Midstage Startup Momentum

Cybersecurity is one of the biggest markets emerging in the tech industry right now. There are several big players, yet there is plenty of room for startups that are being innovative and taking a different approach. LimaCharlie is the latter, creating a SecOps cloud platform that aims to bring together a variety of cybersecurity capabilities in a single platform. In other words, it’s a more simplified approach to cybersecurity in the modern era.

Naturally, by taking a different approach to things, LimaCharlie ran into some unique challenges during its startup journey. Founder & CEO Maxime Lamothe-Brassard joined startup coach Roland Siebelink on the Midstage Startup Momentum Podcast to discuss some of those challenges.

• The danger of working with investors who aren’t aligned with the company’s vision.

• Balancing current investors versus new investors for subsequent funding rounds.

• How to shift toward growth that gives the startup more control.

• The challenge of tech-oriented founders becoming salesmen.

• The shift from inbound-only sales to becoming more outbound.

• How the core values of LimaCharlie have changed as the company has grown.

There is a point for all startups when it becomes necessary to ask for outside help. Sometimes that means hiring a fractional CMO to help get the go-to-market machine working. For startups in that position, there are consultants like Grwth.co available to help. Led by experienced founder Mosheh Poltorak, Grwth.co can provide fractional CMO services for startups while also having a plan to hand the reins to an in-house hire when the startup is ready.

Mosheh recently joined startup coach Roland Siebelink on the Midstage Startup Momentum Podcast to discuss Grwth.co and share insight from his vast experience as a founder.

• What does product-market-fit actually look like for startups?

• Why product-market-fit is an ongoing journey rather than a destination.

• How product-market-fit is different for B2B and B2C.

• Why product marketing is a critical part of early startup success.

• The importance of founders understanding their organic growth.

• The ideal timeline and situation for startups to work with a fractional CMO.

For many midstage startups, finding an accelerator can be a great way to find useful guidance that can help drive better results. One of the top accelerators in the startup world today is Founders Space, which is run by Steve Hoffman (AKA Captain Hoff). Steve is a veteran of several startups and the author of several books about the startup world who brings a wealth of information and expertise to the startups that work with Founders Space.

Steve recently spoke to fellow author and startup coach Roland Siebelink on the Midstage Startup Momentum Podcast. The two covered a host of topics relevant to the journey of every founder:

• Why it’s critical for startups to continue to innovate.

• The qualities Steve looks for in founders that are destined for success.

• The true meaning of product-market-fit.

• How startups should balance growth versus and how the economic climate can be a factor.

• The best way for startups to consider new possibilities without getting distracted.

• How startups should pick investors and how to handle difficult investors.

When it comes to virtual and augmented reality technologies, the future that many of us have always dreamed about may already be here. That’s the case largely because of startups like Imascono, which is based in Spain. Imascono has done some amazing things while developing applied imagination and extended reality technologies that have the capacity to be used for entertainment, marketing, and industrial purposes.

Imascono co-founder Héctor Paz recently joined the Midstage Startup Momentum Podcast to talk with Roland Siebelink and Carlos Founaud about the long journey of the startup and key steps along the way.

• How Imascono has been able to prevent employees from leaving the company.

• How Imascono manages to connect the goals of the company with the goals of employees.

• The methods Imascono uses to create transparency with employees.

• The lessons Imascono has learned from negotiations involving a potential merger.

• The biggest takeaways from Imascono’s experience in an accelerator program.

While the construction business is massive, it’s also rather complicated. Fortunately, there are tech startups like Constrafor that are helping both general contractors and subcontractors streamline everything they do, completing projects and getting everyone paid faster. Constrafor is a construction procurement platform that handles everything from insurance to invoicing. While only started in 2019, Constrafor is already striving to become the primary end-to-end procurement platform for the biggest general contractors in the U.S.

Constrafor CEO and founder Anwar Ghauche recently sat down with startup coach Roland 

Siebelink on the Midstage Startup Momentum Podcast to discuss the journey so far. He shared some insight into how Constrafor operates, which is a little different from the average startup:

• Why it makes sense for Constrafor to use an indirect monetization method.

• The reason Constrafor spoke with potential customers before building a product.

• The importance of a sales team, even in a product-led company.

• How customer success at Constrafor is handled by everyone, not just one team.

• How Anwar handles employees who do not fit the values of Constrafor.

• Why Constrafor uses company-wide KPIs rather than team or individual KPIs.

