Founders in Arms

Vishwas Prabhakara is the co-founder and CEO of Honey Homes, a subscription home maintenance service that's reimagining how Americans care for their homes. After spending four years at Yelp running the restaurant business, Vishwas saw firsthand why marketplaces fail for skilled home services—and built a contrarian solution. Now operating across San Francisco, LA, Chicago, Dallas, and Austin with 3,000+ members, Honey Homes creates quality jobs for skilled workers while delivering consistent, reliable home maintenance to homeowners.
What you'll learn:
Why the marketplace model fundamentally fails for skilled labor and home services
The counterintuitive insight behind every successful consumer business (the Airbnb lesson)
How Vishwas discovered workers were shocked that "nobody's yelled at me yet" after joining Honey Homes
Why solving both sides of the market—customer experience AND worker quality of life—is essential
The role of AI in leveling up service workers and automating operations without replacing humans
Why early compromises on hiring and standards compound into major problems later
The distribution challenge: getting consumers to prioritize chronic home maintenance needs
How altruism, not just incentives, drives consumer referrals and growth
Why companies like Yelp, Peloton, and Lyft deserve more respect for building culturally relevant businesses
The mental model shift required to sell subscription home services vs. one-time fixes

In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Introduction and the respect successful companies deserve
(01:12) YC batch memories and feeling "late" to tech trends
(03:05) The genesis of Honey Homes and why Immad and Raj invested
(04:50) Growing up with a handy dad and discovering the home services gap
(06:30) The counterintuitive consumer insight behind Honey Homes
(07:03) "Nobody's yelled at me yet"—the worker experience problem
(08:11) Why marketplaces don't work for skilled home services
(09:48) Hiring only 1% of handyman applicants
(14:07) Building trust through consistent quality and W2 employment
(19:31) How altruism drives consumer referrals, not just incentives
(21:51) Getting AI-pilled at Vinod Khosla's CEO retreat
(23:01) Using AI to level up workers and automate operations
(27:54) Overcoming the mental model barrier for subscription home services
(30:07) The vision compromise lesson: don't settle on quality early
(31:44) The critical importance of distribution for consumer businesses
(32:26) Why partnerships aren't the answer (yet) for Honey Homes
(38:41) Defending Yelp, Peloton, and Lyft against Silicon Valley discourse
(42:18) Unit economics challenges in services businesses
(47:10) Role models: Jeremy Stoppelman and Ramit Sethi
(48:08) Hope that divisiveness is a passing trend
(49:35) The daily challenge of building before the world sees it
(51:04) Getting feedback about being "unpredictable" and staying in your head
(52:33) Bringing people along for the journey in your mind

What does it take to build a company in a category where everyone says the idea is dead? In this special live recording from Mercury's San Francisco office, Immad Akhund and Raj Suri sit down with Max Mullen, co-founder and former Chief Product Officer at Instacart, for an honest conversation about the founder journey.
Max shares how Instacart started in 2012 when there was no gig economy, no Uber X, and investors repeatedly told them grocery delivery was a dead idea after Webvan's failure. The conversation explores the controversial early days of building Instacart, why Max believes founder pain tolerance is the biggest moat, and the critical importance of market timing even when you're executing well.
Max opens up about the challenges of being a technical co-founder without deep technical skills, navigating co-founder dynamics, and the reality that many startup outcomes are heavily influenced by timing and luck. The discussion shifts to AI's transformative potential, with Max offering a compelling framework: software engineers are experiencing "the tip of the spear" of AI capabilities today, and this same 10x productivity leap will soon apply to lawyers, doctors, accountants, and every other profession.
He explores what AI-native companies will look like and why the next wave of startups will be built around professionals orchestrating fleets of agents. This episode offers essential insights for founders building in challenging markets, navigating co-founder relationships, timing market opportunities, and understanding where AI is creating the biggest opportunities for new companies.

