Fund/Build/Scale

Hosted by Walter Thompson

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Aug 2026

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About the show

After working for years in early-stage startups and as a journalist, here are three hard truths I’ve learned: 1. Success in Silicon Valley hinges on connections, hard work and luck. 2. Startups often fail because founders lack fundamental business knowledge. 3. Real, actionable advice comes from those who’ve actually done it. There’s no such thing as “founder DNA.” If you’re willing to take on risk and invest years of your life in something that has maybe a 10% chance of paying off — less if you’re a woman or person of color — you can be a startup founder. Here’s why I founded Fund/Build/Scale: 1. To help founders make fewer mistakes. 2. To share successful strategies that can accelerate your 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. This podcast is for anyone who’s interested in learning the basic skills required to launch a startup, secure initial funding and transform an idea into a sustainable business. I’m talking to guests about everything: finding a co-founder, conducting customer discovery, recruiting early employees, developing a PLG strategy, fundraising when you’re outside a major tech hub — all of it. Interested? Subscribe to Fund/Build/Scale on all major platforms and follow the podcast on LinkedIn to get articles, excerpts, transcripts and more. Fund/Build/Scale is a production of Truth and Soul Media LLC.

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August 13, 2026Episode 11140 min

If It’s Not on Paper, It’s Not Real: Canvas Prime's Rebecca Lynn

Canvas Prime Co-founder and Managing Director Rebecca Lynn has spent 25 years in venture capital, backing companies including LendingClub, Doximity and Casetext and helping founders navigate more than a dozen exits. In this conversation, we get into why taking venture capital puts founders on a path toward liquidity, and why an IPO isn't the only outcome worth building toward. Rebecca explains how founders can develop relationships with potential acquirers years before they're ready to sell, when it makes sense to bring in a banker or strategic advisor, and how Casetext built the relationships that eventually led to its acquisition by Thomson Reuters. We also talk about why founders should get an offer on paper before trying to improve it, how to negotiate without overplaying your hand, what to watch for with earnouts and other deal terms, and how to make sure employees aren't forgotten when a company gets sold. 📺 Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/5kV4SvM9rBY RUNTIME 40:51 EPISODE BREAKDOWN (2:17) Creating Strategic Options (8:50) What Taking Venture Capital Really Means (11:42) Don't Build to Sell; Build Strategically (15:18) How Casetext Built Toward an Exit (21:39) Where Acquisition Offers Come From (27:54) "If it's not on paper, it's not real." (33:02) Price Isn't the Only Thing That Matters (35:22) Take Care of Your Employees (37:32) How to Get M&A Ready LINKS Rebecca Lynn, LinkedIn Canvas Prime Thomson Reuters Completes Acquisition of Casetext, Inc. Doximity Lending Club Gabi -------- Are you building something that’s hard to explain? That’s often a sign you’re working on something interesting, but it raises the risk that you’re missing out on fundraising, sales, hiring, and media opportunities. I help early-stage founders sharpen the narrative: what matters, why now, who needs to care, and why they’re the right team to make it happen. If you’re preparing for a raise, launch, important customer meeting, panel, or hiring push, I can help you pressure-test the story before the stakes get higher. Visit the Fund/Build/Scale website to learn more, or email fundbuildscale@gmaii.com 👉🏾 Learn more SUBSCRIBE 📥 Get the Fund/Build/Scale newsletter on Beehiiv: https://fundbuildscale.beehiiv.com/

August 13, 2026Episode 11041 min

Why Technical Founders Hire Marketing Too Late

Head of Marketing for Observe at Snowflake Shruti Bhat has spent her career helping highly technical companies explain why their products matter, find the customers who need them most, and build go-to-market systems that can actually scale. In this episode, she talks about how founders identify their real market, recognize genuine product-market fit, hire their first product marketing and GTM leaders, and earn trust across engineering, product, sales, and marketing. Drawing on three startup exits, including Observe’s acquisition by Snowflake, Shruti explains why demand generation often starts too early, what repeatability looks like in enterprise sales, and why the best GTM leaders know how to unlearn their old playbooks. This is a practical conversation about turning technical innovation into customer conviction. RUNTIME 41:29 EPISODE BREAKDOWN (2:28) From Engineering to Product Truth (7:10) Finding Observe’s Enterprise Sweet Spot (16:48) When Technical Founders Need To Hire A Product Marketer (24:57) Hiring Your First GTM Leader Depends on More Than Stage (34:27) How GTM Leaders Build (and Lose) Trust With Technical Teams LINKS Shruti Bhat on LinkedIn Snowflake Observe by Snowflake ______ Are you building something that’s hard to explain? That’s often a sign you’re working on something interesting, but it raises the risk that you’re missing out on fundraising, sales, hiring, and media opportunities. I help early-stage founders sharpen the narrative: what matters, why now, who needs to care, and why they’re the right team to make it happen. If you’re preparing for a raise, launch, important customer meeting, panel, or hiring push, I can help you pressure-test the story before the stakes get higher. Visit the Fund/Build/Scale website to learn more, or email fundbuildscale@gmaii.com 👉🏾 Learn more SUBSCRIBE 📥 Get the Fund/Build/Scale newsletter on Beehiiv: https://fundbuildscale.beehiiv.com/ 📺 Watch Fund/Build/Scale on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFFH4cs2B1BKatPGs8SFRJw 📸 Follow Fund/Build/Scale on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fundbuildscale/

