🎙 Listen to the full episode on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube.
Elizabeth Zalman is a 4x founder who’s raised ~$80M, built StrongDM, and now leads Sandgarden while also co-authoring “Founder vs Investor: The Honest Truth About Venture Capital from Startup to IPO” with Jerry Neumann.
We talk about how she started as a scrappy eBay/consignment hustle that forced Elizabeth to build software before she ever “became a founder.” Then we go deep on her hard-earned lessons on how to choose investors, run boards without losing control, and why her rule is “Never send your deck.”
In this episode, we cover:
• The “Never Send Your Deck” rule—and how it changes your fundraising dynamics
• Why investors aren’t your friends (and how to build a healthy, productive relationship anyway)
• How to run board meetings that actually help (including when to use pre-reads vs live discussion)
• Sandgarden’s pivot into Doc.Holiday and what AI changes about shipping code and documenting it
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