Venturing with Vishesh — Startup Founder Interviews on SaaS, AI, Fundraising & Venture Capital.

Vishesh Duggar
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Venturing with Vishesh is a weekly founder interview podcast hosted by Vishesh Duggar (5× founder, ex-CTO at Vamstar). Each week Vishesh talks to SaaS founders, AI builders, and venture capitalists from the US, Europe and India — unpacking what almost broke their companies and how they turned it around. Real fundraising stories, GTM playbooks, product-market fit lessons, and the unglamorous side of building a startup. Guests backed by Y Combinator, Benchmark, a16z, and Sequoia. New episodes every week.

  1. 1d ago

    #70 Your AI Agent Does Not Need an API. It Needs a Login. | Furqan Kidwai

    # Your AI Agent Does Not Need an API. It Needs a Login.## Guest IntroductionI'm joined by Furqan Kidwai, Co-Founder & CEO of Plouton AI, which builds AI finance co-workers for mid-market CFO teams. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree who started his career building credit-risk models at Deloitte, he explains why his agents log in instead of integrating.## Episode SummaryMid-market finance teams do not lack tools. They lose days copying data between them, because most of their ERPs and bank portals have no API. This conversation is about AI agents that log in like a person and finish 10 days of back-office work in an hour, and what it takes to sell automation where every click must be provable.## Key Points- 🔐 Why the API-first automation wave skipped most mid-market finance teams- 🧾 The audit trail that lets an AI agent touch the books without keeping the data- 🤖 How an AI agent gets past MFA prompts the same way a new hire does- 🔀 The outbound pivot that turned a would-be competitor into a sales channel- 🎙️ The webinar playbook that fills a CFO pipeline, and what has to come first- 📉 Why a fintech with 26,000 customers still had to shut down- 🧭 Services as a software: why this AI company will not call itself SaaS## Important Links- You can reach Furqan Kidwai at https://www.linkedin.com/in/furqankarimkidwai- Vishesh, your host at https://vishesh.space- Checkout Plouton AI at https://plouton.co- Hands hurt while you use the keyboard or mouse? https://tryneo.dev## Chapters0:00 - Introduction0:07 - From theatre and computer science to Deloitte credit-risk models1:33 - The grandma pitch: what Plouton AI actually does2:15 - Copilot vs co-executor: agents that finish the work4:47 - Why API-first tools miss mid-market finance teams6:33 - Browser agents in the cloud, like a remote employee7:44 - Handling MFA prompts and session timeouts8:58 - An audit trail without data retention, plus on-prem10:09 - From a 100-person consultancy to services as a software11:22 - The channels that bring in CFO buyers11:50 - The webinar playbook: credibility comes first14:08 - YPay: 26,000 customers, a macro shift, and shutting down16:16 - His founder superpower: staying close to customers17:01 - The pivot to selling through fractional CFO firms18:09 - The founder lesson: stay positive, grow your surface area19:22 - The one product he can't live without20:26 - Where to find Furqan and Plouton AI

    #70 Your AI Agent Does Not Need an API. It Needs a Login. | Furqan Kidwai

  2. Sep 1

    #69 Why Founders Underprice — From Someone Who Priced for 8 Years

    ## Guest IntroductionI'm joined by Gregor Biljardt, CEO of Mondrio and a former Simon-Kucher pricing lead who spent roughly eight years pricing startups before building an agentic pricing platform. He's seen exactly where founders leave money on the table — and why the AI era just rewrote the rules.## Episode SummaryPricing is one of the highest-leverage levers a founder has, yet most set it once on gut and never touch it again. The bigger shift: AI has turned pricing from a static, annual exercise into a living system that has to move as fast as the product ships — and the seat-based models most teams default to can quietly erode your margins the moment agents start doing the work.## Key Points- 🔥 The one-sentence realization that made him walk away from an 8-year pricing career- 💡 Why founders keep undercharging — and the healthy sign that you're priced right- 🎯 The margin trap that punishes you for shipping better AI- 🚀 Why copying OpenAI's $20 price tag might just be copying someone's guess- 🧭 The pricing move most founders skip at Series A — and pay for later- 💰 What to always ask for before you hand a customer a discount- ⚙️ Who should actually own pricing when you're pre-seed to Series A## Important Links- You can reach Gregor Biljardt at https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregorbiljardt- Vishesh, your host at https://vishesh.space- Checkout Mondrio at https://mondrio.io- Hands hurt while you use the keyboard or mouse? https://tryneo.dev## Chapters0:00 - Introduction0:10 - Why he left 8 years of pricing consulting to build Mondrio1:46 - "You can't do pricing with a report": pricing as a living system2:45 - Pricing moves that matter at pre-seed, seed, and Series A4:46 - Why founders undercharge and leave money on the table8:45 - Copying competitor pricing: the $20/$100/$200 trap11:09 - When is it too early to obsess over pricing?13:30 - How to price AI when agents, not seats, do the work15:15 - Outcome-based pricing: when it actually works16:42 - Why replacing seats with AI can cut your own revenue18:33 - Usage-based pricing and the predictability objection21:22 - Fair-use policies and the million-dollar-bill churn24:34 - Pricing is cross-functional: engineering vs sales blind spots30:41 - Discounting: always ask something back33:43 - The hidden work behind "simple" pricing35:29 - Who owns pricing from pre-seed to Series A37:44 - Changing pricing often without confusing customers42:41 - Mondrio's challenges: mindsets, services, and hiring49:06 - Roles Mondrio is hiring for in SF and Amsterdam50:32 - Book recommendation and where to find Gregor

