BUILDERS

Front Lines Media
  • 0.0 (0)
  • ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Welcome to BUILDERS — the show about how founders get new technology adopted. Each episode features a founder on the front lines of bringing new tech to market, sharing how they broke into their industry, earned early believers, built credibility, and unlocked real technology adoption. BUILDERS is part of a network of 20 industry-specific shows with a library of 1,200+ founder interviews conducted over the past three years. For the full network, visit FrontLines.io. Brought to you by:  www.FrontLines.io/FounderLedGrowth — Founder-led Growth as a Service. Launch your own podcast that drives thought leadership, demand, and most importantly, revenue.

  1. How Dextall builds trust in construction | Aurimas Sabulis

    37M AGO

    How Dextall builds trust in construction | Aurimas Sabulis

    Dextall is attacking a structural inefficiency in construction: the 3-year design coordination cycle that precedes every mid-rise building, combined with the chaotic on-site execution that follows. Founded by Aurimas Sabulis after years running a commercial window company and witnessing construction site dysfunction firsthand, Dextall is building what Aurimas calls a "prefab operating system"—software that connects architectural design directly to factory production of building exteriors. In a market where less than 1% of U.S. mid-rise projects use prefab (versus 75% in Scandinavia), Dextall is bridging the 3-4 year gap between design inception and approved drawings while manufacturing building components that arrive on-site as "Lego blocks." In this episode, Aurimas shares the hard lessons learned from building in construction's unforgiving risk environment. Topics Discussed: Targeting the 6-40 story sweet spot: steel, concrete, and mass timber construction where prefab delivers maximum value (below 6 stories is wood frame; above 40 enters different glass-box typology) The reality of U.S. prefab penetration: 99% of projects in Dextall's pipeline would go traditional route without them Why the physical product stayed constant from day one while software took multiple failed iterations The expensive lesson: building software that goes from design to fabrication in one day, only to learn architects rejected it because it removed their design control Evolving from 2D drawings to 3D renderings to animations to physical two-story mock-ups—and why customers only "got it" after seeing real completed buildings Launching a separate SaaS division for architects that independently generates value while creating 90% backend efficiency when connected to Dextall's manufacturing The three-to-five-year vision: prompt-engineered buildings with real-time cost, carbon footprint, and feasibility feedback GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Domain credibility is your entry ticket in risk-averse industries: Aurimas's first customers came because he had "street credibility"—a track record of delivering complex, large-scale window projects. In construction, healthcare, and other industries where failure has severe consequences, founders without domain experience face insurmountable trust barriers. If you're building in these markets without industry background, your co-founder or first hires must bring that credibility, or you'll burn years trying to earn it. Proof velocity matters more than proof perfection: Dextall moved from 9-story buildings to 40-story projects by stacking proof points, not by waiting to debut with a showcase project. Each successful delivery de-risked the next larger bet. Founders should optimize for proof velocity—getting the smallest viable validation that enables the next larger commitment—rather than trying to land the trophy customer that "proves everything." Physical businesses require physical proof—budget accordingly: Dextall built multiple two-story physical mock-ups and actual buildings before customers truly understood their value proposition, despite having sophisticated 3D animations. Aurimas noted customers kept claiming they understood, then asking the same questions until they could physically see and touch completed work. If you're building in construction, manufacturing, or industrial sectors, your CAC will include physical demonstration costs that software founders never face. Budget 3-5x what you think you'll need for mock-ups and proofs of concept. Workflow disruption fails when you remove user agency: Dextall's software could compress 3-4 years of design coordination into one day—a 1000x improvement. Architects rejected it because it was "too heavy" and removed their control over design. The team had to rebuild to let architects control design while Dextall's system handled the backend connection to manufacturing. When your "better way" requires users to surrender control or change how they think about their craft, you're not selling efficiency—you're selling identity change, which rarely works. Find the integration layer that adds value without displacing existing agency. In mature industries, selectively challenge the status quo: Aurimas explicitly asks "is this fight worth fighting?" when Dextall encounters resistance to their approach. They focus on 3-4 nuances at a time rather than attempting to fix all 100 industry problems. When pushback happens, they evaluate whether to press the issue or "build deeper trench within the customer base" first, then return to that battle later. Founders tackling established industries should map their battles, not just their product roadmap—identify which conventions are essential to challenge for your value prop, and which can wait until you have more market power. Bridge disconnected systems rather than optimizing endpoints: The construction industry has sophisticated design tools (AI-powered generative design) and manufacturers (though often Excel-based). Dextall's differentiation is connecting these two worlds—architects can design freely, and their designs automatically translate to manufacturing specifications with real-time costing and feasibility. Many mature industries have this pattern: advanced front-end tools, capable back-end production, but manual/broken handoffs between them. The integration layer often provides more defensible value than improving either endpoint. Layer software distribution onto enterprise sales once you have proof: Dextall spent years doing "old school" enterprise sales—cold calling developers, lunch-and-learns with architects, bringing customers to job sites. Only after building credibility and understanding architect workflows are they launching SaaS for architectural firms. The software creates independent value for architects while generating 90% backend efficiency for Dextall when connected. Founders in hybrid businesses should resist the temptation to lead with software distribution before proving the full value chain works—but actively build toward that transition. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

