How I Raised $17M in 14 Days | Pylon, Marty Kausas

Name: How I Raised $17M in 14 Days | Pylon, Marty Kausas
Duration: 15 min 2 s
Description: In this episode, we sit down with Marty, co-founder and CEO of Pylon, the first customer support platform built specifically for B2B companies. His key insight

EO15:02Added Aug 31, 2026

In this episode, we sit down with Marty, co-founder and CEO of Pylon, the first customer support platform built specifically for B2B companies. His key insight: 👉 "All you need is one thing to work out, and that'll blow away all the failures in the past" – demonstrating the resilience required thro

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Contributed by 刘嘉琪

Transcript

00:00being a Founder is very very stressful
00:02should I keep going do you have a job do
00:04you have a career that's going to going
00:05to work out my suggestion is frankly if
00:07you feel like you should stop going you
00:09should probably stop going and if you
00:10can't not continue then you should
00:13continue hey you know this is what you
00:14need to be doing you need to keep trying
00:16and all you need is one thing to work
00:18out and then that'll you know blow away
00:20all the failures in the past I have
00:22considered giving up many times but
00:25there was just something nagging inside
00:26of me that wouldn't let me interviews
00:28like this is that hey I'm someone who
00:30already gone through it maybe you can
00:31learn from some of my mistakes instead
00:32of going through the same two years of
00:34pain that I did as well I think you
00:36should stop being lazy and learn how to
00:38build yourself my name is Marie I the
00:41co-founder and CEO of pylon we're
00:43building the first customer support
00:44platform built for B2B companies we're
00:46going to consolidate all the products
00:48that you would get from a customer
00:49support platform customer success
00:51platform product marketing I'm tooling
00:53for Solutions and Professional Services
00:55teams and combine them all into one our
00:57initial Insight was that a lot of people
01:00are talking to their customers not over
01:01email anymore but they're starting to
01:03open up shared slack channels Microsoft
01:05teams channels WhatsApp we got to 120k
01:08in AR within 3 months of having the idea
01:11got our first customer in 14 days we've
01:13raised $20 million from investors like
01:15injuries and Horwitz General Catalyst
01:17and white combinator frankly the vision
01:19is shaping up so fast um because of
01:21what's evolving with
01:25AI might sound stupid but I was
01:27definitely inspired by movies like The
01:29Social Network or Pirates of Silicon
01:31Valley kind of learning about how those
01:32companies got started I guess I could
01:34relate a little bit to the characters in
01:36the movies where like oh I'm kind of
01:37nerdy too I like computers I like
01:39programming and maybe this could be a
01:41path I could go on too YouTube videos
01:43were an early teacher for me and then
01:45started making games and high school
01:46building website then it was only kind
01:48of sophomore year of high school where I
01:50joined our robotics team where I got
01:52really excited about after leaving high
01:53school I went to Purdue to study
01:55computer science I immediately fell in
01:57love with hacker culture there was this
01:59club prod hackers where every weekend
02:01they would spend time just writing code
02:03and just trying to build games or
02:05applications while I was in college I
02:07started to do internships of course so I
02:09worked at places like Qualcomm and San
02:10Diego I worked at Yelp as an intern and
02:13then airb B at airb B and I joined the
02:15payments team there and so I was working
02:17on back in infrastructure helping
02:19basically money move around the world to
02:20be honest I don't feel like it prepared
02:22me that much for startups I actually
02:23think it probably was not helpful it was
02:25anti- helpful I learned all the things
02:27not to do because big companies operate
02:28so differently and so slow compared to
02:30Startup while I was at Airbnb I really
02:33was not enjoying the work I was doing I
02:35was like looking at all these other
02:36Founders who were starting companies on
02:38the side even the ones who were failing
02:40I was more excited about what they were
02:41doing and the pot they were on than what
02:42I was doing at airb be when I left airb
02:44B I started working on one idea which
02:46was a health Tech idea we were trying to
02:47build an app for people with Parkinson's
02:49disease to better understand their
02:51condition it was a terrible idea for a
02:53lot of reasons and we spent a whole year
02:55on it the end I decided to Pivot not
02:57only away from the idea and the industry
02:59of Health Tech in general but also the
03:01co-founder I was working with even when
03:02I started working with my now
03:03co-founders adith and Robert we spent
03:06months pivoting together until we
03:07finally came up with
03:11pylon what we were interested in doing
03:13was building a really big fast growing
03:16company I have considered giving up many
03:19times I think in the back of your head
03:20you're always questioning okay should I
03:22keep going but there was just something
03:24nagging inside of me that wouldn't let
03:26me hey you know this is what you need to
03:27be doing you need to keep trying and all
03:30you need is one thing to work out and
03:32then that'll you know blow away all the
03:33failures in the past pivoting is really
03:36really hard you are going to Pivot a lot
03:39and you're going to Pivot so much that
03:41my co-founders and I we call it pivot
03:42hell now once you actually get into
03:45pivot hell and you start working with
03:46people and every week you might be
03:48switching ideas it becomes really really
03:50hard to keep going your parents are
03:52going to ask you what you're doing with
03:53your life your girlfriend or boyfriend
03:55are going to question hey like should
03:57you maybe start looking for a real job
04:00and you're also going to have this like
04:01creeping doubt that hey maybe I'm not
04:03actually good at this and uh should I
04:05keep going my suggestion is frankly if
04:07you feel like you should stop going you
04:09should probably stop going and if you
04:10can't not continue then you should
04:13continue and that was the case for me I
04:15basically didn't feel like I had a
04:16choice I had to keep going because
04:18that's just how my brain is wired one of
04:19the learnings for us was you just have
04:21to start in a really really big Market
04:24what type of idea you want to be working
04:26on to make something really big that can
04:28grow really fast what we did was we kind
04:30of like observed the biggest software
04:32companies in the world and turns out
04:34there aren't that many public SAS
04:36companies if you look at them like
04:37they're probably 76 uh Billion Dollar
04:40Plus public software companies that are
04:42B2B and of them almost all of them are
04:44horizontal SAS products meaning hey
04:46they're selling uh products that can be
04:48sold into almost any industry so think
04:50like payroll it sales marketing customer
04:53support Etc we decided okay let's to
04:56make sure we don't get stuck in a market
04:58let's go after something really big so
04:59we chose kind of post sales customer
05:01support as a category to go explore what
05:04we did was we went on LinkedIn And We
05:06messaged uh 40 people a day that's what
05:08LinkedIn would let you do let's say 7%
05:10of those people respond you know would
05:12create a cycle of us just cold
05:13interviewing people in Customer Support
05:16roles that we wanted to learn from I
05:18think you need to be very clear with
05:19yourself what type of company you want
05:20to build we wanted to build something
05:22explicitly very big and for us that
05:24meant a $10 billion market cap public
05:26company that was making let's say a
05:28billion dollars in revenues and also
05:30fast growing meant that usually there's
05:32some sort of emerging Trend that's
05:33happening in the world where you can
05:35capture that and grow with it so where
05:36we saw this emerging trend of B2B
05:38communication moving away from email to
05:40kind of new channels if I were going
05:42through and trying to find ideas now the
05:45strategy we used I think can be
05:47effective for other people we basically
05:48decided okay we're going to explore the
05:50customer support and success space um
05:52you know kind of horizontal category and
05:54then within it we said we're going to go
05:56and cold interview people also at the
05:58same time a was popping up and turns out
06:01all the data is flowing through pylon is
06:03conversational so now for the first time
06:05ever There's an opportunity to structure
06:06it who have newer types of roles so like
06:09new job titles that didn't exist let's
06:11say 10 years ago a lot of customer
06:12success managers support Engineers
06:14Solutions Engineers those people didn't
06:16exist 5 years ago now they did so we
06:18thought hey new roles might mean new
06:20workflows which means new software and
06:22maybe there's opportunity
06:25there the best time to raise a series a
06:28is when you're going to get the terms if
06:30investors are pounding on your door even
06:32if you haven't hit a certain Revenue
06:34Milestone it might be the right time to
06:35just go and take that we raised our $3.2
06:38million seed rone from General Catalyst
06:40in 6 days that's a catchy headline and
06:42and it did really feel like we were
06:44living in an episode of Silicon Valley
06:46the story is we were 2 months into our
06:48YC batch 3 months old as a company
06:50overall we were probably around like
06:5160,000 in annual revenue at the time 2
06:54months into YC that's when people start
06:56to think about fundraising bring on
06:57investors before the end of the batch
06:59well we did was we scheduled as many
07:01calls with VC's in the course of one
07:04week tried to create some sort of like
07:05time pressure between the investors
07:07themselves spreading it out basically
07:09going in with the mentality and kind of
07:11signaling to every investor hey yeah
07:13we're fundraising really hard this week
07:15and there might not be time for
07:16conversations next week so we kind of
07:18need to knock everything out uh right
07:20now all at once every time we got in
07:23touch with an investor it was important
07:24how they heard about us so instead of
07:26just like cold emailing investors
07:27directly saying hey we're pil on like
07:29you should invest in us we instead got
07:32Founders that they respected and knew um
07:34some that were even our customers
07:35already go message them and say hey VC I
07:38know this founder the founder pylon
07:40they're going to YC right now are you
07:42talking to them yet you should because
07:44they're a hot company I think what
07:45they're working on is really good we got
07:47a bunch of really great introductions
07:49through that and that just meant that
07:50the investors were coming directly to us
07:52like basically ready uh to have serious
07:54conversations and we'd skip straight to
07:56partner meetings the social proof was
07:57just already there and at seed round
07:59social proof is everything your business
08:01is still so nent it's so hard to kind of
08:03understand you know where you're going
08:04to go so having Founders vouch for you
08:06who the investor trust is is really
08:08really important to give you a sense of
08:10the timeline here so we start our
08:12initial conversations with investors on
08:14I guess it was a Monday Wednesday is
08:16when we had our first discussion with
08:18General Catalyst who eventually let our
08:19seed Dr Friday we had in-person partner
08:22meeting with General Catalyst uh
08:24investors and then Saturday went to the
08:26apartment of one of the investors uh
08:28went to the roof had like kind of a
08:30social conversation and by night time
08:32that same day they gave us uh a verbal
08:34offer that they wanted to invest the
08:36general advice that we got was hey find
08:38people who are good partners for the
08:40long term who have a reputable brand um
08:42that brand then helps you bring on
08:44employees because you have that social
08:45proof and then we'll also help you you
08:47know close customers they can help you
08:49get investors for the next round so
08:51General Catalyst was basically the top
08:53of our list and so we were going after
08:54funds like them to for for the seed run
08:57the whole process took around 14 days at
08:59the end of 14 days we ended up closing
09:01with andreon um who led a $17 million
09:04series a run the process of like talking
09:06to all those investors was not easy they
09:09actually tried to fill your calendar as
09:11much as possible to make sure that you
09:12don't talk to other people once they
09:14express interest because there's only
09:15downside for them to wait if they
09:17express interest then they know that
09:18other investors will suddenly get
09:20interested just because of that like
09:21social Dynamic low dilution was the
09:23thing that was really important for us
09:24we just didn't want to sell 25% of the
09:27company the only way to get low dilution
09:29is to have a competitive round we want
09:30INRI into better terms then you have to
09:33go to someone else they respect so you
09:34have to go to like a benchmark or
09:36Sequoia and andri has to feel like
09:38they're going to lose you if they do not
09:40lower the dilution amount it's kind of
09:41this like social game where they need to
09:43make the terms better for you and the
09:44company when he was trying to figure out
09:46how to have a good fundraise he
09:47basically was like okay how do you have
09:50a fundraise fast like the Twitter guys
09:52that was the example he gave and so he
09:53asked investors he's like why did the
09:55Twitter guys have such a fast fundraise
09:57there are actually no secrets it's you
09:58have to have a really good team building
10:00in a really big Market with a really
10:02good product that people love and you
10:03know high potential for growth you have
10:05all those things you've kind of already
10:07done all the work here are the numbers
10:08here's the growth rate here's you know
10:10what customers are saying and they're
10:11just going to be convinced based off of
10:12that so really just the fundamentals are
10:14what's actually
10:18important basically riding a big wave
10:22and then we have the founder SL compan
10:24that's a a great Surfer and so as a
10:27result you can surf the the big wave hi
10:30I'm uh tah Nam a co-founder of storm
10:33Ventures and also co-author of uh
10:36survival to thrival I started working in
10:38Silicon Valley in 1985 and then uh
10:41started storm in 2000 we've invested in
10:45uh over 200 B2B software companies since
10:48then of which 12 have become unicorns
10:50probably the best knowns are like
10:52maretto we also have uh unicorns like
10:55Vado techon algolia pipe drive and so
10:59forth want to talk to you about what
11:01happens after you unlock growth in other
11:03words you've spent all this effort to
11:06catch the wave and how do you stay on
11:08the
11:11way I hope that everyone that's in a
11:14startup recognizes that it's a an
11:18emotional roller coaster where you can
11:20go from the highest of highs the lowest
11:23of lows in 5 minutes and so in those
11:25moments I hope you realize life is never
11:28so bad or never were so good and at the
11:31end uh enjoy the
11:33[Music]
11:42journey when you're competing against
11:44incumbent you're not actually competing
11:46with all the employees there most of
11:48them are not working on R&D most of them
11:50actually do not care because you know
11:52they're just getting a paycheck we were
11:54at the time especially living in the
11:55office working 14-hour days the number
11:57of people grinding at Zenda trying to
11:59accomplish the same thing is very few I
12:01think at this stage what has worked for
12:03us in terms of what the founder should
12:05be doing and what leader should look
12:07like is just doing the work yourself so
12:09leadership at pylon is very much just
12:11doing the work yourself and other people
12:14kind of following by example so like 6
12:16months ago we were actually living at
12:18the office it was like Robert had a bed
12:20in the living room and that you know
12:22everyone just had desk surrounding or
12:24our salesperson his desk that he would
12:26take sales calls out was literally like
12:275T away from had this bed I was like
12:30sleeping in a meeting room for us
12:31leadership just meant doing the work and
12:33then people kind of seeing that kind of
12:35being motivated and excited by by that
12:37being a Founder is very very stressful
12:39at the end of every month that's when we
12:41do our reporting on how much revenue and
12:43how quickly we've grown we keep doing it
12:45and part of me feels like oh my God this
12:46is magical it just keeps happening but
12:48it's very stressful I think the only way
12:50through the stress is by just addressing
12:52the problems and grinding really really
12:54hard so you can more consistently
12:56maintain growth and you know hiring
12:58Pipeline and building great product both
13:00myself and and I think my co-founders
13:02feel very similarly where we just want
13:04to win we want to build a company and so
13:06we just didn't let ourselves give
13:08up I think the really important thing is
13:11to be able to build and solve problems
13:14yourself say heyy I'm just going to go
13:16find let's say a technical co-founder
13:17who will build the product for me I
13:19think you should stop being lazy and
13:21learn how to build yourself there are
13:22lots of resources on how to do it you
13:24could go watch YouTube like I did go to
13:26a boot camp or any free courses that
13:28exists around the world at this point
13:29just learn how to build for yourself
13:31especially with AI it's becoming so easy
13:33then the world is your oyster you can
13:34have an idea make it and then just try
13:36it and see what happens so first off if
13:38you're not like purely set on starting a
13:41company immediately I do actually
13:42recommend just trying to get a job at a
13:44startup you can create a network and
13:45kind of like be immersed in the startup
13:47community so for example you work at
13:49pylon we have events here all the time
13:50for Founders and um other startups that
13:53are coming through so you just have an
13:54opportunity to mingle with a bunch of
13:56people if you are just set on starting a
13:58company immediately I would probably go
14:00live in a hacker House of some sort I
14:02would probably just attend a lot of
14:03Meetup YC has meetups now and events I
14:06would just go to as many of those as you
14:07could find the best people and then try
14:09to get into their networks I would
14:11probably tell myself learn from others
14:13more I think I'm one of those people
14:15that often likes to just go figure
14:17things out on my own which I think is
14:18really helpful but I think there's also
14:20a lot of advice for example I could have
14:22gone to successful entrepreneurs and
14:24been like hey what do you think of my
14:25idea like is this good what do you think
14:27are the risks whatever and I gotten to
14:29the same point 2 years later in months
14:31had I just like listened to their advice
14:33taken that instead of just trying to
14:35like discover everything on my own
14:37interviews like this is that hey I'm
14:38someone who's already gone through it
14:39maybe you can learn from some of my
14:41mistakes instead of going through the
14:42same two years of pain that I did as
14:44well so that would be one piece of
14:46advice is just go learn from other
14:48people who have done it before and are a
14:50couple years ahead of you