Alice Heiman

#1 Authority on What CEOs Need to Know About Sales | Host of Sales Talk for CEOs 🎙 | I Help CEOs Elevate Sales to Increase Valuation | Skier⛷️ Sailor ⛵️ former soccer player ⚽ | Yes, Miller Heiman

CEOs want to know what can be done so that their sales team can deliver the numbers. They want to know what can be done to improve sales using AI and the human touch in the changing environment we live in today.

Many are struggling to do this and making sales harder than it should be.  At Alice Heiman, LLC our team of experts will guide you and your team to success. 

According to Forbes.com "Heiman is a diligent student and teacher of what works. She is among the world’s leading experts on the complex sale."

Heiman strategizes with CEOs and sales leadership to grow develop sales organizations and increase sales profitably. 

Originally, from the widely known Miller Heiman Group, Heiman and her team incorporates the newest research and best practices to provide sales programs that generate immediate and sustainable results.

#CEOs - You can develop the strategy that will grow sales in a customer focused, profitable way and increase the value of your company. 

>Do you have a B2B, complex sale? 

>Do your investors/shareholders expect double or triple digit growth? 

>Is your team struggling or want to grow sales faster?

Let's talk 775-852-5020 alice@aliceheiman.com

You are charged with growth. Your team must master the complex sale, shorten your sales cycle and build a sales plan that provides sustainable growth. Let us guide you. 

Our clients have seen a 30 to 75% increase in their sales over the time we have worked with them. We have coached and trained sales organizations from start-up to Fortune 100. It's exciting to see them bring a new spirit and energy to the market.

>Sales Strategist
>Speaker - *Virtual Presentations
>Sales Leadership Coach

*Over 10 years of experience presenting virtually.

☏ 775-852-5020 * www.aliceheiman.com * alice@aliceheiman.com ✉

Podcast Host

Host of Sales Talk for CEOs www.salestalkforceos.biz

Listen for lessons from great CEOs, valuable insights from experts and my ideas on how to elevate your sales to increase your valuation.

What's the fastest way to grow your LinkedIn network?

It's not a secret.

Get your ticket for the #salesdecadeproject designed by Lori Richardson and hosted by none other than, ME!

You will have 200+ new LinkedIn connections by the time you leave. Real connections with people who can support you.

This year's event is going to bring sales professionals together to celebrate those selling way back in the 80s. 

Stories will be told 😆  . . . some you won't believe, some will make you cringe because that stuff is still going on and some will make you laugh. 

The networking will be incredible. You truly will have 200+ new friends you can add to LinkedIn. 

Some of the most recognized experts in the sales world will be there along with many of these "boss" sales women who sold then and are still selling now. (see comments to know who)

You will meet people you want to know and NEED to know. 

So come for the NETWORKING

Come to celebrate 🎉 

But wait, there's MORE . . . 

We have a whole day of learning lined up for you. 

Get great sales education from the absolute best sellers and experts we know. 

You will have 200+ new LinkedIn connections by the time you leave and you will know people who can provide:

☺️ Introductions
☺️Needed Information
☺️Become your mentor
☺️Become your mentee
☺️Become your accountability partner
☺️Or maybe even hire you or fund you 

You won't want to miss this, so get a ticket now! ( a link would be helpful so here it is) https://lnkd.in/gBAHDv4K

What are you waiting for? 

I mean, you get hang out with me!! 😁 

And no, I wasn't selling in the 80s, I was still teaching, but I was selling in the 90s.

Updated: And I should have thanked Dr. Howard Dover sooner. What a miss on my part, so shouting out to him now for loving our idea and offering to hold the event at The University of Texas at Dallas in the most beautiful location. We couldn't be more thankful. 

And to our partners Accelevents, Luster, SalesHood who so kindly stepped up to help us very early in our process. We are so grateful!

March in Nevada? 

We don’t just make history, we build it. 💪✨

From the Reno Arch to the Auto Museum, from block parties to boardrooms, the energy this Women’s History Month is electric. 

