Best Mistral.vc Podcasts (2024)

1
This founder was hours from hiring a VP Product—turns out, he was a total fraud. Here’s what he learned. 10:48

1h ago10:48

10:48

It's the first time I see a candidate BS his way through interviews with multiple people, impress each one of them, and ultimately end up being a complete fraud. But the biggest learning wasn't that you should watch out for fraud-- it was that you shouldn't trust interviews nearly as much as you'd think. While fake candidates are rare, candidates w…

1
He quit his cozy Google job & founded not 1 but 2 unicorns— then grew from $1M to $12M ARR in 2 years. | Ashutosh Garg, Founder of Eightfold AI 36:22

3d ago36:22

36:22

Ashutosh is one of those rare founders who founded not just one, but two unicorns. He worked at Google for 4 years, left and started Bloomreach, which was last valued at $2.2B. Halfway through that journey, he left to do it all over again. He started Eightfold AI which is the one we're talking about today. In 2021, he raised $220M from Softbank at …

1
Q2 Early-Stage Venture Report w/ Carta’s Head of Insights: Valuations, Round Sizes, Graduation Rates & more. | Peter Walker, Head of Insights at Carta 40:39

1d ago40:39

40:39

Carta is the backbone of most venture-backed startups. They have access to specific information about every single round, not just what's reported in TechCrunch. Today, Peter Walker, Carta's Head of Insights joins us to share the findings from Carta's Q2 reports. We go deep into data from pre-seed, seed and Series A rounds. We cover median valuatio…

1
He built in stealth with 1 customer for a year—then grew to 1M paid users across 60,000 locations. | Sanish Mondkar, Founder of Legion 42:21

1d ago42:21

42:21

Last quarter, Sanish raised a $50M Series D. His company has raised over $130M. They have enterprise customers across 14 countries including Dollar General, Aldo, and CircleK. It all started because Sanish was working out of coffee shops. He wasn't looking for a startup idea. But after a few casual conversations with employees, he noticed several p…

1
Sean Ellis led growth at Dropbox—& invented growth hacking. Here's his step-by-step growth guide. | Sean Ellis, creator of the PMF test & best-selling author of Hacking Growth. 47:07

12d ago47:07

47:07

Sean Ellis created THE test for PMF. He led growth teams at Dropbox, Eventbrite and LogMeIn, which sold for $4.3B. He coined the term Growth Hacking and wrote the best-selling book Hacking Growth. Today we go deep and tactical with him. He takes us through how to use the Sean Ellis test to perfectly measure and understand product market fit. He tak…

1
He sold AI robots to Walmart & raised $150M. His #1 advice to founders? "Trust your gut." | Daniel Theobald, Founder of Vecna Robotics 38:04

17d ago38:04

38:04

Daniel's been building robots for 20 years. He's sold 100s of AI robots-as-a-service to Walmart, FedEx, & DHL amongst others. Last month, he raised a $40M round. 6 years ago, he realized why robots weren't getting massively adopted. Builders like him were trying to build perfect robots that always worked. But every situation has edge cases. What if…

1
VCs give a lot of advice— & a lot of it sucks. Be careful who you listen to. 7:32

5d ago7:32

7:32

Advice is free—actioning bad advice isn't. Early-stage founders are bombarded with advice. A lot of it from investors who have never operated a business, never ran marketing, never led sales. And yet, many founders take VCs' advice as sacrosanct. And many VCs feel like they can and should opine on everything. If many people treat you like an expert…

1
He took 3 years to make his 1st sale—then grew 1000x to $10M ARR 3 years later. | Alex Hoff, Founder of Auvik 46:34

8d ago46:34

46:34

Alex got the co-founder of a public company to join him and raised $6M out of the gate—but it took him 3 years to make his first sale. But after he shifted from selling to SMBs to selling to MSPs (Managed Service Providers i.e., outsourced IT), things took off: April 2015 - $1K MRR August 2015 - $10K MRR June 2016 - $100K MRR Nov 2018 - $1M MRR ($1…

