A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders He raised a $10M seed with no revenue—then grew 30x to $30M in year two. | Bobby Samuels, Founder of Protege
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Apr 13, 2026 Bobby Samuels, founder of Protege who built a multimodal healthcare data network and raised rounds including from a16z. He explains raising a $10M seed with almost no pipeline, flying weekly to close seven-figure deals, building a 250-partner data network, using a “texting terms” litmus test to judge deal seriousness, and scaling GMV 30x in a year.
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Show Up In Person To Accelerate Enterprise Sales
- Go see buyers in person and invest in personal relationships to accelerate enterprise deals.
- Bobby flew weekly from New York, used being on 'texting terms' as a litmus test, and credits in-person time for converting seven-figure deals.
Labs Want Both Scale And High Quality Data
- Labs needed large volumes of high-quality multimodal pre-training data and rejected the usual trade-off between scale and quality.
- Protege's architecture and partner network positioned them to supply large, high-quality longitudinal healthcare datasets like notes, pathology, imaging, and claims.
Raised $10M Seed With Minimal Pipeline
- Protege raised a $10M seed with almost no demand pipeline and relied on investor and angel intros to start commercialization.
- Bobby credits CRV and angels for intro-driven access while he ground through events, cold outreach, and founder-led sales.