Walter Thompson’s Post

I’ve had conversations with 34 #startup #founders, #investors and #technology leaders for seasons 1 and 2 of Fund/Build/Scale, with more in the works. Here's one point that came up over and over: if your startup lacks a clear intention from the beginning, it’s not going to be successful. With that in mind, I recorded this teaser for season 2 of Fund/Build/Scale. If you don’t have a minute and fifty-two seconds to listen to the entire thing, here are the three goals I set for the podcast: 1. To help founders make fewer mistakes. 2. To share strategies that accelerate the go-to-market journey. 3. To inspire more people to see themselves as potential founders. (There’s a lot of overlooked talent out there, and we are missing out!) If this resonates with you, share this post and subscribe to Fund/Build/Scale on your favorite #podcast platform. Thanks very much! #siliconvalley #entrepreneurship #venturecapital #VC #fundraising

I feel seen

Poshmark CEO and co-founder Manish Chandra: "In the first six months I answered every single #customerservice inquiry myself and I still have a direct line to the customers who can contact me... Sometimes I'll find that the site has a problem because some customer contacted me through Instagram, through text messages, through email, through something before my team sometimes knows it, and that, I think, is just the ability to keep connected. And when you start to feel very disconnected from your #customer, that's probably time for you to get somebody else to do your job." #entrepreneurship #startup #founder #sales #community #poshmark #ecommerce

My only regret about season one of Fund/Build/Scale: I've been so busy on the production side, I haven't devoted more time and energy to PROMOTING it. I'm actually great at marketing and PR — for other people. But journalists (especially we independent ones) need to step it up. To help myself on that journey, I accepted an invitation from Ryan Chin at Offleash to do this Q&A. (Incidentally, I got Wordle in 3 this morning.) Season 2 of Fund/Build/Scale starts soon, subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/gpQJzKgc

For the final episode of Fund/Build/Scale's first season, I sat down with repeat founders Dheeraj Pandey (Nutanix, DevRev) and Manish Chandra (Kaboodle, Poshmark). For more than an hour, we discussed some of the fundamental challenges founders must overcome if they hope to be successful over the long term. Some of the takeaways are below, but our conversation went well beyond basic best practices. We talked about how they learned to embrace paradoxical values, overcome feelings of isolation, stay in close touch with customers, and perhaps most critically, adapt to challenges. As Dheeraj said, "building a startup is a mental game more than anything else." I'd like to thank everyone who's backed Fund/Build/Scale, starting with Navin Chaddha and Kamini Ramani at Mayfield Fund and Rehan Jalil at Securiti. They've been great sponsors, and I'm deeply appreciative of their support! Season 2 starts soon, and I don't want you to miss an episode, so please subscribe!

It takes years to build a sustainable startup, and considering how unbalanced the risk/reward ratio is, each founder needs to create frameworks that suit their mental and emotional needs. Because there’s no single recipe for long-term success, I was glad to interview Poshmark CEO Manish Chandra and DevRev CEO Dheeraj Pandey about how they deal with the fear, uncertainty and doubt that affects every entrepreneur. Manish and Dheeraj went well beyond platitudes and basic best practices to share hard-won wisdom from their founders' journey, and I'm deeply appreciative. Listen to the conversation here: https://lnkd.in/gwB26hj3 But if you're pressed for time, here are six takeaways to whet your appetite: https://lnkd.in/gkcS68fP #entrepreneurship #podcast #siliconvalley #technology #consumer #enterprise #poshmark #devrev #startups #founders Fund/Build/Scale is sponsored by Mayfield and Securiti.

For the final episode of season 1, I talked to DevRev CEO Dheeraj Pandey and Manish Chandra, founder and CEO of Poshmark, to learn more about the frameworks and processes they've developed to build sustainable companies. Poshmark is a pure consumer play, and DevRev sells enterprise software, but because Dheeraj and Manish are repeat founders who’ve taken startups from Day Zero to IPOs, they were an excellent choice. They shared some of the strategies they’ve developed over time for recruiting, fostering early adopters, driving growth, and transitioning across industries. Manish and Dheeraj also unpacked some of the strategic decisions that propelled their companies forward and spoke openly about the mental and emotional challenges they faced along the way. Fund/Build/Scale is sponsored by Mayfield and Securiti. #entrepreneurship #startups #podcast #poshmark #devrev #siliconvalley #GTM #hiring #operations #product #sales #AI #generativeAI #devops #fashion