Palash Soni Discussed his Journey of Building Goldcast and Scale it to Profitability

Value Drivers

Show Notes

[01:36] Palash discussed his background and the genesis of Goldcast. He came to business school with the specific intent of starting a company. The timing was right (Covid) and the market opportunity is at a point where he wanted to launch the company rather than waiting for the completion of his MBA.

[05:23] Palash walked us through the market opportunity of Goldcast. If we look at digital events as a market, it is part of both events and the content world, or the content world where B2B market operates. Three main product/market opportunities for Goldcast: i) digital events ii) content hosting iii) video editing and content repurposing market

[07:29] Palash took a deeper dive into Goldcast's differentation: the seamless experience, the ability to measure the end-to-end impact of events campaign.

[08:25] Palash discussed the target customers of Goldcast: i) companies with more than 500 employees and ii) companies with 200 to employees. The product works well with several industries: tech, financial services, insurance, legal, accounting, etc.

[10:05] The go-to-market strategy of Goldcast is discussed. The biggest source of customer pipeline is Goldcast's own events. (which also have a lot of virality)

[13:37] Palash shared his fundraising experience. (3 rounds) The key question was how Goldcast is going to differentiate in the long term and how the company will compete with all the other funded players in the market (challenging to articulate, especially in the early days the fault lines in the market were not clear.)

[16:42] Palash shared couple lessons from his fundraising experience. If an investor is not convinced about the market, then it doesn't matter what you do and how you say it or how you tell the story. (low roi effort) If an investor is to write a check, he/she has to be convinced about the market from the get go. It is next to impossible for a founder to change it.

[19:16] Palash discussed how he balances growth and profitability. The company was anchored on the burn multiple early on. It now focuses a lot on CAC payback and customer pipeline (leading indicator).

[23:33] Palash shared his approach to align and motivate the management team towards the company target and goal. He tries to make it very clear to the team the long term vision. From there it cascades into the annual operating plan which would get approved by the board. (with quarter by quarter targets) He also works hard to make sure the management team understand the variables in the operation plan and how the decision made by the team can impact the outcome.

[27:56] Palash shared with the audience his current reading and podcast listening recommendation.

The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology by Robert Wright

https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Animal-Science-Evolutionary-Psychology/dp/0679763996

Acquired (Podcast)

https://www.acquired.fm/

Link to Goldcast's website:

https://www.goldcast.io/

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