Paul Ahlstrom: The Origins of Nail It Then Scale It, Market Timing, Utah VC, AI cover art

Paul Ahlstrom: The Origins of Nail It Then Scale It, Market Timing, Utah VC, AI

Paul Ahlstrom: The Origins of Nail It Then Scale It, Market Timing, Utah VC, AI

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 In this episode of the Startup Ignition Podcast, we sit down with Paul Ahlstrom, a serial entrepreneur, investor, and one of the key architects of the Utah venture capital ecosystem. Paul shares his incredible journey from early failures—including a software bug that wiped out his first business overnight—to founding vSpring Capital and helping transform Utah into a tech powerhouse. He also discusses his pioneering work building the VC infrastructure in Mexico, the personal struggles that led to co-authoring the foundational book Nail It Then Scale It, and his predictions for the future of the "autonomous economy" and agentic AI.

(00:00:00) The software bug that killed a business overnight

(00:04:36) Icebreaker: Playing "Pivot or Persevere" with startup scenarios

(00:09:16) Why big competitors validating your market is a good thing

(00:16:04) Paul’s early hustle: From pool cleaning to 80s dance clubs

(00:22:04) The Folio years and the founding of Knowlix

(00:26:40) Escaping the Dot Com crash: The "Shoeshine Boy" indicator

(00:29:31) Founding vSpring Capital: Bringing oxygen to Utah startups

(00:35:41) The lack of capital in the early Utah ecosystem

(00:39:53) Expanding to Latin America and building Mexico’s VC laws

(00:47:50) The emotional origin story of Nail It Then Scale It

(00:50:38) Collaborating with Nathan Furr and the Lean Startup connection

(00:53:20) How a "victim of the internet" article led to the book's methodology

(00:59:07) The #1 cause of startup failure vs. the #1 indicator of success

(01:00:05) Understanding "Why Now?" and market timing

(01:03:26) The future of tech: The Agentic Economy and AI saturation

(01:05:49) How modern tools allow rapid iteration and validation

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