PART 2/5
AI SESSIONS
The Thursday 26th September 2024 annual Startup Grind Summit entitled AI & Fundraising incorporated other notable AI sessions such as “Building the Future with AI” featuring a fireside chat between Sachin Dev Duggal, Founder & CEO of Builder.ai and Startup Grind’s thought-provoking CEO and Founder Derek Andersen.
Sachin focused on the need to build apps quickly and more affordably and characterized the AI hype cycle, predicting the AI evolution of tech stack would experience a rebirthing within 18 months.
Anderson claims there are still great fears around AI from large corporations in particular, hindering its adoption rate if go to market strategies are not executed properly. Duggal himself estimates that 90% of GEN AI adoption has failed with a visceral reaction towards AI by corporations caused by many AI formats launched into the marketplace that are not relatable. Andersen furthermore claimed AI tools that are “too human” frighten people.
This fear left Andersen and Duggal to conclude that articulating the AI message is key. Rather than focusing on AI, Duggal suggests Founders should start by explaining the problem they are solving when pitching to prospects.
Furthermore, Duggal proclaims that investors should not ask for revenue at the seed stage, rather, they should focus on whether Founders can build a great product and be clear on the problem to be solved. Duggal’s top tips for fundraising are for Founders to ensure they make an impression within 3 minutes of a 20 minute meeting. If the product is transformatory, Founders should expect a giant seed round he concludes.
Duggal suggests Founders talk to investors when they have something to talk about. Raising capital with just the Founder’s vision and a slide deck as a sales tool at pre seed stage only happens once, and Founders should capitalize on that moment.
The next moment to take advantage of will be early product to first revenue, and again with a different proposition, Founders should make use of that time and window of opportunity to achieve the goal of reaching the elusive stage of a Partner meeting.
Can AI Provide Another Perspective on Performance? Matt MacInnis COO of Rippling an AI-driven candidate feedback summary that helps users make hiring decisions faster also joined in the summit together with Peter Walker, Head of Insights at Carta. Walker’s session, AI Fundraising Trends: Insights, Opportunities, and Market Impact offered insight into the following themes:
- The importance of highlighting the difference between AI companies and AI features.
- Is AI fundamentally changing the way Founders go to market or the way Founders build businesses?
- The AI infrastructure company, foundational models dev tools are more valuable (double) at time of valuation when compared to AI application companies where AI solutions are merely part of a ready made tech stack.
Next, a firm favourite for all Founders, the Live Pitch Deck Teardowns with Jordan Wahbeh, Managing Partner at Silicon Valley Venture Group, Partner Network, a VC fund that helps start ups grow and scale.
Founder showcases for the teardowns included Chief Engineer Quentin Caron of Endiatx, who pitched his outstanding, revolutionary micro-robot capable of navigating inside the human body to diagnose pathologies.
Dmitri Love CEO of Peas Technology operates a unique AI powered joint savings solutions for couples to track expenditure together or separately.
The Leveraging CSAT, Reporting, and AI to Assess Product Market Fit in Customer Success session was led by Sam Chandler, Director of Customer Success, Startups at Zendesk.
Chandler explained the importance of using Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) metrics, reporting tools, and AI to gain insights into market fit. aligning product development with customer needs and making data-driven decisions.