The PMF Trap That Slows Down Startups | Lessons from 20 Years Investing with Ashmeet Sidana
What does it look like to run the same playbook across five venture funds?That is the bet Ashmeet Sidana has made at Engineering Capital. From Fund One to Fund Five, he has written the first check into founders solving problems with Technical insight.
His portfolio includes Rubrik, now a public company, SignalFx which was acquired by Splunk for $1 billion, and CodeRabbit, last valued at $550 million. Ashmeet runs Engineering Capital as a solo GP and the fund has been oversubscribed since Fund One.
Ashmeet says that the most common way technical founders fail is by “playing house.” Founders who build beautifully organized systems and clean processes, but don’t obsessively seek product market fit. His view is that founders should ruthlessly prioritize finding PMF above everything else.
Ashmeet is an investor who has seen enough cycles to know what actually compounds, and is still early-stage enough to care about the details that most people have moved past.
00:00 – Trailer
01:15 – Where does Engineering Capital place its bets?
10:07 – How the VC landscape has evolved
11:20 – Are technical founders the norm in AI?
16:23 – Why the name Engineering Capital?
16:50 – What every VC looks for in a founder
21:34 – Why Founders Choose Your Term Sheet
26:26 – Rule of 1-2 in-person meetings daily with founders
31:42 – Does AI give younger founders an edge?
32:59 – Founders must ruthlessly prioritize
35:58 – The trap of “playing house”
37:40 – PMF can change overnight, Ex: Facebook
40:13 – 1 in 10 companies fail due to lack of PMF
43:17 – The most valuable skill a founder can have
44:19 – Why have a Chief Engineer at a VC firm?
45:44 – The job of every CEO is to learn
46:09 – Solo founders are much riskier
48:15 – An accidental entry into VC
49:52 – Solo GP: risks and rewards
53:34 – $250M across funds
54:43 – Why solo GPs work better in the US
58:25 – Where Ashmeet’s portfolio companies are located
01:00:57 – Be very careful of vanity metrics
01:02:15 – Vibe coding will change the face of software
01:03:36 – Don’t chase trends in how companies are built
01:05:58 – $100M ARR is the outcome of a strong package
01:06:35 – How affordable is Bay Area for young founders?
01:11:32 – AlexNet, not ChatGPT, was the real AI inflection point
01:12:57 – US Public Companies Are Down 50% in 40 years
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This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice. Receive SMS online on sms24.me
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