Sign in to view David’s full profile
or
New to LinkedIn? Join now
By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement, Privacy Policy, and Cookie Policy.
Santa Monica, California, United States
Sign in to view David’s full profile
David can introduce you to 10+ people at Goji Labs
or
New to LinkedIn? Join now
By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement, Privacy Policy, and Cookie Policy.
9K followers
500+ connections
Sign in to view David’s full profile
or
New to LinkedIn? Join now
By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement, Privacy Policy, and Cookie Policy.
View mutual connections with David
David can introduce you to 10+ people at Goji Labs
or
New to LinkedIn? Join now
By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement, Privacy Policy, and Cookie Policy.
View mutual connections with David
or
New to LinkedIn? Join now
By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement, Privacy Policy, and Cookie Policy.
Sign in to view David’s full profile
or
New to LinkedIn? Join now
By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement, Privacy Policy, and Cookie Policy.
Articles by David
-
Validating Part 3: Conducting Research With Early Adopters
Validating Part 3: Conducting Research With Early Adopters
Last, but certainly not least in this 3-part series, comes the section on how to actually conduct the market research…
27
1 Comment -
Validating Part 2: How To Validate Your New Product IdeaDec 19, 2018
Validating Part 2: How To Validate Your New Product Idea
In Part 1 of this series, we discussed the 3 core steps of your validation process, along with the need to ensure…
16
1 Comment -
Validating Part 1: Why You Need To Validate Product Ideas & The ProcessDec 18, 2018
Validating Part 1: Why You Need To Validate Product Ideas & The Process
This week, we’re going to be doing a 3-part series on validating your product ideas. We’re going to cover why you…
3
-
iOS Engineer Looking for Interesting Project!Dec 13, 2018
iOS Engineer Looking for Interesting Project!
Hey Linkedin Community! One of our best iOS engineers is currently free and we'd love to help out with a short-term…
2
1 Comment -
A Startup’s Guide To Product Management & Understanding Customer Pain PointsDec 10, 2018
A Startup’s Guide To Product Management & Understanding Customer Pain Points
Product management and development lifecycles can be steep learning curves, especially for entrepreneurs turned product…
7
-
Business Tips For Software Product EntrepreneursDec 7, 2018
Business Tips For Software Product Entrepreneurs
Being an entrepreneur is one thing, and being a software developer is another. But what happens when you’re an…
4
-
15 Fast & Actionable Tips For Product & Project ManagementDec 5, 2018
15 Fast & Actionable Tips For Product & Project Management
As we’re all winding down 2018 and looking ahead to 2019, we wanted to recap some of the biggest lessons and tips we’ve…
2
-
Financial Tips: How To Survive Your StartupDec 3, 2018
Financial Tips: How To Survive Your Startup
Startup is a sexy word in today’s explosive entrepreneurial landscape, but the reality behind the curtains is much…
1
-
Trying To Learn About Software Development? Here Are 17 Blogs To FollowDec 1, 2018
Trying To Learn About Software Development? Here Are 17 Blogs To Follow
Whether you’re a seasoned developer or just starting to learn, there are countless resources available online to help…
6
-
Tips To Manage Your Software Development TeamNov 28, 2018
Tips To Manage Your Software Development Team
Software developers are a different breed than the rest of it, and it’s no secret that managing a growing team of…
4
Activity
9K followers
-
David Barlev shared thisHeading to Vegas for Shoptalk in a few weeks with Mohamed RACHADA(穆海风) There’s no shortage of trends in retail right now. What interests me most is how teams are making real product and technology decisions behind the scenes. Looking forward to thoughtful conversations. If you’re also attending, drop me a message and let's find some time to connect. #ShoptalkSpring #Shoptalk #RetailMeetsAtShoptalk
-
David Barlev posted thisGoji has helped launch 500+ digital products. Here are 6 things the winners always get right: 1. They validate before they build. They test ideas with real users, define their audience clearly, and confirm the problem is worth solving. 2. They build the business case first. They map how the product creates value, align features to revenue, and know how they'll reach users. 3. Their launch plan adapts. Markets shift. User needs change. They stay flexible and adjust as they go. 4. They start marketing early. They build anticipation ahead of launch, activate the right channels, and make sure users are ready. 5. They sync every touchpoint. Product, support, analytics—it’s all aligned and working together before day one. 6. They treat launch day as the beginning. After launch, they collect feedback, move fast, and keep iterating. What am I missing here?
