SaaStr 865: The Agents #008: Agents Are Merging, Not Multiplying. Plus, Sam Blond on Why Outbound Isn't Dead.
SaaStr 865: The Agents #008: Agents Are Merging, Not Multiplying. Plus, Sam Blond on Why Outbound Isn't Dead.
Everyone told you the future is 100 specialized agents, one for every job. That's not what's happening at SaaStr AI. Their AI VP of Finance didn't get its own app. It moved in with the AI VP of Marketing. The agents are collapsing into each other, sharing knowledge, sharing context, going deeper together.
In this episode, Amelia and Jason do a live breakdown of their AI VP of Finance: how they wired Bill.com, QuickBooks, Brex, and PandaDoc into one agent, what the agent found on day one that their human finance team never did, and why contract close to invoice now takes 30 seconds instead of a day.
Then Sam Blond, founder and CEO of Monaco and one of the most respected sales minds in SaaS, joins to talk about why outbound still works, what brand and message market fit actually mean for AI agents in the field, and why Monaco is building toward one GTM platform that does everything.
You'll learn:
Why SaaStr's agents are merging, not multiplying, and what the "monorepo" model means for your own AI stack
The exact integrations that power their AI VP of Finance (and which ones took 10 minutes vs. an hour)
How the agent surfaced collections problems and automations the human team never knew existed
Why "set it and forget it" is a myth, and what happened when Qualified was still selling 2026 tickets weeks after the event ended
Sam Blond on brand, message market fit, and what actually makes AI outbound work for companies that aren't SaaStr
Why FDE relationships are now more valuable than any AE, and what that means for how you buy and sell software
This is for you if:
You're a founder or operator wondering whether to build a separate finance agent or fold it into what you already have
You run outbound and keep hearing it's dead (it's not)
You're evaluating your GTM stack and wondering if you need five agents or one
You want a real, unfiltered look at what it takes to run AI agents in production, including the failures
The AI-Native GTM Playbook | Sam Blond, Monaco
Sam Blond is the Co-founder and CEO of Monaco, the revenue engine for startups.
Sam is one of the best sales operators in tech. He spent four years as CRO at Brex, where he helped scale it to a ~$12B valuation, ran sales at Zenefits before that, and got his start at EchoSign.
If there’s a modern GTM playbook, Sam helped write it. Our conversation walks through how AI has rewritten a big chunk of it. But most importantly, we talk about what hasn’t changed.
We get into the sales work AI is now better at than humans, and why Sam thinks 90% of startups misdiagnose their bottleneck as conversion when it’s really demand gen.
He explains why he doesn’t measure early brand marketing at all and trusts anecdotes over attribution, walks through the full Monaco launch playbook including the Super Bowl box-truck story, and shares a rev-ops insight from Brex, including how they figured out a specific ICP converted at 4x the rate of another.
Thank you to Numeral, Flex, Amplitude, and Merge for supporting this episode.
Numeral: The end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance https://www.numeral.com
Flex: Get premium banking and a net 60 day credit card at 0% APY https://home.flex.one/referral/bananacapital
Amplitude: AI analytics, all you have to do is ask https://www.amplitude.com
Merge: Every modal. One API. Total control. Check out Merge’s Agent Handler. merge.dev/turner
Timestamps:
(0:00) Scaling Brex to $12B
(1:14) How AI speeds up prospecting and TAM building
(5:19) Using AI to get more leverage
(9:15) Incubating Monaco at Founders Fund
(12:56) Innovator’s dilemma in AI
(15:57) Why AI companies build full platforms, not wedge products
(23:30) Revenue is just a math equation
(27:18) Two ways AI increases conversion rates
(36:56) AI will never replace spending time with customers
(39:46) Don’t measure the impact of brand marketing
(49:03) Your marketing must be different (and hard)
(58:39) Customer discovery calls and working with design partners
(1:03:03) The zero to 100 launch
(1:11:00) Monaco’s launch playbook
(1:19:00) Send gifts that are unique and social
(1:22:17) Naming your company
(1:28:04) Founders should send early outbound
(1:32:38) How multi-channel augments AI outbound
(1:39:42) Using intent signals and outreach timing to increase conversions
(1:43:28) Two common ways founders mess up when scaling revenue
(1:50:22) Monaco’s Forward Deployed AE's
Referenced
Try Monaco: https://www.monaco.com/
Careers at Monaco: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/monaco
Sam’s launch post: https://x.com/samdblond/status/2026420015793320129?s=20
Follow Sam
Twitter: https://x.com/samdblond
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-blond-791026b/
Follow Turner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak
Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/
Brex’s AI Hail Mary — With CTO James Reggio
From building internal AI labs to becoming CTO of Brex, James Reggio has helped lead one of the most disciplined AI transformations inside a real financial institution where compliance, auditability, and customer trust actually matter.