I love seeing Nevada Women's Fund turning March into a celebration of women who lead, lift, and reshape what’s possible.

Get inspired, connect, and celebrate women driving change in Nevada with me. Here are some of the cool things going on. 

📅 March 4 Reno Connection Network Event
📍 Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts | 🕒 Doors open 3:00 PM
In partnership with RCN Reno Connection Network, this powerhouse panel moderated by NWF CEO Ila Friedenthal features Audrey Quint, Jill Rutherford, and Ashley Polan.

🎉 March 7 2nd Annual International Women’s Day Block Party
📍 Downtown Reno at the iconic Reno Arch | 🕒 3:00–8:00 PM
This is not a “stand politely and clap” situation. This is a PARTY.
– Live music from The Covertones (3:30–5:30 PM)
– New Wave Crave (6:00–8:00 PM)
– Lighting of the Reno Arch at 7 PM
Bring your friends, your daughters, your colleagues, and your dancing shoes!

🌟 March 11 How She Built This: Risk, Resilience, and Growth in Today’s Economy
📍 Reno Sparks Chamber of Commerce, 4065 S. Virginia Street, Suite 101, Reno, NV
🕒 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM Pacific Time
A complimentary, in-person panel discussion hosted by WBEC- West | Reno Forum, open to the public with registration required.

I’m honored to be moderating a panel of powerhouse CEOs as we dig into what it really takes for women to navigate risk, stay resilient, and drive growth in today’s economy.

🌟 March 11  She Shapes Nevada: Women’s Leadership Speaker Series
📍 National Automobile Museum | 🕒 4:00–5:30 PM
In partnership with IWF Nevada and the Nevada Commission for Women, this series features Kate Thomas, Wendy Damonte, Mercedes de la Garza, and Emily Skyle-Golden.
Women leading in government, sports, architecture, film, and beyond. Tickets are $50 and worth every penny.
🤝 March 18 March Connections: The Real Value of Networking
📍 Customers Bank | 🕒 4:00–6:00 PM
Sponsored by NWF with RCN Reno Connection Network, this free Women’s History Month event dives into what connection actually means not just business cards, but real community.

🚶‍♀️ March 21 — Inspire Progress Walk (or Run!)
📍 Sparks Marina | 🕙 10:00 AM
In partnership with the City of Sparks and Girls on the Run Sierras, this is the 2nd Annual Inspire Progress Walk (or Run!) — a morning of movement, community, and purpose in celebration of Women’s History Month.

🎬 March 26 — Show Her The Money Film Screening
📍 Grand Sierra Resort | 🕓 Doors open at 4:00 PM | 🎥 Film at 5:00 PM
A powerful documentary that shines a light on the funding gap facing women entrepreneurs and the bold women working to change it. 

🔗 Check out all of the events at: https://lnkd.in/gTsfWDDw
Join the party. Support the mission. Celebrate loudly.

Sometimes you just have to keep at it. 

Move things around a bit. 

If it doesn't work one way, maybe it will work another. 

This little love is small but mighty. 

What are you working on this fine Friday? 

🪄 I'll start, I'm working on finding female tech CEOs to follow, who are doing great things. Here's a few I've found. 

Osteoboost Health, Jeani Delagardelle
YVO, Marie Berry
BeSound, Bailey Renger
UNICORN in every stall, Denielle Finkelstein and Thyme Sullivan
Zinnia, Lauren Goodell
Tiny Health, Cheryl Sew Hoy

Is your team is losing more deals or hearing “no decision” too often?

I’ve been doing win/loss reviews with my clients, and some patterns are too clear to ignore.

🪄 The more you know, the more you win!

In deals that closed, sellers knew more than five buying influencers.
In losses, they knew about two.

We call that multi-threading, but really it just means knowing everyone who matters. If your sellers do not, the odds are already against them.

🪄 No decision is still a decision

More deals are ending with no decision.

Buyers are exhausted. They have compared too many options, read too many AI-generated suggestions, and now everything looks the same.

When they do not feel confident, they freeze. They stick with the pain they know instead of the change they do not.