SaaS companies are down dramatically—Figma is 77% off its peak. In this candid conversation, Immad Akhund (CEO of Mercury) and Raj Suri (co-founder of Lima and Tribe) unpack what's really happening in tech as we head into 2026.
They explore why the SaaS business model is under attack (hint: it's not just AI building software faster), the shift from per-seat pricing to API-driven usage, and why enterprises actually buy SaaS products—spoiler, it's not about the software. The conversation reveals how startups can now stay lean with fewer employees for much longer, with companies like OpenAI reaching $500B valuations with just 4,000 people.
Immad and Raj also dive into their personal experiences with AI agents, discussing what actually works versus the hype, why they're skeptical of consumer AI hardware, and how AI is changing daily productivity for founders. They debate Google's quiet win with the Apple-Gemini deal, why Siri is dead, and whether one AI model controlling all handsets should concern us.
The episode wraps with practical advice on what makes a compelling VC pitch in 2026, why crazy promises still work (even when timelines are wildly optimistic), and how to think about your startup's valuation as a call option rather than current worth. From Elon's humanoid robot bet to the new growth expectations (0 to $5M in 12 months), this conversation offers an honest founder-to-founder take on navigating the current landscape.
Key Topics:
Why SaaS companies are struggling and what survives
The real reason enterprises buy software (risk offloading, not features)
AI agents in practice: what works, what doesn't
Google's strategic win with Apple's Gemini integration
How to pitch VCs when expectations are 5x higher than before
Why crazy promises and long timelines still attract capital
The shift to leaner startups and API-first business models

Mehul Nariyawala is the co-founder and President of Matic Robotics, a home robotics company building what he calls “robotics 2.0” — intelligent, vision-first robots designed to actually work in real homes. After early careers at Nest and a prior acquisition by Google, Mehul and his team spent seven years building Matic, challenging the assumptions behind robot vacuums, consumer hardware, and how robotics companies should scale.
In this conversation, Mehul breaks down why robotics is far harder than software, why most home robots quietly fail, and how Matic approached everything differently — from vision-only robotics and in-house manufacturing to avoiding subscriptions, ads, and premature market creation.
What you’ll learn:
Why robotics is “100× harder than software” — and where most teams underestimate the work
The difference between automation and true intelligence in home robots
Why negative-NPS categories can hide massive opportunities
How Matic beat entrenched incumbents like Roomba by fixing fundamentals, not adding features
Why vision-only robotics was a risky but necessary bet
The real reason humanoid robots are still far from consumer-ready
Lessons from Nest on why some hardware categories stay defensible for decades
Why creating a new market can be fatal for hardware startups
How Matic built robots in-house in California instead of outsourcing manufacturing
The tradeoffs between subscriptions, ownership, and consumer trust
Why great hardware products must earn word-of-mouth before growth

In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Introduction to Mehul Naryawala and Matic Robotics
(01:10) Why robotics is dramatically harder than software
(03:00) The failure modes of early robot vacuums
(05:10) Identifying opportunity in negative-NPS markets
(07:45) Automation vs. intelligence in consumer robotics
(10:15) Why vision-only robotics was a foundational bet
(14:00) Lessons from Nest on defensible hardware categories
(17:30) Why Matic avoided creating a new market
(20:45) In-house manufacturing and vertical integration
(24:30) Scaling hardware without inventory risk
(28:10) The long road from demo to product
(32:00) Why humanoid robots are still overhyped
(36:20) Word-of-mouth, product-led growth, and brand trust
(40:15) Subscription fatigue and consumer psychology
(44:30) The future of home robotics and where Matic goes next

Jack Zhang is the co-founder and CEO of Airwallex, a global payments and financial platform valued at $5.5 billion. Founded in Melbourne, Airwallex processes billions in cross-border transactions and serves businesses expanding internationally. Jack shares his journey from starting the company to competing with giants like Stripe, navigating the complexities of global payments infrastructure, and building across multiple regulated markets.
What you'll learn:
Why cross-border payments remain broken despite decades of fintech innovation
How Airwallex competes against Stripe and other established payment platforms
The challenge of building financial infrastructure across multiple countries and regulations
Jack's perspective on fair competition versus FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) tactics in business
Why Airwallex is deploying $1 billion in the US market over the next three years
The reality of being a foreign founder building in America during geopolitical tensions
How payment infrastructure for global businesses differs from consumer fintech
The trade-offs between growth velocity and sustainable business building
Jack's philosophy on money, success, and what matters after achieving wealth at 30
Why he chose to stay in Melbourne instead of relocating to San Francisco

In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Introduction to Jack Zhang and Airwallex
(02:34) Early days of Airwallex and the founding story
(05:12) The problem with cross-border payments
(08:45) Competing with Stripe and other payment platforms
(12:18) Building in regulated markets and compliance challenges
(16:23) FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) tactics in business competition
(19:13) Raj's experience with FUD at Lyft vs Uber
(22:47) Navigating geopolitical tensions as a Chinese-Australian founder
(25:36) The $1 billion US market investment commitment
(27:41) Product philosophy and fair competition
(31:15) Going upmarket vs staying with SMBs
(35:22) Life choices: Melbourne vs San Francisco
(37:49) Perspective on wealth - "not about the money"
(42:18) The future of payments infrastructure
(45:30) Advice for founders building in competitive markets