    24 min
  2. How Empathy landed 9 of the top 10 US life insurance carriers | Ron Gura

    1D AGO

    How Empathy landed 9 of the top 10 US life insurance carriers | Ron Gura

    Empathy is pioneering bereavement care as an enterprise benefit, transforming how employers and financial institutions support employees during life's most challenging transitions. Working with 9 of the top 10 life insurance carriers in the US and Canada—covering over 40 million people—Empathy created a new category by combining grief support with practical logistics like probate navigation, account deactivation, and estate settlement. In a recent episode of BUILDERS, we sat down with Ron Gura, Co-Founder & CEO of Empathy, to learn how the company went from testing five verticals simultaneously to dominating life insurance, then leveraged the group life/employer overlap to expand into employee benefits. Topics Discussed: Testing five enterprise verticals simultaneously to find product-market fit Landing New York Life through their venture arm and innovation team Why life insurance carriers need to be risk-averse (and how to work with that reality) The strategic overlap between group life insurance and employee benefits Investing in brand at seed stage when your barrier to entry is psychological aversion Navigating dual audiences: decision-makers in their workday versus end users in crisis Expanding from loss to adjacent life transitions like disability leave and estate planning GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Run parallel vertical tests with focus constraints, not sequential exploration: Ron identified 10+ potential verticals but intentionally tested exactly five simultaneously—hospices, funeral homes, employers, and two others before life insurance emerged as the winner at position five. This parallel testing with artificial constraints forces prioritization while dramatically compressing time-to-insight. Sequential testing would have meant potentially cycling through five failed pilots before discovering their strongest market. B2B founders with horizontal platforms should pick their top 3-5 verticals and run focused pilots in parallel, accepting that this burns more resources upfront but eliminates the risk of quitting before finding your wedge. Map the ecosystem overlap between buyer personas before choosing your wedge: Empathy's expansion from life insurance to employers wasn't growth strategy—it was recognizing an architectural reality. Half their carriers sell group life, meaning MetLife doesn't sell to consumers at metlife.com but exclusively to employer groups. When Amanda at Paramount loses her sister (not covered by insurance), she calls Paramount HR. When her husband dies (covered by MetLife group policy), the beneficiary calls MetLife. Same end user, two different enterprise entry points into the same moment. B2B founders should map these triangular relationships before choosing their wedge vertical. The question isn't just "who has budget?" but "who else touches this user in adjacent contexts?" Brand investment at seed stage is product strategy when fighting cognitive aversion: Ron's insight: "The barrier to entry isn't regulatory and isn't technology. It's us humans trying really hard not to think about our own mortality." This isn't a marketing problem—it's a fundamental go-to-market blocker. The company made what most would consider Series A investments (premium domain, design system, tone/voice framework) at seed stage specifically because brand reduces psychological friction to adoption. Contrast this with Monday.com starting as "daPulse" and rebranding years into success. B2B founders addressing taboo topics (death, mental health, financial distress, relationship issues) should model brand as a core distribution lever, not post-PMF polish. In deeply human categories, buyer's lived experience is your demo: Enterprise buyers at Citibank, MetLife, or Google aren't experiencing crisis during the sales cycle—they're evaluating ROI in their normal workday. But as Ron noted, "Everyone we're talking to...they're humans. They have parents, they had loss, they went through probate." The most common response after seeing the product: "Damn, I wish you called me a few months ago. I needed this a year ago with my mom." This turns product demo into personal recognition. B2B founders in universal human experience categories (caregiving, bereavement, parental leave, financial stress) should structure discovery and demo to activate buyer's memory of their own experience, not just their budget authority. Category creation is a resource-attraction strategy that trades speed for competitive exposure: Ron explicitly acknowledged: "There's pros and cons to defining a category. It's helpful when you attract resources, talent, capital. It also creates very fertile ground for a number two sympathy.com to come along and learn from this podcast...what to go after." Category leadership accelerates recruiting and fundraising by providing narrative clarity, but it simultaneously publishes your playbook. Every hiring blog post, podcast appearance, and positioning document teaches future competitors which verticals to target and which to avoid. B2B founders should treat category creation as a conscious bet: trade competitive opacity for talent/capital velocity. If you're not ready to defend your position, stay in stealth longer. Bridge new categories to existing budget lines through analogous benefits: When entering new verticals beyond life insurance, Ron doesn't educate from zero. With employers, he positions bereavement care alongside caregiving solutions, fertility programs, and parental leave: "This is a life transition happening in my own intimate house. Just like a new baby. I have new duties now." This isn't metaphor—it's budget mapping. Bereavement care gets evaluated against existing family benefits spending, not created from scratch. B2B founders in new categories should identify which existing line item their solution logically extends, then structure ROI narratives around reallocation, not net-new budget creation. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

