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Equity

We think founders need a quick Heart to Heart about the market

Equity

TechCrunch

Entrepreneurship, Business News, News, Business, Technology

4.2372 Ratings

🗓️ 25 May 2022

⏱️ 35 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha asked: How are early-stage founders thinking about this downturn? The inimitable Alex teamed up with her to interview Joshua Ogundu, the founder and CEO of Heart to Heart about this timely topic. The question comes after Natasha’s recent Startups Weekly column, "Everyone is drafting their own startup Black Swan memo." The column looked at a series of memos that venture capitalist firms sent to portfolio companies about the market downturn. Some were hopeful, some were simple, and others were a vibe check as straightforward as, Can you tell us your ARR and cash-burn in writing? Pretty please? To flip the script, as we do here on Equity, we're bringing in the founder perspective to fact check these memos and tell us what it's really like to be a founder. Ogundu told us what he's rethinking, the importance of honesty, and what to do before considering a layoff. It's not too often that we have guests on the show, so when we do, you know it's going to be a good one. Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of

0:15.4

startups where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. I'm

0:19.0

Natasha Mascarenis and this is our Wednesday show where we reach down to a

0:22.3

single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest.

0:25.6

This week we're talking about how our earliest age founders thinking about this downturn.

0:30.0

We've been talking a lot about layoffs at large and most recently I wrote about VCs writing their own Black Swan memos.

0:36.4

We all know Sequoias and how that aged well or not so well.

0:39.8

But we wanted to bring in the perspective of a founder and actually get kind of an on-the-ground scene and look into what it's like to be in the seat of a decision-maker right now.

0:47.6

As always, I have the wonderful Alex Wilhelm to talk it through with me.

0:50.9

Alex, how are you?

0:51.8

I just want to be clear here.

0:53.2

I'm really glad I'm not an early stage decision-maker

0:55.6

because it sounds stressy as hell right now

0:57.8

and hard pass on that one.

0:59.4

It's actually like my perfect segue to use

1:01.1

whenever I ask a founder a hard question.

1:02.8

It's like, this is why I'm not a founder, but since you are, please answer this very difficult

1:06.8

and not at all easy to answer questions.

1:08.9

What was your burn rate the last month?

1:11.6

And then you just stop talking and wait.

1:14.0

Well, as we're kind of alluding to, it's not just us on the show this week.

1:17.5

We have the wonderful Josh Ogun do, the co-founder and CEO of Heart to Heart, a new startup. He is someone that I have followed on

...

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