    #69 Why Founders Underprice — From Someone Who Priced for 8 Years

  3. Aug 20

    #68 How to Land Press With Zero Journalist Connections | Startup PR | Kathy Wang

    # How to Land Press With Zero Journalist Connections## Guest IntroductionI'm joined by Kathy Wang, Co-Founder at Press Club. She's an ex-Dropbox designer who built a 10,000-person audience before she had a product, and now lands founders in Forbes, TechCrunch, and Axios entirely through cold outreach, without knowing a single journalist.## Episode SummaryLanding top-tier press has nothing to do with knowing journalists. It's a repeatable cold-outreach system that surfaces the ~200 reporters most likely to say yes and pitches each one a story worth their time. The real multiplier underneath it is distribution you build in public before you ever have a product, plus the discipline to post what inspires and educates instead of streaming your struggles.## Key Points- 🔥 She quit her job a week after one conference talk, with no idea, no co-founder, and nothing lined up- 💡 The 'classic' build-in-public advice that quietly kills your engagement on LinkedIn- 🎯 Why an AI-written cold pitch out-converts the same email after a founder edits it by hand- 🚀 The cold-outreach response rate everyone accepts as normal, and the number her AI agent hits instead- 🧭 Forbes bought him credibility; a niche outlet got him 10x the revenue. Which one you actually need- 📰 A six-day pitch-to-published campaign, and the three boxes you must check to be newsworthy- 🎤 The reason most founders can't get press: they have no idea what's actually interesting about them## Important Links- You can reach Kathy Wang at https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathytwang/- Vishesh, your host at https://vishesh.space- Checkout Press Club at https://pressclub.app/- Hands hurt while you use the keyboard or mouse? https://tryneo.dev## Chapters0:00 - Introduction0:39 - The Press Club pitch: top-tier press with zero journalist connections1:29 - Quitting her job a week after one conference talk3:25 - Six months of daily content before she had an idea4:30 - The hackathon that became Press Club (and a co-founder) in a day6:23 - Does posting every day burn out your audience?7:00 - Top-of-funnel vs bottom-of-funnel content, done with intent11:41 - The build-in-public lesson most founders get backwards15:32 - Building in public vs performing for the algorithm19:50 - Events as Press Club's primary customer-acquisition channel23:19 - Inside the cold-outreach engine: finding the right 200 journalists26:26 - Why AI-written pitches beat hand-edited ones, and the 10% response rate29:09 - A six-day pitch-to-published Axios campaign30:38 - The three criteria that make a founder newsworthy31:14 - When press changes the trajectory of a deal33:36 - Credibility vs customer acquisition: tier-one vs niche outlets35:52 - Manufacturing a newsworthy moment as a pre-seed founder37:38 - The belief about building in public she flipped38:42 - Her secret to never running out of content ideas41:18 - The one thing to do after this episode43:51 - Running a 30-day LinkedIn challenge across the team45:52 - Where to find Kathy

    #68 How to Land Press With Zero Journalist Connections | Startup PR | Kathy Wang

  4. Aug 5

    #67 You Won't Notice You've Become the Boss You Hate | Leadership Under Pressure | Sabina Nawaz

