LatestSale.com Founder & Tech #Founders with strong affiliations to Amazon Web Services dropped everything on 22/10/2024 and headed to the finale of the AWS GenAI Loft London meet up covering the AWS GenAI and Bedrock Showcase. In attendance to this spectacular forum: Sequoia Capital represented by the #VC firm’s veteran Growth Partner Matt Miller, alongside unicorn Synthesia CEO and Co-Founder Victor Riparbelli and GTM Director and European Lead Hugo Rayne of Elevenlabs.
VC Accessibility for startups
Frances Pye, Head of European Partnerships at Anthropic followed on to highlight the “Frontier AI Systems Your Team Can Trust,” theme highlighting Anthropic’s consistent achievements including building the best LLM twice in 2024, whilst Tricia Troth Amazon Web Services General Manager, Startups UK & Ireland introduced the #Magic theme that facilitated her strategy to propel VC Accessibility for startups to new heights.
Sequoia Capital Emerges with Growth Partner Matt Miller
Sequoia Capital’s Growth Partner Matt Miller proclaimed that “Product market fit lives with Founders. VCs can help by scaling, adding resources and funding.”
Unicorn Synthesia CEO and Co-Founder Victor Riparbelli explored how innovation begins and develops unpredictably over time, explaining that, “There are many ways to build a great company. Synthesia created a category that did not exist before.”
Hugo Rayne GTM Director and European Lead of Elevenlabs questioned the notion of Demand generation highlighting the importance of identifying win-win solutions for great products. “Good products do not always win,” he concluded.
LatestSale.com Founder asks Sequoia, Synthesia and Elevenlabs if she can delegate sales and focus on artistry and NPD
Sequoia Capital #VC Growth Partner Matt Miller opened the floor to questions, with Latestsale.com Founder one of the first to ask Miller and the rest of the panel what their thoughts were on scaling sales teams. “Whose responsibility is it to manage the sales cycle at the initial stages of a Founder’s journey when pitching the company to enterprise customers? Can the Founder come in at the end of the enterprise pitch journey?” she asked.
Sequoia Growth Partner Matt Miller says no to LatestSale.com Founder sales team request
In response to LatestSale.com’s question, all panel members with Miller the most vocal proclaimed that the grit of a Startup Founder is undeniable, and that Founders should lead enterprise sales discussions in all cases. According to Miller, “Founders have the spark to ascertain what works in different scenarios and they enjoy the right blend of energy, passion and relentless drive, to understand customer needs and identify opportunities no-one else has the vision to see.”
Synthesia CEO and Co-Founder Victor Riparbelli says no to Product Managers for early stage startups
Synthesia CEO and Co-Founder Victor Riparbelli added that, “No Product Manager will be able to figure out how to sell in a repeatable way either. Only the Founder can,” and objected to the notion of startups hiring a sales team with less than £1m turnover.
Elevenlabs GTM Director and European Lead Hugo Rayne demands Founders lead onboarding process for team scaling
Hugo Rayne GTM Director and European Lead of Elevenlabs concurred, adding that, “Scaling is about growing with the right people, and understanding the company strategy and vision as underpinned by the Founder.” Rayne also emphasized that devising a company culture led by the Founder’s operational expertise and first-hand experience with customers would ease the process of training, ensuring onboarding, the key to success, is rolled out seamlessly across the startup.
Tricia Troth, AWS GM of Startups UK & Ireland interviews Olympian Katarina Johnson Thompson
AWS GM of Startups UK & Ireland Tricia Troth invited all attendees back for drinks and nibbles on 24/10/2024 ahead of the AWS Gen AI Loft London Closing Party in association with Automat-it, and Troth’s interview with high performance and resilience Olympian Katarina Johnson Thompson. Thompson’s interview was followed by a panel review led by Leon Rees, Principal Tech BD, Startup/VC. Rees was joined by Shamillah Bankiya of Dawn Capital, Amir Malik of Alvarez and Marsal and Devang Agrawal of Glyphic AI. The panel interviewed by Leon Rees were the official hosts of ‘The TL:DR of the Gen AI Loft’ month long recap as well as providing an overview of the AWS GenAI Loft 2024 London event, examining a wide range of topics from the Future of Health to the Future of Work and Gen AI trends.