Stay ConnectedEvery founder has 1 goal: find product-market fit. We interview the world’s most successful startup founders on the 0 to 1 part of their journeys. We’ve had the founders of Reddit, Gusto, Rappi, Glean, Cohere, Huntress, ID.me and many more.
We go deep with entrepreneurs & VCs to provide detailed examples you can steal. Our goal is to understand product-market fit better than anyone on the planet.
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Copyright: © 2024 A Product Market Fit Show | Startups & Founders
Marty and his co-founders lived full-time in their office for several months. They worked on their startup 24/7. To come up with the idea, they messaged 120 potential customers every day for 3 months.
Originally, when they pitched YC they were told their idea would never work. YC said they'd seen it several times and it was destined to fail. So in 2 weeks Marty landed a customer and built a product-- and YC let him in. He went on to raise a $3M seed round from General Catalyst in 6 days and later a $17M Series A from a16z in 14 days.
We go deep into how to come up with massive ideas, how to get to product-market fit, and how to quickly fundraise from tier 1 VCs.
Why you should listen
Keywords
founders, startup, customer support, Pylon, co-founders, omnichannel, B2B, venture capital, product market fit, entrepreneurship, startup, Y Combinator, fundraising, product development, market trends, customer support, AI integration, team dynamics, venture capital, entrepreneurship
Timestamps
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:01:35) Why he chose to sleep in the office
(00:07:11) Project Management instead of People Management
(00:11:24) How it all started
(00:23:33) Cold Messaging Potential customers
(00:28:02) Finding the Trend
(00:35:49) Building V1
(00:38:32) Getting into YC as ChatGPT Comes Out
(00:42:37) Why fundraising is a "social game"
(01:01:21) Raising Series A from A16
I interviewed Martin on the keynote stage at the SaaS North conference. Here is the audio version. Martin built Applyboard into a $4B unicorn doing $100M+ in ARR. He left and started a new startup called Passage— and raised a $40M seed round.
He talks about 100-hour weeks, hiring exceptional talent, why smaller teams can outperform—and why he decided to start all over again.
Why you should listen:
Keywords
entrepreneurship, education, immigration, impact, startup, Passage, ApplyBoard, perseverance, business model, founder journey
Timestamps
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:54) Getting Into Coding
(00:06:48) Accidentally Making Applyboard
(00:10:41) Starting startup #2
(00:17:19) Raising the Biggest Seed in Canada with Only 20 Employees
(00:20:07) If You Can't Outsmart Them, Outwork Them
(00:23:21) Getting the First Software Developer
(00:25:48) One Piece of Advice
Jon started a sports betting app 4 years ago-- now he does $150M in revenue and $1B in betting volume. AND he's profitable. In his first year alone , he did $10 million in revenue.
He took a year to build the app and as soon as he launched it, it took off. He did $10M in revenue in his first year.
Honestly, it sounds too easy. But the reason it worked is because, as he shares on the episode, he'd spent 7 years in research mode. He'd spent years building a marketing agency in the sports betting space. He not only understand the market, the customers and the product, he'd also built a distribution machine and knew exactly how to get in front of users.
Here's how it happened.
Why you should listen
- Why distribution is the difference between success and failure
- How spending a long time in research mode can make go-to-market much faster
- Why simple product difference can lead to huge differences in outcomes
Keywords
sports betting, Dabble, entrepreneurship, product-market fit, startup journey, social betting, technology, marketing, revenue growth, challenges
Timestamps
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:01:49) Getting Into Sports Betting
(00:04:22) Before Dabble
(00:08:08) Starting Dabble & First Steps
(00:10:55) The Initial Vision
(00:17:55) How Sports Betting Works
(00:24:26) Nearly Going Bankrupt
(00:27:53) Building the App
(00:31:23) Launching
(00:35:47) Revenue Timeline
(00:38:28) Finding Product Market Fit
(00:41:48) One Piece of Advice
Yanni started building in crypto back in 2013, when you could buy one Bitcoin for $20. At one point, he was playing poker games and betting 1 bitcoin each round!
He built an extension that let people use bitcoin to buy anything, anywhere on the internet. Then he pivoted to building the first on ramp for bitcoin. And finally, pivoted into Wyre, which was like Stripe for Crypto, a platform to let developers build Web3 apps.
In a couple of years he scaled it from nothing to a $90M run rate. In late 2021, he started working on an exit with Bolt. By mid 2022 the deal was signed. The company was to be sold for $1.5B.
