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 Yarden Shaked, CEO and Founder of Varos, a data analytics platform that has raised $4 million.

Here are the most interesting points from our conversation:

• Identifying the Problem: Varos addresses the lack of comparative data analytics for e-commerce and SaaS companies by allowing them to benchmark key metrics like customer acquisition cost and retention rate against similar businesses.
• Give to Get Model: The platform's value proposition is built on a cooperative model where users must share their data to access aggregated and anonymized insights from others, creating a robust data ecosystem.
• YC Experience: Yarden highlights the intensity and value of Y Combinator, emphasizing the importance of staying lean, focusing on growth, and the crucial lessons learned from interacting with other talented founders.
• Category Creation: Varos is pioneering the competitive data analytics category, offering unique insights that traditional analytics tools lack, thereby requiring significant market education and evangelism.
• Navigating Challenges: Building a new category involves overcoming significant hurdles, including customer education and validating the hypothesis that businesses need and will benefit from comparative analytics.
• Future Vision: Yarden is motivated by the challenge of proving the Varos hypothesis, expanding the user base, and scaling the team to establish a new standard in data analytics.