We sat down with Reggio to unpack Brex’s three-pillar AI strategy (corporate, operational, and product AI) [https://www.brex.com/journal/brex-ai-native-operations], how SOP-driven agents beat overengineered RL in ops, why Brex lets employees “build their own AI stack” instead of picking winners [https://www.conductorone.com/customers/brex/], and how a small, founder-heavy AI team is shipping production agents to 40,000+ companies. Reggio also goes deep on Brex’s multi-agent “network” architecture, evals for multi-turn systems, agentic coding’s second-order effects on codebase understanding, and why the future of finance software looks less like dashboards and more like executive assistants coordinating specialist agents behind the scenes.
We discuss:
* Brex’s three-pillar AI strategy: corporate AI for 10x employee workflows, operational AI for cost and compliance leverage, and product AI that lets customers justify Brex as part of their AI strategy to the board
* Why SOP-driven agents beat overengineered RL in finance ops, and how breaking work into auditable, repeatable steps unlocked faster automation in KYC, underwriting, fraud, and disputes
* Building an internal AI platform early: LLM gateways, prompt/version management, evals, cost observability, and why platform work quietly became the force multiplier behind everything else
* Multi-agent “networks” vs single-agent tools: why Brex’s EA-style assistant coordinates specialist agents (policy, travel, reimbursements) through multi-turn conversations instead of one-shot tool calls
* The audit agent pattern: separating detection, judgment, and follow-up into different agents to reduce false negatives without overwhelming finance teams
* Centralized AI teams without resentment: how Brex avoided “AI envy” by tying work to business impact and letting anyone transfer in if they cared deeply enough
* Letting employees build their own AI stack: ChatGPT vs Claude vs Gemini, Cursor vs Windsurf, and why Brex refuses to pick winners in fast-moving tool races
* Measuring adoption without vanity metrics: why “% of code written by AI” is the wrong KPI and what second-order effects (slop, drift, code ownership) actually matter
* Evals in the real world: regression tests from ops QA, LLM-as-judge for multi-turn agents, and why integration-style evals break faster than you expect
* Teaching AI fluency at scale: the user → advocate → builder → native framework, ops-led training, spot bonuses, and avoiding fear-based adoption
* Re-interviewing the entire engineering org: using agentic coding interviews internally to force hands-on skill upgrades without formal performance scoring
* Headcount in the age of agents: why Brex grew the business without growing engineering, and why AI amplifies bad architecture as fast as good decisions
* The future of finance software: why dashboards fade, assistants take over, and agent-to-agent collaboration becomes the real UI
—
James Reggio
* X: https://x.com/jamesreggio
* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesreggio/
Where to find Latent Space
* X: https://x.com/latentspacepod
Full Video Episode
Timestamps
00:00:00 Introduction00:01:24 From Mobile Engineer to CTO: The Founder's Path00:03:00 Quitters Welcome: Building a Founder-Friendly Culture00:05:13 The AI Team Structure: 10-Person Startup Within Brex00:11:55 Building the Brex Agent Platform: Multi-Agent Networks00:13:45 Tech Stack Decisions: TypeScript, Mastra, and MCP00:24:32 Operational AI: Automating Underwriting, KYC, and Fraud00:16:40 The Brex Assistant: Executive Assistant for Every Employee00:40:26 Evaluation Strategy: From Simple SOPs to Multi-Turn Evals00:37:11 Agentic Coding Adoption: Cursor, Windsurf, and the Engineering Interview00:58:51 AI Fluency Levels: From User to Native01:09:14 The Audit Agent Network: Finance Team Agents in Action01:03:33 The Future of Engineering Headcount and AI Leverage
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.latent.space/subscribe
Brex 3.0: Inside the Radical Turnaround with Pedro Franceschi
Guest: Pedro Franceschi
Pedro Franceschi is the co-founder and CEO of Brex, a fintech company reshaping how businesses manage their finances.
Originally from Brazil, Pedro went from teenage hacker to leading one of the most well-known names in modern financial technology—building a platform trusted by startups and enterprises alike.
In this episode, Pedro shares what it took to launch “Brex 3.0,” why he moved to a single-CEO model, and how tough structural changes set the stage for leaner, faster growth.
Chapters:
00:00 Trailer
00:46 Introduction
01:45 Startup roller coaster
05:21 Founders know how to have fun
07:12 Belief barrier evolution
12:00 Early state of life in Brazil
13:23 Controlling variables
15:32 Screen time
19:23 Making small decisions
23:27 Learning raises the bar
26:15 People manager
38:49 Getting underwater
42:05 Growth accelerated
47:51 Vision from the top down
52:13 Leadership organization
54:01 AI software engineering physics
54:43 People complain about change
59:42 Believers and non-believers
1:04:09 Equity and bonus controversy
1:08:40 Big swings and going public
1:14:15 Control in unpredictability
1:18:04 Living in a pixel
1:19:52 Meditate, sleep, diet, exercise
1:24:36 Mental health and stress
1:33:12 Who Brex is hiring
1:33:49 What "grit" means to Pedro
1:34:39 Outro
Mentioned in this episode: Silicon Valley, Facebook, Meta Platforms, Inc., Mark Zuckerberg, Mastercard, Rio de Janeiro, iPhone, Bill Gates, Tim Urban, Jony Ive, Apple Inc., LinkedIn, Salesforce, Brian Chesky, Airbnb, Anthropic Claude, Cursor, Codeium Windsurf, Cognition Labs Devin, Vercel, Retool AI, Amplitude, Spenser Skates, Elon Musk, Tesla, Inc.