Yanni would make hundreds of millions of dollars himself.
And then, at the absolute last minute, the world changed. Stocks fell, crypto plummeted— and the deal fell apart.
Startups are often one call, one customer or, in this case, one day away from complete success—or total failure. That’s the game you’re playing.
And there are few stories better than the one you’re about to hear.
Why you should listen
- Why if you want to be a founder you can't avoid taking punches to the face
- How Yanni found Bitcoin just a couple of years after it was started
- Why it often takes multiple twists and pivots to find real PMF
- How acquisitions tend to happen and why they can always fall apart
Keywords
startup, acquisition, Bitcoin, Web3, entrepreneurship, crypto, payment processing, innovation, technology, business, crypto, infrastructure, product-market fit, Web3, acquisition, startup challenges, fintech, business growth, developer support, market downturn
Timestamps
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:01:50) Buying Bitcoin in 2013
(00:04:48) Creating a Hacker House in San Francisco
(00:19:08) Creating Crypto Wallets
(00:26:41) Becoming Wyre
(00:33:56) Making the Decision to Go All In on Crypto
(00:41:18) The Acquisition that Didn't Happen
(00:47:33) Learning from All the Mistakes
(00:52:03) Some People are Builders
Aaron was Director of Product at Amazon, VP Product at Twilio, PM at Facebook and Twitter. Now he’s head of product at Deel where he reports directly to the CEO. Deel was founded in 2019— now, just 5 years later, it’s worth $12B and raised over $650M.
We go deep on what it takes to build world-class products, how early-stage founders can balance customer feedback, vision and data, and how the best product leaders are leveraging AI today.
Keywords
productivity, AI, product development, user experience, product management, customer feedback, product market fit, technology, innovation, startups
Why you should listen
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:10:25) AI Solves the Informational Retrieval Problem
(00:14:54) AI Agents Aren't Real Yet
(00:18:12) Signals that Could Lead Towards to PMF
(00:23:04) Finding the Customers Need
(00:25:17) Hiring Product Managers
(00:28:00) Difference Between an excellent Product vs an Okay One
(00:34:17) Prioritizing Bug Fixing vs Feature Requests from Existing Users
Description
Tate started doing commercial fishing at 16. He took that money and started lending it— on Craigslist! By 23 years old, he’d lent out $250,000. Then he found out about cash advances, and decided to start ZayZoon, a platform to help employers pay their employees faster.
Tate was one of the early pioneers of the entire Earned Wage Access space. By partnering with payroll companies and employers, ZayZoon lets employees access their earned wages faster.
It took Tate and his co-founders 4 years to get to their first million of ARR. And as soon as they felt they had it, revenue crashed 60% in a quarter. The team got things back on track and since then has grown from 20 to 200 employees— revenue is now closer to $100M than $10M.
Here’s the story.
Why you should listen:
Keywords
entrepreneurship, lending, FinTech, earned wage access, startup journey, mentorship, risk management, payroll integration, business challenges, market challenges, growth strategies, employer empowerment, product-market fit, exponential growth, timing, customer engagement
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:01:25) Lending Money on Craigslist in Highschool
(00:13:06) The Origin of Zayzoon
(00:19:18) The Next Step After the Aha Moment
(00:24:44) Problems Starting Off
(00:29:08) Launching First Payroll
(00:30:58) Fundraising
(00:34:11) Making the Product Easy to use
(00:45:32) Hitting a Million Dollars
(00:48:53) Why timing matters
(00:53:34) Finding Product Market Fit
(00:54:27) One Piece of Advice
(00:56:29) How all in were you?
Zeffy is one of my biggest misses so far. I met Francois 3 years ago when he was raising his $3M seed round. But I passed.
They were at ~$500K in revenue at that point. In the last 3 years, they've grown 30x. Clearly, I missed out.
But it's been a long road for Francois. Before he got to the current idea, he had to make 3 pivots, including building a marketplace and selling to schools.
Finally he landed on what Zeffy is today, a fundraising platform for nonprofits. The crazy thing is that it's absolutely free to use. They make all of their money, which is now in the tens of millions in revenue a year, from tips. Voluntary tips that are given by donors while they donate to the nonprofits who use Zeffy's platform.
It's not an easy model to wrap your head around, but it's working in a big way.
