Great products don't iterate on what exists. They make everything before them feel obsolete. I've spent my career seeking builders who understand this distinction and have the courage to reimagine entire categories when the right technology inflection arrives.
My journey started young, tinkering with electronics and building products just to see if I could make them work. In middle school, I built an electronic quiz game and programmed databases in BASIC to catalog components. That early builder instinct led me to Silicon Valley as an engineer during the dotcom era, where I learned firsthand what it takes to build internet-scale software.
Through years of investing in and acquiring technology companies, I've developed pattern recognition for that unmistakable moment when an early product captures genuine user love and hints at something transformational. I've witnessed this alongside builders at companies like Adallom, Aurasell, Meraki, Thoughtspot, VAST, and many others. Two investments exemplify what I seek: Verkada reimagined physical security by leveraging cloud and ML to create delightful products that incumbents simply couldn't match. Tractian transformed industrial maintenance through the convergence of low-cost sensors, ML models, and cloud connectivity.
What drives my investment approach is finding builders with exceptional taste, judgment, and execution ability. They see how technology shifts create openings in stagnant markets. They build products that don't just solve problems but fundamentally change how work gets done.
If you're building something that's already showing early user love in a huge category, especially leveraging AI's transformational potential, I'd love to connect. Let's explore how your product vision can reshape an entire industry.
When did a product shift from interesting to inevitable?
When Filip demoed Verkada's first camera, what caught my attention was the mobile experience. You could share live feeds directly with law enforcement during an incident. The incumbents hadn't even considered mobile as part of their roadmap. My conviction deepened when I spoke with his first customer, a law firm partner who said, "I grabbed a ladder, unplugged the old camera, plugged in Verkada, and it just worked. I couldn't believe how simple it was."
That conversation captured exactly what I look for. Here was a builder who recognized that in stagnant categories, the winning product doesn't just add features. It makes the previous generation feel outdated the moment someone experiences the new way. That's the Product First signal that matters: when early users immediately understand they can't go back.
