Podcast by Paige Soya
15 October 2026
In this episode of High Stakes, K Street Capital Managing Partner Paige Soya and Principal Nick Duafala continue the Venture Capital 101 season with a discussion about unit economics: how investors evaluate a company's financial performance, efficiency, and potential to scale.
Joined by members of K Street Capital's investment team, Paige and Nick break down the key metrics the firm looks at when evaluating startups, particularly SaaS businesses, and explains why founders should understand their expected economics even before generating revenue.
The conversation covers lifetime value to customer acquisition cost (LTV), gross margins, CAC payback period, churn, net revenue retention, and the efficiency of revenue growth. The team explains what healthy benchmarks can look like, why the direction of a metric matters just as much as its current value, and how founders can use these numbers to make better business decisions.
They also explore how AI is changing traditional SaaS economics, why higher infrastructure costs can sometimes make sense when growth justifies them, and why investors need evidence before changing their benchmarks. The episode closes with a discussion about adapting to uncertainty, lessons from career mistakes, and the importance of communication and teamwork.
We dive into
Chapters
00:00 Intro: Understanding Unit Economics
00:50 Welcome to High Stakes: Venture Capital 101
02:30 Why Unit Economics Matter Before You Have Revenue
05:50 LTV:CAC: Measuring Customer Acquisition Efficiency
09:20 Gross Margins: What VCs Look for in SaaS
12:00 Revenue Growth, Margins & Business Model Trade-Offs
14:00 Evaluating Margins in AI Companies
16:55 CAC Payback Period: How Long to Recover Acquisition Costs
19:30 Churn & Net Revenue Retention
22:00 Revenue Efficiency & Predictability
24:00 Burn Multiple & Capital Efficiency
26:00 Evaluating Burn Rate and Startup Growth
28:00 Why Financial Benchmarks Need Context
29:00 AI Costs, Growth & the Future of Unit Economics
30:00 Final Thoughts on Unit Economics
32:00 Joseph's Side Projects Outside of Venture Capital
35:55 Career Mistakes, Validation & Team Communication
37:45 Closing Thoughts
Topics: Venture Capital • Unit Economics • SaaS Metrics • LTV • Customer Acquisition Cost • CAC Payback Period • Gross Margins • Net Revenue Retention • Customer Churn • Revenue Growth • Capital Efficiency • Burn Multiple • Startup Valuation • Seed-Stage Investing • AI Startups • Venture Capital 101
00:00
43:28
02 October 2026
In this episode of High Stakes, K Street Capital Managing Partner Paige Soya continues the Venture Capital 101 season with a conversation about the user journey: how products get sold, activated, and adopted, and why VCs pay close attention to it.
She’s joined by Mike Desai, co-founder and CEO of Truentity Health, which gives independent pharmacies, many serving rural communities, the infrastructure to provide chronic care programs to their patients.
Mike explains how Truentity’s sales process often takes just one or two calls and why he actively disqualifies customers who aren’t ready. He also walks through the 21-day onboarding process and “go live day” that help drive adoption and retention—and shares how he built founder-market fit without a pharmacy background.
Paige and Mike discuss the work behind zero churn, why pricing needs to support a hands-on customer experience, and what founders can learn by spending time inside their customers’ businesses. The episode closes with the best advice Mike has received: people buy from people.
We dive into
Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:54 Welcome to High Stakes: VC 101 & the user journey
01:38 Meet Mike Desai & Truentity Health
04:09 Why the user journey matters to VCs
05:00 Cold calling, customer qualification & a short sales cycle
10:39 Building founder-market fit without a pharmacy background
16:58 Onboarding, adoption & zero churn
21:58 Real-time support & the economics of a high-touch experience
24:42 Learning from customers in the field
27:33 Mike’s morning routine & running
29:24 Learning from failure
31:34 Best advice: people buy from people
33:32 Final thoughts
Topics: Venture Capital • Customer Journey • Founder-Market Fit • Customer Discovery • Sales • Customer Onboarding • Product Adoption • Customer Retention • Churn • Customer Success • Pricing • Healthcare Technology • Independent Pharmacies • Venture Capital 101
00:00
35:00
17 September 2026
What actually determines what a startup is worth?
In this episode of High Stakes, K Street Capital’s Paige Soya and Nick Duafala are joined by investment team members Joseph and Jose for a Venture Capital 101 breakdown of how VCs assess startup valuations and why it’s rarely as simple as founders might assume.
The conversation begins with the core VC perspective: valuation isn’t based solely on what a company is worth today. Investors are also considering what it could be worth at exit, how long it may take to get there, and whether the potential return aligns with the fund’s strategy and portfolio construction.
The team walks through valuations at each stage, from pre-seed and seed to Series A and growth, and explains how the criteria evolve. At the earliest stages, the focus is heavily on the founder, vision, and technology. As a company matures, product-market fit, comparable financings, revenue quality, customer diversification, margins, and scalability become increasingly important.
