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:
Where to find Dan Shiebler:
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