Startup Founder Journey
Context
Afore Capital is a $300M venture fund that focuses on Pre-Seed stage exclusively and is based in San Francisco. I was selected as 1 of 10 founders to be part of their first Founders-In-Residence (FIR) cohort exploring GTM software for GTM leaders. Afore’s offered Pre-Seed funding with dedicated support from operating partners, networking opportunities with portfolio companies, collaboration with fellow founders at similar stages, and access to investors and angels.
Startup Overview
I was the Founder for Rubiks. It’s a customer segmentation platform for B2B SaaS companies that aligns product, sales, and marketing efforts around a dynamic Ideal Customer Profile.
Problem Space
During my time working at scale ups in B2B SaaS and selling to Enterprises, I saw this repeated problem where product and GTM teams often work in silos, using separate tools for roadmaps and segmentation. This disconnect leads to unmet customer needs, misaligned product development, and inefficient resource allocation. Most critically, it can result in selling to the wrong Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs), leading to painful customer churn.
While tools exist to centralize customer feedback, translating these insights into prioritized features based on accurate customer segmentation remains a challenge and often manual.
I explored a solution to helps Go-To-Market leaders resolve cross-functional misalignments and drive revenue growth by providing a single source of truth for the entire team, enabling faster, more effective scaling and product expansion.
Objectives
Similarity to other founders in day 0, my goal was to validate or invalidate the problem
Confirm the existence and significance of the identified problem
Build initial solution with minimum viable features
Secure at least 3 Design Partners committed to signing
Recruit a technical co-founder
Be prepared to pivot or pursue a different problem if invalidated
User and Market Research
Target Audience:
GTM leaders in B2B SaaS companies (Series B or expanding)
Focus: Companies growing to multi-product lines and PLG motion
Key titles including: VP of Sales, Head of Sales/GTM, CRO, Head of Growth
Research Process:
Conducted 35+ user research calls to identify pain points
Recruited initial users calls from investor and personal network and introductions
Main Learnings:
High resonance: GTM leaders acknowledged misalignment between sales and product development
Strong engagement: Majority of target roles showed enthusiasm discussing the problem
Identified gaps:
Blind spots in understanding customer segments and ICPs
Manual process for segment analysis (typically quarterly/yearly)
Competitive Landscape:
Direct: Product-led-sales products like Pocus, HeadsUp, Endgame
Indirect/Partnerships: Apollo, ZoomInfo, product analytics tools, product management tools
Centralized User Research
Product Development Process
Concept and Design
Translated user learnings into end-to-end MVP flow with segmentation feature for customer data insights
Designed using UiZard for quick product prototype and Typedream to built my marketing landing page with product screenshots
Product Wireframes
Validation - “Sell Before Build”
Created solution-focused landing page formerly live as getrubiks.com
Conducted cold outreach to target users using hannah@getrubiks.com to get discovery sales call and to offer design partnership
Validated problem and interest through cold outreach responses
Built Landing Page to communicate value via messaging and product screenshots
Built MVP
Recruited and collaborated with potential technical Co-Founder, focused on lowering barrier to entry for Design Partners without major data integrations set up step. Key Features:
Company ICP setup
CSV data uploade
Auto user segmentation based on roles, industry and other meta data
Identification of outliers for GTM targeting
MVP Demo
FIR Experience
During my time of building with FIR program, beyond just heads down building I was exposed to valuable startup experiences including
Collaborative Environment:
Built alongside fellow Founders in Legal AI, retail optimization, K-12 ed tech, and more
Leveraged personal strengths in User Research and GTM to assist another Technical founder with messaging, positioning, and outbound strategy
Check-ins with Venture Partner for guidance and support
Startup Ecosystem Exposure:
Accessed fireside chats with Afore's Portfolio Companies
Learned from their early-stage building experiences
Investor Engagement:
Pitched at Demo Day to Angels and VCs
Shared problem discovery with potential investors
Learnings
I decided not to take pre-seed funding to pursue this problem space for several reasons that invalidated it
Although my Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) resonated with the problem, it wasn't painful enough for them to commit to Design Partnerships with a financial stake
Despite lowering the barrier to entry with a CSV upload in the MVP, building trust in data and compliance as a young startup proved challenging
Acquiring users for a consumer side project was much easier than securing B2B design partners, highlighting the different dynamics in user acquisition
However, this experience allowed me to grow as a Product Manager and appreciate the craft of developing a product. I built a network and engaged potential design partners and investors throughout the development process. I also gained end-to-end experience that enhanced my skills in product design, marketing, outbound sales, and collaboration with technical partners.