Paige and Nick also unpack the terms beyond the headline valuation that can materially affect a deal, including warrants, liquidation preferences, board seats, and pro rata rights. They discuss what “founder-friendly” investing means in practice, how cap tables may be restructured during challenging markets, and what investors learned from the wave of recapitalizations that followed the 2022 market downturn.
The conversation then gets granular about revenue multiples: how growth, churn, customer concentration, market size, and revenue quality can move a multiple up or down. The team closes by exploring the “founder premium” earned by proven repeat entrepreneurs, followed by a lightning round on the best advice each person has received.
In this episode:
Topics: Venture Capital • Startup Valuations • Portfolio Construction • Pre-Seed Funding • Seed Funding • Series A • Growth-Stage Investing • Liquidation Preferences • Warrants • Board Seats • Pro Rata Rights • Revenue Multiples • Founder-Friendly Terms • Cap Table Recapitalizations • Customer Concentration • Founder Premium • Venture Capital 101
00:00
39:03
11 September 2026
What makes a business venture-backable?
In this episode of High Stakes, K Street Capital’s Paige Soya and Nick Duafala sit down with Jonathan Sherry, founder and CEO of Alium and former co-founder of CB Insights, for a Venture Capital 101 discussion about the business models VCs evaluate and what makes them scalable, defensible, and fundable.
The conversation covers the fundamentals of SaaS and marketplaces, what constitutes a true platform, and why founders should understand the distinction between a business model and a pricing model. Jonathan also shares how CB Insights and Alium have used subscription models, seat- and capability-based pricing, and marketplace dynamics to monetize their businesses.
The group then explores one of the biggest shifts in technology: AI and the rise of usage-based and labor-replacement models. They discuss whether AI will fundamentally change SaaS, why customers increasingly want to experiment before committing to annual contracts, and what founders should understand about consumption, utilization, pricing, and ROI.
The episode also examines what VCs look for beyond ARR, including customer concentration, ACVs, renewals, paid POCs, and evidence that a company has built a repeatable business model.
Finally, the conversation turns to liquidity in venture capital. With companies remaining private longer and fewer pursuing IPOs, the group discusses M&A, secondary markets, alternative paths to liquidity, and why exits in the $100 million to $250 million range can be compelling outcomes for early-stage investors.
In this episode:
Topics: Venture Capital • VC-Backable Business Models • SaaS • AI Startups • Usage-Based Pricing • Marketplaces • Startup Fundraising • Revenue Quality • ARR • Go-to-Market • Venture Investing • Liquidity • Secondary Markets • Founder Advice
00:00
49:09
20 August 2026
For years, founders and investors have used terms like “fintech,” “SaaS,” and “platform” without always having a shared definition. But as venture firms rely more heavily on data to track deals, returns, and portfolio performance, getting that language right matters more than ever.
In this episode of High Stakes, Paige Soya and Nick Duafala are joined by K Street Capital’s Joseph Whang and Jose Cifuentes for a Venture Capital 101 breakdown of how VCs classify the startups they evaluate.
Using real-world examples from Salesforce, Airbnb, Facebook, and Auth0, the team walks through the eight categories that make up K Street’s internal deal taxonomy, why consistent classification matters, and how founders can use the same framework to better understand, and communicate, their businesses.
In this episode:
Whether you’re a founder refining your fundraising narrative or a new investor learning the language of venture capital, this episode is a practical guide to how VCs actually think about and categorize the companies they evaluate.
Topics: Venture Capital • Startup Fundraising • Startup Taxonomy • Business Models • Go-to-Market Strategy • SaaS • Marketplaces • Venture Investing • Founder Advice • Startup Strategy
Timestamps
00:00
41:40
06 August 2026
What actually creates a competitive moat?
For years, founders believed the answer was simple: build a better product.
Today, venture investors increasingly believe the answer is distribution.
In this episode of High Stakes, Paige Soya and Nick Duafala are joined by Mark Schacknies, CEO & Co-Founder of NFTYDoor—a company K Street backed in its earliest stages after recognizing the strength of its distribution strategy. NFTYDoor went on to become one of the country's leading white-label HELOC platforms, serving 500+ lenders, 36,000+ mortgage loan officers, and approaching $7B in annual run-rate volume before its successful exit.
Using NFTYDoor's journey as a case study, they explore why venture investors increasingly evaluate go-to-market execution alongside technical differentiation, how AI is reshaping startup defensibility, and what founders should focus on to build businesses competitors can't easily replicate.
In this episode:
Whether you're building a startup, evaluating investment opportunities, or interested in how venture capitalists think about competitive advantage, this episode provides actionable insights into building durable businesses in the AI era.
Topics: Venture Capital • Startup Fundraising • Competitive Moats • Startup Strategy • Product-Market Fit • Distribution Strategy • Network Effects • Switching Costs • Founder Advice • Go-to-Market Strategy • Startup Growth • Venture Investing
00:00
45:35