Category Visionaries

James Hawkins, CEO of PostHog: $21 Million Raised to Build the Future of Product Analytics

In today's episode of Category Visionaries, we speak with James Hawkins,  Co-Founder and CEO of PostHog, about what makes startups so exciting, and how to make a successful business in the digital era. By leveraging a strong commitment to PNG and flexible approach to development through their open source product operating platform, PostHog integrated the needs of their customers with a stellar business proposal, driving opportunities to innovate and grow together as a community.
Topics Discussed:
How finance became startups - how James fell into the world of start-up enterprises from a career in investment banking
Why not everyone is happy about the digital transition, and why some companies prefer to keep their data offline
Why 'slow and steady' is still relevant for stable growth in the market, even today
PLG as a core business strategy, and why a transition to big enterprise might require a revised sales strategy
The power of feedback in building a customer profile before going overboard with staff spending.
 
Favorite book: 
No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention

Philippe Humeau, CEO of CrowdSec: $21 Million Raised to Build the Future of Cyber Threat Intelligence

In today's episode of Category Visionaries, we speak with Philippe Humeau, CEO of CrowdSec, a cyber security startup building a neighborhood watch for the internet era, leveraging collaboration and mutual benefit to optimize protection against contemporary online threats. By identifying aggressive IP addresses and bad actors in real time, and sharing that information with users, the bulk of your security legwork can be taken care of before the threat ever reaches your servers. It's this powerful security infrastructure which has helped CrowdCec secure 110,000 users in just two years, and be well on the way to their first million.
Topics Discussed:
How cracking computer games at school led Philippe to a career in cybersecurity
How security needs have changed in the ransomware era, and what aggressive security means for your business
Why selling signals is a massive market, and how CrowdSec manages to stay free to use
PLG as the idea growth strategy for small businesses, but why it might not always be scalable
Market innovation and enterprise categories - why detecting trends is different from imposing them
Cybersecurity’s high burn rate, and why if you want software maintained well you need to pay a top-level salary
Favorite book: 
Thinking, Fast and Slow

Pascal Weinberger, CEO of Bardeen: $18 Million Raised to Build the Future of No-Code Automation

Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech's most innovative B2B founders. In today's episode, we're speaking with Pascal Weinberger, CEO & Founder of Bardeen, a no-code workflow automation platform that has raised over $18 Million in funding.
Here are the most interesting points from the conversation:
Origin of Bardeen: Pascal and his co-founder Artem were frustrated by the time spent copy-pasting data between tabs and set out to solve this with Bardeen, aiming to automate tedious workflows.
Proactive Automation: Unlike traditional trigger-based tools like Zapier, Bardeen operates on user context, enabling more powerful and intuitive automations.
PLG Approach: Bardeen employs a product-led growth strategy, focusing on community support and direct user feedback to continuously refine their product.
Challenges of PLG: While PLG offers rapid feedback and user-centric development, it also demands high attention to detail and faces competition for user attention.
Category Creation: Bardeen aims to establish a new category of proactive automation, bridging the gap between simple trigger-based tools and complex enterprise solutions.
Future Vision: Bardeen aspires to bring automation to everyone, aiming for a world where automation tools proactively identify opportunities to save users' time, akin to how Honey finds savings at checkout.

Jaclyn Chen, CEO of Benepass: $14 Million Raised to Build the Future of Employee Benefits Management

In today's episode of Category Visionaries, we speak with Jaclyn Chen, CEO of Benepass, about how her journey towards becoming a 'giver' led her to establish an exciting new Employee Benefits Platform, empowering people with the choices they need to make real wellbeing a reality. A simple, intuitive tool with no gimmicks or hidden costs, Benepass helps companies reimagine how they take care of their people, providing a flexible and accountable way for people to get the benefits which make the most difference in their lives. Whether your well-being comes from hitting the gym, joining a meditation class or just having someone to take care of your chores while you work, Benepass offers a one-stop solution with tailor-made choices, without any additional administrative burden on the company.
Topics Discussed:
The power of 'giving' in the marketplace of ideas, and how prioritizing consumer needs helped drive the birth of Benepass
Why wellbeing means different things to different people, and how companies are starting to give them the right to choose
How a cheap, simple contribution can make a big difference in people's mindset - show them you care with a tailor-made gesture
The pandemic, the at in Ukraine, and a what 'wellness' means is always changing with the times
Why Benepass is driving a mindset change in the HR industry, and letting personal choice be the bedrock of how businesses operate
Why Benepass targeted the mid-sized business market, and how the next few years look set to be critical for ongoing growth and expansion

Romaric Philogene, CEO of Qovery: $4 Million Raised to Help You Deploy Your Apps on AWS in Seconds

Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech's most innovative B2B founders. In today's episode, we're speaking with Romaric Philogène, CEO & Founder of Qovery, a developer tool that's raised $4 Million in seed funding.
Here are the most interesting points from our conversation:
Vision for Qovery: Romaric explains how Qovery helps developers deploy applications in the cloud quickly, enhancing productivity and efficiency.
Target Audience: Qovery primarily targets SaaS companies, with over 30,000 developers using the platform across various industries like fintech, healthcare, and HR.
Growth Strategy: The company grew from 50 to over 30,000 developers in just a few years by building a strong community and offering a freemium model.
Market Category: Qovery is creating a new category by integrating DevOps and developer workflows to improve deployment processes.
Funding and Market Potential: With $4 million in seed funding, Qovery aims to address the massive global market for cloud deployment tools, offering solutions that simplify complex cloud infrastructures.
Future Vision: Romaric emphasizes the company’s commitment to solving the collaboration challenges between DevOps engineers and developers, aiming for faster and more efficient application deployment.

