I first heard of Kutumb when their monster Series A was announced sometime in June’21 (about two years ago). Consumer social apps weren’t our strong suit then at Blume, and we hadn’t tracked the team actively, even though an ex-colleague had shared this as a potential opportunity with us. In recent times, I started hearing about Abhishek Kejriwal, the cofounder and CEO of Kutumb, from multiple sources, as someone with …
Startups
PMF Convo #10 – Prukalpa Sankar, Atlan
Prukalpa was one of the first founders I thought of speaking to, when I conceived this series of talks. She was one of the few founders who had tweeted about PMF (Product Market Fit) and her take on it. I had also heard her speak on the topic, on an audio talk where we were fellow panelists. Nonetheless I hesitated, for I wanted to be better prepared for our conversation. …
Podcast Notes + Highlights: Bessemer’s Jeremy Levine, Kent Bennett and Brian Feinstein, on Colossus w Patrick O’Shaugnessy
Link to podcast + transcript | 30th April 2023
Sajith: Bessemer Venture Partners is one of the OGs of the venture industry. Lots here to learn for a venture nerd like me, from this podcast where Patrick O’Shaughnessy hosts three of the senior partners at Bessemer including the legendary Jerermy Levine. I got to learn a lot about how they work together and the Bessemer OS. What i found particularly …
Podcast Notes + Highlights: Fidji Simo, Instacart on Colossus w Patrick O’Shaughnessy
Link to podcast + transcript. 9 May 2023. All words by Fidji Simo unless specified otherwise.
Sajith: Enjoyed this a fair bit. Fidji is a super-operator who ran the Facebook app and now is CEO at Instacart. Very curious hire coming from a digital to a largely physical business, but certainly Instacart having a large and fast-growing ad busines helped.
The podcast is interesting in that it gives you …
Podcast Notes & Highlights: Pete Kazanjy, Atrium, and author of Founding Sales, on the Lenny Rachitsky podcast
Link to Podcast. Link to Transcript. 15 December 2022. Unless specified, all words are by Pete Kazanjy.
Sajith: Relevant for founders of early stage SaaS / B2B companies as well as sales managers or leaders. Pete Kazanjy is well-known for his book Founding Sales which recommends that in early-stage companies, the founder(s) should take a lead in selling because at this stage, what you are looking for is …
What is PMF? Learnings from 10 Interviews.
I have been interviewing founders, operators, and investors on their perspectives on product-market fit (PMF hereafter) over the past few months, as part of research for the book I am writing on this topic. I thought it would be a good idea to take stock of the first ten interviews and review the definitions of PMF that have emerged. Thus, this essay where I tease out common strands and themes …
PMF Convo #9 – Konark Singhal, Mountblue, ex-Mockbank
Konark Singhal cofounded MockBank, an edtech co that provided test prep for government exams. The startup saw some initial traction and were able to raise a small preseed round, but struggled to grow and scale. Eventually, the co was acquired by a well-funded competitor, and Konark exited MockBank to found and run Mountblue, a profitable bootstrapped coding bootcamp play. In our chat, Konark talks about his definition of PMF (effortless …
PMF Convo #8 – Prashant Singh, Jar
Prashant Singh is one of the most original thinkers I know in the Indian startup ecosystem. An ideal career for him would have been writing fiction, but he is, disappointingly for fiction readers, delightfully for us in the startup world, now golden handcuffed to product management! I think of him as a Product Manager’s Product Manager; conversations with him always lead to interesting insights and perspectives, a different take on …
Podcast Highlights: Glen Coates, Product @ Shopify, on 20VC
Link to podcast. Link to transcript, which I organised as 20VC didn’t publish one.
8th March 2023.
Sajith: really good podcast that is relevant for anyone in the tech world, but PMs and anyone with a strategic bent of mind will really dig it. Glen comes across as some one who can do both blue-sky thinking / strategy and building / coding really well. He is thus able to …
Podcast Highlights: Zach Lawryk, Sales @ Rippling, on 20VC
Link to podcast. Link to transcript which I organised as 20VC didn’t have a transcript.
20th February 2023.
Sajith: In this podcast Harry and Zach cover the field of solutions engineering, including, the role of a solutions engineer, how s/he dovetails with the overall sales teams, how to hire and comp them, and so on. Zach leads the solutions consulting team at Rippling. Previously he has worked in similar …