After working for years in early-stage startups and as a journalist, here are three hard truths I’ve learned:
1. Success in Silicon Valley hinges on connections, hard work and luck.
2. Startups often fail because founders lack fundamental business knowledge.
3. Real, actionable advice comes from those who’ve actually done it.
There’s no such thing as “founder DNA.” If you’re willing to take on risk and invest years of your life in something that has maybe a 10% chance of paying off — less if you’re a woman or person of color — you can be a startup founder.
Here’s why I founded Fund/Build/Scale:
1. To help founders make fewer mistakes.
2. To share successful strategies that can accelerate your go-to-market journey.
3. To inspire more people to see themselves as potential founders. There’s a lot of overlooked talent out there, and we are missing out.
This podcast is for anyone who’s interested in learning the basic skills required to launch a startup, secure initial funding and transform an idea into a sustainable business.
I’m talking to guests about everything: finding a co-founder, conducting customer discovery, recruiting early employees, developing a PLG strategy, fundraising when you’re outside a major tech hub — all of it.
Interested? Subscribe to Fund/Build/Scale on all major platforms and follow the podcast on LinkedIn or Substack to get articles, excerpts, transcripts and more.
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After working for years in early-stage startups and as a journalist, here are three hard truths I’ve learned:
1. Success in Silicon Valley hinges on connections, hard work and luck.
2. Startups often fail because founders lack fundamental business knowledge.
3. Real, actionable advice comes from those who’ve actually done it.
There’s no such thing as “founder DNA.” If you’re willing to take on risk and invest years of your life in something that has maybe a 10% chance of paying off — less if you’re a woman or person of color — you can be a startup founder.
Here’s why I founded Fund/Build/Scale:
1. To help founders make fewer mistakes.
2. To share successful strategies that can accelerate your go-to-market journey.
3. To inspire more people to see themselves as potential founders. There’s a lot of overlooked talent out there, and we are missing out.
This podcast is for anyone who’s interested in learning the basic skills required to launch a startup, secure initial funding and transform an idea into a sustainable business.
I’m talking to guests about everything: finding a co-founder, conducting customer discovery, recruiting early employees, developing a PLG strategy, fundraising when you’re outside a major tech hub — all of it.
Interested? Subscribe to Fund/Build/Scale on all major platforms and follow the podcast on LinkedIn or Substack to get articles, excerpts, transcripts and more.
Execution > Ideas: What Engineers Need to Know Before Becoming Founders
Fund/Build/Scale
44 minutes 24 seconds
3 months ago
Execution > Ideas: What Engineers Need to Know Before Becoming Founders
Jyoti Bansal sold his first company, AppDynamics, to Cisco for $3.7 billion.
Harness, his next company, reached a similar valuation a few years later.
As an entrepreneur — and as a VC at Unusual Ventures — Jyoti has built and backed multiple billion-dollar startups. But despite his track record, he says technical founders often overlook the same hard truth: good ideas don’t build great companies. It’s all about execution.
In this conversation, Jyoti explains how he helps engineers become CEOs, the leadership frameworks he uses to scale fast without breaking culture, and why each business unit inside Harness runs like a startup of its own. He also talks about what he had to unlearn as he made the leap from founder to investor, and debunks the myth that every entrepreneur needs a mentor.
If you’re aiming for breakout scale, this episode will give you some useful tactics — and maybe a few reality checks.
RUNTIME 44:24
EPISODE BREAKDOWN
(3:23) “ I started Big Labs and I call it a startup studio: it's really my lab, a research lab for me to experiment with ideas and projects that I'm excited about.”
(6:15) Why Jyoti still carves out time for customer discovery and sales calls.(7:27) “ Harness is designed for kind of this next-generation, AI-based approach for DevOps.”(9:42) “ Our entire philosophy is built with this concept called ‘startups within a startup.’”(11:22) How Harness maintains cohesion and alignment across 16 different modules.(14:00) The specific traits and abilities Jyoti looks for when hiring leaders at Harness.(17:35) Why some engineers are poorly suited to make the leap into entrepreneurship.(20:55) A mental framework that helped Jyoti become a better manager and communicator.(23:59) “ I always leaned on topic-based mentorship, not generic mentorship, which is a particular problem.”(25:53) Why working with a CEO coach “didn’t work very well for me.”(27:36) The sectors and types of startups that interest him the most right now.(30:10) How he prefers to be pitched — and how to apply to Unusual Academy’s next cohort.(32:24) “ 30, 40% growth rates are where most startups should be looking, at least — ideally much more.”(33:53) “ If we can't see a path to $100M of revenue — or a billion of revenue — we don't invest.”(37:15) The biggest attachment he had to let go of when transitioning from founder to VC.(42:41) The one question he’d ask the CEO if he were interviewing for a job with an early-stage startup.
LINKS
Jyoti Bansal
Harness
Traceable
Unusual Ventures
Unusual Academy
Unusual Field Guide
Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire Application Performance Monitoring Leader AppDynamics, 1/24/2017
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Thanks for listening!
– Walter.
Fund/Build/Scale
After working for years in early-stage startups and as a journalist, here are three hard truths I’ve learned:
1. Success in Silicon Valley hinges on connections, hard work and luck.
2. Startups often fail because founders lack fundamental business knowledge.
3. Real, actionable advice comes from those who’ve actually done it.
There’s no such thing as “founder DNA.” If you’re willing to take on risk and invest years of your life in something that has maybe a 10% chance of paying off — less if you’re a woman or person of color — you can be a startup founder.
Here’s why I founded Fund/Build/Scale:
1. To help founders make fewer mistakes.
2. To share successful strategies that can accelerate your go-to-market journey.
3. To inspire more people to see themselves as potential founders. There’s a lot of overlooked talent out there, and we are missing out.
This podcast is for anyone who’s interested in learning the basic skills required to launch a startup, secure initial funding and transform an idea into a sustainable business.
I’m talking to guests about everything: finding a co-founder, conducting customer discovery, recruiting early employees, developing a PLG strategy, fundraising when you’re outside a major tech hub — all of it.
Interested? Subscribe to Fund/Build/Scale on all major platforms and follow the podcast on LinkedIn or Substack to get articles, excerpts, transcripts and more.