🪄 Dump the BANT discovery

Ghosting after discovery calls is out of control.

Sellers tell me, “They were so engaged!” Then nothing.

Buyers were interested, but the discovery call did not teach them anything new. It did not add value or show insight. So they went cold.

Want to stop the ghosting? Make your discovery call the one meeting that actually helps them think differently. Always agree on a clear next step.

💥 What sellers need to know now

The best sellers today know:

What a day in the life of their buyer looks like
What insights bring real value
How to guide a team to consensus
How to build buyer confidence

Here is the truth. Most buyers do not know how to buy from you.
This may be their first time buying a solution like yours. They might not even know how to get it approved internally.

Your sellers’ job is to guide them through it. Share examples, insights, and stories from other companies that made similar decisions.

Those sticking to outdated methods are losing deals.

Those meeting customers where they are and bringing useful insights are winning.

If you are the CEO, ask your leaders:
✅ Is our ICP still aligned with our best-fit customers?
✅ Are our personas actually involved in recent wins?
✅ Has our customer journey changed?
✅ Does our discovery process impress or bore buyers?

AI has changed the way buyers buy. 

Has it changed the way your sellers sell?

Use AI to learn and prepare, but let it make your team more human, not less.

Your turn:
What are you seeing in your own win/loss reviews right now?

Where are your sellers getting stuck: multi-threading, no decision, or discovery?

If this resonates, share it with a CEO or sales leader who needs to see it.


🪄 I'm Alice Heiman and I help CEOs drive revenue the easy way.

In a world where female founders are getting less than 2% of the investment, we must figure out ways to change that. 

Together we can make a difference. 

It's why we are known as the #biggestlittlecity. We can support female founders in a big way.

These founders were selected as finalists by Ania Calvillo-Mason, MBA and her team. 

💰 One will be the recipient of $10,000. 💰 

If you are in the area or even if you're not and you want to support this, we welcome you. 

The tickets are $100 and we need to sell 100 of them. There are about 30 left. 

Let's support these female founders. See you at the event. 

Dr. Chinelo Pearl Nwaogbo, DNP, APRN, FNP-C, CWS-AP
Heather Rankow
Jaclyn Schratz

Three founders. Three industries. One stage.

We are thrilled to announce the three founders pitching at 100 Women!

🔹 NELO
Founder: Dr. Chinelo Pearl Nwaogbo, DNP, APRN, FNP-C, CWS-AP
Healthcare safety innovator providing smart sharps disposal solutions.
🌐 https://get-nelo.com/

🔹 Rely
Founder: Heather Rankow
The world’s most portable rental screening platform.
🌐 https://lnkd.in/dnnT6fHq

🔹 With Love Beauty Collective
Founder: Jaclyn Schratz (Cameron)
Hyper-realistic, luxury human hair wigs and toppers redefining confidence.
🌐 https://lnkd.in/gYZyKvSE

Each will pitch live for the opportunity to receive a $10,000 award — backed by 100 women and business leaders committed to advancing women-led ventures in Northern Nevada.

This is what collective action looks like.

Tickets are still available. If you want to be in the room where the decision happens, secure your seat today at: https://lnkd.in/dD-kE45M

#PoweredBy100Women #100Women #WomenFounders #Entrepreneurship #WomenInBusiness #NevadaBusiness #StartupCommunity

Miriam Dong, MBA

Boast.AI

We are engineers who leverage cutting-edge technology to simplify the funding process for high-growth companies. Specializing in R&D and innovation funding across the U.S. and Canada, we empower founders by optimizing their opportunities for growth and sustainable development. As your trusted partner, we provide strategic funding navigation and foster a culture of excellence and innovation, ensuring your venture reaches its full potential with the right support.

Director Of BD

Included VC

A ‘unique fast-track MBA for venture capital’ for extraordinary leaders. Included VC is the first & only of its kind global fully funded Fellowship for individuals from overlooked & diverse communities.

