Evans: Building without customer feedback cost his software startup 18 months
David Evans · Harnessing AI through Seed-Stage Investments: Insights from David Evans of Sentiero Ventures · Jun 2, 2025 · at 27:10
David Evans, Managing Partner at Sentiero Ventures, reflects on career mistakes he made as a founder before becoming an investor.
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“With my software company, I gave you the example of building, building software without engaging customers early. We lost a first mover advantage Because we didn't do that, right? We went away and we built rather than working with our customers, getting to an early, early prototype or proof of concept that we got in the market, we lost 18 months of cycle time. And by the time we were able to catch up to our mistakes, we had three competitors in the market that had caught up to us.”
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