-
David Barlev posted thisA client once told me, “We hate two things: what we have, and anything new.” This is universal. We hate broken systems, but we also fear change. This tension is at the core of every digital transformation, and it forces us to choose between slowly improving the old system and scrapping it to start fresh. Here’s how I like to think about it 👇 If your platform isn’t performing, you’ve got two choices: 1) Evolution – steady, precise upgrades 2) Revolution – tear it down and rebuild Go with evolution when: → Users are still engaged → The foundation isn’t totally broken → You need quick wins → Budget is tight → Risk tolerance is low Choose revolution when: → Tech debt is dragging everything down → Users are fed up → You need a fresh direction → Long-term growth matters more than short-term comfort → You’re ready to invest Think of it like debt: evolution is making monthly payments. Revolution is writing a big check to wipe it out. When we work with clients, we help them decide by breaking down the current product: A) What stays B) What goes C) What’s missing When the “what goes” list gets too long, it’s time to tear it down and start from scratch.
-
David Barlev posted thisThe App Store and Google Play take 15-30% of your gross revenue. There’s no silver bullet to solve this, but there are 3 ways to fight back: 1) External memberships If your app grants access to a broader service, not just in-app features, you might be able to handle payments off-platform. Just know that this needs to be baked into your business model and UX from day one. 2) Onboard on web Let users sign up and pay on your site, then log in through the app. This introduces some friction, but it saves 30%. We’ve seen this work well when the flow is clean. 3) Price it in Simplest move: absorb the fee into your pricing. It's not ideal, but often worth it for access to the best distribution platforms in the world. If you're just getting started, don’t over-optimize for fees on money you're not making yet. Focus on traction. Validate your model. Optimize later. For so many successful businesses, the app store fee is just the cost of doing business. Other times, it’s worth the workaround. Want help figuring out what’s right for you? Let us know.
-
David Barlev posted thisThere are countless ways to build an iOS app. This is unhelpful. Only one approach will actually work for your business. The challenge is identifying the build path that aligns with your goals, users, and constraints. Every technical choice involves tradeoffs between speed, cost, performance, and user experience. Here is how you can walk through these choices 👇 The first decision is platform: native, cross-platform, or hybrid. Native apps offer the highest performance and full access to iOS features. This is the right choice for complex or mission-critical products, but it requires more time and a larger budget. Cross-platform frameworks like React Native or Flutter allow for faster development across both iOS and Android with a shared codebase. This option works well when time-to-market is the top priority. Hybrid apps are best suited for simple use cases and tight budgets. They come with technical compromises that can affect long-term scalability. Once the platform is chosen, the build environment follows. Native means Swift and Xcode. For cross-platform, React Native works well for web-like experiences, while Flutter provides a UI closer to native. After these are set, the next phase is execution. This is where teams build, test, and refine the app before launch. Even the first version should feel polished. We place a strong emphasis on QA, real device testing, and beta programs. These steps reduce bugs, increase reliability, and improve App Store approval odds. At launch, distribution must be part of the plan. App Store Optimization helps with discoverability. This includes using relevant keywords in the title and description, strong visuals, and early reviews. Some products also benefit from launches on Product Hunt or inclusion in curated indexes. Many apps with strong core functionality fail to gain traction because distribution was treated as an afterthought. There is no single perfect formula for building apps, but the key is making clear, strategic decisions that align with the business model, product requirements, and user expectations.
