focal podcast
focal podcast
Podcast Description
Pivotal early lessons of today's best startups.
Welcome to the focal podcast where we go deep with some of today's best founders and operators on ONE crucial lessons from their early days.
This podcast is not the usual "highlight reel" startup podcast that goes one inch deep across 20+ topics. Rather, we ask the questions you’d ask if you were sitting across from them. No fluff, just the real, actionable insights you’d get if these founders were mentoring you 1on1.
We cover topics including:
- What worked and why.
- Costly mistakes and how they fixed them.
- Frameworks that truly made a difference.
- Tactics to move faster.
- What they wish they’d known sooner.
- And much more!
"Only a fool learns from their own mistakes. The wise learn from the mistakes of others."
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
Main topics of discussion include crucial lessons on what strategies worked and why, costly mistakes and their resolutions, impactful frameworks, tactics for accelerating growth, and insights on what founders wish they knew sooner. Examples from episodes include lessons from Alexa Grabell on building with skeptics and Santiago Suarez Ordóñez on treating revenue as the sole signal that matters, alongside discussions about customer discovery and the pivoting process.
Pivotal early lessons of today’s best startups.
Welcome to the focal podcast where we go deep with some of today’s best founders and operators on ONE crucial lessons from their early days.
This podcast is not the usual “highlight reel” startup podcast that goes one inch deep across 20+ topics. Rather, we ask the questions you’d ask if you were sitting across from them. No fluff, just the real, actionable insights you’d get if these founders were mentoring you 1on1.
We cover topics including:
– What worked and why.
– Costly mistakes and how they fixed them.
– Frameworks that truly made a difference.
– Tactics to move faster.
– What they wish they’d known sooner.
– And much more!
“Only a fool learns from their own mistakes. The wise learn from the mistakes of others.”
Most startups die between $1M-$10M ARR because they try to reinvent the wheel.
A lot is written about the $0 to $1M ARR journey. A lot less about the $1M to $10M journey – even though that’s where lots of promising companies die. Most of what it takes to get to $10M ARR follows established patterns. Yet, too many startups try to reinvent the wheel and die as a consequence.
In this episode, Guillaume Jacquet walks us through the steps you have to take as a founder as you move from founder-led sales to a predictable revenue engine. Learn why 80% of scaling from $1M to $10M is science, not magic, and discover the counterintuitive hiring sequence that most founders get wrong.
Guillaume Jacquet is Co-founder and CEO of Vasco, the revenue architecture platform for VC-backed startups to maximize go-to-market efficiency. He’s built and scaled multiple B2B companies through the critical $1M-$10M journey and codified the repeatable systems that work.
In Today’s Episode We Discuss:
00:00 – Why building $100M starts with forgetting about $100M
01:17 – The founder magic trap that kills growth at $1M ARR
03:13 – How to surgically narrow your ICP when everyone says go broader
05:49 – Why your best customers move from purchase to value fastest
10:16 – The impossible metrics problem when salespeople do everything
13:18 – Mapping the real B2B customer journey most founders ignore
15:05 – Why customer success must be your first hire (not sales)
17:48 – The counterintuitive order for removing yourself from revenue
20:01 – When predictable pipeline generation solves everything
22:24 – Why full-stack sales reps destroy accountability and growth
24:31 – How your ICP dictates your entire go-to-market motion
32:31 – The exact close rate benchmarks that signal go-to-market fit
37:26 – When to split implementation from retention for velocity
39:17 – Why expansion specialists unlock 140% net revenue retention
42:16 – The two paths from $10M to $50M (and why most choose wrong)
44:48 – The 18-month hiring mistake that killed his first company
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