    16 min
  3. How Ridepanda landed Amazon and Google by repositioning within existing commuter benefit budgets | Chinmay Malaviya

    2D AGO

    How Ridepanda landed Amazon and Google by repositioning within existing commuter benefit budgets | Chinmay Malaviya

    Ridepanda turned the failed unit economics of shared micro-mobility into a viable B2B model by eliminating operational costs that drove Lime's per-minute pricing from $0.15 to $0.55. After working at Lime and seeing firsthand why rebalancing, charging, vandalism, and theft made profitability impossible, Co-founder Chinmay Malaviya built a subscription model where employers subsidize personal e-bikes and scooters for employees. The insight: commuting is planned travel with validated enterprise budgets already allocated to parking, shuttles, and transit. Ridepanda now works with Amazon, Google, and County of San Mateo, achieving 5-15% employee adoption—triple San Francisco's 2-4% bike commute rate—with 85% being net-new riders who've never regularly used bikes or scooters before. Topics Discussed: Why shared micro-mobility's cost structure (rebalancing, charging, vandalism) made $0.55/minute pricing inevitable Targeting enterprise transportation teams versus mid-market HR benefits buyers as distinct ICPs Subscription economics: $50-$250/month with employer subsidies only triggering on employee sign-ups Converting non-riders to daily commuters: 85% adoption from people who previously didn't bike/scooter Enterprise-first strategy: going where dedicated teams and budgets already exist for employee transportation Vertical expansion into manufacturing, law firms, hospitals, and universities GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Target existing budget holders, not net-new spending: Enterprises already fund parking facilities, shuttle services, van pools, and commuter benefits through dedicated transportation and facilities teams. Ridepanda didn't create a new expense category—they repositioned within existing line items. This meant selling to buyers with validated pain, allocated budget, and quarterly goals tied to employee transportation. When entering established markets, map where your solution fits in current spending patterns rather than forcing buyers to carve out new budget. Structure pricing to eliminate perceived risk: The subsidy only applies when an employee signs up—there's no upfront commitment or wasted spend on unused capacity. This removed the enterprise objection of "why am I paying when I'm not getting anything." For a new category where adoption rates are unproven, usage-based pricing aligned incentives and made pilots trivial to approve. When selling unproven solutions, architect your commercial model so the buyer's risk scales linearly with actual utilization. Segment ICP by buyer motivation, not just company size: Enterprise buyers (transportation/facilities teams) optimize for modal shift, carbon reduction, and getting employees out of single-occupancy vehicles. Mid-market buyers (HR/benefits managers) optimize for return-to-office adoption, wellness metrics, and benefits competitiveness. Same product, completely different value props and sales conversations. Don't assume company size determines buyer psychology—map the org chart to understand who owns the problem and what they're measured on. Attack broken unit economics, not just user experience: Lime's pricing increase from $0.15 to $0.55 per minute wasn't greed—it was fundamental business model failure. Shared services require rebalancing fleets, charging distributed assets, and absorbing vandalism/theft losses. Personal ownership via subscription eliminated every operational cost that made shared mobility unprofitable. When incumbents are struggling financially despite strong demand, the opportunity isn't better execution—it's a structural model shift. Prove behavior change at enterprise scale, not just product-market fit: Achieving 5-15% employee adoption when the city baseline is 2-4% demonstrates that subsidized access plus personal ownership drives 3x penetration. More critically, 42% daily usage from an 85% net-new rider base proves the model creates new commuting behavior rather than capturing existing cyclists. Enterprise buyers focused on emissions and modal shift care about conversion metrics, not vanity usage numbers. Define the transformation metric that proves you're changing behavior systemically, not incrementally. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