-
David Barlev posted thisYour UI isn’t the real problem. It’s just an easy scapegoat. A $5B+ financial marketplace came to us CONVINCED that their outdated design was tanking conversions. The fact was that their onboarding flow was hemorrhaging users, and their hypothesis was that the dated UI was killing trust. But that wasn’t it. We could’ve cashed the check and rebuilt their UX from scratch. It would’ve looked great and changed almost nothing. Instead, we tested. User interviews and churn analysis told a different story: the platform was demanding Social Security numbers without a shred of context. No explanation. Just: “Give us your most sensitive info. Now.” And that’s exactly where users were churning. So we left the UI basically untouched. We just: → Explained *why* we needed each piece of info → Broke the process into smaller, digestible steps → Used progressive disclosure → Dropped in real trust signals Same UI. 40% lift in conversions. This happens all the time. Teams point to aesthetics, but the real blockers are usually clarity and trust. That’s what you need to build into your product, not just prettier interfaces.
-
David Barlev posted thisIf I had a dollar for every time someone said, “This idea just needs a good dev,” I could bankroll the project myself. But ideas are cheap. What actually matters is if it solves a real problem and actually works. When we’re developing early-stage product strategy, we always start with frameworks to arrive at ideas that solve real problems and actually work. Here are 3 we lean on consistently: 1) Problem-Solution 2) Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) 3) SCAMPER Problem-Solution is about cutting through the noise and getting to the pain. It starts with simple but critical questions: → What’s broken? → What’s annoying people every day? Jobs to Be Done pushes that further. It’s not just “what’s the pain,” but “what’s the job your product needs to do?” For example, no one wants a budgeting app. They want to stop feeling stressed about money. That shift changes how you build. SCAMPER is great when someone comes to us with a blank slate—“I want to do something in health tech, but not sure what.” It’s a creativity tool that helps remix what already exists into something new. It stands for: → Substitute – What can we swap in to make this better? → Combine – What if we merged two things? → Adapt – Can we borrow from another industry? → Modify – Can we simplify or enhance a feature? → Put to Another Use – Could this serve a different audience? → Eliminate – What can we strip out? → Reverse – What happens if we flip the script? These frameworks aren’t rigid silos. We often start in one and end up blending in elements from the others. That’s the point. Great products are the result of strong mental models, smart questions, and repeatable processes.
-
David Barlev posted thisMost UX problems are not unique. They’re repetitive, predictable, and preventable. And they don’t come from bad designers. They come from these 5 things 👇 After running UX audits across everything from scrappy SaaS products to complex enterprise tools, one thing has become incredibly obvious to us at Goji: The vast majority of UX problems trace back to issues with how decisions are made, validated, and reinforced over time. Here are five patterns we see over and over: 1. Invisible Friction That Kills Adoption Quietly Nothing’s broken. Users can “complete” tasks. But it takes just enough extra thought that they disengage. No one complains. They just stop coming back. 2. Design Systems That Aren’t Enforced You’ve got a component library. But in practice? There are 5 buttons that do the same thing. And spacing, behavior, and patterns shift from page to page. That creates UX debt that compounds fast. 3. UX Decisions Driven by Stakeholders, Not Users Sometimes you can see internal politics reflected in the UI. You can tell that a feature exists only because someone influential asked for it. And it doesn’t add any value for users. 4. Simplistic Metrics You’re tracking events and funnel steps. But do users understand what they’re supposed to do? Are they just clicking around because they can’t follow the flow? Activity ≠ adoption. 5. Cosmetic Changes Mask Structural Issues Most UX issues aren’t visual. They’re systemic. Without ownership, feedback loops, and alignment across design, product, and engineering, visual updates are just lipstick on a pig. One of the most counterintuitive things we’ve seen in over a decade of UX audits is that more feedback ≠ better UX. If your team doesn’t have the structure and systems to handle this feedback, it’s useless. You will just get flooded with support tickets, surveys, and interviews... and then still struggle. It will make you chase edge cases and fragment the product. UX needs to be treated like a system because it is one. Bring up these 5 points with your team and improve your system. And if you want guidance, let us know.