Links:
Connect with Pedro:
X
LinkedIn
Connect with Joubin:
X
LinkedIn
Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
This episode was produced by Kleiner Perkins and edited by IQvideo.
The trailer and distribution for this episode were handled by Atomik Growth.
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
Innovating Spend Management through AI with Pedro Franceschi from Brex
Hunting down receipts and manually filling out invoices kills productivity. This week on No Priors, Sarah Guo and Elad Gil sit down with Pedro Franceschi, co-founder and CEO of Brex. Pedro discusses how Brex is harnessing AI to optimize spend management and automate tedious accounting and compliance tasks for teams. The conversation covers the reliability challenges in AI today, Pedro’s insights on the future of fintech in an AI-driven world, and the major transitions Brex has navigated in recent years.
Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com
Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @Pedroh96
Show Notes:
(0:00) Introduction
(0:32) Brex’s business and transitioning to solo CEO
(3:04) Building AI into Brex
(7:09) Solving for risk and reliability in AI-enabled financial products
(11:41) Allocating resources toward AI investment
(14:00) Innovating data use in marketing
(20:00) Building durable businesses in the face of AI
(25:36) AI’s impact on finance
(29:15) Brex’s decision to focus on startups and enterprises
20VC: Brex CEO Pedro Franceschi on What Brex Needs to do to be a Public Company | Brex vs Ramp: Who Wins and How Does it Play Out | Battling Founder Mental Health and The Importance of Secondaries for Founders
Pedro Franceschi is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Brex, the AI-powered spend platform with tens of thousands of customers, including DoorDash, Coinbase, Robinhood and Roblox. Pedro has raised over $1.2BN for the company from the likes of Greenoaks, Ribbit, DST, Bond and YC. The latest reported valuation was $12.3BN. Before Brex, Pedro was the first person to "jailbreak" the iPhone 3G in Brazil and co-founded payments company Pagar.me with Dubugras when he was 15. In three years, Pedro scaled it to over 100 people and US$1.5 billion in transactions processed.
In Today's Episode with Pedro Franceschi We Discuss:
1. The Challenge is in Your Own Head:
Why does Pedro believe all founders underestimate their own mental health?
When was Pedro most anxious/depressed in the Brex journey? Why?
What have been the single biggest needle movers for increasing his own mental health?
How does Pedro advise other founders struggling with their own mental health?
2. From a 13-Year-Old Hacker in Brazil to Billionaire in LA:
How did Pedro come to make $200K on the internet when he was just 12?
Does Pedro agree that the best founders always started entrepreneurial pursuits young?
How does Pedro reflect on his own relationship to money today? How has it changed?
Pedro has famously taken large secondaries, how did that impact his mindset?
How does Pedro advise other founders and VCs when it comes to secondaries?
3. The Importance of the Idea: What Everyone Misunderstands:
What does Pedro mean when he says everyone does not appreciate enough how important the idea selection process is? How does he advise founders entering this process?
Why does Pedro believe it is not that easy for founder to just pivot to a new idea?
How did YC almost miss out on investing in Brex, now a $12BN company, due to the original idea?
4. Brex vs Ramp: Who Wins:
How does Pedro feel when I say, "Ramp have gotten ahead on marketing and visibility"?
Why does Pedro believe that "Ramp is a marketing company"? What does he mean when he says "great products will win over time"?
Why does Pedro fundamentally disagree with Ramp's positioning of the best companies focus on saving and their giving away their software for free?
How does this market play out over time? Winner take all or gains split across several?
SaaStr 743: 9 Easy Sales Concepts So Many Get Wrong with Sam Blond, Former CRO Brex
SaaStr 743: 9 Easy Sales Concepts So Many Get Wrong with Sam Blond, Former CRO Brex
Sam Blond, the former CRO at Brex with 15 years in tech sales, took the stage at SaaStr Europa 2024 to share nine easy sales concepts that so many get wrong. Sam got his first job in tech sales as an SDR for Jason Lemkin's company, EchoSign, which later sold to Adobe and launched his career.
These nine sales concepts, when done correctly, will greatly improve your sales and sales teams:
Don't Outsource Recruiting
Focus on Demand Until You Have Too Much
Do Things That Stand Out
Leverage Happy Customers to Generate New Ones
Distribution Is As Important As The Announcement
Be Prescriptive On How To Buy Your Product
The Presumptive Close
Meet Prospective Customers In Person
Obsess Over Implementation
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SaaStr hosts the largest SaaS community events on the planet.
Join us in 2024 at:
SaaStr Annual: Sept. 10-12 in the SF Bay Area. Join 12,500 SaaS professionals, CEOs, revenue leaders and investors for the world's LARGEST SaaS community event of the year. Podcast listeners can grab a discount on tickets here: https://www.saastrannual2024.com/buy-tickets?promo=fave20
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This episode is sponsored by: Northwest Registered Agent
Get more when Northwest Registered Agent starts your business. They'll form your company fast and stand up your entire business identity in minutes. That means business free domain, business email, website, hosting, address, mail scanning, business phone app, all within minutes. Visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/saastr to get a 60 percent discount on your next LLC.