    19 min
  4. How Palla Financial navigates selling to banks with no standard buyer: from remittance teams to CEOs | Enrique Perezalonso

    2D AGO

    How Palla Financial navigates selling to banks with no standard buyer: from remittance teams to CEOs | Enrique Perezalonso

    The cross-border payments market remains stubbornly difficult despite billions in venture capital and countless smart founders attacking the problem. The core challenge isn't technology—it's economics. Western Union's margins weren't exploitative greed; they reflected the brutal reality of cash distribution networks, compliance infrastructure, and dual-country regulatory overhead. Palla Financial cracked this by inverting the entire model: instead of fighting for expensive US-based senders, they partnered with Latin American banks to let recipients pull funds. This approach taps into the world's largest remittance corridor ($160+ billion annually flowing from the US to Latin America) while sidestepping the customer acquisition bloodbath. In this episode, Enrique Perezalonso, CEO of Palla Financial, breaks down why recipient-driven payments eliminate distribution costs, how they rebuilt their product three times based on bank feedback, and why the "no CAC" embedded model still requires massive partner investment to actually work. Topics Discussed: Why cross-border payments remain broken: dual-country regulations, cash distribution economics, and two-sided transaction complexity The shift from cash-based infrastructure to digital rails and its impact on unit economics Palla's pull-based model: embedding payment requests inside bank apps to flip sender/recipient dynamics Revenue mechanics: $3 consumer fees, FX markup economics, and interchange/revenue sharing with bank partners The buy-vs-build calculus for banks and why a Central American banking group returned after a four-year internal build attempt Creating a new category and watching competitors attempt to copy the embedded approach Selling into banks with no standardized buyer: navigating from remittance teams to CEOs depending on organizational maturity The reality of "indirect" CAC: why embedded distribution still requires heavy investment in partner success Implementation failures and the shift from hands-off best practices to consultative partner enablement GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Flip expensive distribution by attacking the other side of the transaction: While competitors burned cash acquiring US-based senders in saturated corridors (US-Mexico, US-India), Palla partnered with recipient-side banks in Latin America. Banks gained deposits, interchange revenue, and digital channel differentiation without building infrastructure. The lesson isn't just "find cheaper distribution"—it's recognizing that two-sided markets have two potential wedges, and the less obvious side may offer superior economics and strategic positioning. Target buyers who already tried and failed to build: A Central American banking group spent nine months evaluating Palla, decided to build internally, then returned four years later. This wasn't poor execution—it was competing priorities, lack of scale economics, and the reality that cross-border payments isn't their core business. The strongest signal for partnership readiness isn't interest, it's previous build attempts that stalled. These buyers understand the problem deeply and won't need convincing on value. "Embedded" and "no CAC" are myths without massive partner investment: Palla initially provided best practice guides and light coaching, assuming banks would naturally drive adoption. They saw "lackluster results" until they became "more and more hands-on," shifting to consultative implementation with proper incentive design and accountability frameworks. The volume business requires scale, and scale requires active partner management. Budget for partner success resources as if you're hiring an implementation consulting team, not just doing integrations. Use speed to rebuild the product in real-time with customers: The product Palla launched bears little resemblance to their original vision. They rebuilt features "hand in hand" with bank partners, leveraging their advantage over large competitors: no bureaucracy, hunger to make it work, and speed. This isn't about "customer feedback"—it's about treating early partners as co-developers and having the discipline to throw away your original roadmap when partners show you what actually solves their problem. Extreme focus means saying no to everything adjacent: Palla deliberately limits themselves to "two or three products" all within cross-border payments, explicitly avoiding cross-sell opportunities and adjacent revenue streams. Enrique notes this is both their moat and "a potential pitfall" when opportunities multiply with success. The discipline isn't about focus when you're struggling—it's about maintaining focus when growth creates endless plausible expansions. Each "yes" to something new is a "no" to deepening your core advantage. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

    23 min
  5. How Telo Trucks avoided the failure pattern that killed 60+ automotive startups in the last 40 years | Jason Marks

    5D AGO

    How Telo Trucks avoided the failure pattern that killed 60+ automotive startups in the last 40 years | Jason Marks

