Startup Riders

Ivan Landabaso

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How top 1% startups use AI, raise and grow.

11/05/2025

Stablecoins, Meditation and Raising $20M | Rodri Fernandez (Founder @ Crossmint)

A deep dive into the Crossmint story and the future of programmable money. We cover how McKinsey → LeapFrog → Stanford → Zen monastery shaped Rodri’s founder mindset, how NFTs became infrastructure, why stablecoins and wallets matter, and where AI agents fit into the future of finance. A tactical conversation on Web3 infra, founder psychology, and what's coming next in digital money.

54 min
09/11/2025

🌊 The $2B SaaS Playbook | Ignacio ‘Guli’ Moreno (Co-founder ‪@Capchase‬)

This week I sat down with my friend Ignacio “Guli” Moreno, cofounder of Capchase — the fintech that has deployed more than $2B into SaaS startups. Capchase started with a simple idea: founders shouldn’t be stuck with revenue in the future. By turning ARR into upfront cash, they gave SaaS companies speed without selling equity. But the real playbook here isn’t just the product. It’s how Guli and team built trust in a new category, scaled globally, and designed culture as their ultimate GTM weapon: What you’ll learn * How to design culture as a GTM advantage * The founder-led sales tactics that got Capchase its first customers * Why EU startups needs to think global from day one * How talent snowballs create ecosystems Key takeaways * MVP velocity wins trust: Capchase shipped its first working demo in 11 days on a $7 server, speed built confidence with investors and early customers. * Category creation requires focus: Narrowing only to SaaS looked small, but enabled deep expertise, better underwriting, and founder trust. * Culture = GTM strategy: Values like intellectual humility, builder attitude, and yes before no weren’t internal HR slogans, they were the operating system that shaped how customers perceived Capchase. * Founder-led GTM: Guli and team didn’t wait for playbooks. They handled calls, cold outreach, and product tweaks directly, collapsing the feedback loop. * Trust before growth: While competitors blitz-scaled and died when interest rates rose, Capchase grew cautiously, signaling reliability to customers. * Flywheel of talent: Guli launched Exponential Fellowship, finding and sending the brightest builders in Spain on a life-changing experience to the US (get in touch with us!). * EU’s mindset gap: Too many founders still think local. Guli’s lesson: Nordics think global because their market forces them to, Spain must too. * High-agency behavior compounds: Whether it’s tinkering with an “electric eraser” at age 9 or sending cold DMs, Guli shows that small, consistent acts of initiative snowball over time. That’s it! I’d love to hear from you, just reply to this email (I reply to all of them). 🤙 P.s. join as a premium subscriber for venture capital waves + GTM playbooks: * 🔒 Founder info-diet - The 60 best resources for founders in 2025. * 🔒 How not to raise money - a checklist of fundraising mistakes to avoid. * 🔒 Fundraising Frameworks — 3 frameworks to tighten your pitch. * 🔒 Founder Compensation Benchmarks — salary data from top founders. * 🔒 GTM + AI — How founders are rebuilding sales in 2025. * 🔒 HubSpot’s 0-$100M Playbook — $0 to $100M ARR sales strategy. * 🔒 Agentic Revolution — Deep dive into the next tech platform shift. * 🔒 AI Voice Agents — Market map of where capital and talent are moving. To hear more, visit www.startupriders.com

47 min
07/17/2025

🌊 Replacing Sales Teams with AI: Throxy’s $1.5M ARR Playbook

“Earn the right to automate.” This week I sat down with Pablo Jimenez de Parga, co-founder of Throxy — the contrarian AI sales startup quietly replacing SDR teams with results-first automation. But here’s the twist: it’s not a SaaS, and it’s not an AISDR product. Throxy is a full-stack AI company that builds custom outbound systems, then runs them for you. Invisible UX, real meetings, full accountability. Their model = start manual, validate every step, then automate what works. They’ve hit $1.5M ARR, raised $6M after Y Combinator, and are redefining what “venture-backable” looks like in the AI agency era. 📺 Help your boy, subscribe on YouTube! What you’ll learn * Why most outbound fails and how Throxy flips it * Why AISDRs don’t work yet (and what replaces them) * Why the “AI agency” model works Key takeaways * Sales is still broken: Missed quotas, outdated tools, bad CRMs. Pablo’s insight: it’s not about better messaging, it’s about better targeting. * Account > persona > message: Most teams get this backwards. If the pain is real, the message can be weak, it’ll still land. * AISDRs failed the outcome test: Pablo’s team proved they could deliver meetings consistently, while most AI tools delivered... demos. * The full-stack agency bet: They don’t sell software. They run your outbound for you. Customers don’t care how, it just works. * Manual first, then automate: While others chased scale, Throxy stayed manual. They iterated by hand until they earned the right to automate. * Invisible UX = magic: Customers see dashboards, replies, and meetings. The AI scraping, enrichment, and filtering? All hidden behind the scenes. * GTM was founder-led brute force: Pablo handled 100% of growth. Cold emails, cold calls, statement of work, send, close, repeat. * No ops bloat, only functions that move the needle: Legal, finance, HR? Outsourced. Focus stays on growth, product, and engineering. * Fundraise fast or miss it: Base10 led their $6M round in record speed. Pablo’s tip: If you want to back top YC founders, move fast or get left out. 📺 Watch and subscribe on YouTube → Startup Riders on YouTube 🗣️ What do you want us to cover next? Hit reply or comment 🤙 To hear more, visit www.startupriders.com

