Hockey Stick Effect: The Customer-Obsessed Framework for Exponential Growth with Naj Husain

Hockey Stick Effect: The Customer-Obsessed Framework for Exponential Growth with Naj Husain

Author: Venture Guides August 21, 2025 Duration: 26:51
Welcome to Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast, the podcast for early-stage founders and startup leaders who know that great companies aren’t lucky… they’re built through smart execution and a bulletproof go-to-market strategy. On this episode, host Sage Nye sits down with Najaf (Naj) Husain, four-time founder and CEO of Elastio, to unpack how startups can stay relentlessly customer-focused while pushing the boundaries of innovation. With over 25 years of experience in building software companies, Naj shares hard-earned lessons on building defensible IP, validating ideal customer profiles, and navigating investor dynamics. Whether you're scaling in cybersecurity or any tech field, this episode offers strategic insights on scaling with purpose, transparency, and a deep customer connection.

Sage Nye, Managing Partner at Venture Guides, hosts Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast, a series built on the premise that lasting companies are engineered, not discovered by chance. This podcast moves beyond theoretical advice to focus on the tangible mechanics of launching and scaling a business, specifically for founders and leaders in the early, precarious stages. Each episode features frank discussions with a range of voices crucial to the journey-technical founders who have navigated product-market fit, investors who scrutinize traction, and go-to-market experts who specialize in building repeatable sales engines. The conversations are candid by design, stripping away the glossy narratives to examine what actually worked, what failed, and why. Listeners will find a resource devoid of fluff, where proven playbooks and operational realities take center stage. It’s for those who understand that strategy is meaningless without execution, and that a bulletproof go-to-market plan is the foundation upon which everything else is built. Tune in for the real talk needed to translate vision into viable, growing revenue.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 16

Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast
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