running a startup

brian sent me a text mesage saying i could interview him on his way to work. in a nour. sure, right, whatever. the only guy i know that runs a startup, this was pretty exciting. oh shit, no questions written, so i put some down quicjk so i wouldnt be fumbling when we spoke. good thing, his walk to work is just 15 min, and while he let me go over by around 8 min, by the end, i could tell he was in the office and had to attend to far more important stuff. so this is what i got. this is his first vc backed startup, the business he grew and sold in austin was bootstrapped. hes doing a kind of bio engineering biz to grow meat from cells. theyre on the 3rd round of funding, and i think i recall that it was some millions of dollars. so thats pre-seed and seed and then whatever comes after. they have just moved from dontown SF to berlkley, as they needed a bigger space. the team has grown to 16, and hes very confident speaking about all the stages of development like hes a pro. i just kind of wonred where he gained all this knowledge, its not stuff you learn in business school, hes picked this up along his journey. they have a bunch of different processes in place. inasmuch as they dont make $ yet, they need to benchmark some events to show investors that they are on track. they have an employee handbook that staes quite clearly that everyone can contribute, regardless of their position. they do stand up meetings, or used to. i fogot to ask them how covid has impacted them if at all. i have not yet formulated the right questions needed to solicit what i nneed, because i havent quite identified that yet. but its coming.