1
If you wake up with your heart pounding out of your chest— do this. 12:42

12d ago12:42

12:42

When an employee unexpectedly quits, an investor backs out, or a big customer churns— fear of failure takes over. When you close a new round, land a big customer, or make a big hire— you feel pure excitement. Every founder is on a fear-excitement spectrum. There's no way to prevent yourself from feeling the two extremes. But I've seen great founder…

1
He refused to quit his job until $1M ARR—then grew to $5M ARR & closed a $25M Series A. | Pierce Ujjainwalla, Founder of Knak 43:31

15d ago43:31

43:31

Pierce launched a consulting business that grew to millions in revenue and dozens of employees. But he noticed his customers kept asking for the same solution. So he launched Knak, an email marketing and landing page builder that integrates to Marketo. Unlike most founders, he didn’t go all-in. He kept working on his consulting business full-time u…

1
99% of founders SUCK at storytelling. Here's the pro who taught Slack & Salesforce how to do it. | Matthew Dicks, professional storyteller & bestselling author of Storyworthy. 1:17:39

19d ago1:17:39

1:17:39

There is no better storyteller in the world than Matthew Dicks. He tells stories for a living. He gets paid by the world's biggest brands to create stories for them. He's won Moth StorySLAM (a storytelling competition in NYC) a record 59 times. Every founder knows storytelling is a critical skill. But 99% of founders I meet are terrible storyteller…

1
In 2019, he went all-in on AI, grew to $3M ARR in 2 years—then to $85M ARR in 5. | Shubham Mishra, Founder of Pixis 39:26

22d ago39:26

39:26

5 years ago, Shubham had just graduated college and had no network. He bootstrapped to $3M in ARR, then raised $200M & grew to $85M ARR. But he started trying to sell AI for marketing to enterprises with no network. So for 2 months, he'd go to the lobby of a bank and sit there for an hour. He'd wait for the CMO to walk by, just so he could say hi. …

1
How Wiz grew to $500M ARR in 4 years—& could exit to Google for $23B (largest VC-backed exit in history) 11:11

26d ago11:11

11:11

Google is in talks to buy cybersecurity startup Wiz for $23B (a 40x revenue multiple). Wiz is the company that in 2021 announced it grew from $0 to $100M ARR in just 18 months. How did this cybersecurity company grow so fast in a crowded space? How does it get a 40x revenue multiple when FAANG stocks trade at 5-15x? Who are the exceptional founders…

1
He built a farming robot that shoots weeds with lasers— then closed $10M in pre-sales before shipping a single one. | Paul Mikesell, Founder of Carbon Robotics. 58:20

29d ago58:20

58:20

Paul built a startup that was acquired for $2.2B. He worked on AI at Uber and Oculus. But when a farmer told him about some of the problems he was facing, he quit and went all-in on farming. He built a robot that attaches to the back of tractors, uses computer vision to identify weeds and lasers to shoot and kill them. He sells each robot for $1.5M…

1
Tesla’s EV market share (finally) falls below 50%. Good news for founders— incumbents took 15 years to match 1 founder. 6:58

1M ago6:58

6:58

Elon Musk single-handedly took on the entire automotive industry. No one, including me, thought he would succeed. But he's built an $800B company. Whether sales are slowing down misses the mark: the punchline is it took well capitalized, professional automakers 15 years to catch up to a single founder. Sure, Elon Musk is special. But this goes beyo…

1
YC founder raises $3.5M, keeps team to 3 people—then grows 10x to $2M ARR in 1 year. | Benjamin Encz, Founder of Ashby 34:46

1M ago34:46

34:46

Last month, Ashby raised a $30M Series C. Ashby is used by customers like Notion, Ramp and Sequoia. Benji built Ashby as an end-to-end Applicant Tracking System (ATS) that would replace several point solutions. He had to build heads down for 18 months and couldn't launch a simple MVP. Surprisingly, even though he raised $3.5M at seed, he didn't gro…

