On this special segment of The Full Ratchet, the following Investors are featured:
- Medha Agarwal of Defy
- Jim Tananbaum of Foresite Capital
- David Cohen of Techstars
We asked guests to discuss the most visionary founder that they’ve worked with and what makes them so special.
The host of The Full Ratchet is Nick Moran of New Stack Ventures, a venture capital firm committed to investing in founders outside of the Bay Area.
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Transcribed with AI:
0:19
Welcome back to TFR on today’s special segment, we ask guests to discuss the most visionary founder that they’ve worked with and what makes them so special. Here’s the segment called visionary founders.
0:36
On today’s special segment, we have maytha Agarwal of defy Can you talk about an exceptional founder you’ve worked with in the specific thing they do that’s unique?
0:46
Yeah, so I’m working with a founder right now who does an incredible job of meeting potential customers where they’re at in terms of what their business needs are and what they what could be improved with software and AI the conversation we were having earlier today. I think it’s more incumbent on founders and working specific markets than ever before to really have this consultative sale and really help their customers envision what life could be like after if they were to adopt this software, which which can be really hard to do, and so I think this founder is really, really incredible in really understanding and getting out of their customers what their business needs are, conveying the potential for AI and how it can solve their problems, while diffusing what a traditionally conservative buyer would be concerned about in terms of losing control or eliminating jobs, or whatever it is, they’re really able to alleviate that fear and help help them understand that it’s not about any of those things. It’s about being doing your job better, doing it more accurately, and being able to do more instead of having to say no to a lot because you just don’t have the bandwidth. So I think he does an incredible job of that. We haven’t announced the investment yet, so I won’t name names, but excited to share it with you. When we do
2:13
on today’s special segment, we have Jim Tannenbaum of foresight capital tell us about an exceptional founder you’ve worked with in the specific thing they do that’s unique.
2:23
Okay, I’m going to, I’m going to pull out somebody that’s in a company right now that’s not getting any love. So perfect. So Martin babbler is running a Loomis, and he is a incredible steady hand. His superpower is steadiness, and that company has had every set of bad circumstances that have come as a result of the environment that we’re in. In other words, they have a really interesting product offering. They’re well managed, they’re well organized, and they just went into the absolute worst financing environment for the type of, you know, sort of situation they have, which is a large capital and long, you know, takes data a while to read out. And we’re in a world where, you know, with interest rates, people have no patience for very, very long, you know, data reads, And Martin through the last, three years has raised probably close to a billion dollars of capital. It’s not been the cheapest capital. It’s it’s been expensive capital, but he’s gotten the job done in very, very steady way, including a merger, which he pulled off in the beginning of this year with a with a public shell that that had another product, but had a lot of cash, and he was able to acquire the company at a substantial premium, you know, to where his company was was trading, because he was able to convince, you know, majority of the shareholders that the product, the management team, the setup, even though it was, you know, couple years out, or, you know, year and a half out, or whatever, you know, was, was, you know, really superb, and, you know, and in this environment Where there’s, you know, massive shareholder pressures. And they had activists that were involved in cheese, you know, every, every, everything you could imagine, that got thrown at them. He got the job done and got the company merged into cash, you know, into their pipeline and and now, you know, they’ll be able to play out fully, you know, the products that they have, and we think they have an exciting, you know, sort of product pipeline, but you know, the data will speak for itself as it starts to turn over and next year. So yeah, he’s, he’s my he’s my hero right now,
4:52
you mentioned his superpowers being a steady hand deep, you know, as you think about the winners, do are there common superpowers? Hours that you see frequently across winning founders or our superpowers, highly
5:06
focused, focus, focus and belief, you know and you know. And good and great entrepreneurs aren’t stubborn, you know. They have focus, they have belief, but they’re data driven. Love it perfect.
5:29
On today’s special segment, we have David Cohen of TechStars tell us about a founder you’ve worked with in a specific thing that they do that’s unique to anyone. Anyone else.
5:40
Okay, just bumped into Isaac Saldana, who was one of three founders of a company called SendGrid. I was on that board, so I had, you know, pretty deep insight into how he operated. And I think what he always did that was really unique. And this is a billion dollar, you know, IPO. He really focused a lot on, you know, values in a way that was over and above what most people do. I mean, it was, you know, anybody who was around the company knew the values of the company. They everything the company did was related to the values of the company. They used to call it the 4h philosophy, I think it was happy, healthy, hungry and humble. And even when they would bring in Jim Franklin, who was a Tech Stars mentor, to be the CEO in the mid stage. You know, Jim adopted and lived those same values, and the company was just always those things, right? They were doing things that were healthy together. They were always humble about what they were doing. So it was just, it was very, very real and tangible. And then ultimately, Sameer dalachia came in, who’s now Bessemer. He was the CEO that took that company public. And, you know, I think they paid so much attention to this that Samir wanted one more, right? He wanted, I can’t remember what he called it, but maybe it was high expectations another H, you know, he also wanted to really, you know, achieve a lot. And, you know, this was like a lot of discussion about whether, you know, the these values would be lived by each of these successor CEOs and board members had to really, you know, lean into them and support them. And so he just put real weight on that. And I think it allowed him to build a culture that was very, very strong over time, and a team that was very cohesive. And so I always think back, you know, to how Isaac did that as a great example. You Brenna,
7:43
that will conclude this installment of investor stories. If you’re enjoying the program and would like to see it continue, take a moment and leave a five star review in iTunes. Okay, that will wrap things up for today until next time over. Prepare, choose carefully and invest confidently. Thanks for joining me.
