Introduction
Pivotal early lessons of today's best startups.
Welcome to the focal podcast where we go deep with some of today's best founders and operators on ONE crucial lessons from their early days.
This podcast is not the usual "highlight reel" startup podcast that goes one inch deep across 20+ topics. Rather, we ask the questions you’d ask if you were sitting across from them. No fluff, just the real, actionable insights you’d get if these founders were mentoring you 1on1.
We cover topics including:
- What worked and why.
- Costly mistakes and how they fixed them.
- Frameworks that truly made a difference.
- Tactics to move faster.
- What they wish they’d known sooner.
- And much more!
"Only a fool learns from their own mistakes. The wise learn from the mistakes of others."
Latest Episode
The Clay Playbook for Hyper-Targeted Outbound | How to Turn Multiple Signals Into One Story | Why Your List Matters More Than Your Message | The "Magic Wand" Framework for Finding Your Best Customers with Osman Sheikhnureldin, Head GTM Engineering at Clay
Most founders think GTM engineering is just cold outbound done better. Clay's Head of GTM Engineering Osman Sheikhnureldin reveals why that mindset will cost you month...
Latest Episodes
The Clay Playbook for Hyper-Targeted Outbound | How to Turn Multiple Signals Into One Story | Why Your List Matters More Than Your Message | The "Magic Wand" Framework for Finding Your Best Customers with Osman Sheikhnureldin, Head GTM Engineering at Clay
Most founders think GTM engineering is just cold outbound done better. Clay's Head of GTM Engineering Osman Sheikhnureldin reveals why that mindset will cost you month...
Why GTM Engineering is the Future | When to Hire Your First GTM Engineer | How to Treat GTM Like a Product | How Clay Scaled from PLG to Enterprise | Automate the Manual, Never the Important with Yash Tekriwal, Head of Education at Clay
Clay pioneered GTM engineering and went from $1M to $100M in ARR in 2 years. I talked to the person who invented the role of GTM Engineer at Clay.Yash Tekriwal, Clay's...
Why Horizontal Beats Vertical in AI Agents | The Compounding Error Problem Most Founders Miss | The Case For Research-Heavy Teams Win | How to Build AI That Actually Generalizes with Abhishek Das, Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Yutori
The Horizontal vs Vertical AI Debate: Why This Ex-Meta AI Researcher Is Betting Big on Horizontal Web AgentsShould you build narrow (vertical) or go broad (horizontal)...
Why 90% of B2B Launches Fail | The 10-Week Blueprint That Built 4 Unicorns | Why Different Beats Better in AI Marketing | How to Turn 10 Employees Into 500K Reach | Sumeru Chatterjee, Head of Growth at CoWorker AI
Stop launching into the void and start creating campaigns that actually get attention.Sumeru Chatterjee reveals the exact 10-week playbook he's used to generate millio...
Why Every AI Company Needs Forward Deployed Engineers | Why You Cannot Build Vertical AI Without Living at the Customer | The 10X Deployment Unlock Nobody Talks About | Pablo Palafox on Building Happy Robot from $0 to Millions in 2 Years
The forward deployed engineer model took Happy Robot from zero to millions in revenue in under 2 years.In this episode, Pablo Palafox reveals exactly how to implement ...