Krish Ramineni, CEO of Fireflies: $19 Million Raised to Build the Future of AI Meeting Assistants

In today’s episode of Category Visionaries, we speak with Krish Ramineni, CEO of Fireflies.ai, an AI meeting assistant promising to revolutionize the value of videoconferencing by unlocking actionable insights from our meetings. Harnessing a unique combination of machine learning, transcription technology and analytics, Fireflies.ai is on a mission to make our meetings better or reduce the need for them altogether, providing all of us with access to the most important insights from those key strategic discussions. Already active in more than 70% of meetings held by fortune 500 companies, if you haven't heard of Fireflies.ai yet, it's only a matter of time.
Topics Discussed:
Why traditional meetings have been letting us down, wasting time and costing billions of dollars in man hours every year
The wasted potential of videoconferencing as a source of searchable material, and how Fireflies.ai identified a gap in the market
The importance of privacy, security, and compliance when dealing with sensitive data
Why the product-led approach works perfectly for the Fireflies.ai sales model, and how they outmaneuvered the top-down competition
How extracting actionable data from meetings is empowering knowledge workers across in more than 100 countries
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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

Ryan Sevey, CEO of Mantium: $12 Million Raised to Help Teams Deploy and Monitor their AI Process Automations

In today’s episode of Category Visionaries, we speak with Ryan Sevey, CEO of Mantium, about his journey from one man show to becoming the head of a major machine learning platform. In the era of AI, Mantium's unique perspective regarding machine learning is that it's not going to replace humans in terms of sales and communication, but will help us achieve more by taking care of the small things while focusing on the very human tasks that really make a company function.  
Topics Discussed:
How Ryan's love for learning started his career, and what he's learned along the way
Why grand expectations can cause a real problem with your newest AI acquisition
What the 'era of AI' means for an emerging startup and how to identify the right next step
Why open source software and dropping faux exclusivity has worked out well for Mantium
Working with insurance companies and why they're Mantium's ideal customer profile

Dimitry Gershenson, CEO of Enduring Planet: $5 Million Raised Bring Revenue-Based Financing Options to Climate Entrepreneurs

In today’s episode of Category Visionaries, we speak with Dimitry Gershenson, CEO and Founder of Enduring Planet, about his journey from a globe-trotting career to establishing a new model of impact investing, providing Founder-friendly, accessible finance to climate entrepreneurs working towards a more livable planet. Each year we collectively fall short of more than 4.5 trillion dollars in the climate financing needed, and Enduring Planet is determined to make a dent in that total with an investment model which aligns business acumen with clear and robust ethical principles.
Topics Discussed:
The global climate financing landscape, and why Enduring Planet was founded with a mission so make a dent in our environmental debt
Why impact investment has traditionally lagged behind traditional funding avenues, and how that looks set to change
How Enduring Planet assesses the environmental credentials and commercial viability of potential investment partners
Why, for Enduring Planet, all capital is just capital, but not all capital should support every venture

Gil Feig, CTO of Merge: $75 Million Raised to Help B2B Companies Build Customer-Facing Integrations via It’s Unified API Platform

In today’s episode of Category Visionaries, we speak with Gil Feig, CTO of Merge, about how he started developing a unified API platform to help integrate competing software providers in a real-world business vertical. Forging ahead in a new market space is never easy, but Merge has found an irreplaceable role in the tech operations of many businesses by being proactive, pro-customer, and always putting value before everything. 
Topics Discussed:
Why the best start for any start up is to build on experience, and ensure value is built in from the ground up
How the challenges of integration across different companies created space for Merge in the market
Why a unified API is such an attractive prospect for modern businesses, and the hidden costs of poor integration
How being proactive helps Merge overcome a reliance on third-party platforms
Category extension and the critical importance of existing customer care, even at the cost of rapid expansion

Sam Naficy, CEO of Prodoscore: $4 Million Raised to Build the Future of Employee Productivity Measurement

In today’s episode of Category Visionaries, we speak with Sam Naficy, CEO of Prodoscore about his journey with the company he built, Prodoscore, and why productivity management is the next frontier in the ongoing expansion of the corporate tech stack. From humble beginnings arriving in the US, Sam has launched a number of startups over the years, and is now convinced that Prodoscore is about to become one of his greatest success stories. By aggregating data from across a whole range of ubiquitous work platforms, Prodoscore provides valuable insights into individual productivity, teamwork and potential longer-term success. 
Topics Discussed:
The rhythm of corporate tech platform adoption why it's hard to get your foot in the door
Why a new style of working post-pandemic makes this Prodoscore's big moment
Why monitoring productivity doesn't mean sacrificing privacy, and why 'Big Brother' style tools have never really taken off
Pre-emptive planning and why machine learning can help managers plan ahead more easily 
Why productivity data can empower both the employee and the employer towards a more effective work regime