This episode is sponsored by: Remote.com
Are you overwhelmed with paperwork managing overseas contractors? Say hello to efficiency with Remote's Contractor Management solution! Seamlessly handle invoicing, fixed payments, and compliant, localized contracts. Kickstart your free trial today at Remote.com.
This episode is sponsored by Pendo, the all-in-one product experience platform.
Pendo helps your users do the things you really want them to do. You can try Pendo for free at Pendo.io/saastr and check out Mind The Product, the community for product people like… us.
20Sales: The Biggest Sales Lessons Scaling Brex to $400M ARR, Why Startups are Doing Outbound Wrong and How to Fix It & Why Demand Gen is the Bottleneck for all Startups and How to Solve it with Sam Blond, Former CRO @ Brex
Sam Blond is the former CRO at Brex, where he led the company from near $0-$400M in ARR and a $12.5B valuation. Before Brex, Sam was VP of Sales at Zenefits, where he led the company from $0-$70M ARR in 2 years and a $4.5B valuation. Sam joined Founders Fund as a Partner in 2022 and recently left to focus more on operating.
In Today's Episode with Sam Blond We Discuss:
1. Lessons From Scaling Brex to $400M ARR & Zenefits to $70M ARR:
What are the secrets that very few people know, that led to the success of Brex and Zenefits?
What was the single worst sales investment Brex made? What was the best?
What are Sam's biggest tips to people picking the rocketship they will join?
2. Who, What and When to Hire:
When is the right time to hire your first sales rep?
Should the founder be the one to create the sales playbook?
What is the right profile for the first sales hire?
Does it matter if the new hire has domain experience?
Why does Sam always advocate to hire through network and not recruiters?
3. How to Hire the Best Sales Reps:
What are the questions Sam always asks in interviews with sales hires?
Does Sam do case studies with candidates? What is he looking for?
What are the biggest green and red flags a candidate can show in an interview process?
What are the biggest mistakes founders make when hiring sales teams?
4. How to Have the Best Performing Sales Team:
What are the three ways to measure the success of a rep in the first 30-60 days?
Why does Sam believe most startups are doing outbound wrong? What should they change?
Why does Sam believe demand gen is the bottleneck for all companies?
What can be done to solve the demand gen challenge?
How does outbound change in a world of AI?
SaaStr 733: Advice Every SaaS Founder Needs to Know in 2024 with Sam Blond and Jason Lemkin
SaaStr 733: Advice Every SaaS Founder Needs to Know in 2024 with Sam Blond and Jason Lemkin
At SaaStr Miami, former Founder's Fund Partner and CRO of Brex Sam Blond — host of the SaaStr CRO Confidential Podcast — sat down with SaaStr CEO and founder Jason Lemkin for a fireside chat about finding success as a SaaS company in 2024. They discuss Sam's learnings at Founders Fund, what the 2024 playbook looks like, hiring and motivating sales teams, and a handful of audience questions.
Sam just finished 18 months at Founders Fund after joining in mid-to-late 2022. We were coming off an environment where startup funding was as fruitful as ever. With personal experience from EchoSign and other high-growth companies, he was spoiled when it came to those companies raising money from exceptional VCs.
What he's learned on both sides of the VC table is that the bar is really high for most VCs. Higher than he imagined in terms of the founder quality bar and, the stage of the business, and growth and efficiency metrics.
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SaaStr hosts the largest SaaS community events on the planet.
Join us in 2024 at:
SaaStr Annual: Sept. 10-12 in the SF Bay Area. Join 12,500 SaaS professionals, CEOs, revenue leaders and investors for the world's LARGEST SaaS community event of the year. Podcast listeners can grab a discount on tickets here: https://www.saastrannual2024.com/buy-tickets?promo=fave20
SaaStr Europa: June 5-6 in London. We'll be hosting the 5th SaaStr Europa in London for two days of content and networking. Join 3,000 SaaS and Cloud leaders. Podcast listeners can grab a discount on Europa tickets here: https://www.saastreuropa2024.com/buy-tickets?promo=fave200
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This episode is sponsored by: Northwest Registered Agent
Get more when Northwest Registered Agent starts your business.
They'll form your company fast and stand up your entire business identity in minutes.
That means business free domain, business email, website, hosting, address, mail scanning, business phone app, all within minutes. Visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/saastr to get a 60 percent discount on your next LLC.
SaaStr 726: How to Build Out Your SDR Function in 2024 with Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund
SaaStr 726: How to Build Out Your SDR Function in 2024 with Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund and Host of SaaStr CRO Confidential
How do you build out a Sales Development (SDR) function at your SaaS company? Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund and host of SaaStr's CRO Confidential shares his advice for building an SDR function in 2024 based on his experience as CRO at Brex.
We'll cover everything from setup to efficiencies in setting up an SDR function, including:
The benefits of SDR
When to hire your first SDR
Who to hire
How to measure performance
Scaling the team
Trends in outbound
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SaaStr hosts the largest SaaS community events on the planet.
