We only take on 4 clients per month. Join our August cohort. 1 spot left.
Conversation
Highlights
Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech’s most innovative B2B founders. In today’s episode, we’re speaking with Tom Hacohen, CEO & Founder of Svix, a webhooks as a service platform that has raised $10.5 Million in funding.
Here are the most interesting points from our conversation:
- Military Influence: Tom discusses how his experience in the Israeli Intelligence Corps shaped his leadership style, emphasizing the importance of bypassing traditional hierarchies to expedite critical information flow.
- Startup Origins: The inception of Svix came from a real-world need for efficient webhooks, sparked by a conversation in a Slack group that validated the demand.
- Product Market Fit: Tom’s cautious approach to claiming product market fit and how continuous feedback and iteration are key to maintaining it.
- Customer Empathy: Building extreme empathy with customers, even saying “no” to them sometimes, to ensure the best long-term product decisions.
- Consistent Marketing: The focus on consistency in marketing efforts, avoiding one-time flashy campaigns and instead delivering constant value.
- Fundraising Advice: The importance of not needing to raise funds to succeed, which provided Tom with leverage and confidence when interacting with investors.
Actionable
Takeaways
Develop Extreme Customer Empathy:
Go beyond customer requests to understand their true needs. This might mean saying "no" to ensure the best long-term outcomes.
Embrace Consistency Over Flash:
Focus on consistently delivering value to customers rather than relying on one-off marketing stunts. Steady, reliable presence builds trust and recognition.
Control Your Time:
Especially for solo founders, be intentional about your time. Avoid being reactionary and consider hiring operational support early to handle administrative tasks.
Leverage Founders' Brand:
Personal branding for founders can significantly impact a company's visibility and credibility. Engage authentically on platforms where your audience is active.
Prepare to Evolve:
Your product messaging and market positioning should evolve based on continuous learning from customer interactions. Stay flexible and responsive to maintain relevance.
Recommended Founder
Interviews
Ron Efroni
CEO and Co-Founder of Flox
Ron Efroni, CEO & Co-Founder of Flox: $28 Million Raised to Empower Developers with Reproducible Environments That Span the Enterprise SDLC
Mike Malone
CEO and Founder of Smallstep
Mike Malone, CEO and Founder of Smallstep: $26 Million Raised to Build the Future of Certificate Lifecycle Management For DevOps
Zach Lloyd
CEO and Founder of Warp
Zach Lloyd, CEO and Founder of Warp: $70 Million Raised to Build a Better Terminal
Yana Welinder
CEO and Founder of Kraftful
Yana Welinder, CEO and Founder of Kraftful: Over $3 Million Raised to Help Product Builders Create Better Products and Communities
Tim Kraska
Co-Founder of Einblick
Tim Kraska, Co-Founder of Einblick: $6M Raised to Build the Visual Data Computing Category
Lasse Andresen
CEO and Founder of IndyKite
Lasse Andresen, CEO and Founder of IndyKite: $10 Million Raised to Empower Teams to Move Beyond Legacy Identity and Access Management
Derric Gilling
Co-founder & CEO of Moesif
Derric Gilling, CEO of Moesif: $15 Million Raised to Build the Future of API Analytics
Yingjun Wu
CEO and Co-Founder of RisingWave
Yingjun Wu, CEO and Co-Founder of RisingWave Labs: $40 Million Raised to Make Stream Processing Simple, Affordable, and Accessible
Tommy Dang
Co-Founder & CEO of Mage
Tommy Dang, CEO of Mage: $6.3 Million Raised to Build a Modern Replacement For Airflow
Gil Feig
CTO of Merge
