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The forward deployed engineer model took Happy Robot from zero to millions in revenue in under 2 years.
In this episode, Pablo Palafox reveals exactly how to implement Palantir's FDE motion at a startup - including when to use it, who to hire, and the costly mistakes to avoid. Learn why embedding engineers directly with customers beats traditional sales approaches for complex AI products.
Pablo Palafox is the co-founder and CEO of Happy Robot, the AI-native operating system for supply chain and logistics. Prior to Happy Robot, Pablo completed his PhD in computer science and deep learning. Happy Robot has raised over $60M from investors including a16z, YC, and Base10, and serves enterprise customers like DHL.
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
02:01 - When the CEO realizes they're actually the company's first FDE
05:13 - Why embedding with customers beats having a sales pitch
09:01 - Stop trying to copy Palantir - build your own FDE playbook
13:25 - The critical difference between FDEs and deployment strategists
17:19 - How Discord servers led to billion-dollar freight broker clients
21:33 - FDEs must become industry insiders, not just tech experts
25:46 - When NOT to use the forward deployed engineer model
30:55 - The FDE hiring secret: Look for "nerds who can sell"
36:35 - Why FDEs need 1-2% equity vs 0.1-0.5% for regular engineers
41:49 - An FDE's day: 80% building, 20% with customers onsite
47:00 - The $30K to $3M expansion playbook for FDE accounts
52:10 - Building FDE "pods" for vertical specialization
56:27 - Why waiting to verticalize FDEs was their biggest mistake
59:19 - The 10X deployment accelerator most startups forget
62:00 - Why FDEs will soon build entire vertical products autonomously
64:58 - When to transition from "things that don't scale" to scale
67:11 - The one place every vertical AI founder must go immediately
In this episode, Pablo Palafox reveals exactly how to implement Palantir's FDE motion at a startup - including when to use it, who to hire, and the costly mistakes to avoid. Learn why embedding engineers directly with customers beats traditional sales approaches for complex AI products.
Pablo Palafox is the co-founder and CEO of Happy Robot, the AI-native operating system for supply chain and logistics. Prior to Happy Robot, Pablo completed his PhD in computer science and deep learning. Happy Robot has raised over $60M from investors including a16z, YC, and Base10, and serves enterprise customers like DHL.
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
02:01 - When the CEO realizes they're actually the company's first FDE
05:13 - Why embedding with customers beats having a sales pitch
09:01 - Stop trying to copy Palantir - build your own FDE playbook
13:25 - The critical difference between FDEs and deployment strategists
17:19 - How Discord servers led to billion-dollar freight broker clients
21:33 - FDEs must become industry insiders, not just tech experts
25:46 - When NOT to use the forward deployed engineer model
30:55 - The FDE hiring secret: Look for "nerds who can sell"
36:35 - Why FDEs need 1-2% equity vs 0.1-0.5% for regular engineers
41:49 - An FDE's day: 80% building, 20% with customers onsite
47:00 - The $30K to $3M expansion playbook for FDE accounts
52:10 - Building FDE "pods" for vertical specialization
56:27 - Why waiting to verticalize FDEs was their biggest mistake
59:19 - The 10X deployment accelerator most startups forget
62:00 - Why FDEs will soon build entire vertical products autonomously
64:58 - When to transition from "things that don't scale" to scale
67:11 - The one place every vertical AI founder must go immediately
Creators and Guests
Host
Pascal Unger
Co-founder / Managing Partner at focal.vc We lead pre-seeds in North America with up to $1M: We exclusively back AI native software startups at the very start. Thereafter, we help them get off the ground better and faster, supported by a network > 200 GTM executives. That's our singular, unwavering focus.
What is focal podcast?
Pivotal early lessons of today's best startups.
Welcome to the focal podcast where we go deep with some of today's best founders and operators on ONE crucial lessons from their early days.
This podcast is not the usual "highlight reel" startup podcast that goes one inch deep across 20+ topics. Rather, we ask the questions you’d ask if you were sitting across from them. No fluff, just the real, actionable insights you’d get if these founders were mentoring you 1on1.
We cover topics including:
- What worked and why.
- Costly mistakes and how they fixed them.
- Frameworks that truly made a difference.
- Tactics to move faster.
- What they wish they’d known sooner.
- And much more!
"Only a fool learns from their own mistakes. The wise learn from the mistakes of others."