Over 75% of those Fellows that were actively looking for a role have broken into the venture capital ecosystem globally – from Asia to Europe to Africa to the Americas.

Included VC is supported by an international consortium of venture capital partners and sponsors including: BITKRAFT, Creandum, Daphni, European Investment Fund, Esprit Foundation, HSBC Ventures, HV Capital, Mouro Capital, Mangrove Capital, Notion Capital, Seedcamp and Wilson Sonsini.

Included VC has been featured by the likes of Forbes, Sky News, CNBC & Business Insider.

Venture Capital Cohort Member (Class '24)

ID3 Ventures

Our investment strategy focuses on B2B and enterprise sectors, collaborating with exceptional entrepreneurs throughout the US and Canada. We contribute capital, in-depth industry knowledge, operational experience in fast-growing companies, and an extensive network to empower our entrepreneurial partners.

Founding Partner and Investor

Global Women in VC

Member

Canadian Women in VC 

Vancouver Chapter Lead

ICTC-CTIC

ICTC (Information and Communications Technology Council) is a national not-for-profit center of expertise for the digital economy, as a trusted source for evidence-based policy advice, forward-looking research, and creative capacity-building programs, with a team of over 90 professionals across Canada.

The ICTC Ambassador Program works to support the advancement of women to leadership positions and promotes gender equity within the digital economy (tech sector and technology roles across all sectors).

Ambassador

A Serious Company

Co-founded a series of companies while pursuing my master’s degree, simultaneously enhancing my engineering and data skills by completing several intensive boot camps.

Co-Founder

GSV Futures

Led several Bitcoin mining projects across Canada, helping Bitmain and leading mining companies expand their operations into the region. By securing sustainable energy solutions during the 2021-2022 demand surge and leveraging strategic planning, we enhanced operational efficiency and profitability.

Untapped

Researching Corporate Innovation - Building foundational business models to investigate the feasibility of implementing various minimum viable products to market

Entrepreneur In Residence

Kuhlmann Home

Led the North American launch of Kuhlmann, Haier's publicly traded smart home technology subsidiary in China, introducing an innovative B2B interactive design platform. Successfully increased market share through strategic multinational marketing campaigns and drove $10M in additional revenue by designing and executing engineered go-to-market (GTM) strategies.

VP of Products

R&D | Growth | 2x Founder | Speaker | Early Stage Investor

The startup journey is hard! 

Startups without funding are even harder!

If you’re here, you’re probably looking for:

— Funding for your startup
— Strategic guidance
— Securing non-dilutive funding
— Collaborations with industry leaders

At Boast.ai, we help businesses secure non-dilutive funding through R&D tax credits. Our AI-powered platform ensures you maximize your refunds, allowing you to reinvest in your business without sacrificing equity.

At ID3 Ventures, we invest directly in high-potential B2B startups, providing the funding and guidance necessary for your growth and innovation.

Ready to take your startup to the next level?

— DM me "Funding" to learn more about securing R&D tax credits
— Reach out to discuss how ID3 Ventures can support your startup's growth

Director Of Business Development

Sam Blond left a VC partner role at Founders Fund to build Monaco. He’s betting the next era of sales isn’t just a System of Record like Salesforce. It’s a System of Action powered by AI agents. When an operator goes back to the arena, pay attention.

Huge thanks to Sam Blond and Bobby Lukeman for the brilliant conversation with a dozen AI founders over dinner in San Francisco last night. Appreciation as well to Brex, Jimmy Stephens, and Meaghan Uhl for hosting.

At the dinner, the sharpest insight wasn’t about AI. It was about founder-led sales.

Early revenue isn’t a function of headcount. It’s a function of founder advantage.
You close more because you are the product, the roadmap, and the credibility layer. The illusion starts when founders mistake founder performance for system performance.

Hire one rep. They struggle. You blame execution.
But the real question is: Was the motion ever repeatable without founder gravity?

Hiring two reps isn’t redundancy. It’s diagnostic.
One hire gives you anecdotes. Two hires give you signal.