    Telo Trucks is reimagining the American pickup for dense urban environments. With over 13,000 reservations and plans to deliver their first vehicles in 2026, Telo is tackling one of the hardest challenges in business: starting an automotive company. In a recent episode of BUILDERS, I sat down with Jason Marks, CEO & Founder of Telo Trucks, to learn about the company's journey from building electric motorcycles to creating a mini truck that's 152 inches long—shorter than a Mini Cooper—but delivers the bed capacity of a full-size pickup. Topics Discussed: Pivoting from electric motorcycles to mini trucks after weekend street research revealed 89% preference for trucks Solving the safety engineering challenge of vehicles with no front overhang and minimal crumple zones Reaching unit profitability at 5,000 vehicles before attempting volume manufacturing Dual go-to-market strategy serving both urban consumers and commercial fleets replacing golf cart + truck combinations Navigating overlapping regulatory jurisdictions: NHTSA, EPA, CARB, IIHS, IICAR, and functional safety standards Running 100 virtual crash simulations daily using automated AI tools to accelerate safety validation Learning from 60+ failed automotive startups that rushed to high-volume manufacturing without proving fundamentals GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Compress customer validation into concentrated research sprints: Jason spent one weekend conducting street interviews across LA and San Francisco—hitting sidewalks, motorcycle meetups, and car meets with concept drawings. 89% of respondents, including dedicated motorcyclists, pointed to the mini truck concept over the motorcycle Telo was building. This wasn't survey data or focus groups—it was showing drawings to real buyers in target markets and asking direct questions. B2B founders should design rapid validation sprints that test core assumptions with target buyers in their natural environment before significant capital deployment. Pivot immediately when validation data is definitive: Telo was in final partner meetings for their motorcycle fundraise when weekend research proved trucks were the opportunity. On Monday morning, they opened the VC call with "Stop. Before you say anything, we're pivoting 100% to mini trucks." The investors called back two hours later and committed. The lesson isn't just willingness to pivot—it's having the conviction to act on clear data even when it disrupts active processes. B2B founders should establish decision thresholds: what percentage of target customers pointing to a different problem would trigger a strategy change? Reverse-engineer failure patterns in your category: Jason systematically studied the 60+ automotive startup failures and identified the core pattern: raising massive capital ($100M-$1B+) created pressure to sprint toward high-volume manufacturing before proving unit economics or even delivering vehicles. Telo's counterstrategy is explicit: achieve unit profitability at 5,000 vehicles using one-tenth the capital of predecessors. This isn't generic "learn from failures"—it's forensic analysis of what killed companies and designing operational constraints that make those failure modes impossible. B2B founders should map the 5-10 companies that died in their category, identify the 2-3 recurring failure patterns, and build those constraints into their operational model. Announce vision publicly to surface latent demand: Telo launched with a full-size foam and fiberglass vehicle model in June 2023 targeting urban consumers. Commercial buyers—downtown construction companies, wineries doing urban delivery, city parks departments—immediately contacted them. These buyers were spending $80,000 combining golf carts for site work with full-size trucks for materials, creating maintenance nightmares. They needed one platform replacing both. B2B founders shouldn't just build in stealth—strategic public announcements surface buyer segments and use cases you didn't model, especially when your product solves problems in adjacent categories. Define unit economics constraints, then cascade all decisions from them: Telo's entire strategy works backward from one milestone: unit profitability at 5,000 vehicles. This constraint cascades: pricing structure, component COGS targets, manufacturing approach (low-volume vs. high-volume tooling), distribution model (direct vs. dealer), insurance program design. Every functional area has targets derived from the profitability constraint. B2B founders should identify their critical economics milestone, then explicitly cascade what must be true across pricing, CAC, gross margin, and operational efficiency to hit it—before building the go-to-market motion. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

    25 min
  6. How Lula pivoted from B2C to B2B after discovering landlords were 80%+ of users | Bo Lais

    6D AGO

    How Lula pivoted from B2C to B2B after discovering landlords were 80%+ of users | Bo Lais