31 min
06/10/2025

🌊 0 to $500K ARR in Months: Konvo AI’s Ecommerce Agent Blueprint | Guillem Oliva (Konvo AI)

“Speed is non-negotiable — it’s the ultimate advantage.” This week I sat down with Guillem Oliva, co-founder of Konvo AI — a vertical agent platform that’s quietly rewriting how e-commerce brands convert. Konvo isn’t just another support bot. It’s a 24/7 agent that sells: combining brand context, product data, and live buyer signals to trigger real conversations and drive conversion. From live chat to proactive follow-ups, it turns intent into orders. And it’s working: 200 customers, $500K ARR, and 8% average conversion — built with just a 4-person team. We backed them early, and I’m pumped to share the story. What you’ll learn * Why most ecommerce campaigns convert * How they went from kitchen MVP to 200 brands * The real wedge behind “AI agents for commerce” (hint: it’s not just chat) * How Konvo uses outbound, founder-led sales, and popcorn to win * Why speed + craftsmanship > frameworks Key takeaways * Co-founder match was founder-future-fit — Guillem and his co-founder aligned early on risk-taking, endurance mindset, and complementary skills — long before the startup idea. * MVP = results before product — They onboarded 30–40 customers with zero UI — just backend builds, consulting, and manual execution to deliver real outcomes. * 8% conversion > legacy channels — Konvo agents drive 8%+ conversion rates per convo, 10x above email/WhatsApp, by acting as actual sales closers. * Agent = proactive sales, not passive chat — Unlike typical bots, Konvo agents detect buyer intent mid-chat and auto-trigger contextual follow-up workflows. * Vertical AI > generic LLMs — Plugging in ChatGPT isn’t enough — Konvo builds guardrails, tone, product goals, and context into each brand-trained agent. * Own the customer, or lose the edge — As AI platforms become aggregators, every brand needs its own agent to retain conversion and control. * GTM began as founder-led brute force — First 100+ customers came from cold email/calling — with just one commercial person on a 4-person team. * GTM evolved into community flywheel — Focused on one region (Spain), built trust via offline dinners, creative campaigns (like 60kg popcorn drops), and vertical brand-building. * Find what works > scale what works — The playbook: test messy experiments that get results (e.g. popcorn), then figure out how to scale only after. * Speed is the real moat — Konvo’s core principle: obsess over detail and move fast — “Anything worth doing must be done fast, or it won’t happen.” 📺 Watch and subscribe on YouTube → Startup Riders on YouTube 🗣️ What do you want us to cover next? Hit reply or comment 🤙 To hear more, visit www.startupriders.com

33 min
05/13/2025

🌊 How AI agents turn buyer research into GTM execution | Clint Burgess (Founder at CharacterQuilt, ex-Bloomreach)

We’re trying something new on Startup Riders: short, tactical interviews with founders and investors building and investing in the next wave startups. This week, I sat down with Clint Burgess, co-founder of CharacterQuilt and former PMM leader at Bloomreach (where we met!). After running 500+ buyer interviews a year and watching insights die in decks, Clint built a GTM engine powered by AI agents trained on raw voice-of-customer data. This isn’t a “copy faster” tool. It’s a full-stack marketing engine for founders — research, ICP match, messaging, campaign generation — all in minutes. What you’ll learn * Why most GTM research never makes it to the final campaign * The difference between a copy bot and an infused buyer agent * How a single marketer can now run full campaigns end-to-end * Where “10x marketers” are already using this to win deals, prep fundraises, and revive warm leads 6 key takeaways * Campaigns die in committee: Even with great research, insights often get diluted before anything ships. * Founders should act as PMMs first: Talk to customers. Understand the buyer. Translate that into your narrative and GTM strategy. * AI ≠ copy monkey: CharacterQuilt trains agents on real interviews, so campaigns are based on actual pain — not GPT guessing. * From docs to campaign in 30 minutes: Upload positioning materials. CQ scores ICP fit, predicts pain points, and suggests campaign angles + leads. * One person can run full GTM loops: Research, creative, segmentation, execution — without a 20-person team. * Used beyond marketing: Clint uses CQ for fundraising, event prep, and reviving 500+ warm leads stuck in Gong/Notion. 📺 Listen and subscribe on YouTube → Startup Riders on YouTube 🗣️ Tell me what you want to hear more of in the comments 🤙 To hear more, visit www.startupriders.com

36 min

5 Episodes

How top 1% startups use AI, raise and grow.

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Ivan Landabaso
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Startup Riders