July 31, 2026Episode 10936 min

CVC Is Not Your Exit Strategy or GTM Plan

Tamara Steffens is managing director of Thomson Reuters Ventures, where she invests in early-stage companies building around legal, tax, accounting, and enterprise workflow. Corporate venture capital can look like a shortcut to customers, distribution, and credibility, but Steffens says founders need to understand what has to be true before strategic money can actually help. In this conversation, we get into what happens after Thomson Reuters Ventures joins your cap table, how founders can turn a corporate investor into real product or go-to-market leverage, and why inflated TAM slides can work against you. We also talk about what founders should do before and after the check clears, why some good businesses should avoid venture capital entirely, and why she says every founder should be thinking earlier about exit paths. RUNTIME: 36:14 EPISODE BREAKDOWN (1:53) An Overview of Thomson Reuters Ventures (3:57) CVC Expectations: When Strategic Capital Can Actually Help (7:09) Why Your TAM Needs to Match the Product You Actually Have (10:04) When Strategic Capital Becomes Product Leverage (13:13) What Founders Should Do Before and After the Check Clears (22:18) How CVC Evaluates Founders When the Market Gets Frothy (29:05) Building the Relationship Before Series A (31:30) Why Exit Paths Matter Earlier Than You Think LINKS Tamara Steffens Thomson Reuters Ventures Thomson Reuters Fund/Build/Scale Founder Narrative Advisory SUBSCRIBE 📥 Get the Fund/Build/Scale newsletter on Beehiiv: https://fundbuildscale.beehiiv.com/ 📺 Watch Fund/Build/Scale on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFFH4cs2B1BKatPGs8SFRJw 📸 Follow Fund/Build/Scale on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fundbuildscale/

July 23, 2026Episode 10841 min

AI Makes Building Easier. Selling Is Still Hard.

Thanks to AI, you could have an idea for a startup on your way home from work Thursday and finish a rough prototype by Monday morning. That's great news for founders, but it also raises the bar: if everyone can build a convincing demo, what actually separates a durable company from a clever prototype? To explore that question in depth, I interviewed Alex Niehenke a partner at Scale Venture Partners since 2012. He invests in early-stage companies tackling complex industries like insurance, wealth management, construction, and logistics. We discuss why product innovation has to be paired with distribution innovation, how he judges your TAM estimate, how founders create entirely new categories, and what investors are looking for now that building software has never been easier. RUNTIME 41:43 EPISODE BREAKDOWN (02:58) Overview: Scale Venture Partners (04:42) What Makes Slow-Moving Markets Attractive? (06:19) Product Innovation Needs Go-to-Market Innovation (08:58) Why TAM Is Really a Test of Strategic Thinking (12:03) At Least Two-Thirds of My Investments Are Category Creation (15:54) What Founder-Market Fit Means in the AI Era (21:41) What Makes a Vertical AI Startup Fundable? (24:52) What Separates a Nice Demo from a Durable Business? (27:11) Selling Into Hard Markets (33:03) When Regulation Becomes a Competitive Advantage (34:52) Founder-Led Go-to-Market Wins Early (37:01) Why Obsession Still Matters Most LINKS Alex Niehenke Scale Venture Partners Tessa Lau, CEO/Founder, Dusty Robotics Deep Tech Without Stealth: Inside Dusty Robotics’ Origin Story, Fund/Build/Scale Root Insurance Motive Shoe Dog, Phil Knight Building something that’s hard to explain? That’s often a sign you’re working on something interesting. It can also cost you fundraising, sales, hiring, and media opportunities. I help early-stage founders sharpen the narrative around what they’re building: what matters, why now, who needs to care, and why they’re the right team to make it happen. If you’re preparing for a raise, launch, important customer meeting, panel, or hiring push, I can help you pressure-test the story before the stakes get higher. 👉🏾 Learn more SUBSCRIBE 📥 Get the Fund/Build/Scale newsletter on Beehiiv: https://fundbuildscale.beehiiv.com/ 📸 Follow Fund/Build/Scale on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fundbuildscale/ 📺 Watch Fund/Build/Scale on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFFH4cs2B1BKatPGs8SFRJw