    Lula rebuilt property maintenance from the ground up by solving a fundamental problem: property managers spend 40% of their time coordinating maintenance with zero visibility into work order status. After pivoting from a B2C app when they discovered landlords were their actual users, Bo Lais and his team made a critical insight—deep PMS integration wasn't a feature, it was the entire go-to-market strategy. Today, Lula's 9,000-contractor network processes 1,000 work orders daily across 50 markets, performing 30 HVAC replacements per day at scale that enables direct manufacturer relationships. Now they're commercializing their internal tech stack as Foresight, a standalone SaaS platform launching Q1. In this episode of BUILDERS, Bo breaks down the strategic decisions behind building integrations as distribution, using network density to create pricing advantages competitors can't match, and knowing when to productize your internal tools. Topics Discussed: Why the B2C to B2B pivot happened after discovering usage patterns, not market research How PMS integration eliminated "swivel chair" friction and became the primary distribution channel Strategic partnership depth over breadth: enabling co-selling with AppFolio, Buildium, Yardi rather than partner proliferation The 250-door threshold where maintenance coordination breaks and technology becomes necessary Network density economics: 30 daily HVAC replacements creating leverage for direct manufacturer negotiations and flat-rate service catalogs The decision framework for commercializing Foresight based on upstream customer advisory group feedback Maintaining discipline around ICP when sales teams naturally want to expand GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: System of record integration is your distribution strategy, not a feature: Lula's standalone app created adoption friction because property managers refused to work outside their PMS. Bo's realization: "They need everything to live in their system of record...They don't want swivel chair. And then providing that real time visibility throughout the entire life cycle of the work order was really valuable because prior to that they assign it to a vendor, and then they cross their fingers and hope that it gets done." The integration solved both adoption friction and delivered continuous visibility their workflow demanded. For B2B founders: if your users live in Salesforce, HubSpot, or vertical-specific platforms all day, your integration strategy IS your distribution strategy—build there first, not alongside. Strategic partnerships require enablement infrastructure, not just signed contracts: Bo's approach rejects partnership sprawl: "It's not about stacking on another 10 partnerships, it's about how do we go deeper and enable those partners to co-sell with us and talk about the value props that together we can provide." This means building co-selling toolkits, joint value propositions, and partner success metrics. For B2B founders: one partnership where the partner's sales team actively sells your solution beats ten partnerships where you're just listed in a marketplace. Invest in making partners successful sellers, not collecting logos. ICP discipline requires sales team enforcement mechanisms, not just definitions: Lula knew their ICP but struggled with execution. Bo learned "it's one thing when we understood who our ICP was, but then it's a whole nother thing to adhere to that and get the sales team to adhere to that ICP." The specificity matters: residential (not multifamily), single-family, 250+ doors (where coordination breaks), capped at several thousand doors (before enterprise needs diverge). For B2B founders: document your ICP, but also build the compensation structures, deal approval processes, and CRM workflows that prevent sales from chasing deals outside the sweet spot—even when quota pressure hits. Message outcomes customers measure, not the technology delivering them: Bo's AI framing: "They care about the outcomes, right? If we're able to move the needle on the outcomes and provide a better experience for residents by automating communication, automating the time to schedule, automating the time to get resolution...it's not the how, it's the result." Lula's AI eliminates truck rolls through upfront troubleshooting and improves one-trip resolution rates—that's what property managers track. For B2B founders: if your customer's boss asks "how's that new tool working," they answer with metrics they're held accountable for (resolution time, truck rolls, resident satisfaction), not "it uses AI." Lead with those metrics. Productize internal tools when customer advisory groups request them and you have defensible advantages: Lula commercialized Foresight after upstream customers specifically asked for their tech during advisory sessions. Bo's competitive moat thinking: "Everyone else thinks they're going to do it better with the AI and automation they have. But our competitive moat is that our on-demand network is built inside this AI work order management system. And because of the scale of our network and the buying power, we can provide instant quotes for a lot of services...our competitors that are just doing software don't have this network of contractors nationwide." For B2B founders expanding product lines: customer pull plus operational advantages competitors can't replicate (Lula's contractor density, manufacturer relationships, 1,000 daily work orders of training data) create viable new products. Without both, you're just building undifferentiated software. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

    20 min
  7. How CoreStory seeded "Spec-Driven Development" across the market without analyst relations | Anand Kulkarni

    6D AGO

    How CoreStory seeded "Spec-Driven Development" across the market without analyst relations | Anand Kulkarni