1
Pickleball grew 3x in 4 years to 14M players. Not by competing with tennis— but by creating a new market instead. 9:01

1M ago9:01

9:01

AI startups don’t necessarily have to beat incumbents. Some will start entirely new markets instead. Like Canva to Photoshop, Shopify to Amazon or Pickleball to Tennis, many of these won’t even have to compete. They create 10x easier to use products and through that open up an entirely new space. They solve problems people didn’t even know they had…

1
He fought Al Qaeda in Iraq, turned down $250K at McKinsey—& built a $150M+ ARR unicorn. Here’s how it happened: | Blake Hall, Founder of ID.me 52:41

2M ago52:41

52:41

"I was technically homeless at the time. I was sleeping on my buddy's couch. I had declined $250,000/ year at McKinsey... I had no idea what I was doing." Now, Blake has $150M in ARR, growing 30% per year, with 80% gross margins. He's raised $400M and his startup ID.me is worth over $1B. This is the story of how pivoted for a Groupon-like model to …

1
Each Google/OpenAI update kills more startups. Here’s how to make sure you're not next. 10:33

2M ago10:33

10:33

Every startup needs to compete with incumbents. But it's different with AI. AI startups need to create websites or apps from scratch and drive traffic. Incumbents can just add AI as a feature. They have distribution built in. AI is not like previous tech revolutions. Unlike mobile, the internet, or the PC revolution, AI is not a new distribution ch…

1
1st-time founder meets 120 VCs— closes $2.7M in 5 weeks, 10x oversubscribed. Here's the step-by-step guide to close a round. | Andrew Rea, Founder of Taxwire 51:53

2M ago51:53

51:53

Andrew spoke with 120+ VCs to raise a $1.5M pre-seed round. He closed $2.7M and had demand for many millions more. He devoted 90% of his time to fundraising, but only took weeks from the first meetings to close. 99% of founders I meet do not fundraise at this level. It takes them longer to close, they have fewer choices and raise less. This is a sp…

1
Zoom hits an all-time low. Here's what AI startups can learn from the WFH hype cycle. 11:13

2M ago11:13

11:13

Zoom was THE work-from-home stock. It's down 90% from peak. The same hype that fuelled work-from-home stocks is now fuelling AI. What happened to Zoom will happen to many AI companies. AI startups today need to carefully position against foundational models and incumbents. Here's how to think through it. Why you should listen: Learn why what happen…

1
He grew to $22M ARR in 4 years—but regrets spending so much on growth. | Chris Walker, Founder of Refine Labs 45:23

3M ago45:23

45:23

Chris shares the story of how he grew Refine Labs to $22M ARR, what he did to grow so fast, and also why he regrets spending so much on growth instead of focusing on profitability. He goes exceptionally deep on sales and marketing and provides tactical advice you can steal. Chris is the founder of Refine Labs & Passetto. He's also a LinkedIn Top Vo…

1
ChatGPT just hit $3B in ARR—here’s why Sam Altman is a strategic genius. 9:42

3M ago9:42

9:42

Sam Altman is playing chess not checkers. He partnered with Microsoft. He partnered with Apple. He grew to $3B in ARR in 2 years. Hate him or love him, he's a strategic genius. You'll recognize a pattern: Sam has an idea, positions correctly, lets the bets play out, and goes all-in on what works. Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. In unde…

1
Reddit hit 1M users in 1 year. The key was listening to users—& not doing what they said. | Reddit CTO & Founding Engineer Chris Slowe 52:58

3M ago52:58

52:58

We interview Chris Slow the CTO and Founding Engineer at Reddit. Reddit is now a ~$10B company, with nearly $1B in revenue. Their 1B+ monthly active users are so powerful they can move markets. This is the story of how it all began. On this episode, we interview Chris Slowe, Reddit's current CTO and Founding Engineer. Chris was in YC's first-ever b…