July 11, 2026Episode 10735 min

The Most Expensive Money You'll Ever Raise

A lot of founders assume raising venture capital is just part of the process: you have an idea, build a deck, find some investors and start pitching. But what if you don't actually need the money yet? Elia Wallen is the founder and CEO of Engine, a business travel platform valued at $2 billion. He bootstrapped his first company and resisted raising outside capital for Engine until the business was growing faster than he could support on his own. In this episode, we talk about why raising too much money too soon can lead founders astray, how to tell the difference between needing capital and craving validation, why early-stage equity may be the most expensive money you'll ever raise, and how to know when your company is actually ready to start talking to investors. We also get into the risks of letting investors steer a company before product-market fit, why founders should pressure-test how much money they really need, what Elia means by having "conviction with rationale," and why the opportunity should be pulling you forward before you raise. RUNTIME 35:13 EPISODE BREAKDOWN (1:40) What is Engine? (3:25) Why ignorance can be an advantage (5:38) Are you raising money for validation? (8:58) What constraint teaches founders (10:57) How much money do you actually need? (17:44)When it actually makes sense to raise (21:18) How investors can pull you off course (26:38) Equity is more expensive than you think (30:55) How to know when you're ready to raise LINKS Elia Wallen Engine The Case for Raising Less Money Than You Can, Inc.com Building something that’s hard to explain? That’s often a sign you’re working on something interesting. It can also cost you fundraising, sales, hiring, and media opportunities. I help early-stage founders sharpen the narrative around what they’re building: what matters, why now, who needs to care, and why they’re the right team to make it happen. If you’re preparing for a raise, launch, important customer meeting, panel, or hiring push, I can help you pressure-test the story before the stakes get higher. 👉🏾 Learn more SUBSCRIBE 📥 Get the Fund/Build/Scale newsletter on Beehiiv: https://fundbuildscale.beehiiv.com/ 📸 Follow Fund/Build/Scale on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fundbuildscale/ 📺 Watch Fund/Build/Scale on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFFH4cs2B1BKatPGs8SFRJw

July 6, 2026Episode 10645 min

Why Most Startups Shouldn't Raise Money (Even If They Can)

Most startup fundraising advice focuses on how to get investors interested. Ryan Ziegler sees the process from the other side of the table. As a General Partner at Edison Partners, Ryan evaluates startups that have already survived one of the hardest phases of company building: finding customers willing to pay for what they've built. By the time founders reach him, the question is no longer whether the idea is interesting. It's whether the business is repeatable. In this episode, Ryan explains why most startups shouldn't raise money even if they can, how investors separate durable customer demand from vanity metrics, what actually makes a company ready for Series A, and why founder self-awareness may matter more than a perfect pitch deck. We also discuss customer reference calls, leadership scorecards, founder coachability, and why companies need an operating system before they try to grow. RUNTIME 45:29 EPISODE BREAKDOWN (2:37) How Edison Partners Finds Bootstrapped Companies Ready to Scale (5:40) Why Most Startups Shouldn't Raise Money (Even If They Can) (11:39) How Venture Capital Can Create False Signals About Product-Market Fit (19:49) What Series A Readiness Actually Looks Like (25:01) The Difference Between Real Customer Demand and Fundraising Theater (27:35) Founder Transparency, Investor Trust, and Long-Term Partnerships (33:32) Why Coachability Beats Founder Ego (35:45) Building an Operating System That Scales Beyond the Founder (38:21) A Practical Series A Readiness Self-Audit LINKS Ryan Ziegler Edison Partners SUBSCRIBE 📥 Get the Fund/Build/Scale newsletter on Beehiiv: https://fundbuildscale.beehiiv.com/ 📸 Follow Fund/Build/Scale on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fundbuildscale/ 📺 Watch Fund/Build/Scale on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFFH4cs2B1BKatPGs8SFRJw

