We Ignored Silicon Valley Advice for 3 Years | Nicolas Sharp (Attio)
Apr 30, 2026 · 57:49
Nicolas Sharp, co-founder of Attio, explains why the CRM startup spent 1,000 days building in stealth—a deliberate counter to the 'ship fast' philosophy he learned from a previous venture—and how that architectural investment now powers Attio's AI-native platform. He argues that the half-life of product-market fit has collapsed, forcing companies to simultaneously iterate and scale, and that Attio's high-resolution data pipelines are critical for deploying AI agents. Sharp also details how Attio used manual waitlist onboarding to validate demand, how fundraising expectations have risen dramatically (Attio raised $52M at Series B with accelerating growth), and why Europe is having a breakout moment as an AI hub, citing talent from DeepMind and Palantir as catalysts.
