Building Fast Without Building Blind with Subham Panda
If you’ve ever felt like fundraising, traction, and customer discovery are three different sports and you’re playing all of them badly at the same time, this session is for you. Not theory. Not “spray and pray” outreach. The real craft of getting signal early, building distribution you actually own, and turning that into a company that can grow and survive.
Subham Panda has lived on both sides of the early stage chaos. He founded Xartup and built Spotlight by Xartup into the #3 largest business newsletter globally on Substack, then used that distribution to build a software platform helping founders raise capital and helping VC funds source startups. Xartup was later acquired by VCCircle, HT Media Group, where Subham stayed on to lead the team and drive product expansion post acquisition. Before all of that, he started his career in J.P. Morgan’s Technology Investment Banking, giving him a sharp lens on how real transactions, fundraising dynamics, and incentives actually work behind the scenes. He’s now a UC Berkeley Haas MBA and currently building his next venture in stealth, plus hosting Hustle Stories, a podcast featuring successful Indian founders.
In this conversation, we’ll get into the decisions that actually move the needle:
- How to build distribution before you need it and why newsletters still win
- How to find your first real audience and turn attention into conversations
- What founders misunderstand about fundraising and how investors actually think
- What changes after acquisition and what founders should plan for early
- The messy lessons from failing, pivoting, and finally getting something to work
Expect honest trade offs, tactical playbooks, and the kind of clarity that makes you want to open your laptop straight after and fix the right thing.
About Subham Panda
Subham is a founder and operator, UC Berkeley Haas MBA, ex J.P. Morgan Tech Investment Banking, and ex Entrepreneur First. He’s the founder of Xartup, acquired by VCCircle, HT Media Group, where he later served as Head of Xartup post acquisition. He also built Spotlight by Xartup into one of the largest business newsletters globally on Substack, and is now building his next company in stealth while mentoring founders and hosting the Hustle Stories podcast.