Join us in 2024 at:
SaaStr Annual: Sept. 10-12 in the SF Bay Area. Join 12,500 SaaS professionals, CEOs, revenue leaders and investors for the world's LARGEST SaaS community event of the year. Podcast listeners can grab a discount on tickets here: https://www.saastrannual2024.com/buy-tickets?promo=fave20
SaaStr Europa: June 5-6 in London. We'll be hosting the 5th SaaStr Europa in London for two days of content and networking. Join 3,000 SaaS and Cloud leaders. Podcast listeners can grab a discount on Europa tickets here: https://www.saastreuropa2024.com/buy-tickets?promo=fave200
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This episode is sponsored by: Northwest Registered Agent
When starting your business, it's important to use a service that will actually help you. Northwest Registered Agent is that service. They'll form your company fast, give you the documents you need to open a business bank account, and even provide you with mail scanning and a business address to keep your personal privacy intact. Visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/saastr to get a 60 percent discount on your next LLC.
20Sales: Why Everyone is Responsible for Demand Generation, How to do Great Sales Discovery, How to Reduce Sales Cycles and Create Urgency and Deal Reviews; Good and Bad Reasons to Lose a Deal with Doug Adamic, CRO @ Brex
Doug Adamic is the CRO @ Brex and leads the company's revenue and growth strategy. Prior to Brex, Doug was most recently the Chief Revenue Officer at SAP Concur, a provider of travel spend management solutions and services. During his 16-year tenure oversaw an organization of 600+ employees. He was responsible for all aspects of revenue, generating go-to-market strategies and departments. Prior to SAP Concur, he had a five-year tenure as an Enterprise Sales Manager for Kronos, Inc.
In Today's Episode with Doug Adamic We Discuss:
1. Entry into Sales:
Does Doug believe that love of sales is innate or can be learned? When did he discover his love?
What does Doug know now about sales he wish he had known when he started?
What are 1-2 of his biggest takeaways from leading 600+ people at SAP?
2. Discovery, Pipeline and Qualification:
What are the three core reasons why companies buy software today? How do the best sales teams use those needs to get deals done fast?
What does great sales discovery mean today? Why do you have to make customers feel uncomfortable to understand their true needs?
What are the biggest mistakes sales teams make when asking questions, determining customer pain, willingness to pay etc etc?
Why does Doug believe that everyone in the company is responsible for demand creation?
What are the core pillars to success in qualification? Where do so many go wrong?
3. Getting Deals Done:
Why does Doug disagree that now is the hardest time to be selling? Are companies buying new software today?
What is the secret to opening up organizations that say they are not open for buying new software?
How can sales teams create multiple champions in a prospect? How can they determine who is really a buyer vs who is an influencer in a prospect?
What are the biggest tactics that can be used to reduce sales cycles and create urgency in a sales process?
4. Discounting, Trust and Deal Reviews:
What is a good reason to lose a deal?
What is a bad reason to lose a deal?
How does Doug and Brex conduct deal reviews? What makes a good vs a bad deal review?
What is the fastest way to lose trust either with prospects or with customers?
Why does Doug believe discounting is BS and should not be used?
Watching Silicon Valley Bank melt down from the front row with Brex CEO Henrique Dubugras
Brex CEO Henrique Dubugras found himself playing an important role during the Silicon Valley Bank collapse.
Brex is what you might call a neobank — not a traditional bank but rather a financial services provider that helps companies manage how they spend money, corporate cards, travel expenses and the rest. In the middle of the SVB collapse, Brex was more than just a spending management company. It was also a safe place to park money.
Brex saw billions of deposits in a very short period of time, giving Dubugras a bird's-eye view of what was happening — and what was happening was not great for the banking system, especially in Silicon Valley. (Our own Liz Lopatto has been covering this in depth.)
I wanted to hear Dubugras' perspective on SVB both as a fintech CEO and a founder himself, whether he thought the crisis was rational or just a panic caused by group texts and easy-to-use mobile banking interfaces, what he thinks will happen to the startup ecosystem next, and how much of an opportunity all this was for Brex.
Dubugras is a young CEO. He just turned 27. He really surprised me with his depth here, and he will probably surprise some of you as well.
Okay, Henrique Dubugras, CEO of Brex. Here we go.
Links:
The tech industry moved fast and broke its most prestigious bank
Liz Lopatto - The Verge
A fintech CEO is trying to raise more than $1 billion to fund bridge loans for startups impacted by the Silicon Valley Bank collapse
Robinhood Users Say The Trading App Won’t Cash In Their Profitable Bets Against Silicon Valley Bank
What Is A Neobank? – Forbes Advisor
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23433504
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
It was produced by Creighton DeSimone and Jackie McDermott and it was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Director is Eleanor Donovan.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
SaaStr 635: CRO Confidential: How Customer-First Focus Drives Retention and Revenue With Brex GM of Startups Lucas Fox
While the allure of customer acquisition can pull a founder's attention, it's equally important to dedicate resources to fighting churn and expanding revenue from existing customers. One company that has unlocked the secret to solid retention and revenue expansion is Brex, an easy-to-use corporate cards and spend management software in an integrated global solution.
