Surprises of First-Time Founding

In this episode of In Depth, First Round Partner Josh Kopelman sits down with Shachar Hirshberg and Dan Shiebler, co-founders of Artemis, the AI-native security platform that just emerged from stealth with $70M in combined seed and Series A funding. Shachar and Dan unpack how they built a 30-person team in seven months, why AI-native companies are outperforming their AI-enabled counterparts, and why they plan to stay on a texting basis with every customer, even at scale.

In today's episode, we discuss:

• How to interview for AI fluency when building an AI-native startup
• Why founder-market fit is a critical early signal for startup success
• The surprising lesson Dan learned from founder-led sales
• How Dan and Shachar are instilling customer-obsession into Artemis’ culture
• How the two co-founders approach conflict and decision-making

References:

• Abnormal: https://abnormal.ai
• Amazon Web Services (AWS): https://aws.amazon.com
• Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com
• Artemis: https://artemissecurity.com
• CrowdStrike: https://www.crowdstrike.com
• Demisto (now Cortex XSOAR): https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/cortex/cortex-xsoar
• OpenAI: https://openai.com
• Palo Alto Networks: https://www.paloaltonetworks.com
• Todd Jackson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddj0/

Where to find Shachar Hirshberg:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shachar-hirshberg/

Where to find Dan Shiebler:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-shiebler-10219b42/

Where to find Josh:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jkopelman/
• Twitter/X: https://x.com/joshk

Where to find First Round Capital:

• Website: https://firstround.com/
• First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
• This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction

00:06 What Artemis does and why now

02:51 Shachar’s AWS and Palo Alto playbook

05:15 Dan’s founder journey: From Twitter to Abnormal

08:51 Why founder-market fit is critical for startups

11:38 Finding the right moment to take the leap and build

13:52 The hiring process that powers a startup in stealth

16:58 Building a team centered on AI capabilities

21:48 How AI implementation changes dashboard metrics

23:22 The ICP they chased and the one they ignored

26:44 The magic of closing the first customers

27:49 The surprising signals of early product-market fit

32:06 Critical lessons from founder-led sales

33:51 Why the first product should make founders uncomfortable

36:03 Hiring 30 people while still in stealth

42:08 “Should we be arguing more?”

43:37 How the AI security market is evolving

49:03 Why AI-native beats AI-enabled company structure

51:09 The most surprising moments as a first-time founder