1
She quit her job without a startup idea. Then built a $550M startup from a bad dentist appointment. I Wardah Inam, Founder of Overjet 28:59

3M ago28:59

28:59

Wardah was a PhD graduate working at a biomedical imaging startup. But all it took was two different dentists giving her two totally different diagnoses for her to quit her full-time job. She was unemployed with no idea what to build. All she knew was that something was broken—and she had to fix it. Her startup Overjet is now the #1 dental AI platf…

1
Ex-Squarespace CEO on how to sell to SMBs, build tight feedback loops, & stay close to customers even after raising $200M+ | Dane Atkinson, Founder of Odeko 43:31

3M ago43:31

43:31

Dane was the CEO of Squarespace from 2007 to 2011. He grew the company from ~$2M in revenue to ~$15M. He's a multi-time founder with multiple exits. His current startup, Odeko, raised $227M. He takes us through his long journey as a founder of multiple companies and shares the key startup lessons he's learned. Why you should listen: - Why 7-day tri…

1
He built Uber for parking & exited. Then raised $100M+. Here's his formula for finding product-market fit. | Shmulik Fishman, Founder of Argyle 38:04

3M ago38:04

38:04

His first startup was a cool idea: Uber for Valet Parking. Investors loved it. But the unit economics didn't work out. So he had to pivot. He ended up selling it, but decided to do things differently the second time around. “It’s the boring stuff that makes money. Sometimes the sexy, interesting things are really great ideas, fun to use, but aren’t…

1
COVID nearly bankrupted him. Then with AI he grew from $0 to $25M ARR in 4 years. | Andrew Lockhead, Founder of Stay22 41:24

4M ago41:24

41:24

His travel startup crashed 90% overnight. Here’s how he used AI to grow past $2M/year—to $2M a month: For a while, Andrew was crushing it. Accelerator -> $750K pre-seed -> $2M ARR -> $2.5M seed round. Then COVID hit. He was selling to events like CES, SXSW, etc. Revenue dropped from $160K/month to under $10K... overnight. Investors from his seed ro…

1
He raised $11M off a deck. Here's how he launched Clumio & grew 4x to over 8-figures in ARR. | Poojan Kumar, Founder of Clumio 31:03

4M ago31:03

31:03

Poojan is a multi-time successful founder. He raised $60M for his first startup and exited. He just raised a $75M Series D at his current startup. But it wasn't always easy. - In his first startup, he had to hover beside conference booths for hours to land his first customer. - He gave his product away for free to the first several customers. - It …

1
He quit his cozy Google job & ignored lean startup advice— then grew to $3M in 1 year. | Arvind Jain, Founder of Glean 29:45

4M ago29:45

29:45

Arvind founded 2 billion-dollar startups—by doing everything lean startup tells you not to do. - He didn’t focus on launching an MVP. - He ignored early market feedback. - He didn’t charge beta users anything— for 2 years. And it worked. He went from $0 to $3M in revenue the year he launched publicly. He tripled to about $9M the year after. And tri…

1
5 months in, Snapchat had only 127 users. Here's how Evan Spiegel found product market fit w/ Jeremy Liew (Partner at Lightspeed and Seed Investor in Snapchat) 39:01

4M ago39:01

39:01

Snapchat got 0 downloads the day it launched. 5 months in, it had only 127 users. Today Snapchat is an $18B company with 400 million daily active users. Evan Spiegel noticed what even Zuck missed: daily communication is meant to be ephemeral, not recorded for all time. In this episode, we dive deep into how Snapchat went from idea to product-market…

1
He gave up on chasing unicorns. Now he earns $500K+/year from his 3-person startup. | Rand Fishkin, Founder of Moz & SparkToro 49:18

5M ago49:18

49:18

If you feel like the ‘unicorn or bust’ playbook isn’t for you, then this episode definitely will be. Rand Fishkin is a multi-time founder and published author of Lost and Founder. He founded Moz, raised $29M in VC, grew to $50M in revenue and exited for $70M. But he ultimately realized that the VC-backed life wasn’t for him. So he went on to start …