    CoreStory is building code intelligence platforms that address the fundamental limitation of today's coding agents: their inability to navigate complex enterprise codebases. While foundation models excel at greenfield development, they fail at real-world engineering tasks in systems spanning millions of lines of code. CoreStory's context layer delivers a 44% improvement on SWE-bench, the industry's standard benchmark for measuring coding agent effectiveness on actual GitHub issues. In this episode of BUILDERS, I sat down with Anand Kulkarni, CEO of CoreStory, to explore how his team is enabling the shift to AI-native engineering and seeding the category of spec-driven development across Microsoft, GitHub, and Amazon. Topics Discussed: Building with GPT-3 API 18 months before ChatGPT went public Why even GPT-5 and Opus 4.5 struggle with enterprise codebases on SWE-bench The narrative shift required when selling AI pre- and post-ChatGPT CoreStory's 44% improvement in coding agent performance through context intelligence How "spec-driven development" got adopted by Microsoft, GitHub, and Amazon without formal analyst relations The parallel between JIRA monetizing Agile and CoreStory enabling AI-native engineering Three-channel distribution: direct enterprise, coding agent partnerships via MCP, and hyperscaler/GSI routes Why specs become the source of truth while code becomes disposable in the AI era GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Match your narrative precision to technical depth: CoreStory deploys three distinct positioning strategies based on audience sophistication. For AI practitioners tracking benchmarks, they lead with "44% SWE-bench improvement"—a metric that immediately signals meaningful progress on the hardest problem in the space. For engineering leaders aware of AI tooling but not deep in the research, they focus on velocity gains and ROI metrics. For executives, they describe reverse-engineering codebases into machine-readable specs. The key insight: technical audiences dismiss vague value props, while non-technical audiences get lost in benchmark details. Map your positioning to how your audience measures success in their world. Seed category language through earned adoption, not manufactured consensus: Anand initially called their approach "requirements-driven development" before simplifying to "spec-driven development." Rather than pitching analysts, they used the term consistently in customer conversations, gave talks at GitHub Universe, and shipped demos showing the workflow. When customers naturally adopted the language and community leaders began using similar terminology independently, Microsoft and GitHub followed with their own implementations (like GitHub's SpecKit). The lesson: category language sticks when practitioners choose to use it because it clarifies their work, not because a vendor pushed it. Focus on customer adoption as proof of concept before seeking broader market validation. Position against emergent practices, not just incumbent products: CoreStory doesn't position against legacy code analysis tools—they position as the enabler of AI-native engineering, the discipline that will displace Agile. Anand's insight from watching JIRA's success: "People don't love JIRA. What they love is Agile as a way to move away from waterfall." CoreStory is betting that 10x velocity gains from AI-native practices will drive the same categorical shift. When you're early in a technology wave, attach to the practice change (how teams will work differently) rather than feature comparisons with existing tools. Movements create markets. Design channel strategy around customer problem awareness: CoreStory's three channels map to different stages of buyer sophistication. Direct enterprise comes from teams already deep in AI engineering who've hit the context limitation wall. Coding agent partnerships (via MCP integration with tools like Cognition and Factory) serve builders wanting better AI tooling who haven't diagnosed the context problem yet. Hyperscalers and GSIs distribute into modernization and maintenance projects where AI enablement is emerging as a requirement. Each channel serves a distinct buyer journey stage. Don't force one go-to-market motion—design multiple paths based on where different customer segments are in understanding the problem you solve. Navigate pre-legitimacy markets by hiding the breakthrough: Before ChatGPT, selling anything AI-driven faced immediate skepticism about whether it was "real" or just smoke and mirrors. Anand couldn't lead with AI without triggering disbelief. CoreStory focused on delivered outcomes—"here's what you'll be able to do"—with AI as the mechanism, not the message. Post-ChatGPT, the challenge flipped: everyone expects AI, but now the differentiation question becomes harder. If you're building on emerging technology before market consensus forms, deemphasize the technology until buyers have context to evaluate it. Once the market validates the technology category, shift to demonstrating your specific technical advantage within it. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

    23 min
  8. How theion's CEO approaches pre-GTM deep tech strategy | Dr. Ulrich Ehmes"

    6D AGO

    How theion's CEO approaches pre-GTM deep tech strategy | Dr. Ulrich Ehmes"

