Founder10x - Sell Before You Build - Dominique Levin, 2X CEO & Investor with over $1B in exits

Dominique Levin is a 2x CEO, a go-to-market architect, and a wildly successful investor with over a billion dollars in exits. She’s seen it all, and she has a playbook for a lot of challenges founders face while building their companies. ⭐ Sponsored by Podcast10x - Podcasting agency for VCs - https://podcast10x.com Links- Dominique Levin on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominiquelevin Book that Dominique Levin: 1. Survival to Thrival: She mentioned this is a two-book series written by Bob Tinker and Tae Hea Nahm. * Book 1: Survival to Thrival: Building the Enterprise Startup (The Company Journey) * Book 2: Survival to Thrival: Change or Be Changed (The People Journey) 2. The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production by James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, and Daniel Roos. 🎙️ Hosted by Prashant Choubey Follow Prashant on X - https://x.com/ChoubeySahab Follow Prashant on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/choubeysahab In this episode, we talk about - - Why founders should sell before they build - The "SAFER" Note: A radical new funding model for founders who want to avoid the VC treadmill. - The secret behind her success as a VC with over $1 Billion in exits - Why the future isn't about work-life balance, but building a company that lets your team lead multiple lives - Remote work, how should leaders think about it, and how it promotes inclusivity & lots more Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction (02:38) First discussion on go-to-market strategy (02:57) Common mistakes founders make in go-to-market strategy - Worrying about go-to-market too soon - Having multiple go-to-market motions - Mismatch between go-to-market motion and product/contract value (05:33) Definition of product-market fit - Solving a "hair-on-fire" problem - Validating by selling before building - Customers willing to pay for a solution (07:18) Approaching product development - Think big but act small - Solve a specialized, unaddressed problem - Be 10X or infinitely better than existing solutions (08:53) Fundraising advice for early-stage founders - Focus on customers first - Have at least three paying customers - Traction is the most important thing for investors (10:26) Building repeatable and scalable revenue processes - Treat sales as a process or "revenue factory" - Align marketing, sales, and customer success - Use AI to optimize go-to-market motion (13:11) AI applications in go-to-market strategies - SEO/LLM content creation - Lead generation - Prospecting research - Sales engineering support (15:57) Investing approach and philosophy - Looking for unfair competitive advantage - Leveraging unique relationships and information (19:15) Balancing product development with sales and customer success - Sell first, build later - Minimum effort to prove solving a critical problem (20:15) Building high-performance teams - Outward mindset- Focus on customer impact - Clear mission and vision (23:10) Transitioning from startup to scale-up - Different leadership styles at different stages - Adapting to company growth (25:31) AI and automation in SaaS - Becoming AI-native - Potential for customer-funded businesses - Alternative funding models (27:42) One-and-done funding model- SAFE-R (Simple Agreement for Future Equity with Repayment) - Aligning investor and founder interests (30:40) Building and managing remote companies - Challenges of hybrid work - Importance of in-person interactions - Maintaining team productivity (37:31) Flexibility in remote work - Project-based roles - Portfolio careers - Accommodating personal life and work (43:00) Work-life balance and parental leave - Personal experiences with parental leave - Challenges for working parents (47:35) Rapid-fire round about investing - Sectors, stages, and investment approach For sponsorship or guest appearance requests, write to prashantchoubey3@gmail.com Subscribe to VC10X on Youtube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts.