His 1st startup failed—but his 2nd one hit $100M ARR & a $1.6B valuation. Here's what he learned. | Liran Zvibel, Founder of WEKA

Liran quit a cozy job at IBM to launch Fusic, a TikTok-like app back in 2011. He raised over $10M, acquired tens of thousands of users, and failed.So he went back to what he knew: deep tech and enterprise. He launched WEKA in 2013 to improve the efficiency of GPUs. He was operating on hard mode: building deep tech and selling to large enterprise customers. It took him 5 years to build a commercially-ready product. In that time, he raised over $35M from strategic investors, since VCs didn't get it. Once they launched, they more than doubled every year. And this year, they crossed $100M in ARR. Here's how Liran built WEKA and got it off the ground.Why you should listen:Why deep tech is much harder than normal software startups and always takes much longer.How to get enterprise customers to commit well before your product is ready. How to leverage strategic investors to get you through the early days when you have no revenue.How Liran was able to get customers to pay 6-figure deals when competitors offered 'similar' products for free.KeywordsWeka, deep tech, large enterprises, GPUs, OS, product-market fit, funding, strategic investors, POCs, POVs, AI, GPU use case, performance, cost reduction, rapid growthTimestamps:(00:00:00) Intro(00:02:12) Why my first startup failed(00:08:35) Starting WEKA(00:15:04) WEKA's First Customer(00:17:43) The Operating System of CPUs(00:21:19) The Issues with Deep Tech Companies(00:26:19) Competing with a Free Product(00:32:57) Reaching a Couple Million in ARR(00:36:26) Fundraising(00:43:19) Finding Product Market Fit(00:44:08) One Piece of AdviceSend me a message to let me know what you think!