Brent Murri’s Post

“I look for founders who I believe, when the first or second or third iteration doesn’t work out, won’t quit," says M13 partner Brent Murri. Seven years ago, Brent Murri was M13’s first-ever investing hire. Today, he’s a partner at the firm who focuses on commerce enablement, marketplaces, vertical SaaS, AI-powered creator & freelancer tools, and venture’s role in the economy. Some of his recent investments include Pietra, Rebuy Engine, interviewing.io, Doorvest, and Bounty. M13 co-founders Carter Reum and Courtney Reum won Brent over to M13 in 2017, and today, he looks for founders with the same qualities he saw in the Reum brothers back then: grit, a desire to do things differently, and enthusiasm for the second act, not just the debut. We sat down with Brent to talk about what he’s paying attention to in #AI and #e-commerce, how he helped build M13 as investor hire No.1, and what good hospitality has to do with it all. Meet Brent: https://lnkd.in/gyW6W_Dz #VentureCapital #VentureInvestor #CareerPath

Appreciated Tomasz Tunguz's take on why "market size" (good ole TAM) is not the way to assess a startup's potential. Instead, the most innovative companies generate their own demand by creating new categories or redefining ones. They don't "disrupt" (the most overused word in startupland) an industry, but design a new market for themselves. I've seen this firsthand a number of times, especially from BIPOC and female founders who have a different, important perspective. If VCs won't let you play in their sandbox, they build a playground no one expected, but everyone ends up needing <3 A few examples I've seen firsthand: - Sunny creating an "alternative" to tampons that is so much better, it's not fair to compare them to tampons - Ashby designing an ecosystem from a recruiter's POV - Brex's early days of understanding a deep source of anxiety for founders: a personal guarantee while applying for credit https://lnkd.in/gAdjxqa2 #categorydefinition #TAMisoverrated #hiringexcellence #ashbyATS #periodcare #femtech

Rising Above: Gaining Competitive Advantage.   The foundation of competitive advantage in your startup or early-stage business is not built through the conventional wisdom of the branding, marketing, and advertising worlds.   We no longer live in the age of persuasion.   We live in the age of opt-in or opt-out.   To get off the ground, grow and scale in the marketplace, your competitive advantage is based on an “idea of value” customers love, can’t live without, and can’t get from anybody else.   Your idea of value is not based in the attribute qualities or the functional benefits provided by your products and services.   In crowded categories, that’s table stakes.   An idea of value is a mental construct, not a physical thing.   Your idea of value lives in the mind of a customer. It’s value is always in the eye of the beholder.   Products and services are simply a mechanism that facilitates and supports the idea of value you bring to the mind and experience of a customer. The idea of value your business represents is based on the transformative impact it has on the customer’s experience doing business with you.   In other words, your behavior– what your business stands for, how your business creates value that matters to an expanding group of customers and clients.   Competitive advantage in the marketplace is a high bar and eludes most founders. This is why most startups never get beyond the early-struggle phase. Most don’t have a compelling idea of value that forms a battle cry organizing people and money around a common mission to create something unique and remarkable.   If you want to build competitive advantage to grow and scale your business, creating logos and marketing campaigns is not the place to start. Start with your behavior. #whitehotcenter #founders #startupstrategies #competitiveadvantage