And here’s the structural truth: Early GTM is constrained by demand, not sales capacity. If you don’t have demand density, adding headcount fragments revenue.

Sales hiring isn’t a growth lever. It’s a maturity test.

If you’re a founder, sales leader, or marketer building in tech, Monaco is worth watching closely. 

Excited to see how this reshapes modern GTM.

Anand Krishna | Reynaldo Espanola | Avinash Joshi | Ajith Govind Satheesh | Vishnu Sampathkumar | Shiv Kampani | Jai Relan | Eric Lay

Recovering Engineer still tempted by shiny tools | Ex-founder now funding others’ chaos | PhD Researcher who can’t stop building things

Aaron Levie from Box thinks the ONLY way to win is to break business models.

Here is why.

Most AI founders are obsessed with model performance. They should be obsessed with business model friction.

Karishma Bali and I went to a panel hosted by Nikunj K. at FPV Ventures and it clicked: we’re watching the “Box moment” for AI play out in real time.

When Box pivoted from consumer to enterprise, it wasn’t because enterprise software was sexy. 
It was because consumer storage like Dropbox was racing to zero.
Margins were compressing.
Incumbents had distribution.
So Box made a contrarian bet: go where the friction is.
Security. Admin controls. Compliance. Governance. The “unsexy” work.
They built a moat out of the boring work that consumer-first competitors didn’t want to touch.

Fast forward to 2026.
The new “race to zero” isn’t storage.
It’s SaaS.
Most incumbents are structurally built around per-seat revenue.
Sales comp plans assume it.
Forecasting assumes it.
Packaging assumes it.
Switching to outcome-based pricing is not a pricing page tweak. It’s an internal rewrite, and it creates a painful transition curve.

That’s the opening for AI agents. If you sell “an AI copilot for $30/user/month,” you’re fighting incumbents on their home turf.
The only way to win is to break their business model.
Don't sell software. Sell work.
Don't charge per seat. Charge per outcome.
$X per resolved ticket.
$Y per booked meeting.
$Z per audit completed.
Incumbents cannot follow you here.
To switch to outcome-based pricing, they would have to cannibalize their own revenue, retrain their entire sales force, and terrify Wall Street.
You’re counter-positioning against the default SaaS incentive stack.

The real moat isn’t your model weights. It’s whether your business model forces incumbents into a move they don’t want to make.
If Salesforce can copy you without rewriting their incentives, you have a feature. If copying you breaks their business model, you have a company.

Are you building a product incumbents can't build, or just one they haven't built yet?

30–40% of VCs are dead walking. They just don't know it yet.
Peter Walker (Carta) said the quiet part out loud yesterday: "30–40% of VCs are going out of business in the next 5 years."

And honestly? Good. The era of "I have capital and a network" is over. That was a ZIRP feature, not a bug.

We were debating returns, and the math got real, fast.
Venture used to be a cottage industry. Scrappy. Hard to access.
Now? Everyone is in a database. Capital is a commodity.
If your only value prop is "I write checks and make intros," you are essentially a very expensive bank API.

Peter framed it perfectly. To survive 2026+, you have to be ONE of 3 things:
- Very Early (The Believer): You write the first check before it's obvious. High risk, high alpha.
- Very Special (The Specialist): You know deep tech/bio/crypto better than the founders. You aren't guessing; you're auditing.
- Very Big (The Index): You are Sequoia. Brand compounds. You win because you are you.

If you are "Just another Series A fund" without a sharp edge? You are irrelevant.
Stratification always squeezes the middle first.

The scariest part of this job? The feedback loop is ~8 years.
Imagine building a startup where you don't know if you have Product-Market Fit until 2034.
No ARR dashboard. No retention metrics. Just delayed judgment.

Venture isn't dying. It's stratifying.
The next generation of winners won't be "finance guys."
They will be technical operators, sector experts, and weirdos with gravitational pull.

I spent years begging VCs for money. Now I'm one of them.
The irony isn't lost on me that I entered the casino right as the house decided to change the rules.
Back to reading arXiv papers.