June 14, 2026Episode 10549 min

Money Is the Only Customer Validation That Matters

Conventional wisdom says the hardest part of building a startup is building the product. Shanea Leven says the harder challenge is figuring out what customers will actually pay for. Before co-founding Empromptu.ai, Shanea spent more than 15 years building products at companies including Google, eBay, Docker, and Cloudflare. In this conversation, she explains why sales is every bit as complex as engineering, why customer interviews aren't enough to validate an idea, and why early-stage founders need to spend more time testing demand than perfecting roadmaps. We discuss the case-study approach she uses to find customers, the controversial belief that the only real product validation is money, and what happened when a LinkedIn post generated a 1,000-person waitlist almost overnight. Shanea also shares how she used more than 100 customer calls to shape Empromptu’s direction, why she stopped fundraising when the company took off, and the go-to-market challenges that still keep her up at night. If you're a technical founder trying to figure out whether you're building something people truly want, this episode offers a practical framework for separating genuine demand from wishful thinking. Listen to this episode if you're trying to figure out: why sales validation should happen before you commit to a roadmap how to find your first customers using the case study method what a viral waitlist can teach you about product-market fit how to distinguish customer feedback from customer demand why technical founders need to learn sales earlier than they think which early traction signals are worth trusting — and which aren't how to validate an idea before spending months building it RUNTIME 49:06 EPISODE BREAKDOWN (3:16) What Is Empromptu.ai, and Who Is it For? (6:25) Sales Is Just as Complicated as Engineering (8:14) The Case Study Method for Finding Early Customers (11:56) Why Al Is Rewriting the Product Playbook (13:37) The Only Real Product Validation Is Money (17:10) The S***ty Purple Website That Predicted Impromptu's Viral Launch (21:38) What 100 Waitlist Calls Taught Shanea About Customer Demand (26:28) "We evolved the platform." (34:57) "Ninety-nine percent of VCs are great at one thing." (36:20) The GTM Problem That Still Keeps Shanea Up at Night (39:02) A Process for Selecting Your First Sales/Marketing Hires (40:59) Why She'd Hire a "Scrappy" Marketer Over a Former Meta Employee "Every Time" (44:05) The Early Traction Signal She No Longer Trusts (45:28) A 30-day Experiment Founders Can Run To Validate Their Idea LINKS Shanea Leven Empromptu.ai Empromptu raises $2M pre-seed to help enterprises build AI apps, 12/9/2025, TechCrunch SUBSCRIBE 📥 Get the Fund/Build/Scale newsletter on Beehiiv: https://fundbuildscale.beehiiv.com/ 📸 Follow Fund/Build/Scale on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fundbuildscale/ 📺 Watch Fund/Build/Scale on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFFH4cs2B1BKatPGs8SFRJw Thanks for listening! – Walter

June 13, 2026Episode 10438 min

What Hospitals Are Actually Buying in the AI Boom

If you're building a startup, there are easier industries to choose than healthcare. Sales cycles are long, regulations are complex, and earning the trust of providers and patients takes years. In this episode, Mayo Clinic Platform Accelerate Director Jamie Sundsbak explains how healthtech founders can improve their odds of success. We discuss what Mayo looks for in founding teams, why the program focuses on product development instead of fundraising, how startups use clinical data and physician feedback to refine AI products, and what healthcare systems are actually buying in today's market. Jamie also shares lessons from reviewing hundreds of startup applications, the founding team profiles that stand out, why some companies gain traction while others stall, and what founders should know before building in one of the world's most regulated industries. Listen to this episode if you're trying to figure out: What Mayo Clinic looks for in healthtech founders How to use customer feedback to improve AI products Why some healthcare startups gain traction while others struggle What health systems are actually buying in the AI boom How to navigate the long road from MVP to clinical adoption Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/whrR0IVHEOY RUNTIME 38:35 EPISODE BREAKDOWN (1:39) What Mayo Clinic Looks for in Early-Stage Healthtech Startups (13:31) How Mayo Uses Clinical Data and Physician Feedback to Improve Products (23:50) The Art of Creating Provider FOMO (25:32) The Ideal Healthtech Founding Team (29:29) Why OpenEvidence Won — and What Hospitals Are Buying Today (36:03) Healthcare Is Hard. Here's Why Founders Keep Choosing It Anyway LINKS Jamie Sundsbak Mayo Clinic Platform Accelerate Most U.S. doctors are quietly using this AI tool. Few patients know about it, NBC News, 5/13/2026 SUBSCRIBE 📥 Get the Fund/Build/Scale newsletter on Beehiiv: https://fundbuildscale.beehiiv.com/ 📸 Follow Fund/Build/Scale on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fundbuildscale/ 📺 Watch Fund/Build/Scale on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFFH4cs2B1BKatPGs8SFRJw Thanks for listening! – Walter

