Today we’re chatting with Mo El Mahallawy, CTO and co-founder of Shepherd.

Shepherd is all in one commercial insurance platform focused on high hazard industries. The company is on an absolute tear and this month they announced a $13.5M series A.

Mo and I decided to sit down and record a conversation because the journey of Shepherd will resonate with many potential founders who are try to find those two key missing pieces: who might I start a company with and what might we build together?

Right as the world was shutting down due to COVID, Mo joined ODF3 where he met one of his co-founders at Shepherd — Justin Levine. Mo and Justin soon embarked on a journey to determine what they could build together that had potential to solve a real customer problem.

After pivoting through several ideas across a variety of sectors, they honed in on an area where one of them had a unique insight — construction insurance.

This is an instructive story about how to find co-founders and how to build a great business together. Enjoy!

Are you exploring starting a company? We’ve got a program for that!

ODF has helped 1k companies like Shepherd (ODF3) find their co-founders, get started and go on to raise over $2B. Applications for our IRL cohorts in San Francisco are now open. Learn more and apply at beondeck.com

• Mo on X/Twitter and his company Shepherd.
• beondeck.com
• On Deck on X/Twitter
• Julian on X/Twitter and blog
• Podcast episode archive and show notes