Gil Feig, CTO of Merge: $75 Million Raised to Help B2B Companies Build Customer-Facing Integrations via It’s Unified API Platform
Romaric Philogene
CEO of Qovery
Romaric Philogene, CEO of Qovery: $4 Million Raised to Help You Deploy Your Apps on AWS in Seconds
Joshua Aaron
CEO of Aiden
Joshua Aaron, CEO Aiden, $3 Million Raised to Build the Future of Software Packaging and Deployment
Gary Hoberman
CEO & Founder of Unqork
Gary Hoberman, CEO & Founder of Unqork: Over $400 Million Raised to Pioneer the Codeless as a Service (CaaS) Category
Honey Mittal
Co-Founder, CPO & CEO of Locofy.ai
Honey Mittal, CEO of Locofy.ai: $3 Million Raised to Build the Future of Frontend Development
Casey Rosenthal
CEO of Verica
Casey Rosenthal, CEO of Verica: $17 Million Raised to Build the Future of Chaos Engineering
Chetan Venkatesh
CEO of Macrometa
Chetan Venkatesh, CEO of Macrometa: $38 Million raised to Build the Hyper Distributed Cloud for the Next Generation of Applications
Ravi Parikh
CEO and Co-Founder of Airplane
Ravi Parikh, CEO and Co-Founder of Airplane: Over $40 Million Raised to Build Better Developer Infrastructure For Internal Tooling
Michael Corr
Founder and CEO of Duro Labs
Michael Corr, CEO of Duro Labs: $4 Million Raised to Power the Future of Hardware Engineering
Omri Gazitt
CEO & Co-Founder of Aserto
Omri Gazitt, CEO & Co-Founder at Aserto: $5 Million Raised to Build the Future of Authorization
Ori Keren
CEO and Co-Founder of LinearB
Ori Keren, CEO and Co-Founder of LinearB: Over $70 Million Raised to Build the Future of Software Delivery Management
Robert Whiteley
CEO of Coder
Robert Whiteley, CEO of Coder: $85 Million Raised to Power the Future of Developer Productivity
Paolo Fragomeni
CEO of Socket Supply
Paolo Fragomeni, CEO of Socket Supply: $3.5 Million Raised to Build the Future of P2P Computing
Andrew Wolfe
Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Bloomfilter
Andrew Wolfe, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Bloomfilter: $7 Million Raised to Power the Future of Process Mining
Jacob Moshenko
CEO & Co-Founder of Authzed
Jacob Moshenko, CEO & Co-Founder of Authzed: $15.9 Million Raised to Build the Future of Authorization Infrastructure
Ben Kliger
CEO and Co-Founder of Zenity
Ben Kliger, CEO and Co-Founder of Zenity: $21.5 Million Raised to Build the Future of Security and Governance for AI, Low-Code, and No-Code Development
Harpreet Singh
Co-Founder and CEO of Launchable
Harpreet Singh, Co-Founder and CEO of Launchable: Over $12 Million Raised to Build the Future of Software Testing
Liam Randall
CEO and Founder of Cosmonic
Liam Randall, CEO and Founder of Cosmonic: $8.5 Million Raised to Power the Future of WebAssembly
Lukas Gentele
Co-Founder & CEO of Loft Labs
Lukas Gentele, CEO of Loft Labs: $5 Million Raised to Build the Virtual Kubernetes Category
Eden Full Goh
Founder & CEO of Mobot
Eden Full Goh, Founder & CEO of Mobot: Over $17 Million Raised to Power the Future of Mobile App Testing
Egil Østhus
CEO and Co-founder of Unleash
Egil Østhus, CEO of Unleash: $16.5 Million Raised to Build the Future of Feature Management
Alan Shreve
CEO and Founder of Ngrok
Alan Shreve, CEO and Founder of Ngrok: $50 Million Raised to Help Devs Deploy SItes, Services, and Apps
Mike Long
CEO and Founder of Kosli
Mike Long, CEO and Founder of Kosli: $3.5 Million Raised to Deliver Secure Software Changes at Scale and Deploy to Production with Speed
Paul Stovell
CEO and Founder of Octopus Deploy
Paul Stovell, CEO and Founder of Octopus Deploy: Over $170 Million Raised to Build the Future of Deployment Automation
Anish Dhar
Co-Founders of Cortex
Anish Dhar and Ganesh Datta, Co-Founders of Cortex: Over $52 Million Raised to Improve Developer Productivity
Tomas Reimers
