The first startup is UGLY, the second startup is sexy


Special Guest, Richard White

Founder of Fathom AI, and UserVoice

Yesterday was an absolute treat - we hosted repeat founder, Richard White ($20M+ raised, Linkedin). He founded UserVoice, scaled that, and then started a second company which he runs today. Fathom AI is backed by Zoom's fund, Justin Kan (Twitch Founder), and many more incredible people on his cap table of 100+ investors.

We've had incredible guests over the last year (45 of them), but certain CEO's are able to speak from a place that not many founders have been. Richard's conversation yesterday was an example. Similar to some of our other keynotes who built a startup with $10M+ in financing, like:

I've been grinding all year to bring in the best possible special guest so I can to share their stories, and inspire you. I am so thankful for each one of the 45+ guests who have given me their time. From all of our 300 members across UglyStartups and Spatial Collective, we thank you <3

And, thank you to you as well for reading and forwarding this off to friends. None of this is possible without a global interest in startups, VC, and crazy tech ideas. So, thank you is deserved all around.

Yesterday's Convo with Richard White

Q: Why did your VC invest in you?

A: Richard has the receipts to prove he knows what he is doing.

Q: Where do you find leverage on your time? Besides your team...

A: Richard has a simple but effective solution for managing his daily priorities, and, he doesn't plan!

Q: Starting from nothing, what are you doing on Day 1 as an repeat startup founder?

A: Richard sure doesn't start by buying a domain name! I'll tell you than much ;)

I have another hour of just 10/10 incredible quotes, including answers to:

  • Richard's best advice for founders
  • Two cardinal sins of product building
  • Paragraph vs Multiplechoice Optionality when running a startup
  • Product vs Distribution; how to balance the two?

I really felt inspired, he broke business down for us as though it's a game, and proves the top level repeat players know exactly how to speed through it a second time.

Upcoming Special Guest

We have an upcoming special guest for our April series, and it's headlined by Adam Draper of Boost VC! He's forever been one of my favorite people in venture, and we never fail to have a fun time when hosting these. If you want to come to that event, please let me know during Tuesday's call.

If you want to join our Tuesday call:

Attend a founder roundtable discussion on Tuesday led by myself; casual and fun. I'll present for 15-20 mins, as always.

See you for the next one!

Don Stein

Hosting a Founder Academy call on Tuesday

Join our community: UglyStartups

Founder, Spatial Collective

Founder, Candela Partners

p.s. If you want my help with your startup fundraising, checkout the weekly calls I host, you can join every one, that's 52+ hours of time spent with me every year :), you'll not get sick of me!

113 Cherry St #92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2205
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Don Stein

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