Check out the platform at zeffy.com
Takeaways
Keywords
fundraising platform, nonprofits, product market fit, startup growth, profitability, marketing strategy, trust building, talent density, donation model
Timestamps
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:02:49) The Origin of Zeffy
(00:05:56) Gaining the Trust & Cold Calling
(00:08:52) Having a Sales Team Not Trying to Get Money
(00:13:21) Zeffy's Growth Timeline & Raising
(00:15:35) Google Ads Changed the Game
(00:18:54) The Mindset After Raising the Seed
(00:21:50) Staying Conservative When Recruiting
(00:24:05) What Makes Zeffy Unique
(00:27:38) Finding True Product Market Fit
(00:28:37) One Piece of Advice
In 2014, Ian launched a simple product: it let social media marketers buffer Instagram posts. It was originally a hackathon project. But it quickly gained users. So he and his co-founders went all in.
They raised just one small seed round. His main competitor, HootSuite, raised over $300M. In spite of that, he built a $40M ARR business that sold for well over $100M.
Here's the story of how it all happened. And why there's an option besides bootstrapping and raising round after round: it's called the one & done.
Why you should listen:
Keywords
startup, product market fit, user feedback, monetization, content marketing, growth strategies, social media management, entrepreneurship, user acquisition, pricing strategy, startup, growth, competition, user experience, influencer marketing, acquisition, exit process, founder advice
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:05) "Ian's dumb ideas"
(00:07:27) Hackathons
(00:10:41) Finding a market
(00:13:30) Early feedback
(00:17:50) The growth curve
(00:21:08) Turning on pricing
(00:26:35) A seed strapper
(00:31:58) Focusing on small and medium businesses
(00:38:24) Being well positioned
(00:43:19) Bough by private equity
(00:47:50) Relief
(00:50:59) A new project and a piece of advice
David's startup failed. But he had everything going for him: a solid thesis, $16M in funding across 3 rounds, $1.5M in ARR. At a high-level it seemed like everything was going the right way. And yet, it didn't work out.
This is what happens to 95% of startups. On thhis show, we mainly speak with the top 5%-- the ones where things went right and everything worked out. But you tend to learn more from failures than successes.
On this episode, we go deep with David to see what building Tandym was like, why it ultimately didn't work, and what he would do differently the second time around.
Why you should listen:
Keywords
product-market fit, startup journey, fundraising, fintech, brand partnerships, business model, sales challenges, urgency in sales, Tandem, lessons learned, startup, fundraising, product strategy, compliance, revenue growth, entrepreneurship, lessons learned, business pivot, mid-market brands, capital management
Timestamps
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:30) The Origin of Tandym
(00:09:26) Taking the Leap
(00:11:37) The Business Model
(00:17:22) Developing the Product
(00:21:05) Struggling to Create Urgency
(00:26:50) Raising Rounds & Shifting
(00:35:11) First Signs of Problems
(00:39:01) The Product that we should've launched
(00:42:12) How it All Ended
(00:49:56) Final Thoughts & Advice
Justin sold his first bootstrapped startup for over $10M. He raised $2M out of the gate for his second and then grew from $250K to $3M ARR in one year. He raised $40M in total, including a Series B from Bessemer.
And yet, just a week before recording the episode, he shared a post on LinkedIn about a recent panic attack that left him frozen for 15 minutes. It turns out, the sheer pressure of running a startup gets to him-- like it does to most founders-- and shows up in the forms of panic attacks. Fortunately, he's getting better, but like all of us, mental health is something he has to grapple with, despite all the success he's had.
We discuss mental health in startups, what it takes to be successful, the difference between bootstrapping and the VC-backed route, and how he grew his startup from nothing to 8 figures in just 4 years.
Why you should listen
- Mental health issues among founders are common but rarely discussed.
- Startup life often requires sacrificing work-life balance for success.
- How seemingly simple problems can lead to tremendous value and growth.
- Why starting a startup isn't for everyone.
Keywords
startup stress, mental health, entrepreneurship, product-market fit, venture capital, startup journey, growth, leadership, team dynamics
Timestamps
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:01:07) The Stress of Being a Startup Founder
(00:05:42) The Responsibility for your Workers as a Founder
(00:07:27) Work Life Balance Can't Exist
(00:15:39) The Origin of Aiwyn
(00:20:30) The First Product
(00:27:46) The Main ROI and Business Model of Aiwyn
(00:30:52) Starting During the Pandemic
(00:32:14) The Seed Round & Growth
(00:37:01) Series A
(00:41:41) Reputation Matters
(00:43:42) Finding True Product Market Fit
(00:44:13) One Piece of Advice
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