    Guest Introduction I'm joined by Sabina Nawaz, CEO Coach, Keynote speaker, Author, Board member at Nawaz Consulting LLC. She spent fourteen years at Microsoft running executive development for over 11,000 managers before becoming an executive coach to CEOs and leaders across the globe. Episode Summary Her book argues it's not power that corrupts leaders, it's pressure. This episode shows how the exact strengths that built your company can quietly turn you into the manager your team fears, and how to catch it before it costs you your best people. Key Points - 🔥 Why the strengths that got you funded are exactly what makes you a bad manager - 💡 The real reason "how'd I do?" is the worst question a founder can ask - 🎯 Why over 95% of "teams" aren't actually teams at all - 🚀 The two-word response that instantly kills defensiveness when receiving feedback - 🧭 The four "sole provider" traps quietly burning out high performers - 🪞 Her own worst moment as a boss, and what it revealed about power - ⏸️ Why "Blank Space" (doing absolutely nothing) might be the highest-leverage move a leader can make Important Links - You can reach Sabina Nawaz at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sabinanawaz - Vishesh, your host at https://vishesh.space - Checkout Nawaz Consulting LLC at https://sabinanawaz.com - Hands hurt while you use the keyboard or mouse? https://tryneo.dev ## Chapters 0:00 - Introduction 0:35 - Why getting promoted is more dangerous than a bad hire 2:07 - From Microsoft software teams to coaching 11,000 managers 4:25 - Blank space: building a habit of doing nothing 7:44 - The hardest 30 seconds of the day: breaking the phone-check habit 9:57 - The strengths that get you promoted and the ones that get you fired 10:53 - It's not power that corrupts, it's pressure 12:52 - How founders can actually get honest feedback 15:45 - The two words that stop you sounding defensive 16:48 - Why 95% of "teams" aren't really teams 20:22 - The two questions that build real trust on a team 21:40 - Why founders should be the third person to speak 23:50 - If you say you're self-aware, you're not 25:15 - When pressure makes you a better leader 26:24 - The sole provider trap: four ways high performers burn out 29:28 - The delegation dial, not a switch 32:04 - Doing nothing as the highest-leverage move for a startup 34:08 - Replace "yeah, but" with "yes, and" 35:33 - The single pattern that predicts whether a leader wrecks their team 37:37 - Her own "boss from hell" moment with a colleague named Zach 40:19 - Where to find Sabina and her book

    #67 You Won't Notice You've Become the Boss You Hate | Leadership Under Pressure | Sabina Nawaz

  5. Jul 9

    #66 Quiet Quitting Is a Design Outcome, Not an Attitude Problem | Work Design | Justin Robbins

    I'm joined by Justin Robbins — he spent years studying why the best employees go silent, and his answer is that it's never a people problem. It's always a design problem. He's the founder of Metric Sherpa and author of More Than a Motto. ## Episode Summary Most leaders believe quiet quitting is a people problem — a failure of attitude, motivation, or grit. Justin Robbins argues it's a design outcome: a predictable result of organizations that promise one thing and practice another. His research surfaced six specific design habits — the RHYTHM framework — that separate organizations where work energizes people from ones that quietly destroy them. When the system consistently undermines the people who care most, disengagement isn't rebellion — it's rational. ## Key Points - 🔥 The people most likely to quiet quit are your highest performers — the ones who care most carry the system longest, and break first - 💡 Values docs don't fail because leaders are hypocrites — clarity degrades with every new hire, and nobody ever built a system to stop it - 🎯 86% of companies think their customers trust them. 44% of customers agree. Justin calls this a collective hallucination — and traces it to internal dysfunction, not bad PR - 🚀 Hustle culture becomes a burnout factory the moment you've never clarified where you're going — ambiguity without destination is the actual killer - 🎭 Most culture problems are org design problems — we solve them with therapy, surveys, and Chief People Officers, which guarantees they get worse ## Important Links - You can reach Justin Robbins at https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinmrobbins/ - Vishesh, your host at https://vishesh.space - Checkout Metric Sherpa at https://morethanamotto.com - Hands hurt while you use the keyboard or mouse? https://tryneo.dev ## Chapters 0:00 - Introduction 1:12 - Why the most passionate employees quiet quit first 3:25 - Promise vs. practice: the root cause of disconnection 4:38 - The real cost of a values doc nobody lives by 8:19 - How to embed values without sounding like a broken record 11:18 - Benchmarking culture vs. building something ownable 14:08 - The 6 RHYTHM habits: from clarity to repeat 17:13 - Startups and ambiguity: burnout factory or design choice? 20:05 - From contact center researcher to Metric Sherpa founder 23:40 - The Pizza Party Problem and 4 questions every employee asks 28:36 - Recognition done right: connect to values, not heroics 34:51 - The 86/44 trust gap: why leaders hallucinate customer loyalty 38:17 - How to actually measure whether customers trust you 43:54 - AI and work design: the transformation leaders aren't ready for 46:56 - Org design problems dressed up as feelings problems 51:16 - What broken organizations reveal in the first 20 minutes 53:54 - When is an organization truly unfixable? 56:32 - Early warning signs you need cultural intervention now 58:44 - Hustle culture: when does it flip from asset to liability? 1:02:02 - Why subcultures emerge when hustle culture gets baked in 1:04:18 - Where to find the book and who should read it