With a growing population and climate change, it’s more important than ever for farmers to be able to grow as much food as possible as efficiently as possible. Fortunately, there are startups like Hydrosat that are trying to make that job a little easier for them. As its name implies, Hydrosat uses satellite data to help farmers, agribusinesses, and government agencies with important insights that can lead to more food being produced with less water while also cutting down on electricity and climate change contributors.

Hydrosat CEO and co-founder Pieter Fossel recently joined startup coach Roland Siebelink on the Midstage Startup Momentum Podcast. Pieter explained the positive impact Hydrosat can potentially have on the world and a variety of other topics about Hydrosat’s startup journey:

• How Hydrosat is able to address food security and climate change at the same time.

• The importance of solving a customer’s problem while building a product over time.

• Being able to find short-term success while maintaining a long-term vision.

• How to work with big distributors without giving up leverage.

• How Hydrosat has given both distributors and end users something new.

Experience is often a key ingredient for startup founders. Jimmy Kim, the CEO and co-founder of Sendlane, has plenty of experience with Sendlane being his third startup. With Sendlane, Jimmy is hoping to combine several MarTech tools into a single platform, dominating the space while creating a new category. Given his experience, Jimmy and Sendlane are well on their way to doing just that.

Jimmy joined startup coach Roland Siebelink on this week’s episode of the Midstage Startup Momentum Podcast to share how far Sendlane is in its journey. He also shared many key insights from the wealth of knowledge he’s gained as a founder. 

• Why it took Jimmy three attempts to build a successful sales team.

• Why Sendlane decided to use outbound sales sooner than most startups.

• Why a startup’s pricing shouldn’t be the driving force in winning the market.

• Why offering the cheapest pricing can be a bad thing.

• Why fundraising is no different from a sales cycle.

• How many term sheets startups should aim to get while fundraising.

The ongoing fight against cancer requires all hands on deck. Fortunately, tech startups are starting to harness the power of AI and machine learning to help in the fight against cancer. Genialis is one startup that uses AI in the precision medicine industry to ensure cancer patients are getting the right treatment.

Genialis CEO and co-founder Rafael Rosengarten recently sat down with startup coach Roland Siebelink to discuss the role his startup is playing in treating cancer patients more effectively. Rafael also spoke about the journey Genialis has been on and his personal journey as a first-time founder.

• What it was like being a founder without a business background.

• The challenge of succeeding with a startup that hasn’t raised a lot of money.

• How startup founders can recognize when it’s time to pivot their company.

• Why Genialis doesn’t consider employee headcount an indicator of success.

• What it means to build a great company before building a great business.

• How Genialis links its values to its strategic initiatives.

It’s usually in the nature of startup leaders to conquer one market and expand to another. That is exactly the case with Hiberus, which is one of the premier tech startups in Spain but aspires to be so much more. Hiberus is a tech consulting startup that offers a variety of services and has offices all over Europe with over 3,000 employees. After experiencing such impressive growth and success in Europe, Hiberus is now expanding to operate in the U.S. and the Americas.

Hiberus Internacional CEO Marcos Latorre recently joined the Midstage Startup Momentum Podcast to speak with startup coaches Roland Siebelink and Carlos Founaud. Marcos talked about the past success and future goals of Hiberus while also sharing the secret sauce that has made Hiberus one of the biggest tech startups in Europe:

• How to attract people to a small company in a small city.

• Why Hiberus tries to create talent rather than just relying on acquiring talent.

• What Hiberus has done to attract customers with a small sales team.

• The three things Hiberus provides clients so that they never lose one.

• The reason Hiberus prioritizes employees over customers and investors.

• How the role of founders and CEOs change as startups grow and expand.

No startup can make it to product-market dominance without having a plan. That’s why the Midstage Institute has put together the midstage momentum method. This is a five-lever plan to help startups upon reaching the midstage and get them from product-market fit to product-market dominance as quickly and efficiently as possible. The method creates a roadmap that startups can follow for future success, guiding them as they get better at what they do and build more competencies.

On this week’s episode of the Midstage Startup Momentum Podcast, startup coach Roland Siebelink introduces the five parts of the midstage momentum method, giving startups their own roadmap to achieving product-market dominance.

• Better define the responsibilities and expected output of your team.
• Understand the core segments that are most in need of your minimum value proposition.
• Create a key functional road map that can help create discipline and rhythms.
• Learning how to continually grow revenue year after year.
• Ensuring the founder has a vision that can help to inspire others to think big.