In this edition of CRO Confidential, Sam Blond (former CRO at Brex and current Partner at Founders Fund) hosts his former colleague Lucas Fox (GM of Brex for Startups). They discuss how Fox helped build a churn-fighting, upselling, and cross-selling machine that continues to generate revenue.
Video: https://youtu.be/_dfDqPJqqFU
Blog post: https://www.saastr.com/cro-confidential-how-customer-first-focus-drives-retention-and-revenue-with-brex-gm-of-startups-lucas-fox-pod-635-video/
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#121 Founder & Co-CEO Brex, Henrique Dubugras: Pivot or Else
The best advice Brex founder and co-CEO Henrique Dubugras ever received came from Snap CEO Evan Spiegel: The best CEOs, Spiegel told him, are “extremely authentic to themselves ... If you try to emulate being Elon Musk and you’re not like that, you’re just gonna fail.” This wisdom has empowered Dubugras and his co-founder, Pedro Franceschi, to focus on the places where they can be most effective at Brex, and to be more authentic with their coworkers.
In this episode, Henrique and Joubin discuss coaches vs. therapy, mutual crushes, “hacker famous,” big egos, why missions are overrated, dropping out of college, CEO’s identities, the “Silicon Valley mold,” trojan-horsing Max Levchin, pivoting after two years, going to the ground, compensation and hiring myths, core customers, fixing expense report policies, and joining the Expedia board.
In this episode, we cover:
Growing up in Brazil and Henrique’s relationship with his mom (01:07)
The first company he sold, Pagar.me, and his co-founder Pedro Franceschi (07:11)
Becoming “successful” and why it’s fine to have a “f**ked up motivation” (10:35)
ADHD, dueling superpowers, and focusing on the right things (15:56)
Being an authentic CEO and not reading books (19:51)
The radical changes Brex has experienced in the past three years (24:40)
Brex’s new spend management product and landing initial customers (30:30)
The messages sent by how Brex structures its employee compensation (34:07)
How Henrique and Pedro recruited top talent when they were just getting started (38:57)
Pivoting a $12 billion company: “We can’t do all these things” (43:33)
The challenges of becoming more of an enterprise company than a Fintech one (50:34)
Links:
Connect with HenriqueTwitter
LinkedIn
Connect with JoubinTwitter
LinkedIn
Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
Brex's 2022 reality
This week, Mary Ann is taking the reins with another favorite from the TechCrunch Disrupt stage. She sat down with Brex CEO and co-founder, Henrique Dubugras, and Anu Hariharan, YC’s managing director for continuity and an early Brex investor, to expose the context around this whirlwind of a year.
The conversation candidly uncovers details behind the fintech's pandemic pivot, layoffs, and going remote. If you love the conversation, share it with a friend. And if you want more on Brex, Mary Ann dove deeper into the conversation last month.
Equity drops every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 7 a.m. PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, a show that details how our stories come together and more!
Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
20VC: Brex's Henrique Dubugras on Advice from Evan Spiegel and Eric Schmidt on CEOship, The Biggest Hiring Mistakes When Scaling, What Everyone Gets Wrong with Product Messaging and When is the Right Time to Launch Secondary Products
Henrique Dubugras is the Founder and CEO @ Brex, the company re-imagining financial systems so every growing company can realize its full potential. To date, Henrique has raised over $1.1BN for Brex from some of the best including Ribbit, Greenoaks, DST, IVP, Caffeinated Capital and Elad Gil to name a few. Henrique is also a board member at Mercado Libre. Prior to co-founding Brex, Henrique co-founded Pagar.me, there he scaled the company to $15BN in GMV and over 100 people before selling the company in 2016.
In Today's Episode with Henrique Dubugras You Will Learn:
1.) The Founding of Brex:
What was the founding a-ha moment for Henrique and Pedro with Brex?
What advice did Evan Spiegel give Henrique when it comes to being a great CEO?
2.) Hiring: The Trials and Tribulations
What have been Henrique's biggest hiring mistakes?
How do founders know when they are ready to bring in the seasoned exec vs the younger jack of all trades candidate?
What have been Henrique's biggest lessons in what it takes to hire true A* talent?
Where does Henrique see other founders make big hiring mistakes?
3.) Product Expansion and Marketing:
How does Henrique assess when is the right time to release a second product?
What have been Henrique's biggest mistakes and lessons when it comes to product marketing?
How can one retain the simplicity of product messaging with scaling the product?
Brex expanded the product too far, too fast. How did they walk it back so successfully?
4.) Henrique: The Leader
How does Henrique approach his own relationship to money today? How has it changed over time?
What luxury expenditure has Henrique made over the last 12 months that he feels is worth it?
How does Henrique think about ego management? What does he do to keep his in check?
Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode with Henrique Dubugras
Henrique's Favourite Book: The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth
SaaStr 541: How to Set and Hit Revenue Targets with Sam Blond, CRO at BREX
Sam Blond, Chief Revenue Officer at Brex, shares how to set and hit revenue targets for your sales team, when to adjust, and how to structure and hire your team around your sales KPIs and goals.