    #66 Quiet Quitting Is a Design Outcome, Not an Attitude Problem | Work Design | Justin Robbins

  6. Jun 10

    # 65 The Marketing Industry Solved Measurement. It Was Always the Wrong Problem. | Peter Grafe

    # The Marketing Industry Solved Measurement. It Was Always the Wrong Problem.## Guest IntroductionI'm joined by Peter Grafe, Founder at BlueAlpha, the AI-native marketing hub built for performance marketing. A first-cohort data science graduate who turned down nothing to keep a Tesla internship, he spent four years building the measurement infrastructure that proved Tesla's paid media actually worked — then left to commercialize it for growth-stage companies.## Episode SummaryMost companies have solved measurement — and it still hasn't fixed their marketing. The real problem is the gap between a statistical model output and an action a marketing team can actually take. This episode traces how that insight was earned inside Tesla's demand machine and turned into a company built to close that gap for everyone else.## Key Points- 🔥 Why every ad platform is actively lying to you about which campaigns drove your sales- 💡 The counterintuitive discovery that proved Tesla's search ads were claiming credit for sales YouTube actually drove- 🎯 Why the marketing industry solved measurement and it was always the wrong problem- 🚀 The 'operating system for agents' thesis that turns dashboards into autonomous executions- 🧭 What a data scientist with zero sales experience learned the hard way about closing a deal- 🤖 The unconventional GTM play — creatine gummies, work trials, and leading with value before the pitch## Important Links- You can reach Peter Grafe at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ped-grafe/- Vishesh, your host at https://vishesh.space- Checkout BlueAlpha at https://bluealpha.ai- Hands hurt while you use the keyboard or mouse? https://tryneo.dev## Chapters0:00 - Introduction1:33 - How Peter and Scott Persinger connected at Frontier Tower SF3:45 - Writing a data science master's thesis while holding a Tesla internship simultaneously4:35 - From EMEA data scientist to leading Tesla's marketing measurement team7:33 - The moment Tesla flipped from supply-constrained to demand-constrained9:44 - The Elon paradox: no paid media becomes paid media when supply exceeds demand13:00 - Building the marketing data science function — as a team of one15:40 - How YouTube drove Tesla sales that Google Search was falsely claiming17:00 - Marketing mix models vs. incrementality testing explained without the jargon20:10 - What actually breaks when you lose Tesla's first-party data advantage23:51 - BlueAlpha's seven-agent performance marketing stack and the vision for 205028:35 - Using public ad transparency libraries and pixel-scraping for competitor intelligence32:08 - Why measurement solved the wrong problem: the measurement-to-action gap37:00 - How AI bridges data science outputs to decisions marketers can actually act on40:33 - First-time founder sales: what they got badly wrong and what fixed it45:38 - The intent scoring system, HubSpot automation, and creatine gummies as a GTM move53:02 - The work trial hiring process that generated Business Insider hate and better hires58:49 - Tool stack, on-site culture, and why BlueAlpha is building MCP-first1:01:20 - Biggest founder lessons, book recommendation, and where to find Peter

    # 65 The Marketing Industry Solved Measurement. It Was Always the Wrong Problem. | Peter Grafe

  7. May 28

    #64 From $7 on a Pizza Box to a $16M Series A | Voice AI Startup Phonely | Will Bodewes

