46 Transition from Founder Selling to Hiring Sales Team
16:48 Go-to-Market Motion and Marketing Strategy
18:39 Hightouch's Product Vision and Future Direction
22:55 Challenges in the Market and Building User Certainty
27:01 Co-CEO Arrangement and Founder Team Dynamic
31:04 Advice for Aspiring Founders in 2024
Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at [email protected] and
Kashish Gupta is the co-CEO and co-founder of Hightouch
Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.