Product-market fit is overrated. Too much hype has gone into the idea of product-market fit over the last 5-10 years. The skill of identifying it by VCs before others did and pre-empting Series A financings was a big driver in the go go times of 2020-2022. I believe startups need to find 3 "market fits" in order to be successful and oftentimes Founders and investors (including myself in the past) aren't focused enough on the other two. The harmony between all three is what truly leads to success. 1. Product-market fit 2. Channel market fit 3. Pricing market fit Marc Andreessen popularized the term product-market fit in a 2007 blog post, where he wrote that it “means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market.” The key to this statement is a "good market" What makes a good market aside from the obvious things like large TAM and strong macro tailwinds? 1. The ability to reach your customers efficiently and predictably AKA Channel-Market Fit Do you have the ability to build a strong top of funnel in a repeatable and cost efficient way? Does the channel convert at a high rate? Will it work in one channel or many? What is the depth of that channel? 2. The customers will pay enough money and on the right payment terms to enable the business to scale in a capital efficient manner AKA Pricing-Market Fit You can have an incredible product, but if your customers aren't willing to pay enough for it you're in trouble. Payment terms can be sneaky here as well because it can create a cash drag on the business making it less capital efficient to scale, which can make things more challenging from a fundraising perspective. Markets with long paybacks are tough to raise for today. The harmony between these three things is critical. You can have a great product, but if you can't reach your customers effectively or cheap enough then the business won't work. However, if the perceived value of the product is incredibly high and people are willing to pay a lot of money for it you will have more margin for error to test additional channels of acquisition. Meanwhile, if you've found incredibly strong and cost effective channels you will be able to charge less for the product and potentially be able to scale even faster to land grab the market. Finally, plenty of companies have had good but not great products early on but figured out both channel-market fit and pricing-market fit and been able to scale fast and continue to improve their product over time. VCs have a saying First time founders think about product, second time founders think about distribution. The point I'm trying to make is be sure to be super thoughtful about how you're going to get your product in peoples hands and what are they willing to pay for it? My Advice: 1. If you can figure out industry benchmarks for CAC by channel before you go all-in on starting the business then do it 2. Make sure you talk to customers about pricing before you launch

Worth reading for any founders or investors. And timely too.

"I always thought go-to-market was like a dumb, made-up term," Chris Federspiel, founder of Blackthorn.io told me. (He's not alone) "But then I finally understood that it's a very real, painful thing if you have no focus." Many businesses learn this the hard way. I get it -- it's so tempting to chase every dollar available to you. More is better right? Let's go after all the companies, do ALL the channels! Sometimes you're forced to, just to stay alive. Blackthorn is a bootstrapped company. You need to fund the payroll while you're building the dream. If a customer was ready to pay for something they could deliver, they did it. "It sounded like every call we got on, someone wanted a different feature, which was impossible to figure out," he told me. So they ended up with 9 products, sold to vastly different types of companies. Doing it this way, it took them over 4 years to get to their first $1M in revenue. "We were like the babes in the woods. We had no idea what was going on." But then - between their 4th year and the 8th year, they went from ~$1M to $16M in revenue. That is a growth rate most can ever dream of. What changed? Their go-to-market. They killed most of their products, and focused on 2 of them. They doubled down on 2 market segments (industries) that had similar needs. What was the price of going too broad? As Chris put it, "early on, it's a heavy waste of engineering time. Later on, it's a heavy waste of go-to-market time. Now I'm finally seeing just how much of a drain it is when you have to re-steer the ship." The key lesson in the Blackthorn growth story: pick a focus, and really stay with it. "If you pick six focuses at once, you're going nowhere; that was a really hard thing for us to learn and commit to."

Here’s how I scaled my business from $0 to $500K ARR in 12 months When I first started, I had: - No investors. - No massive marketing budget. - Just an idea and the drive to make it happen. Here’s what worked: 1. Solving a specific pain point - Instead of chasing after the next "big idea," - I focused on one clear, defined problem that my target audience was struggling with. ↳ Solving that specific problem gave the product immediate value. 2. Launching an MVP quickly - I didn’t wait for perfection. - I launched fast, tested, and iterated. ↳ The feedback from early users shaped the product roadmap. → This helped us pivot and refine before scaling too quickly. 3. Building a loyal customer base organically - I didn’t have the budget for paid ads. ↳ So, I doubled down on building relationships and nurturing early adopters. → Organic growth through word of mouth was our biggest accelerator. 4. Experimenting with pricing models - Pricing was tricky, and I didn’t get it right the first time. - We tested different models and adapted based on customer feedback. ↳ Finding the sweet spot led to consistent monthly revenue growth. 5. Content marketing and community building - We shared valuable content that solved problems for our audience. ↳ Creating a community around the product established trust and loyalty. → Customers became advocates, helping us grow without huge ad spend. The results? In 12 months, we reached $500K ARR. Key takeaway: You don’t need fancy investors or big budgets to scale. - Focus on solving real problems, - Engage with your audience, → And you can grow a successful business from the ground up. Need help scaling your startup? Let’s connect!

