Gretel is a synthetic data platform that allows developers to generate artificial data sets with the same characteristics as real data so they can test AI models without compromising sensitive customer information or privacy. Gretel has a community of over 75,000 developers working with accurate, synthetic data.

In this episode, Sandhya Hegde and Weil Lien Dang chat with Ali Golshan, CEO and co-founder of Gretel about the company’s path to product-market fit.

Join us as we discuss:

(1:48) Ali’s background in US Intelligence and how it shaped his approach as a founder

(3:17) The founding insight that led to the creation of Gretel

(6:35) Ali and his co-founders’ “why now” for building a privacy engineering product

(8:15) Why Gretel decided to focus on developers

(10:47) How Ali and his co-founders narrowed in on early use cases

(15:55) The industries where Gretel found early adopters

(20:20) How Gretel anticipated and adapted to increasingly popular AI models

(27:24) Why Gretel decided to create a multimodal platform for synthetic data

(29:18) The reasoning behind building Gretel GPT

(31:48) How Gretel’s co-founders work together to adapt to the changing tech landscape

(38:05) What Ali sees as the key drivers for adoption within traditional enterprise companies

(40:19) Why they built their ICP around the developer cloud stack

(45:45) Advice for early-stage founders currently building in AI

Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and

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Wei Lien Dang is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures and leads investments in infrastructure software, security, and developer tool. Wei was a co-founder of StackRox, a cloud-native security company prior to its acquisition by Red Hat. He can be reached at wei@unusual.vc and

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Ali Golshan is the CEO and co-founder of Gretel. Prior to Gretel, Ali was the Co-founder and CTO at StackRox (acquired by Red Hat), and previously the Founder & CTO of Cyphort (acquired by Juniper Networks).

Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
Further reading from the Startup Field Guide:

Defining your ICP

Finding early adopters

Finding co-founders

How Gretel found product-market fit: Ali Golshan on unlocking synthetic data for developers

Startup Field Guide by Unusual Ventures: The Product Market Fit Podcast