In this episode of Funded, Alex Wittenberg sits down with Rudina Seseri, Founder and Managing Partner at Glasswing Ventures, to discuss what it really takes to build and scale a successful AI startup. Rudina emphasizes the distinction between building a strong product and creating a successful business, highlighting the complexities of early go-to-market strategy, landing initial flagship customers, and getting pricing right. Both she and Alex explore how early foundational decisions, especially operational shortcuts, can add up as operational debt, potentially causing bigger problems as a company begins to scale.
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Welcome to Funded, a series where we pull back the curtain on venture capital fundraising from both sides of the table. I'm Alex Wittenberg, CEO of airCFO, and we're on a mission to demystify the fundraising process for founders everywhere.
This series dives deep into the tactics and strategies that actually work for closing funding rounds. No fluff, just practical insights that you can apply. We'll be hosting conversations with two key groups.
First, with successful founders who will unpack their fundraising journeys from start to finish, from sourcing critical introductions to refining pitch strategies to building relationships and closing their rounds. Second, we will sit down with active VCs to understand how they evaluate opportunities, what founder approaches stand out, and how decisions actually get made inside of their firms.
Our goal with this series is to share lessons and create a playbook that helps founders and investors have more productive fundraising conversations and facilitates more efficient capital raises.