Ground Up Ventures

Happy Valentine's Day to Our One True Love: Founders

If you're starting a company and looking for your happily-ever-after, you know where to find us 😉 😘

There's so much SEO fluff posing as startup advice out there that finding quality content has become quite difficult.

So we have put together a curated library to make it easier for you to find legit advice.

We're launching it on Product Hunt today, and it would be really awesome to get your feedback:

producthunt.com/posts/resource……

Thanks!

Hello, my name is Asher Sesser, and I'm The Flash.
Ground Up wanted to interview me, but I was too busy. So they spoke to my dad, @BenjaminSesser, about his startup instead:

1. Hey Ben, what was the pain point that inspired the creation of BrightHire?

Hiring is the most important activity to get right to ensure your organization's future success, but the process is very often haphazard, manual, and rife with bias.

Our platform is a game-changer for hiring. It’s an AI-powered interview platform that streamlines the entire hiring process with real-time interviewer guidance, AI-generated interview notes and candidate highlights, and new talent insights for consistently better and faster hiring.

2. What are two things you wish someone had told you before you started your company?

– The highs are never as high as you think, and the lows are never as low as you think.

– There is no 1 way to be successful.

3. What did your biggest professional failure teach you?

Focus on controlling the controllable.

4. Which resources have you found particularly helpful on your journey?

• Endurance (the Ernest Shackleton voyage)

• SaaStr blog posts

• Talking to peers

5. What has been your most effective growth channel?

LinkedIn. It's where our buyers congregate, and they lean heavily on their networks and social proof when considering new investments.

6. What's one piece of software that your business couldn't function without?

“Slack... and BrightHire :)”

7. How did you go about securing your first round of funding, and what advice would you give to others seeking venture capital?

Once we had sufficient traction, validation, and the sense that this could and should be a venture-backed business, we ran a tight, time-bound process.

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Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom, Ben.

– Follow @BrightHireAI to make your hiring process more efficient with AI.

– Follow us, @GroundUpVC, for more interviews and tips for founders.

– And follow Asher Sesser for tips on running at incredible speeds, time travel, and fighting supervillains.

Refine Intelligence just launched with $13m in seed funding to transform anti-money laundering by "Catching the Good Guys.”

Learn more: refineintelligence.com/post/refine-la…

Let’s go 🎉

5 tips for founders from Navot Volk, our new Venture Partner:

Meet @NavotV. Before joining Ground Up, he held key positions at Wix and was the Managing Director at Microsoft for Startups. We asked him for a few tips.

1. Navot, what’s the most important thing to include in your pitch deck that most founders overlook?

"Show us your most significant achievement. We want to know that you can think big. A venture is much more than just a business idea."

2. What red flags might cause you to reconsider investing in a startup?

• "The way the founders talk to each other."
• "Lack of focus on the product."
• "When they have all the answers to all of the questions."

3. What’s the best way to validate a startup idea?

"There are no shortcuts or hacks – show it to users or potential users and get their feedback."

4. What are some non-traditional metrics you look for when evaluating a potential investment?

"I always ask:
• Why are they doing what they are doing?
• Would they want to do it for the next 10 years?"

5. Which book or podcast – aside from your podcast, Weekly Sync 😉 – offers the most value for founders?

”My favorite three are:
• All-In (Podcast)
• The One Device by Brian Merchant (Book)
• Build by Tony Fadell (Book)”

6. Bonus: What’s the best lunch spot in Tel Aviv?

"Kosher: Bladi Shook. Non-Kosher: Aharoni in Sharona."

Thanks, Navot. We're really happy to have you with us!

P.S. Do you know a better lunch spot in TLV? Give us your recommendations👇