Village Global Podcast

Alex Jekowsky is the co-founder and CEO of Cents, the all-in-one software, hardware, and payments platform for the laundry industry. A Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient, he sold his first company at 23, and last month closed a $140 million Series C. Cents now powers more than 1 in 6 laundromats in the country and processes over $1 billion in payments a year.Somrat Niyogi sits down with Alex to go from the very beginning: the aha moment that led him to laundromats, how he got his first customers through cold emails and contact forms, why he priced Cents at a flat $299 from day one, and what it actually took to build a durable go-to-market motion in a market most investors wrote off. They also cover the distributor strategy that unlocked scale, how the Laundry Works acquisition changed everything, what Alex gets right about hiring slow, and why he thinks agentic AI is the only version of AI that actually matters for SMB operators.Thanks for listening. If you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.com or get in touch with us on X @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley.www.villageglobal.com/signup

Somrat Niyogi sits down with two of the most experienced comms operators in tech: Kelly Boynton, Head of Communications at Gusto, and Paul Loeffler, former SVP of Communications and Brand at BILL.Kelly spent 15 years across agency and in-house roles before Gusto, including at Facebook, Instagram, Intuit, Navan, and DocuSign. Before BILL, Paul led integrated communications at Gusto and was at Atlassian pre-IPO, helping scale it as a public company.They cover what founders get wrong about launches and PR, when an agency is worth it (and when it is not), why your story should be about value rather than valuation, why reporters write about trends rather than companies, why 95% of stealth companies should not be in stealth, and the comms playbook for breaking through the noise.Thanks for listening. If you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.com or get in touch with us on X @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.com/signup

Welcome to Recall Sessions – a new series on the Village Global Podcast.Hosted by Somrat Niyogi, Partner at Recall Capital, each episode goes deep on go-to-market: how the world's most successful companies got their first customers. In this episode, Itai Damti, Co-Founder & CEO of Unit, joins Somrat to break down how Unit went from a year of stealth building with no committed customers to becoming the leading embedded finance platform – moving over $50 billion annually and powering programs at seven public companies.Itai talks about the bet he and co-founder Doron Somech made on a market that barely existed, why they spent a full year building before going to market, how their first customer came through a LinkedIn message, and what he's learned about selling infrastructure that changes how buyers think.He also shares a framework for categorizing buyers – deciders, explorers, and the "unawares" – and why minding the chasm between your first 5% of customers and the next 95% is where companies live or die.Thanks for listening – if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.com or get in touch with us on X @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.com/signup

This is a short excerpt from our full conversation with Shishir Mehrotra, CEO of Superhuman (formerly Grammarly), and Village Global's Ben Casnocha.Shishir and Ben discuss the "Silicon Valley Inc. vs. Google Inc." framework for understanding career tradeoffs, when recruitment firms add value vs. when they don't, and how to design a hiring process that produces great outcomes — including the critical role of reference checking.Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/S7UO7AOLgBAThanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.com or get in touch with us on X @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.com/signup

This is a short excerpt from our full conversation with Henry Shi (Anthropic, co-founder of Super.com) and Village Global GP Anne Dwane.Henry and Anne discuss the three paths available to successful founders, why traditional venture capital often becomes a sales job, the rise of "seed-strapping" as a new funding model, and what ultimately led Henry to join a frontier AI lab instead of starting another company or becoming an investor.Watch the full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN88HLFx8-MListen to the full conversation here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/from-%24200-million-revenue-founder-to-frontier-lab-with/id1316769266?i=1000746090022Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.com or get in touch with us on X @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.com/signup

This is an excerpt from our full conversation with Shishir Mehrotra, CEO of Superhuman (formerly Grammarly).Shishir discusses why Grammarly is one of the most underestimated companies in Silicon Valley, how it's transforming from a grammar tool into an open platform for AI agents, and why "assist" AI—which meets you where you work—may be more powerful than chat or autonomous agents.Watch the full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7UO7AOLgBAThanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.com or get in touch with us on X @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.com/signup

Henry Shi, founder of Super.com (scaled to $200M+ annual revenue, 50 million users, profitable), joins Village Global GP Anne Dwane to discuss his unconventional path from founder to Anthropic.Henry shares why he stepped back from his company at its peak, what he learned during his gap year building AI resources in public, the patterns he discovered tracking lean AI companies, and why he ultimately chose a frontier lab over VC or starting another company. He also gives a candid look inside Anthropic's culture and shares his predictions for what's coming in 2026. Mentioned in the Episode:Lean AI Leaderboard: https://leanaileaderboard.com/AI Crash Course (GitHub): https://github.com/henrythe9th/AI-Crash-CourseAI 2027 Report: https://ai-2027.com/Super.com: https://www.super.comAnthropic: https://www.anthropic.comHenry on X: https://x.com/henrythe9thsHenry on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/henrythe9th/Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.com or get in touch with us on X @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.com/signup

Magnus Sandstrom and Debbie Wiss are senior partners at Swing Search, specializing in go-to-market roles at director, VP, and head levels for nearly 20 years. They joined Village Global partner Lindsay Pettingill to discuss the mistakes founders make when hiring their first sales and marketing talent, and how to get it right.Takeaways:Don't go too senior too early. Look for someone who can see around corners, not over mountains. Senior hires want teams and foundations. You need someone doing outbound calls and chasing deals.Don't try to solve product-market fit with a go-to-market hire. Talk to customers first. If you're pre-PMF, it's too soon to hire sales.You'll never leave sales. Even $100M+ CEOs are on sales calls. Accept this reality and get good at it rather than trying to hand it off.Strong sellers know their metrics to the decimal. "112.2% quota attainment" reveals discipline and ambition. "Around 100%" is a red flag.Hire two founding AEs, not one. They work in the trenches together while competing. If one doesn't work out, you still have revenue coming in.Marketing is more complex than sales. Define whether you need product marketing, demand gen, or brand. Wanting someone analytical and creative is unicorn territory.You can't delegate what you can't document. Write down your processes before expecting new hires to execute them.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.com or get in touch with us on X @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.com/signup