Included VC ID3 Ventures

Anthropic said no. OpenAI said how much. 
It’s been a hell of a 24 hours in the AI world, and honestly? It’s hard to stomach.
Look, we just watched Anthropic take a bullet for something they actually believe in. 

Dario Amodei looked at the Trump administration and Pete Hegseth and said: NO. No to using Claude for mass domestic surveillance. No to letting AI autonomously pull the trigger.

The cost? They were branded a "national security risk." Federal bans, ripped-up military contracts, and a six-month window to pack their bags. Anthropic chose to bleed millions and face a legal firestorm rather than bend.

Then there’s Sam Altman.
Barely a few hours later. Literally, the ink on Anthropic’s ban wasn’t even dry. Sam jumps on X with a "gosh, we’re so excited" thread. OpenAI just inked a deal with the Department of War.

The irony is thick enough to choke on.
Sam’s post was classic Sam: polished, pious, and utterly opportunistic. He claimed the DoW "deeply respects" their safety principles. He talked about "human-in-the-loop" for kinetic force and "technical safeguards." He even had the gall to suggest that every company should just sign the same deal.

Think about it this way: Anthropic holds the line and gets executed. OpenAI signs on the dotted line for the exact same network and gets hailed as the "patriotic partner."

It’s the ultimate grift. Internal memos from OpenAI reportedly talked about "supporting Anthropic’s red lines." But the second there was blood in the water? Sam didn't offer support. He offered a replacement. He’s out here playing the saint, talking about "serving all of humanity" while hand-delivering the world's most powerful models to a war machine.

He’s not just picking up the contracts Anthropic dropped; he’s cosplaying as a responsible leader while doing it.

Honestly, the "mad scientists" aren't the ones we should worry about. It’s the guys who are always winning, always "aligned," and always wearing a mask of moral superiority while they sell the soul of the industry to the highest bidder.

Sam, the "responsible patriotism" act is wearing thin. It’s not leadership. It’s just cold-blooded opportunism wrapped in a tech-bro vest.

Rob Kaminski (FletchPMM) says Your TAM is a trap.

Investors want a billion-dollar market. You need a million-dollar wedge.
Most startups do not fail because the market is too small. They fail in the gap between the pitch deck and the purchase order.

A simple positioning framework made that painfully clear:
𝗣𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 = 𝗧𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 + 𝗗𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.
But here is the part founders skip: No clear target market, no real differentiation.
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗽: 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗺𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗵𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝘀𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆.
“EdTech SaaS. Europe. 1,000 employees. VP Sales.” That is not a market. That is a filter. Matching the profile does not mean feeling the pain.

Rob’s point: just because someone matches the profile does not mean they need the thing. That is how you end up blasting irrelevant outbound and training the market to ignore you.

𝗔 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗹𝗲𝗻𝘀: 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿’𝘀 𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗴𝘆 𝗮𝗹𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝗶𝘀.
Rob breaks markets into two modes:
𝗠𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝘀 (𝘁𝗼𝗼𝗹-𝗱𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗴𝘆):
People are already shopping for the category. The shelf exists. If you name the category, you inherit the competition.
Clay could have called itself a GTM operating system. Instead, it started with a wedge: profile enrichment.
One job. One pain. One entry point. Win that. Own that. Expand later.
They did not invent a new aisle. They picked one and sharpened their edge.
𝗜𝗺𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝘀 (𝗷𝗼𝗯-𝘁𝗼-𝗯𝗲-𝗱𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗴𝘆):
There is no “shelf” yet. People are trying to get a job done (prep for SOC2, screen candidates). Your real competitor is the status quo: spreadsheets, manual processes, headcount, duct tape.
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗶𝘁 𝗺𝗲:
Jobs-to-be-done have layers.
Take Alexai: “Recruiting and hiring at scale” sounds big. It is also vague.
 It is not one job. It is a stack: intake → sourcing → screening → interviews → assessment → decision.
Position too high and you get:
 • diluted messaging
 • confused champions
 • scattered channels
 • inconsistent proof
Position on a wedge and you get:
 • sharper narrative
 • clearer buyer
 • focused distribution
 • repeatable wins

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘁𝗵 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗩𝗖-𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀:
VC narratives want “huge.” Execution needs “specific.”

