Fresh Blood in Old Insurance: How Vouch Built a Business Revolutionizing Startup Coverage

Travis Hedge is the co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer of Vouch, an insurance platform purpose-built for high-growth technology companies. After growing up around a family-owned insurance agency in Columbus, Ohio, Travis spent his early career at Nationwide Insurance and SVB Capital, where he saw firsthand the gaps in insurance for startups. He co-founded Vouch in 2018, and in just a few years, the company has scaled to nearly 6,000 customers. In our conversation, we dive into:

• How Travis’s third-grade dream of becoming an insurance agent turned into a mission-driven startup
• The critical moment that pushed him to found Vouch
• The importance of founder-led sales and getting your first 20 customers
• Why partnerships alone won't get you early traction
• How Vouch built a full-stack insurance platform versus being a digital broker
• The go-to-market lessons learned from Utah to nationwide expansion
• How early hiring mistakes shaped Vouch’s sales strategy
• How Travis thinks about demand generation and balancing inbound and outbound
• Why domain expertise is essential in evaluating AI vendors
• The inflection points that changed how Vouch scaled
• How AI will reshape insurance but not eliminate the human element
• Much more

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Where to Find Travis Hedge

• Website: https://vouch.us
• X: https://x.com/The_HedgeFund
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/travishedge/

Where to Find David Phillips (Host)

• X: https://x.com/davj
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davjphillips/

In This Episode, We Cover

• (00:00) Introduction to Travis and Vouch
• (01:20) Travis’s early inspiration from his family's insurance business
• (05:00) Lessons from Nationwide and SVB Capital
• (10:30) The painful moment that sparked Vouch’s creation
• (14:00) Building a startup insurance platform from scratch
• (19:00) Getting the first 20 customers without relying on partners
• (23:00) Lessons in early hiring and go-to-market team building
• (27:00) How demand gen strategy evolved
• (33:00) AI’s real role in insurance and go-to-market
• (38:00) Big revenue and customer milestones
• (43:00) How Vouch now serves both seed-stage startups and late-stage scale-ups
• (47:00) How insurance mistakes can cost startups millions
• (51:00) The best time for founders to get insurance
• (56:00) Closing thoughts and Travis’s advice to founders

Referenced

• Y Combinator (YC): https://www.ycombinator.com
• Ribbit Capital: https://www.ribbitcap.com/
• SVB Capital: https://www.svb.com/svb-capital
• Opendoor: https://www.opendoor.com/
• Root Insurance: https://www.joinroot.com/
• Nationwide Ventures: https://nationwideventures.com/
• Amplemarket (AI Sales tool): https://amplemarket.com/
• Goodhart's Law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

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