Ben Brokus

We're solving problems for about 500 customers today.

And we're hoping to, again, grow by 40% to 50% this year.

I think our series B was after our first customer came in.

We had limited customers then, but those customers were very, very large enterprise customers.

And so there was a proof point there.

Oh, because it just makes every difference to have smart partners on the VC side of the equation.

I think it's a great accelerator for anything that you want to do.

If you want to change the world, then your best bet at changing the world is doing so in conjunction with people who have seen and have invested in changing the world.

and you know i've had the incredible luck of working with some of the most accomplished vcs in the industry you can see you know on our cap table north zone spark graycroft excel foundry these are all incredible companies with incredible partners that have been uh very very helpful along my entrepreneurial path and so you know again

I wouldn't raise venture if you're just starting a lifestyle business or you're starting something that has been done before.

But in all of the cases where I founded companies, we were doing something that has never been done before.

And we set out to, like you said, swing for the fences and do that with partners.

I think no man is an island and you want to increase your success rate by working closely with partners.

You know, again, by having a long-term view and having an understanding of our particular investors for particular stages, and they will help you when they can help you.

And when they can't, they will say that they can't.

And so you find other investors.

that are more aligned with the particular stage of a company that you have.

And there are times by which the market doesn't move as fast as you would like it to move.

And in our case, data privacy legislation in the United States moved much more slowly than we thought that it would.

And still to this day, we don't have national data privacy legislation that has been passed.