-
David Barlev posted thisMost digital products don’t fail because of bad code. They fail because nobody asked: “Why are we building this?” Users expect products to actually solve something for them, not just look pretty. And organizations expect those products to drive growth or impact. One product needs to do both things. That’s where strategy comes in. A solid product strategy connects all the dots between: → What are we trying to achieve? → Who’s it for? → Why would they care? → How does this support the bigger mission? → How does this create business impact? This doesn’t stop at launch. A product strategy (in theory) guides the roadmap, shapes the UX, informs the stack, and anchors every decision. Done right, it’s what ensures your product actually lands. Done wrong, it will guarantee a failure faster than any poor architecture ever could.
-
David Barlev liked thisDavid Barlev liked thisA lot of what you hear on stage at Shoptalk this week: AI, personalization, omnichannel, retail media. What’s more interesting is what operators are actually talking about in the hallways. A few themes coming up repeatedly: • Pressure on contribution margin, not just growth • More scrutiny on paid efficiency and incrementality • Teams being asked to do more with less, especially across channels • Less tolerance for heavy discounting as a growth lever • A shift toward retention, LTV, and merchandising as core growth drivers None of this is particularly new. But the intensity around it is. Feels like the conversation has shifted from “how do we grow faster” to: “How do we grow profitably and sustainably.” Curious if others at Shoptalk are seeing the same thing.
-
David Barlev liked thisDavid Barlev liked thisI'm looking forward to moderating a session with California State Fire Marshal Daniel Berlant, Chief Robert Garcia , and Chief Jon O'Brien on Wednesday morning at the WUI Conference in Reno. It's an important time for this conversation to happen and what a great group of leaders to have it with. If you're headed to WUI, make sure to stop by this panel on Wednesday morning! And stay tuned for some exciting announcements from team Intterra. More info: https://bit.ly/4rOzidu #TrustTheBadge #AwareCA #Intterra
-
David Barlev liked thisDavid Barlev liked thisWonderful evening at The Shed (NY) last night celebrating Markets, Momentum, and Women Who Lead. Always so grateful for and in awe of the market-moving women leaders in my life like Jerilyn Castillo McAniff - thank you for including me in this powerful gathering. And thank you to Bloomberg, Oaktree Capital Management, L.P., Brookfield, Allspring Global Investments, Principal Asset Management and Nuveen, a TIAA company for your continued visible and important leadership in this space.
-
David Barlev reacted on thisDavid Barlev reacted on thisLast week I was at an 8-person founder breakfast in Aspen. Guy goes around the table and asks everyone how they're using AI day-to-day. I was super embarrassed to answer the question, but I did. Me: “I don’t.” Everybody looked at me like I had five heads. The guy sitting next to me said he uploaded his DISC personality test to Claude and used it as a thought partner to identify blind spots on his way to work, someone else stacked agents on agents to run their entire GTM… You get the point. I mean I’ve tried. I try to use Claude to help me with posts for a while, then I stop. I try to use it as a thought partner to help me with strategic things, then I stop. I read an article about how if you just use it for 1h/day for a year you will understand the gravity of what’s coming. I’d do that for two days, then stop. When I walked out of that breakfast, I shared my embarrassment with one of the Founders at the table. He posed a pretty interesting question. “Maybe we should all be asking ourselves how you are running your life in such a way where you can be super high leverage WITHOUT using AI.” I thought about that for a while.... Many people think it’s nuts that I’m a CEO of a $30m ARR SaaS and don’t have an executive assistant. But I ask people why they have them: “They book my travel” (well I don’t travel much) “They schedule my meetings” (I use Calendly) “They do my personal errands” (I don’t even know what this means) “They handle my email” (I don’t want someone to handle my email) I think I’ve managed to simplify my work life to the point where I feel like I don’t need much help or many more tools. On Monday, I’m in internal meetings all day. On Tuesday, I write posts and make content. On Wednesday morning, I have a marketing meeting. The rest of the week is trying to figure out what’s next. What’s the takeaway? That guy who asked me what I was doing different may have been on to something. What if half the things people use AI for never ACTUALLY needed to be done in the first place? Maybe the best tool is a simple life.