1
This solo founder bet on AI 7 years ago. Now he has 5,000 customers & $115M raised. | Dylan, Founder of Assembly AI 31:28

5M ago31:28

31:28

While Voice AI is all the rage now, it wasn't a hot sector in 2017. After Dylan graduated from YC, VCs rejected him. He couldn't raise a round. They all assumed Google would do it. So he raised what he could from angels and made it work for the next 3 years. He's now built the world's most accurate Speech AI model. He's grown to 5,000 customers and…

1
He raised $275M in the last 3 years. His 'boring' B2B startup is now a $1B unicorn. | Andrew Butt, Founder of Enable 41:42

5M ago41:42

41:42

Andrew is the founder/CEO of Enable. And he is riding a rocket ship: 2020: $17M Series A 2021: $45M Series B 2022: $94M Series C A few months ago he raised $120M at a $1B valuation. But it took him five years from the time he started Enable in 2015 until he was able to raise his first round in 2020. Andrew was running a profitable development shop …

1
Alex sold couches online before IKEA did. He grew to $40M in revenue and exited for millions. | Alex Back, Co-Founder of Apt2B 38:33

5M ago38:33

38:33

Alex started Apt2B in 2010. He sold couches online before IKEA did. It took him over 3 years to make as much money as he used to as a furniture salesperson. But it paid off. After growing the business to $6M in revenue, he sold the company. Post-acquisition he grew the company to $40M in sales. In this episode, we dive deep into what Alex did to ge…

1
My Last Startup Failed With 30 Employees… It Might've Worked if we'd Kept it to 5. 13:01

6M ago13:01

13:01

Every founder wants to build the next $1B+ company. So it’s normal to get inspired by what companies like Apple, Shopify and Microsoft do. But it’s also a huge mistake. In this episode, we look at what Shopfiy, Fullscript and Spellbook did to find product-market fit. In many ways, it’s the opposite of what they do now, as big succesful companies. B…

1
For 5 years he struggled to get traction. Then with AI he grew 12x— in 1 year | Scott Stevenson, co-founder of Spellbook 41:22

6M ago41:22

41:22

Spellbook is ChatGPT for lawyers. They've raised $30M in the last 6 months. They now have over 2,000 law firms as customers. But it wasn't a straight line-- it took Scott 6 years to get here. For the first 5 years, Scott worked on a legal tech platform called Rally. During that time, Scott along with his co-founders and their small team ran hundred…

1
Every VC Rejected Him. So He Bootstrapped From $0 to $10M in 3 years | Kyle Braatz, founder of Fullscript 37:52

6M ago37:52

37:52

Kyle Braatz is the founder of Fullscript, a $900M revenue company that started by helping health practitioners recommend supplements to their patients. It's like the Shopify for doctors, nurses and nutritionists Even though he captured 50% of the Canadian market in one year, early-stage VCs didn't see the opportunity. So he bootstrapped his way to …

1
How Shopify Found Product Market Fit w/ Aydin Senkut (Managing Partner at Felicis & Series A Investor in Shopify) 46:18

6M ago46:18

46:18

Aydin Senkut is the Founder and Managing Partner at Felicis. He invested in Shopify's Series A in 2010 at a $25M valuation. He joins us to tell the story of how Shopify found product market fit. Shopify is now a $100B company. But as Founder & CEO Tobi Lutke said, in the early days, his goal was "to build a 20-person company". Shopify is not a stor…

1
How to Raise a Round in 2024 w/ Lee Silverstone (3x Founder) 27:50

6M ago27:50

27:50

If you've been struggling to raise—you're not alone. Seed funding has been falling every quarter for the last 2 years. Rounds are smaller and take longer to raise. So we decided to record an episode to help you. Here are all the mistakes, tips and tricks we’ve seen first-hand that actually work. We touch on things like What the perfect raise looks …