You can have both, but not in the same sentence. Your TAM slide can be massive. Your homepage and GTM plan should be disciplined and narrow enough to actually win.

If you do not have an unfair distribution advantage, “broad” is usually just a slow way to learn nothing.

𝗢𝗻𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗜 𝗮𝗺 𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿:
“If you wanted certainty, you should’ve been an accountant.” Markets are weird. Positioning is a bet. The only unforgivable move is standing still.

Credit to Rob Kaminski for the framework, and GrowthX® for hosting.

Anthropic just dropped Claude Code Security. 
Most AI GTM leaders are going to completely miss why this matters.

If your enterprise deals keep stalling in security review, it’s not because AI is “too risky.” It’s because your narrative is weak.
You’re still selling speed. Enterprise buyers are buying containment.

I’ve watched late-stage AI deals slow to a crawl because security asked one question no one was ready for:
“How do you know your model isn’t generating vulnerabilities we can’t detect?”
And everything slows down.

Not because the product was bad. Because no one had built a defensible story around how the system governs itself.
Static analysis tools were built for deterministic code. 
Reasoning models are not deterministic.
That mismatch is the real friction in your pipeline.

What Anthropic is signaling isn’t just better security tooling. 
It’s a new standard: AI that audits AI.

And here’s the controversial part: If your AI product cannot explain how it stress-tests its own outputs before delivery, you are not enterprise-ready.
You are a pilot.

GTM leaders need to stop treating security as a technical objection handled in week 9. It is a positioning decision made in week 1.

The next generation of AI companies won’t win because they generate better outputs. They’ll win because they can prove their outputs are safer than humans.

Hard question: Are your enterprise deals stalling because of “security risk”…
or because you’re still selling acceleration without control?

Taalas, a Toronto-based AI chip startup just baked an LLM directly into hardware.

For decades, the arc of compute has been predictable. 
CPU → GPU → AI accelerators. Everyone (OpenAI, NVIDIA) built increasingly flexible, general-purpose platforms.

Taalas chose the opposite.
Absolute inflexibility in exchange for absolute efficiency.

Their first chip, HC1, runs Llama 3.1 8B at ~16,000 tokens per second.
For context, most GPU-based inference today lands closer to ~2,000 tokens/sec. That’s nearly a 10x gap.

But that’s not even the craziest part.
The craziest part is that the chip can run only that one model.
You can’t swap it, modify it, or upgrade it.
If you buy it, it will do exactly one thing for the rest of its life: run Llama 3.1 8B at light speed.

Their mission is radical: Transform deep learning models directly into custom silicon.

Why do this?
Because we hit the Memory Wall.
Moving billions of parameters between memory and compute now consumes more energy than the math itself.

Taalas' bet: If inference models stabilize, specialization beats flexibility.
They're building a platform designed to automate turning models like Transformers into dedicated silicon.

The founding team is stacked.
- CEO Ljubisa Bajic founded Tenstorrent and previously worked as an architect at AMD and NVIDIA.
- COO Lejla Bajic is also formerly at AMD and Tenstorrent.
- CTO Drago Ignjatovic, former AMD ASIC design director.
Combined, they likely designed some of the most important chips of the past decade.

In 2022, when Jim Keller took over Tenstorrent, Ljubisa left. Six months later, he founded Taalas. Two very different bets on AI hardware:
- Keller: general-purpose, programmable platforms.
- Bajic: extreme specialization.

Taalas raised a total of $219 million, including backing from Quiet Capital. One notable investor: Pierre Lamond, a Fairchild Semiconductor veteran and former Sequoia Capital partner widely regarded as one of the founding figures of modern semiconductors.

The Takeaway:
If that pipeline works, AI inference costs collapse. And inference starts to move from data centers toward edge and consumer devices.

The risk is obvious: Obsolescence
If the model changes, you need new silicon.

