The IO Podcast: Investor + Operator

How on earth do startup founders with zero experience in the security industry sell millions of dollars in contracts to police stations around the US?

In this episode of Exceptional Startups, Garrett Langley, founder and CEO of Flock Safety, breaks down step-by-step 1) How they did it, 2) What process gave them the idea to go after crime, and 3), The biggest lessons he's learned during Flock Safety's rocket-like growth.

Chapters:

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With so many AI startups these days, how do you identify which will be home-runs and which will be flops?

In this episode of the I/O Podcast, Tyler and Sterling sit down with Eric Vishria, a General Partner at the legendary Benchmark Capital, who uncovers their exact process for finding and funding some of the world's fastest-growing and most successful AI startups.

Chapters:

(00:07:28) Exponential Rise of AI Startups

(00:1...

How do you get paying customers...before you've even built your product? Time to find out!

In this episode of Exceptional Startups, Tyler sits down with John Andrew Entwistle, Founder and CEO of Wander, the platform that's transforming the vacation-rental space.

Tyler and John Andrew discuss waitlist tactics, how to solve the supply-and-demand problem for marketplace companies, and how to build a great employee culture.

Chapters:

(00:0...

In this episode of the IO Podcast, Nakul Mandan (founder of Audacious Ventures) shares his tips and tricks for recruiting top talent, the most critical assets for successful companies.

He also shares his story of how he became a top investor and what every startup founder needs to know to successfully raise capital.

Chapters:

(00:05:12) Hustle and Networking in Venture Capital Growth

(00:12:50) Mastering B2B Go-to-Market Expertise thro...

In this episode of Exceptional Startups, Brandon Rodman (founder of Weave and now Previ) breaks down how he’s quietly building a Costco for the modern workforce — one that’s already grown from 300K to 1.5M users in 3 months, all without charging employers a dime.

He shares hard-earned lessons from going 0 to IPO with Weave, why he got rejected by 150 investors, and how he's self-funded Previ with a bigger vision in mind — this time,...

In this episode, Pete Kazanjy—author of Founding Sales and a veteran sales leader—joins hosts Tyler Hogge and Sterling Snow to share a crash course in founder-led sales, explaining why early-stage founders must take charge of selling before hiring sales reps. He breaks down the key mindset shifts for technical founders, how sales is like “weaponized product management,” and when it’s time to delegate lead generation.

If you're a sta...

How do early-stage founders break through and build exceptional companies? In this upcoming season of the I/O Podcast, hosts Sterling Snow and Tyler Hogge unveil a new approach—combining insights from the Exceptional Startups List with tactical advice from founders actively scaling their businesses. This season, we’re setting out to be the best podcast in the world for seed and Series A founders.

Episode Highlights:

00:45 - The Big C...

How do you become the best of the best—the top performer in your field? Dr. Julie Gurner, an acclaimed executive coach and once likened to Billions’ Wendy Rhoades by The Wall Street Journal, shares her insights on what it takes to excel at the highest level. In this episode, Dr. Gurner joins hosts Sterling Snow and Tyler Hogge to explore the mindsets, strategies, and leadership styles that empower people to perform at their peak.

Ep...

"Joining a company as early as possible, right after achieving product-market fit, offers the greatest career advantage." – Jack Altman

Jack Altman epitomizes the true "Investor-Operator." As the co-founder and former CEO of the multi-billion-dollar startup Lattice, and now a full-time investor with his $150 million venture fund, Alt Capital, Jack has successfully navigated both sides of the entrepreneurial journey. It’s clear he ex...

In this episode, Tyler Hogge & Sterling Snow sit down with David George, General Partner at a16z, where he leads the growth investing practice. Since joining in 2019, David has been at the forefront of investments in companies like Coinbase, Databricks, Figma, Robinhood and Instacart. Prior to a16z, David was at General Atlantic, where he invested in iconic brands like Airbnb, Opendoor, Slack, Crowdstrike, and Uber. David share...

Current Investor and Divvy's Former CRO Sterling Snow is jumping back into an operating role, this time as CEO of Redo, a fast growing customer experience platform.

Sterling shares how Redo's founder Taylor Brown approached him to take on the job and how together they're building a company everyone in Utah can root for.

Chapters:

01:03 Why The Investor Operator Podcast Was Started

03:45 How Sterling Started Talking With The Founding T...

How far would you travel for a good conversation? For hosts Tyler Hogge and Sterling Snow it was a no brainer to fly 2000 miles to talk with Kaz Nejatian, the COO of Shopify in their Toronto HQ.

Kaz is a fascinating mind in tech and an unconventional thinker shaping the the product culture of Shopify. He shares his story of growing up in Iran, experiencing the Iran-Iraq war, and eventually immigrating to Canada at age 12. In Canad...

When Blake Murray came up with the idea of Divvy, it was because he had a problem: he couldn’t get real-time data on the financial health of his business. So in 2016, Blake set out to find a solution and realized there was none. Blake spent the next several years building what would become one of the fastest-growing startups in history—a platform combining expense management software and a corporate card to help businesses of all s...

Scott Sandell, Executive Chairman and Chief Investment Officer at NEA is truly one of the great venture capitalists of our generation. With nearly three decades at NEA he leads the field with a track record of dozens of successful investments including unicorns like Salesforce, Plaid, Workday, Robinhood, Cloudflare and Tableau.

How has he done it? Scott shares his investment philosophy influenced by other greats like Dick Kramlich ...

There may be no better pair of fintech investors than Better Tomorrow Ventures Jake Gibson and Sheel Mohnot. After successful exits in the industry -- Jake as the co-founder of NerdWallet, one of the OG consumer fintech companies, and Sheel with FeeFighter and Innovative Auctions, Jake and Sheel saw a gap in the market and started a fund to help fintech companies at the earliest stages. And they've already had some big wins, counti...

Immad Akhund had the idea for Mercury years before they started. In fact, he'd launched 3 other startups and been through YCombinator twice before even starting initial validation on what would become the beloved neobank of startups everywhere. And opinions were mixed. Immad himself recognized the need for a simpler and more efficient banking service while while operating Heyzap his previous company. But when he shared the concept...

Andreessen Horowitz General Partner Alex Rampell may be the most true version of an investor-operator. Alex's first entrepreneurial endeavor started as a child when he built and sold shareware out of his parent's house. Eventually he added more businesses to his portfolio before launching the payment platform TrialPay after college and eventually Affirm. Today, Alex invests in some of the largest companies at Andreessen Horowitz an...

Geoff Lewis is a titan in the VC world as both the lead investor and founder of Bedrock Capital, the firm backing some of the world best-known tech companies. Geoff joins Tyler and Sterling on the podcast to share his insights on venture capital and what it takes to consistently make money for LPs. Geoff discusses the unique decision to raise Bedrock's fund size in a time when other funds are downsizing, the importance of assessing...

How did this small town farm kid go on to lead the revenue orgs for Silicon Valley's biggest companies? Mark Cranney credits his success to the lessons he learned growing up: work hard and run things efficiently. Mark shares the playbook he's used to build billions in pipeline through his career as an executive, sales leader and most famously as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. If you're a founder, there's no better person to lear...