Co-Founder of Graphite
Tomas Reimers, Co-Founder of Graphite: $22.5 Million Raised to Build the Future of Code Reviews
Pascal Weinberger
CEO of Bardeen
Pascal Weinberger, CEO of Bardeen: $18 Million Raised to Build the Future of No-Code Automation
James Hawkins
CEO of PostHog
James Hawkins, CEO of PostHog: $21 Million Raised to Build the Future of Product Analytics
Johnny Dallas
CEO and Co-Founder of Zeet.co
Johnny Dallas, CEO & Co-Founder of Zeet.co: $6M Raised to Power the Future of CI/CD & Deployment
Sophie Novati
CEO and Founder of Formation
Sophie Novati, CEO and Founder of Formation: $9 Million Raised to Build a Virtual Fellowship Program for Software Engineers
Dylan Etkin
CEO and Co-Founder of Sleuth
Dylan Etkin, CEO and Co-Founder of Sleuth: $25 Million Raised to Make Engineering Teams More Efficient
Ramiro Berrelleza
Founder and CEO of Okteto
Ramiro Berrelleza, CEO of Okteto: $18 Million Raised to Build the Future of Cloud Development
Suresh Mathew
Founder and CEO of Sedai
Suresh Mathew, Founder and CEO of Sedai: $18 Million Raised to Automate Cloud Management for Critical Decisions
DeVaris Brown
CEO and Co-Founder of Meroxa
DeVaris Brown, CEO and Co-Founder of Meroxa: Over $19 Million Raised to Empower Engineering Teams with Better Stream Processing
Costa Tsaousis
CEO and Founder of Netdata
Costa Tsaousis, CEO and Founder of Netdata: Over $30 Million Raised to Power the Future of Infrastructure Monitoring
Matthew O’Riordan
CEO of Ably Realtime
Matthew O’Riordan, CEO of Ably Realtime: Over $82 Million Raised to Build the Future of Realtime Experience Infrastructure
Matt Butcher
CEO of Fermyon
Matt Butcher, CEO of Fermyon: $26 Million Raised to Power the Future of WebAssembly
Ayal Yogev
CEO and Co-Founder of Anjuna
Ayal Yogev, CEO and Co-Founder of Anjuna: $42 Million to Build The Future of Confidential Computing
Stoyan Zulyamsky
Co-Founder of Costimize
Stoyan Zulyamsky, Co-Founder of Costimize: $5 Million Raised to Revolutionize Cloud Finance Management
Paul Kim
CEO of Notifi
Paul Kim, CEO of Notifi: $12 Million raised to Build the Future of Web3 Communication Infrastructure
John Li
CEO and Co-Founder of Vimcal
John Li, CEO & Co-Founder of Vimcal: $7 Million Raised to Build the Future of Calendar Productivity
David Siegel
David Siegel of Glide
David Siegel, CEO of Glide: Over $20 Million Raised to Power the Future of No-Code Application Development
Tom Tovar
CEO and Co-Founder of AppDome
Tom Tovar, CEO and Co-Founder of AppDome: Over $26 Million Raised to Build the Future of Mobile App Security
Prakash Chandran
Co-Founder and CEO of Xano
Prakash Chandran, Co-Founder and CEO of Xano: $5.4 Million Raised to Build the Next Generation of No-Code Backend Development
Hersh Tapadia
Co-Founder & CEO of Allstacks
Hersh Tapadia, CEO of Allstacks: $16 Million Raised to Build the Value Stream Intelligence Category
Martin Mao
CEO of Chronosphere
Martin Mao, CEO of Chronosphere: $250 Million Raised to Build the Future of Observability
Evan Kaplan
CEO of InfluxData
Evan Kaplan, CEO of InfluxData: Over $170 Million Raised to Build the Leading Time Series Provider
Yadhu Gopalan
CEO and Founder of Esper
Yadhu Gopalan, CEO and Founder of Esper: $100 Million Raised to Build the Future of Android Device Management
Marcin Wyszynski
Co-Founder and CPO of Spacelift
Marcin Wyszynski, Co-Founder and CPO of Spacelift: Over $22 Million Raised to Build the Future of IaC Management
Benjamin Wilms
CEO and Co-Founder of Steadybit
Benjamin Wilms, CEO and Co-Founder of Steadybit: $7.8 Million Raised to Build the Future of Chaos Engineering
James Evans
Co-Founder and CEO of CommandBar
James Evans, Co-Founder and CEO of CommandBar: $24 Million Raised to Build the Leading AI-Powered User Assistance Platform