In a recent conversation with two early-stage founder partners, I was reminded how easy it is to shoot oneself in the foot prematurely rushing to marketing tactics. Here’s what usually happens…   Marketing can be an effective weapon, but most startup early-stage founders point it at themselves.   In the early stages attempting to get off the ground, they spend most of what little money they have on digital marketing campaigns and sales channel promotion.   Then they’re frustrated nothing is working.   Why?   Because nobody cares.   Without a foundational strategy to guide your customer acquisition decisions, you’ll quickly find your way to bone yard trying to make people care through undisciplined acts of marketing.   In our conversation, I learned these founders had already spent nearly $250,000 on branding, packaging and marketing stuff over the past year and earned less than $100,000 in sales revenue.   Like many that come to me seeking help, these poor founders had everything backwards.   In our conversation I made a few suggestions on how they could put things in the right order to start to build a stronger foundation for more competitive advantage.   They seemed enthusiastic about my initial ideas and asked about the investment to work with me.   I replied $9500.   There was an uncomfortable pause.   They replied they were in the process of rebuilding their online store and didn’t have the money to tackle both initiatives at the same time. “Let’s talk again after we have our new online store up and running.” they said enthusiastically.   I nodded politely thinking to myself some founders just can’t be helped. #whitehotcenter #founders #branding #marketing #businessgrowth

They say surround yourself with the right people, and I couldn't agree more! A month ago, we flew to San Francisco to meet Jason Calacanis and the incredible team at LAUNCH, who are backing ConvertMate's mission to help eCommerce merchants increase their sales through automated on-page optimizations. This trip was transformational for us in so many ways: - We connected with investors who’ve backed successful companies and gained invaluable insights. - We stepped into spaces where major decisions are made. - We received constructive feedback from the folks at Sequoia Capital. Since then, it's been a wild ride: 🚀 We tripled our MRR in just two months! 👥 Welcomed our first team member to help us serve our clients even better. 🛠️ Rolled out game-changing features to ConvertMate. 💡 Shifted our focus to high-growth brands and elevated our pricing to match our value. Surrounding yourself with the right people is a game-changer. We're thrilled to be backed by incredible investors, and we can't wait to help even more brands crush their eCommerce goals! 🚀 #startupfounder #founderstory #convertmate #shopifyseo #artificialintelligence

I lost a $45 Million deal. Because of an error in a spreadsheet. Back in my investment banking days we are doing a private equity round for a client. We had a term sheet in hand and were deep in diligence. Everything was looking good. Until an analyst found an error in the Statement of Cash Flows. The financials were correct. Most importantly, the Balance Sheet was 100% accurate. But there was a small formula error in the Cash Flow Statement. When the PE discovered this, they started to question everything. They walked away from the deal. I am thrilled to share that we went back to market with that same client later and closed a great deal. But, the lesson still stands. And it was a painful one. If I buy shares of Shopify today, I can change my mind tomorrow. If I buy shares in a private company, I cant sell them. I am locked in. Remember, if you want raise capital or sell your company: You are selling trust! Investors and buyers can't change their minds once the deal closes. You need a solid back office. You need timely information. When they ask for things, you have them. Every request, every interaction should reinforce their trust in you. That's how deals get closed. - Enjoy this? ♻️ Repost it to your network and follow Mark MacLeod for more. For more tips on how to lead your company to a massive exit Join the leading newsletter for startup CEOs https://lnkd.in/gWqQBd-n