June 10, 2026Episode 10346 min

The 10x Rule: Turning a Research Paper into an AI Company

Most startup advice assumes the biggest challenge is finding customers. But what happens when the demand is obvious and the real question is whether the technology can actually work at scale? In this episode of Fund/Build/Scale, I sit down with Stanford professor and Inception Labs founder and CEO Stefano Ermon to discuss how a breakthrough research paper evolved into a venture-backed AI company serving enterprise customers. Stefano explains why his team believed they needed a 10x advantage in speed, cost, or quality to compete with industry giants, and how they convinced investors to back an idea that was still largely unproven. We explore the realities of building a deep-tech startup, including raising capital before product-market fit, assembling a world-class founding team, learning enterprise sales as a first-time CEO, pricing a new category of technology, and competing with companies like Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic. Along the way, Stefano shares practical advice for technical founders trying to transform research into a business, de-risk ambitious ideas, and create evidence that investors can believe in before the market fully understands what they're building. In this episode: Why startups need a 10x advantage to stand out Turning a research paper into a venture-backed company Raising capital when the biggest risk is technical, not market demand Why Inception Labs built before talking to customers Learning enterprise sales as a first-time founder The challenge of pricing a fundamentally new technology What happened when Google announced its own diffusion models How deep-tech founders can de-risk ideas before fundraising The hiring lesson Stefano wishes he had learned earlier 📺 Watch this episode on YouTube RUNTIME 46:03 EPISODE BREAKDOWN (0:00) From Research Paper to Startup (2:11) Why AI Is So Expensive (4:34) Turning Research into a Company (7:47) The Bet Behind Inception Labs (9:01) Raising Money for an Unproven Idea (12:24) Building the Right Team (14:27) Dividing Founder Roles (16:32) Building Before Customers (20:07) When Customers Started Calling (21:47) Learning to Sell (25:04) Pricing a New Category (26:34) The Wrong First Customers (31:16) Why Startups Can Beat Giants (34:04) The 10x Rule for Startup Differentiation (39:20) Building a Durable AI Company (41:03) How to De-Risk a Deep Tech Startup (42:40) The First 90 Days After Funding (43:54) One Founder Lesson He Learned Too Late LINKS Stefano Ermon Inception Labs What Are Diffusion Models?, Stanford HAI Inception raises $50 million to build diffusion models for code and text, TechCrunch, 11/6/2025 SUBSCRIBE 📥 Get the Fund/Build/Scale newsletter on Beehiiv: https://fundbuildscale.beehiiv.com/ 📸 Follow Fund/Build/Scale on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fundbuildscale/ 📺 Watch Fund/Build/Scale on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFFH4cs2B1BKatPGs8SFRJw Thanks for listening! – Walter.

June 5, 2026Episode 10245 min

Your First Marketing Hire Is Probably Not a CMO

Most technical founders can explain how their product works. Far fewer can clearly explain why a customer should care. In this episode, Cribl CMO Abby Strong shares what she has learned from building go-to-market teams and helping scale one of the fastest-growing companies in data infrastructure. Drawing on her background in IT operations, product, and marketing, Abby explains why founders often struggle with messaging, how to know when you've found product-market fit, and what it takes to build demand before you have a large team or budget. We also discuss category creation, customer discovery, the early signals that the market is pulling your product, and why your first marketing hire is probably not a CMO. Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/9TnFwRgy2fw RUNTIME 45:19 EPISODE BREAKDOWN [3:56] Why Technical Founders Struggle With Marketing [09:58] When Should You Hire Your First Marketer? [11:29] Marketing Before You Have A Marketing Team [13:46] Why Marketing Takes Longer Than Founders Expect [19:35] Your First Marketing Hire Is Probably Not A CMO [25:23] Turning Features Into Outcomes [27:15] Four Questions Every Founder Must Answer [28:57] How To Understand A Technical Product [32:44] Building Cribl's GTM Engine [36:46] When The Market Starts Pulling [42:09] Build Trust Before You Chase Scale LINKS Abby Strong (LinkedIn) Cribl SUBSCRIBE 📥 Get the Fund/Build/Scale newsletter on Beehiiv: https://fundbuildscale.beehiiv.com/ 📸 Follow Fund/Build/Scale on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fundbuildscale/ 📺 Watch Fund/Build/Scale on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFFH4cs2B1BKatPGs8SFRJw Thanks for listening! – Walter

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