Video: https://youtu.be/NXKvxb1AoPU
Blog post: https://www.saastr.com/how-to-set-and-hit-revenue-targets-with-brex-cro-sam-blond-pod-541-video/
Want to join the SaaStr community? We're the 🌎largest community for B2B software.
Subscribe for weekly updates: https://www.saastr.com/subscribeform
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Our European Event: https://bit.ly/2OZTad8
Henrique Dubugras - Building the Financial Center of Gravity – [Founder’s Field Guide, EP. 35]
My guest today is Henrique Dubugras, co-founder and CEO of Brex, an all-in-one finance account for businesses. Brex recently raised funding at a valuation of over 7 billion dollars despite being founded only four years ago. In our conversation, we cover Brex’s transition from a credit card for start-ups to the central account for businesses, why building that central account was orders of magnitude more difficult than expected, and the difference between building a business in Brazil and the US. We also discussed Henrique’s term horizon for building Brex and how that impacts his decision-making for the business. Please enjoy my conversation with Henrique Dubugras.
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
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Founder's Field Guide is a property of Colossus, Inc. For more episodes of Founder's Field Guide, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
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Show Notes
[00:02:53] - [First question] - The state of the B2B financial world before Brex
[00:06:29] - How such a high margin space was generally underserved
[00:08:24] - What the first version of the Brex card looked like
[00:10:48] - How long it took to build and launch their infrastructure
[00:11:13] - Why market penetration is so low for cards in B2B businesses
[00:13:14] - How he thinks about this landscape in Brazil versus the US
[00:14:55] - What interchange and high margins allows him to pass on to the consumer
[00:16:23] - Brex’s first revenue event
[00:17:38] - What the biggest hurdle was to overcome when they launched
[00:19:02] - Key marketing strategy early on and what made it successful
[00:21:16] - Continued distribution lessons they learned from their initial success
[00:22:39] - Building an effective sales force to push their product
[00:24:41] - What makes the current landscape so fertile for fintech businesses
[00:27:12] - Analysis of their unique funding round dynamics
[00:28:42] - Their second product and the insight that lead to that decision
[00:31:05] - Darkest moments while trying to build their central account
[00:31:50] - What their central account allows them to facilitate writ large
[00:35:27] - Notable differences between entrepreneurship in Brazil versus the US
[00:38:55] - Observations on inefficiencies in the US startup space
[00:40:16] - Pros, cons, and costs of being largely remote
[00:41:50] - Keys to building a successful hiring pipeline
[00:44:05] - Lessons learned about decision making and optimization
[00:45:39] - Developing an effective skill set to convince other people of anything
[00:47:35] - What excites him about being a part of Brex lately
[00:49:13] - What excites him about the future in general
[00:50:39] - His business philosophy and the set of principles that guide him
[00:52:03] - Nuances that make focusing on a single problem so attractive
[00:53:51] - Long term infrastructure decisions that will pay off in the end
[00:55:12] - Thoughts and hi perspective on cash flow in general
[00:58:18] - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for him
SaaStr 435: The Future of Sales Post-Covid with Sam Blond, Chief Revenue Officer @ Brex and Jason Lemkin, CEO and Founder @ SaaStr
In this episode of the SaaStr podcast, SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin, chats with Sam Blond, Chief Revenue Officer at Brex. Together they discuss the future of SaaS sales and buying cycles in a post-covid marketplace.
Video + blog post: https://www.saastr.com/future-of-sales-post-covid-with-brex/
Chief Sales Officer at Brex, Sam Blond: Recruiting Talent
If there’s one person who knows a thing or two about sales growth, it’s Brex Chief Sales Officer Sam Blond, who has been a part of some legendary sales runs during his career. Sam joined Zenefits in 2013, and helped transform the company into the fastest SaaS business of all time. Then, he left and joined Brex, and was part of a team that scaled from 46 to 455 employees in just two years.
Was it luck that led Sam to these companies, or is Sam naturally gifted in discovering opportunities? In this episode, Sam explains his approach to sales and growth, while also explaining how to scale effectively from the inside.
In this episode of Go to Market Grit, we cover:
Sorting through the noise, and recognizing greatness when interviewing.
Sam’s advice for advancing and bettering yourself at a company, and capitalizing on luck when it happens.
Sam’s thoughts on determining good reps versus good leaders.
How companies like Brex are using the pandemic to refocus and rebuild, while planning to scale again in 2021.
The importance of trying to hire the best possible people for sales roles.
Sam’s thoughts on why he is a strong recruiter, and why he has been so successful in building high performance sales teams.
The strategy of using above market compensation to attract and retain top talent.
Sam’s philosophy on quota, and why he likes 70 percent of his team to be over 100 percent of quota.
Creating a winning sales culture, and why it’s one of the most important things to strive for.
The challenge of scaling a sales team without chopping up territories or lowering quotas, and how businesses can avoid this pitfall.
Why company leaders need to temper growth expectations.
How Sam goes about setting future growth targets.