But if model cycles slow down and production inference becomes stable, the economics flip. You don't need future-proof hardware. You need brutally efficient hardware right now.

This isn't frontier research hardware. It's infrastructure hardware.
And infrastructure is governed by cost curves, not hype cycles.

The implication for founders is profound.
This validates the Vertical AI thesis.

If you are building a general tool, you are stuck renting expensive GPUs.
But if you own a specific vertical (legal, bio, manufacturing) with a stable model, you can now own your own silicon economics.

That is how you turn a software margin into a hardware moat.

Will AI compute become more programmable… Or more specialized?
Physics tends to reward the latter.

Granola is not a note-taking app.
After sitting down Sam Stephenson and Christopher Pedregal at South Park Commons this week, I’m not sure “note-taking” is even the right mental model anymore. The product looks simple on the surface. The interesting part is what’s quietly accumulating behind it.

We keep talking about AI in terms of output.
Better summaries. Cleaner transcripts. Faster drafting.
That’s the visible layer.
What stuck with me from that conversation was something less flashy: habit. Granola sits in your meetings every day. Not once. Not as a demo. Every day. 

Over time that changes what the product actually is.
It stops being a tool you open.
It becomes something that knows the arc of your work.
Who really decides.
Where deals stall.
What keeps resurfacing in slightly different language.
That kind of memory compounds in a way features don’t.

There’s also a discipline there that I respect. They’re not trying to turn it into a giant enterprise dashboard. They’re careful about keeping it personal. Almost quiet. More companion than compliance layer.

In AI right now, it’s easy to chase whatever the newest capability is. Add agents. Add more automation. Add more surface.
But context is slower. It requires staying in the workflow long enough to matter.
The teams I see winning aren’t the ones shipping the most output. They’re the ones embedding deeply enough that ripping the product out would feel disruptive.

It makes me wonder how many “AI products” today are actually architected for memory versus just producing responses.
If your product disappeared tomorrow, what accumulated context would go with it? And how replaceable would that make you, really.

How to launch an Android app in 2026:
1. Hire a marching band.
2. Go to the Apple Store.
3. Make sure they hear you.

I’m a Wispr. Not an investor. Not an advisor. Just a power user who genuinely cannot live without it.
And today Wispr Flow just dropped on Android, and they didn't do it quietly…
They brought a literal marching band to the front of an Apple Store.

I use Wispr daily. It’s the highest-ROI tool in my stack, literal cognitive leverage for anyone who speaks faster than they type.
But today wasn't about the tech. It was about the swagger.
In the AI era, models will converge. Features will be copied.
But brand? Culture? The audacity to cause a scene?
That is the new moat.

Huge congrats to Tanay Kothari and the Wispr Flow team.
This is how you build a category.
This is how you create cultural gravity.
This is how you turn software into identity.

Wispr isn’t just a tool. It’s a new interface for thinking.
If you’re already living in voice-first workflows, you know.
The real question is:
Who’s still typing?

OpenClaw just passed React on GitHub stars. 🦞
Is this a vanity metric? Yes. Is it a signal? Absolutely.
Let’s be real: Star surges indicate hype.

Historically, maybe 10-20% of these "viral" repos translate into long-term ecosystem dominance.
React didn’t win because of a spike; it won through 10+ years of steady, production-grade adoption that now powers half the web.
But here’s why I’m paying attention to this specific spike:
It’s not just a new framework. It’s a new behavior.
React is about building software. OpenClaw is about operating it.

We are seeing a shift from "how do we build interfaces faster?" to "how do we bypass interfaces entirely?"
The 90+ changes shipped today vs. a conference schedule isn't just velocity.
It's the difference between a mature standard and an emerging revolution.

Most star spikes are noise. But when a personal AI assistant built by a lobster-obsessed Austrian (🦄 Peter Steinberger) outpaces the industry standard, you have to ask:
Are we witnessing a flash in the pan, or the first meaningful threat to the GUI era? I’m betting on the latter.

Because I'm using it, and I'm never going back to 1x speed.

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