-
David Barlev liked thisDavid Barlev liked thisEveryone wants to "leverage AI" right now. But VERY FEW know where they actually stand. That's why we built a comprehensive assessment that gives you a real answer in minutes. Click here: https://lnkd.in/d8N8J6be It checks what's really in place across your org, including: ✅ Strategy ✅ Data ✅ Skills ✅ Tech stack ✅ Automation ✅ Governance ✅ Experimentation ✅ ROI tracking It also looks at public data about your company to make the results more accurate. At the end, you get a personalized report that shows: • Where you're strong • Where the gaps are • What to focus on next No sign-up. No filler. Just clarity you can act on. So if you're ready to FINALLY get ahead with AI, this Readiness Assessment is your next step: https://lnkd.in/drK5aH9N P.S. For a limited time, I'm offering a free 1-on-1 review call exclusively for people who complete this assessment. Normally reserved for clients only.
-
David Barlev liked this📈 3 Million Tracking Events surpassed on Hansel Medical!! 🤯 Just 3 months ago we crossed 1 Million... We've already 3x'd the volume. It's only going to become bigger and bigger––can't wait. #orthopedic #medicaldevice #tracking #realtime #networkeffect #softwareDavid Barlev liked thisIn tech, we all love to talk about velocity... but I'm not talking about *that* velocity... It was only a couple of weeks ago I posted about how we've captured 2 million tracking events from our apps and Hansel tags in the field embedded with customers - and now we're over 3 million, just 1 month later... 🚀 Our customers are tagging more of their precious inventory using Hansel's platform giving them insight they never had before. This allows them to make faster decisions, locate items and become more efficient. Hansel's mobile apps don't just relay tracking information - they empower teams in the field to schedule, locate and plan everything they need to. We've got more to come... stay tuned...
-
David Barlev liked thisDavid Barlev liked thisConference season is back, and so is Shoptalk Spring in Las Vegas. I’ll be there with our Founder & Head of Strategy, David Barlev, eager to learn how product and digital transformation teams are modernizing legacy systems and leveraging technology to drive measurable impact. If you’ll be attending as well, drop me a message. I would love to connect. https://lnkd.in/eftYspJn #ShoptalkSpring #Shoptalk #RetailMeetsAtShoptalk
Experience & Education
-
Goji Labs
***
-
**********
******** ********* ******* *******
-
**********
******** ********
-
********** ** *********** *****
***** ********** *********** undefined
-
-
******** * ****** ********* ** **********
******** *******
-
View David’s full experience
See their title, tenure and more.
Welcome back
By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement, Privacy Policy, and Cookie Policy.
New to LinkedIn? Join now
or
By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement, Privacy Policy, and Cookie Policy.
Projects
Languages
-
English
Native or bilingual proficiency
-
Hebrew
Native or bilingual proficiency
-
French
Elementary proficiency
Recommendations received
1 person has recommended David
Join now to viewView David’s full profile
-
See who you know in common
-
Get introduced
-
Contact David directly
Other similar profiles
Explore more posts
-
Kasey Z.
Osmosis (YC W25) • 8K followers
With RL techniques like GRPO, it’s become easy to fine-tune small models to outperform foundation models on vertical tasks. We’re open sourcing Osmosis-Apply-1.7B: a small model that merges code (similar to Cursor’s instant apply) better than foundation models. Links in comments! Using foundation models for high specificity, low complexity tasks like code merging can be overkill - instead, it’s better to use a specialized model instead for higher performance and latency. We fine-tuned the model on 100K real-world code commits where the model needs to merge a code edit snippet into an original code snippet. On the test dataset (subset of CommitPackFT), foundation model performance ranged between 0.77-0.93 reward score. In comparison, Osmosis-Apply-1.7B achieved a 0.98 reward score - while also being 3X-5X more affordable than the next cheaper model AND ~10X faster! Why this matters: the best AI agents use multiple models to ensure task specialization and reliability at scale - on top of cost and latency benefits as well. Links to the model and full write-up (with reward function, hyperparameters, etc.) are in the comments - reach out if you’re interested in using reinforcement learning!
