We recently had the privilege of interviewing Pavel Zapolskii, Co-founder and CEO of Glancing. A seasoned business mathematician, Pavel finds deep satisfaction in devising solutions that perfectly blend sophisticated technology with practicality. With Glancing, Pavel helps clients discover and negotiate with promising founders they might otherwise overlook.
The platform offers real-time, AI-based, founder-focused deal sourcing for VC investors, helping identify and engage with top talent before they even launch their startups. Unlike other private market data solutions, Glancing goes beyond company data to help investors understand the most crucial factor in early-stage investing.
The Beginning
We started the interview by asking, “Can you tell us about your professional journey and what led you to your current role?”
Pavel Zapolskii shared, “All my conscious life, I have perceived myself as a mixture of two conceptions—a mathematician and an innovator. I have always had to overcome complexities and solve inefficiencies throughout my education and career. Inefficiencies can arise in unique situations within global markets, where I have solid career experience, from investment banking and brokerage to HFT funds. Solving such cases can be highly rewarding.
Another example is inefficiencies caused by pain points in product-led IT companies. Identifying and addressing them by creating a new foundation can sometimes be extremely challenging, which is why creativity is essential. Blending these conceptions led me to the venture market.
The data-driven approach is actively being implemented in the VC pipeline, equipping each partner and analyst to identify the most successful deals. All of this forms a complex puzzle that Glancing is solving.”
Standing Apart From The Competition
We were interested to learn how Pavel has ensured Glancing has a unique position in the market. So, we asked, “What sets your business apart from competitors in the industry?”
Pavel Zapolskii replied, “Modern VC investing is increasingly competitive, yet investors largely identify promising deals only after they have already gained traction through limited personal networks. This has led to countless missed opportunities without improving access to the best founders and deals before they become widely known and highly contested.
Most VC funds, venture builders, and accelerators have defaulted to some combination of network-based pipeline generation approach that is unscalable and limits deal flow, and data intelligence solutions that lack crucial founder and project-specific context.
And this is where Glancing comes in. Glancing provides real-time, automated founder-focused deal sourcing for VC investors, helping you identify and engage with top talent before they even launch their startups. Unlike other private market data solutions, Glancing goes beyond company data to help you understand the most crucial factor in early-stage investing — the founding team.”
Triumphs At Glancing
To learn more about the success of Glancing, we asked, “What has been your business’s biggest achievement to date?”
“We truly value talented and ambitious individuals, even if they do not come from prestigious backgrounds like MIT or Google. We refer to these individuals as hidden gems. Our platform, Glancing, helps our clients discover and negotiate with promising founders they might otherwise overlook. I see this shift of capital towards unique and promising entrepreneurs as our greatest achievement.
On the other hand, we face challenges in transforming the mindset of venture capitalists by using data-driven analytics. By crossing the chasm of inequality between tier-3 and tier-1 VC funds, we aim to empower our clients to uncover exceptional deals.” He mentioned.
Leading By Doing: Setting The Right Example
We further asked, “How would you describe your leadership style?”
“The first and main idea is to find people you can trust and who believe in you and your ideas. What describes my management style is the phrase – you need to know everything, but not everything is the best.
It is my firm conviction that, as a leader, you should actively contribute to the product in meaningful ways—setting an example for others—while also ensuring focus on important strategic decisions.” Pavel reflected.
Fostering A Healthy Work Environment
Eager to understand how Pavel encourages a healthy workspace and empowers his team, we asked, “What strategies do you use to motivate and develop talent in your organization?”
Pavel Zapolskii responded, “I enjoy the rule ‘everyone in the same boat’ that helps talents feel their responsibility and needs. It can be achieved by the simplest method to connect the financial aspect of the awards with the company’s success, whether through options or performance-based bonuses. Another even more efficient way to inspire employees is to ensure they find joy and purpose in their work. When people are passionate about and believe in their tasks, each minor achievement in development or sales can significantly energize the entire crew.”
Role Of AI In Transforming Businesses
Fast-paced technological advancements have been playing an undeniable role in businesses across industries. So, we asked, “What role do you see Artificial Intelligence or technology playing in this industry?”
“Undoubtedly, AI technology is the core of our product. Hard to imagine how Glancing’s products might be realized using ‘ancient’ NLP methods, it would be at least a few times worse quality for sure.
The crux of the matter is high-quality signals that can help venture companies find future unicorns. It requires complex neural network architecture to reach proper precision and freshness.” He added.
Envisioning The Future Of SaaS Companies
Regarding his views on the future of his industry, we asked Pavel, “How do you envision the future of your industry?”
Pavel Zapolskii stated, “Here, I would refer to a well-known Nadella statement – The next generation of SaaS companies won’t sell software at all. They’ll sell intelligent agents. AI will become the central driver of enterprise software.
In other words, we are going from SaaS to AaaS (Agents as a Service).
However, it’s important to note that a generic AI providing vague industry insights won’t meet anyone’s needs. What people truly require are specialized agents that understand their specific workflows, grasp their business intricacies, and address their unique challenges.”
Navigating Through Challenges
Challenges are a part of every business. To learn how Pavel overcame the phases, we asked, “What have been some of the most significant hurdles you’ve encountered in your business, and how did you address them?”
Pavel Zapolskii explained, “The secret sauce of Glancing’s product is a proprietary algorithm that gathers and analyzes business- and academic-related data, combined with AI models to assess it.
In my view, the real world and people themselves are too complex for a comprehensive black-box analysis of everything and everyone. The key question is how to extract 80% of the advantage with only 20% of the effort—overcoming challenges such as determining which sources of information require more attention, how to achieve data completeness, and identifying the biggest factors influencing the chances of becoming a successful IT startup. Finding answers to these questions is not easy and demands both strong technical skills and deep domain expertise from the Glancing team.”
Advice That Lasted Long
We asked, “What is an excellent piece of business advice you ever received?”
“Never underestimate the significance and complexity of go-to-market (GTM) and sales: despite the brilliance of ideas and products, you will need to dedicate a significant amount of personal time to finding and executing the best sales strategy.
For me, as someone with a product mindset, it was essential to take on a new role and, at times, even reprioritize the urgency of technology development in favor of GTM.” He replied.
The Art Of Balancing Business Requirements
We ended the session by asking, “How do you balance investing in up-to-date ideas with ensuring ongoing operations remain successful?”
“Sustainable growth is impossible without a huge time investment in the operational part of work. But depending on the industry, problems your business solves, tools, and stack you are using, the point of equilibrium may be significantly skewed.
As far as I’m concerned, cutting-edge startups like Glancing must make the same amount of effort in researching up-to-date ideas to remain quick, effective, and flexible in such a volatile market. (You know how much AI news comes through us every week).
If we had not used the most contemporary AI algorithms and had not applied new techniques to work with data efficiently, we would not be as attractive in terms of costs and uplift we are giving to enhance our clients’ portfolio.” Pavel concluded.
Follow Pavel Zapolskii on LinkedIn.
Find Glancing on LinkedIn and visit their website https://glancing.io/
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