    I am joined today by Will Bodewes, founder and CEO at Phonely. Phonely uses AI to answer business phone calls so naturally that nine out of ten callers can't tell it's not human. They just raised sixteen million, and one of their customers replaced three hundred and fifty agents in a single month. Key Discussion Points: 🔥 How a $7 idea on a pizza box turned into a $16M Series A funding round 🤖 The surprising truth about AI-powered phone answering and its potential 📈 The challenges of recruiting and hiring the right talent for a startup 🚀 The importance of finding and solving hard problems to create a successful startup 🤔 The limitations of fine-tune models in voice-based AI and what's next 💡 The role of vertical AI and horizontal tech platforms in startup success 📊 The current state of AI development and what to expect in the future Timecodes: 0:00 - Introduction 2:30 - Founding Phonely and its AI-Powered Phone Answering Service 4:21 - The Inspiration Behind Phonely and its First Customer 6:03 - Investing in Other Startups and Partnerships 7:17 - The Decision to Move Away from OpenAI and Develop Fine-Tuned Models 9:05 - The Difference Between Horizontal and Vertical Tech 10:25 - Scaling the Company and Organizational Changes 11:32 - The Limitations of AI Models and Future Improvements 12:47 - Marketing Strategy and AI Stack 14:18 - Lessons Learned from Y Combinator 15:10 - Current Challenges and Hiring Process 16:40 - The Most Important Quality in a Candidate 17:29 - Worst Advice from a VC 19:07 - The Importance of Not Rushing into Raising Money or Releasing a Product 19:45 - Family Support and Phonely's Progress 20:20 - Transitioning from a Hardware to a Software Startup 22:14 - Epic Failures and Lessons Learned 24:07 - Scaling the Organization and Designing its Structure 25:20 - How to Reach Will and Learn More About Phonely Important Links: You can reach Will Bodewes at https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-bodewes Checkout Phonely at https://phonely.ai Vishesh, your host at https://vishesh.space Hands hurt while you use the keyboard or mouse? https://tryneo.dev 🎙️ Subscribe for more episodes! #Episode64 #VenturingWithVishesh #Startups #Entrepreneurship #startups #entrepreneurship #venturingwithvishesh

    #64 From $7 on a Pizza Box to a $16M Series A | Voice AI Startup Phonely | Will Bodewes

  8. May 13

    #63 Throxy: The outbound company that ignored LinkedIn completely | Arnau Ayerbe

    Arnau Ayerbe left JP Morgan at 23 to build Throxy — an outbound company that ignores LinkedIn completely and sells into manufacturing, logistics, and construction using AI agents and human cold-callers. They just raised 6.2 million from Base10 after going through YC. Today we're getting into the contrarian bets, the co-founder dynamics of building with your best friend since age 14, and why he thinks SaaS is already dead. Key Discussion Points: 🔥 How AI is revolutionizing sales processes and what it means for the future of sales teams 🤖 The surprising benefits of taking a contrarian approach to sales and marketing 📈 The importance of human capital in delivering results and driving revenue growth 🚀 The challenges of scaling a startup and finding top-tier talent to drive innovation 🌎 How location and hiring practices can impact the success of a sales development representative team 💡 The need for a service-oriented approach to sales and the benefits of performance-based pricing Timecodes: 0:00 - Introduction 0:22 - Transition from Finance to Startup Life 3:05 - The Mission of Throxy: Automating Sales 4:25 - Building a Team: Co-founders and Early Projects 6:20 - The Role of Human Cold Callers in Sales 7:43 - Explaining Throxy: Service vs. Software 9:02 - Targeting Non-Traditional Markets for Sales 10:30 - The Importance of Human Touch in Automation 11:32 - Fundraising Challenges and Investor Perspectives 13:26 - Pricing Model: Performance-Based Revenue 14:43 - Setting Up Operations in Cape Town 15:55 - Lightning Round: Key Insights and Lessons 17:33 - Overrated Advice from Y Combinator 18:21 - Essential Tools for Startup Success 20:09 - Learning from Mistakes: Early Missteps at Throxy 22:05 - Current Challenges and Future Growth Plans 23:50 - Conclusion and How to Connect with Throxy Important Links: You can reach Arnau Ayerbe at https://www.linkedin.com/in/arnau-ayerbe Vishesh, your host at https://vishesh.space Check out Throxy at https://throxy.com P.S. Hands hurt while you use the keyboard or mouse? https://tryneo.dev 🎙️ Subscribe for more episodes! #Episode63 #VenturingWithVishesh #Startups #Entrepreneurship #startups #entrepreneurship #venturingwithvishesh

    #63 Throxy: The outbound company that ignored LinkedIn completely | Arnau Ayerbe
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Venturing with Vishesh is a weekly founder interview podcast hosted by Vishesh Duggar (5× founder, ex-CTO at Vamstar). Each week Vishesh talks to SaaS founders, AI builders, and venture capitalists from the US, Europe and India — unpacking what almost broke their companies and how they turned it around. Real fundraising stories, GTM playbooks, product-market fit lessons, and the unglamorous side of building a startup. Guests backed by Y Combinator, Benchmark, a16z, and Sequoia. New episodes every week.

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