Earning respect through performance and taking on leadership roles.
Why it’s everyone’s job to recruit. Sam talks about the strategy of using internal recruiting, and only bringing aboard new team members who can be vouched for — and why this helps mitigate risk.
Links
Connect with SamLinkedin
Twitter
Brex
Connect with JoubinTwitter
LinkedIn
Email: gtmg@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
SaaStr 240: SaaStr 240: Brex Founder and CEO Henrique Dubugras on Lessons From a Second-Time Founder: How Brex Went From 0 - $1B in Under 2 Years
Brex Co-Founder and CEO Henrique Dubugras will talk about what he's learned building the fastest-growing B2B company. Henrique started his first company at 16 and has now built two successful companies from nothing. Learn what he did differently the second time around and the specific decisions he made to drive growth among B2B companies with Brex.
Missed the session? Here's what Henrique talks about:
How Brex grew from a few basic functionalities to a corporation
Growing from $0 to $2B in ARR in less than two years.
If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:
Jason Lemkin
SaaStr
Henrique Dubugras
20VC: Brex Founder Henrique Dubugras on Why Being Mission Driven Is Not The Only Way To Build A Massive Business, Why You Should Not Associate Fundraising with The Cash Needs of Your Business & Why You Don't Have To Follow Startup Theory When It Comes To
Henrique Dubugas is the Founder & CEO @ Brex, the first corporate card for startups offering instant online application, no personal liability, and tailored rewards. In a staggering 2 years, Henrique has grown Brex to a $1.1Bn valuation having raised over $180m in funding from some of the best in the business including Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, Elad Gil, DST, Y Combinator and IVP just to name a few. As for Henrique, prior to founding Brex he founded Pagar.me, a payments solution that he sold in Sept 2016, a year that the platform processed over $1.5 billion in GMV.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Henrique made his way from learning to code games in Brazil to starting a leading payment processor to founding one of the world's fastest growing B2B companies in Brex?
2.) How does Henrique think about hiring the very best people? How has that strategy shifted and changed over time? What is the best advice Henrique has been given on hiring? What interview questions does Henrique think are crucial to ask? What are leading indicators that an individual has the ability to scale with the company?
3.) Why does Henrique think it is wrong to down people for being "compensation motivated"? How does Henrique think about compensation structures? Should candidates have to take pay cuts to join startups? What have been some of Henrique's biggest learnings and challenges here?
4.) How does Henrique approach the current sentiment to fundraising in the valley today? Why does Henrique disagree with founders who have periods of not speaking to VCs? What does Henrique believe is the right way to build VC relationships? How does Henrique think about the right time to raise? What advice does Henrique have for founders when it comes to investor selection?
5.) How does Henrique think about his own personal development? Where would he personally like to improve and strengthen? What is he doing to make this happen? How has Henrique seen himself as CEO change over the last 2 years with Brex? What have been some of the challenges of scaling himself as CEO?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Henrique's Fave Book: 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Henrique on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
SaaStr 184: Step by Step Guide To Scaling Your Sales Team, Why Founders Need To Spend More Time On Top of Funnel & Why Discounting Is A Great Tool with Sam Blond, Chief Sales Officer @ Brex
Sam Blond is Chief Sales Officer @ Brex, the startup that provides corporate cards for startups. To date they have raised over $57m in funding from the likes of Y Combinator, Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, Yuri Milner, Elad Gil and many more incredible names. Prior to Brex, Sam Was Chief Revenue Officer at Rainforest QA. Before Rainforest, Sam saw firsthand the hypergrowth scaling of Zenefits as VP of Sales where he saw the company grow from 18 employees and $1m in ARR to over 1,800 employees and over $70m in ARR. Sam got his start in the SaaS industry with Jason Lemkin @ Echosign as Director of Sales.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
How Sam made his way into the world of sales and came to join Jason Lemkin with his first role in sales at Echosign?
Why does Sam believe that more sales reps does not always equal more revenue? What are the benchmarks that suggest founders really need to add to their sales team? Does Sam agree Founders should be selling up to $1m in ARR?
How does Sam assess who is the best person to hire for the role? What have been Sam's lessons on what it fundamentally takes to attract the best talent? In the early days how does Sam think about both role allocation and whether to hire the young jack of all trades vs the more senior executive?
Why does Sam believe that founders need to spend more time on top of funnel? Why does Sam believe that not all opportunities are created equal? How does Sam think about the right structure and time it should take to pass from lead to MQL to SAL to opportunity to deal? Where does this most commonly breakdown?
Why does Sam believe the key to success in SaaS sales teams is "urgency"? Literally, how can reps instil a sense of urgency in their current pipeline? Why does Sam disagree with the conventional wisdom and say discounting is a great tool? How does Sam determine the right level of discount to give? How does Sam assess pilots as an alternative approach to getting leads over the line?
Sam's 60 Second SaaStr
What does Sam know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
Quality or quantity of logos in the early days?
Sales rep productivity, what does Sam believe is good?
Read the full transcript on our blog.
If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:
Jason Lemkin
Harry Stebbings
SaaStr
Sam Blond