240
18 Comments -
Jeff Becker
Antler • 30K followers
Seed VC isn’t just in a downturn—it’s facing extinction unless it evolves fast. Great read from Rob Go & David Beisel at NextView Ventures... - YC and mega-funds now dominate the early-stage landscape, squeezing out traditional seed investors - Power law thinking has gone mainstream—everyone’s chasing trillion-dollar outliers - AI isn’t helping seed VCs—it’s raising the stakes, crowding the field, and disrupting VC itself - The middle of the market has collapsed, and excess profits are gone - Hope isn’t a strategy—seed needs a new model, now Link here... https://lnkd.in/ek2MZGhm And if you like this topic, I wrote a piece on venture bifurcating into inception funds and mega funds here: https://lnkd.in/eJz5DmX6 #ai #venturecapital #vc
31
8 Comments -
Hugo Rauch
Climate Club • 47K followers
Meet Jared O'Leary, co-founder & CEO at SirenOpt, building the sensing layer for advanced manufacturing. ⚙️ Even the best factories are far less efficient than most people think. In early pilot production, scrap rates can reach up to 90%. And waste is only part of the problem. Factories also suffer from: → product variability → invisible process drift → overly conservative operating margins All of which quietly destroy yield and profitability. That’s why Jared builds plasma-based sensors that capture real-time data from inside industrial processes, enabling factories to detect problems early and continuously optimize production. In this episode, we unpack: 🔥 The probabilistic nature of advanced manufacturing 🔥 How variability quietly destroys yield and margins 🔥 Why factories operate far more conservatively than necessary 🔥 How real-time sensing unlocks self-optimizing factories Very few founders think about advanced manufacturing from first principles the way Jared does. Listen on Spotify here: https://lnkd.in/eYuyPcWN (also available on Apple Podcast, search New Wave - SirenOpt) If you’re investing or building in advanced manufacturing, You need to meet with Jared.
53
5 Comments -
Erik Lindblad
Inception Fund • 5K followers
Product > Tech. (Time to upset some brilliant CTO's in my network😉) Technology is being commoditized by the minut. Period. What stands out and builds long term competitiveness, especially on the application layer, is product. What do I mean by product? - User interface (UI) - User experience (UX) - Workflows - Integrations We are seeing that soon most (for now non-complex) products will be possible to build without deep technical expertise. But nailing that product and making it winning is something else. This requires really knowing the user you’re building for, their preferences, their workflows, their pains. Building something that works for them, and isn’t just excellent in theory or technically. One person asked me the other week, can’t anyone then just build for everyone nowadays? No, I firmly believe that we will rather see the opposite as tech is becoming commoditized/democratised. We will see hyper verticalisation. Founders who really know a niche (founder-market-fit), building superior products for those narrow use cases with extraordinary and tailored workflows for that specific group. The commoditization of technology is enabling this. We no longer need to accept one size fits all. We will see specialised CRMs, specialized HR systems, specialised note taking apps etc. etc. And customers will want the solution that is tailored for them. This is all about product, not tech. p.s. dear CTO's, you know I love you and that I know that you are the core of every product. You are the product.
27
14 Comments -
Christian Gonzalez, PhD
Planet A Ventures • 4K followers
MATERIALS! My take: The 2026 story is less about novelty and more about cracking scalability and cost. In Hack, I shared what I'm excited about this year: 🏭1. AI for Material Discovery (and cheaper manufacturing) Fewer candidates, faster iterations, and quicker validation cycles from concept to prototype. An obvious win is improving manufacturability - using models not just to find “best-in-class” materials, but to find materials that can actually be produced reliably and at lower cost. 🚜2. New Electrochemical Materials (efficiency-first pathways) Some chemical reactions for existing industrial processes are ready for a new spin: material and paired cell design innovation that boosts efficiency. The result? Better yields and lower energy intensity can be enough to change unit economics. A wave of scalable (and potentially local production!) technologies spanning fertilisers and chemical commodities, where scale and cost are everything, and where incremental efficiency gains can unlock big emissions reductions are reaching maturity. Added bonus to look for: replacing precious metals. 📈3. New Bio-Based Materials (scaling fermentation and biomaterials) Several companies appear close to the tipping point where process optimisation, feedstock strategy, and downstream processing finally align and are ready to commercialize. A massive win for the bioeconomy. Watch this space! Read the whole piece here! https://lnkd.in/ec8Tad4V
102
6 Comments -
Matt Rappaport
Future Frontier Capital • 8K followers
Don't Build a Better Wheat Farm" - Why Defensibility Stakes Are Higher in Deep Tech Just published a new piece on my "Ignore the Confusion" blog, building on thoughtful insights from Eric Ver Ploeg at Tunitas Ventures about startup defensibility. Eric's core thesis: Too many startups pitch like wheat farmers - "huge TAM, slow incumbents, growing market, domain expertise" - but fail to think through long-term defensibility until it's too late. From a deep tech perspective, the stakes are even higher: ** Unlike software, deep tech founders must commit to defensibility strategies from day one - their funding depends on it ** Patent vs. trade secret decisions are often difficult to reverse and shape your entire competitive strategy ** Even "picks and shovels" providers (the tools that make industries more efficient) become commodities without proper moats The key insight that resonates: Defensibility can't be retrofitted. Whether you're building software or deep tech, your moat must be architected into the business model from the start. Thanks to Eric Ver Ploeg for sharing these insights on startup strategy and letting me build on his framework from a deep tech lens. Read the full post: https://lnkd.in/dEj_iF-Q #DeepTech #StartupStrategy #Defensibility #VentureCapital #Innovation
21
2 Comments -
Max Shapiro
PeopleConnect Staffing • 33K followers
This valuation tells founders who capital is for. Waymo raising at a roughly 110 billion valuation is not about revenue today. It is about category ownership tomorrow. Investors are paying for inevitability. The belief that autonomous mobility becomes baseline infrastructure. For founders this clarifies a harsh truth. Capital is still abundant, but it is highly selective. Markets are rewarding companies that look unavoidable. Not just impressive. That means clear leadership in one narrow problem. Clear proof that losing to you would be expensive. If you are building in a capital heavy space this changes the pitch. You are not selling traction. You are selling why no one else should win. The danger is copying the valuation logic without the substance. Big numbers only work when paired with dominant position. If an investor asked why your category should consolidate around you what would you say?
15
6 Comments -
Nicolai Rasmussen
Nume • 5K followers
𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿 𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗲𝘀? Some of the world’s most successful tech companies have been built through venture studios like Rocket Internet, Sutter Hill Ventures, and Idealab. What they share is a structured, repeatable approach to company building - moving systematically from ideation and research, to product validation, go-to-market (GtM) validation, and scaling. In company building, structure beats luck. It’s not just about having a great idea - it’s about how you methodically bring it to life. Companies like Snowflake (Sutter Hill Ventures) and Zalando (Rocket Internet) are proof of what’s possible when you combine rigorous validation with relentless execution. Venture studios de-risk the startup journey by providing experienced teams, operational support, funding, and proven playbooks from day one - allowing founders to focus on building, validating, and scaling faster. At Bifrost Studios we follow the same proven processes - with one twist: We not only build companies. We also invest in and launch new venture studios, partnering with exceptional founders and focusing deeply on specific verticals where we see outsized potential.
68
10 Comments
Explore top content on LinkedIn
Find curated posts and insights for relevant topics all in one place.
View top content