1
How Shopify & DollarShaveClub got more views than the Super Bowl for under $10K 22:03

7M ago22:03

22:03

The Super Bowl is the best place to get in front of customers—if you have $10M to spend. Which means for virtually all startups, it’s 100% useless. So I decided to look into some of the best campaigns early-stage startups used to drive millions of leads. Shopify used a $100K Build A Business Competition in 2010 when it was a bootstrapped business. …

1
He Almost Went Bankrupt TWICE...Then exited for $30M. w/ Canvaspop CEO Nazim Ahmed 48:18

7M ago48:18

48:18

This isn’t a unicorn fairytale. It’s a story about what it really takes to build a company and get to an exit. Nazim takes us through how he nearly went bankrupt, took years to turn things around, and ultimately sold his business for $30M all cash. Send me a message to let me know what you think!By Mistral.vc

1
How a Viral Ad drove Millions in Revenue and $55M In Funding w/ Walnut CEO Yoav Vilner 36:48

7M ago36:48

36:48

4K likes, 365 re-shares and over 1M views, without any marketing spend. For an ad promoting your product, that sounds too good to be true-- and yet that's exactly what Yoav did. He leveraged it to get tons of press, more customers than he could manage, and raise a $15M Series A in under a year after incorporating. Here's the story of how Yoav got s…

1
Why you shouldn't chase unicorns; 3 Big VC Myths; and how to keep control of your startup 19:27

7M ago19:27

19:27

$1B startups get all the hype. But for 99% of founders, it’s the wrong goal. You’re better off building a sustainable business with consistent growth. Raising big rounds won’t make your company big and staying lean won’t make your company small. That's just VC Myth 1. Raising round after round does not equal success. That's just VC Myth 2. Just bec…

1
How to Bootstrap from 0 to Millions in Revenue w/ Ilya (CEO & Founder, Vanhack) 32:27

8M ago32:27

32:27

Over 10 years of hard work, Ilya has helped over 2000 individuals change their lives. In the meantime, he built a profitable, cash-flowing business with no outside funding. While the billion-dollar outcomes get all the hype, this is what success looks like for most founders. In this episode, we dive into how Ilya turned a resume-editing business in…

1
5 Steps to PMF with Rob 42:34

8M ago42:34

42:34

We released The Five Steps to Product Market Fit a few weeks ago and received lots of questions on how to apply the steps. In this episode, Rob and I share more colour and more stories on each step to help you understand how to apply them, and also, when these steps might need to be broken. Send me a message to let me know what you think!…

1
The Best Episode of Season 1 - How Ada Pivoted to a $1B+ Valuation w/ Mike Murchison (Founder & CEO) 37:51

8M ago37:51

37:51

Re-releasing the BEST episode of all of season 1. Send me a message to let me know what you think!By Mistral.vc

1
The Top 3 Mistakes Early-Stage Founders Make When Forecasting 21:34

8M ago21:34

21:34

I know most founders today are planning for the new year, so sharing the top 3 mistakes I've seen early-stage founders make when forecasting. If you're forecasting for 2024, you don't want to miss this. Send me a message to let me know what you think!By Mistral.vc

1
The Five Steps to Product Market Fit 30:45

9M ago30:45

30:45

Here are the key lessons from the past 60 episodes that we've released to date. Each of the 5 steps to Product Market Fit is based on actual case studies with real examples you can use. It's a recap of everything I've learned over the last two years- you don't want to miss it. Send me a message to let me know what you think!…

1
How I lost $6M, Why hype means nothing, Plus a dozen other lessons from our last startup 1:06:36

9M ago1:06:36

1:06:36

As they say, "Experience is the teacher of all things"... and my last startup was a ruthless teacher. Today, my co-founder Lee Silverstone and ex-CEO Rob Woodbridge join me to go through some of the insane stories from Gymtrack, our last startup. From strapping a whiteboard to the roof of Lee's Civic, to going to conferences with a 3D printed "smar…

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