Pooné Mokari (Ewake) & Pietro Bezza (Connect Ventures): Founder-market fit before PMF

Founder-market fit is often discussed as a reason to back founders before product-market fit exists, but what does it actually look like in practice? In this episode, Andreas Munk Holm speaks with Pooné Mokari, CEO and Co-Founder of Ewake, and Pietro Bezza, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Connect Ventures, about how investors evaluate product-first founders before there is a product, revenue, or evidence that a company will work. The conversation explores how deep understanding of a problem, strong product opinions, and close attention to user workflows shape early conviction. It also examines the distinction between product-first companies and product-led growth, and why execution capability and scaling experience are often assessed differently at the pre-seed stage. Alongside the investment lens, Pooné discusses the operational challenges that led to Ewake's creation and how the company is building AI tools for software production reliability. Topics covered Why Connect Ventures prioritises founder insight over execution history What makes a great product-first founder Why product-first is different from product-led growth How AI agents are changing software reliability engineering Why engineers are overwhelmed by observability tools today Founder-market fit versus repeat founder experience Why the best founders obsess over user workflows and feedback loops Building AI products people trust during critical moments Timestamps 00:00 The problem Ewake is solving in software reliability 02:00 Why AI changes observability and incident resolution 06:50 What Connect looks for at pre-seed 10:00 Product-first versus product-led growth 13:00 Raising a €2 million pre-seed before product 15:30 Why founder insight matters more than execution history 18:30 Repeat founders versus first-time founders 19:00 Why trust matters in AI reliability systems 22:00 Building AI products around user behaviour and workflows Subscribe to EUVC, the home of European tech, for more insights: https://www.eu.vc/subscribe #EUVC #VC #VentureCapital #Investing #TheEuropeanVC #Podcast #Tech #Startup