    theion is developing lithium-sulfur battery technology targeting 500 watt hours per kilogram in their first commercial product—nearly double today's lithium-ion cells at 270-300 Wh/kg—with an ultimate roadmap to 1,000 Wh/kg. By replacing nickel-manganese-cobalt cathodes with crystalline sulfur and graphite anodes with lithium metal, theion aims to deliver three times the energy density at one-third the cost and CO2 footprint of current batteries. In this episode of BUILDERS, we sat down with Dr. Ulrich Ehmes, CEO of theion, to discuss how a production-focused CEO is navigating the journey from TRL 3-4 to pilot line, why they're targeting electric aviation first, and how a 12-year battery industry veteran evaluates what actually constitutes a materials breakthrough. Topics Discussed: Why sulfur cathodes and lithium metal anodes enable the performance jump beyond lithium-ion The critical importance of monoclinic gamma crystalline structure for cycle life  Navigating the transition from coin cells to pouch cells to industrialization  Strategic decision-making on initial market entry for deep tech hardware  Why process innovation in mixing and coating is required to unlock sulfur's full potential  Building a China-independent supply chain using oil refining waste  The 3-year development reality driven by cycling test requirements GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Price your technology against value creation, not cost savings alone: Ulrich's market strategy centers on "markets which will pay a lot of money for super lightweight batteries"—specifically aviation applications where weight reduction directly enables business model viability. For eVTOLs, the constraint isn't battery cost but energy density; current batteries make many routes economically impossible. This is fundamentally different from cost-driven markets like consumer EVs where incremental weight savings have marginal value. Deep tech founders should map which customer segments face hard physical constraints that only your technology solves versus those seeking incremental optimization. The former will pay 3-5x premiums; the latter will demand cost parity from day one. Match CEO background to the company's primary risk: Ulrich led Leica's 600-person Portugal production facility for a decade before entering batteries, and he frames his value as "I'm a production guy...for me it's very important not to produce only one battery cell in a lab, but millions of cells in highest quality." For a battery company at TRL 3-4 moving toward industrialization, the existential risk isn't the science—it's whether you can manufacture at quality and yield. Many deep tech companies fail because PhD founders remain CEOs through manufacturing scale-up. Ulrich's hire signals that theion's board correctly diagnosed their de-risking sequence. Founders should brutally assess what will kill the company in the next 24 months and ensure the CEO's pattern recognition matches that failure mode. Seek investors where your technology is infrastructure for their thesis: theion's primary investor is "heavily invested in eVTOLs," making theion's battery technology directly relevant to multiple portfolio companies facing the same energy density constraint. This creates structural alignment on timeline expectations—eVTOL companies won't reach commercial scale before 2027-2028 anyway, matching theion's development cycle. The investor understands that battery development "takes time because always when you change a parameter, you have to cycle again to test the cells." This is radically different from a generalist VC expecting SaaS-like iteration speeds. Hardware founders should explicitly map how their technology unblocks other portfolio companies and use this to negotiate patient capital terms and strategic customer introductions. Use competitive landscape size as legitimacy signal, not differentiation: When pressed on disrupting incumbents, Ulrich immediately countered: "We are not the only company working on sulfur and this is good...there are 28 other companies out there." He then differentiated on "monoclinic gamma crystalline structure" validated by Drexel University achieving 4,000+ cycles. This is sophisticated category positioning: the 28 competitors validate that lithium-sulfur is a credible next-generation technology, while the specific crystalline approach provides technical differentiation for those who understand the chemistry. Founders should resist the urge to claim they're the only ones solving a problem in nascent categories—it raises "why hasn't anyone else tried this?" concerns. Instead, position within an emerging category and differentiate on technical approach. Communicate realistic timelines as competence signaling, not weakness: Ulrich states plainly that commercial availability is "at least the next three years" and frames this as doing "first things first and first things right." For sophisticated buyers in aviation and aerospace, compressed timelines signal naivety about certification requirements, manufacturing validation, and qualification testing. A battery company claiming 12-month commercialization would lose credibility with Boeing or Joby Aviation procurement teams who understand the actual development cycles. Deep tech founders should recognize that customer segments accustomed to long development cycles (aerospace, automotive, medical devices) interpret realistic timelines as domain expertise, while consumer/software buyers may interpret them as lack of urgency. Match timeline communication to buyer sophistication. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

    18 min
See All (846)

About

Welcome to BUILDERS — the show about how founders get new technology adopted. Each episode features a founder on the front lines of bringing new tech to market, sharing how they broke into their industry, earned early believers, built credibility, and unlocked real technology adoption. BUILDERS is part of a network of 20 industry-specific shows with a library of 1,200+ founder interviews conducted over the past three years. For the full network, visit FrontLines.io. Brought to you by:  www.FrontLines.io/FounderLedGrowth — Founder-led Growth as a Service. Launch your own podcast that drives thought leadership, demand, and most importantly, revenue.

Information

  • Creator
    Front Lines Media
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    846
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2022 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    BUILDERS