Chances are, if you're reading this, you're interested in understanding how to build and invest in software startups that can reach 0 to 10M ARR in a new software category.

When I look around the VC and operator space, it's clear that category creation is the hardest task for founders or investors, yet it can yield some of the most outstanding returns.

Category creation founders and investors grasp something about the world that others haven't quite caught onto. Launch too early, and you won't have a big enough market to sustain; launch too late, and you'll be one of many lost at sea.

But today, there are very few people who have actually navigated the journey of operating in a category creation startup from zero to the point where the company reached 10M ARR.

That's where Banyan’s Founders and Investors Series comes into play. Over time, I will release in-depth tactical guides covering everything I've learned from shared successes and failures in starting, investing in, and scaling category creation startups. Subscribe to follow this journey.

Hi, I’m Sam! I have invested in or advised over AI 20 startups, resulting in over $1B in enterprise valuation and $250M in funding in four years.

I got my start at the beginning of the MLOps market, joining as the first revenue hire at MissingLink.ai, which was acquired by Samsung in 2018. This was at the start of the multi-billion-dollar model management MLOps market with the first-to-market experiment management platform for data science teams.

After MissingLink, I joined Comet.ml as the sixth employee, serving as the VP of Sales, and the first revenue hire (again). In twenty-one months, I scaled the company through a $14M Series A led by Scale Ventures and a $50M Series B led by OpenView, achieving over 500% ARR growth and closing deals like Uber, Etsy, and Netflix while hiring 20 GTM people globally. I built from scratch a GTM org that won the enterprise market segment for the brand-new market of experiment management.

After Comet, I started Awrabi Consulting and Banyan Capital, which have invested in or advised over 20 startups, resulting in over $1B in enterprise valuation and $250M in venture funding raised in less than four years.

I have expert knowledge in SaaS category creation and a deep network of AI founders and talent that I leverage to back the smartest founders tackling the toughest problems and look forward to sharing my learnings.