{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Escape Velocity.","title":"Plan Z: Build for Upside, Not Survival | Trevor Sumner, CEO, i-Genie","html":"<iframe width=\"100%\" height=\"180\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless src=\"https://share.transistor.fm/e/54981d0d\"></iframe>","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2023,"description":"How proven CEO Trevor Sumner and i-Genie’s domain legends turned early chaos into conviction and scaled to $5M+ ARR with 180% NRR | Trevor Sumner, CEO, i-Genie\nFrom catching the first internet boom out of Princeton, to taking a company public early in his career, to founding and exiting a venture-backed business acquired by Blackstone, Trevor Sumner has lived nearly every chapter of the startup journey.\nNow he’s doing something rare: stepping in as a professional-grade CEO at an early-stage company that already had world-class domain founders and real enterprise traction.\nIn this conversation, Josh Linkner sits down with Trevor Sumner to unpack what it really takes to scale in an emerging AI category: the operator and domain legend partnership dynamic, how to run an elite fundraising process without becoming a hype merchant, and Trevor’s Plan Z to make i-Genie’s oversubscribed Series A, 28% quarter over quarter growth and 180% net revenue retention the new standard in a $35B market.\nIn this episode, we discuss:\n1. How to “de-risk” a CEO transition and make the partnership a force multiplier.\nWhat it takes for an operator-grade CEO to partner with legendary domain founders and turn tension into trust, speed, and momentum\n\n2. Surveys are broken. Consumer reality isn’t.\nWhy surveys are slow, biased, and increasingly gamed—and how i-Genie turns real-world signals into decision-grade insight\n\n3. Fundraising is a process, not a prayer.\nPractical tactics to create momentum, generate FOMO, and turn your “gaps” into strengths without becoming a hype merchant.\n\n4. Alignment creates speed—and speed needs time.\nThe counterintuitive truth: speed requires alignment—and alignment takes time. Trevor shares what he pushed too hard, too early, and how he recalibrated.\n\n5. Plan Z Thinking: Win the category, then rewrite the rules.\nA blueprint for what happens when everything goes right: win the enterprise, set a new industry standard, and use an agentic layer to scale distribution...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/ry9PvFynUiNDR1nS0UB2IjtMCQ_CcHtaFAriKpv8jWA/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS8yYjlh/OGExZWIzZGM1NGE2/YWZlOGQ1ZTBlNzk3/YTNhOC5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}