A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders

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A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders

Every 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, Rappi, Cohere, Glean, 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. Rated one of the world's top Startup Podcasts.

  1. Here’s how he hit $40M ARR, exited for over $100M—& raised only $1.5M | Ian MacKinnon, Co-Founder of Later.com

    2 DAYS AGO

    Here’s how he hit $40M ARR, exited for over $100M—& raised only $1.5M | Ian MacKinnon, Co-Founder of Later.com

    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 calle...

    56 min
  2. He raised $16M, hit $1M ARR—& failed. Here are the top 3 lessons he learned. | David Anderson, Founder of Tandym

    6 DAYS AGO

    He raised $16M, hit $1M ARR—& failed. Here are the top 3 lessons he learned. | David Anderson, Founder of Tandym

    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 l...

    54 min
  3. He sold his 1st startup for 8 figures, grew his 2nd to $3M in a year—while battling panic attacks from the pressure. | Justin Adams, Founder of Aiwyn

    18 NOV

    He sold his 1st startup for 8 figures, grew his 2nd to $3M in a year—while battling panic attacks from the pressure. | Justin Adams, Founder of Aiwyn

    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 atta...

    46 min
  4. He raised $1.5M, hit $400K ARR in 9 months— but had to Exit Early. Here’s the top 3 lessons he learned | Rob Palumbo, Co-Founder of Outpoint

    14 NOV

    He raised $1.5M, hit $400K ARR in 9 months— but had to Exit Early. Here’s the top 3 lessons he learned | Rob Palumbo, Co-Founder of Outpoint

    Rob founded Outpoint in 2020 to help marketers optimize their ad spend. He was a growth marketer and his founder a data scientist. He had team-market fit, a solid thesis, and paying customers. But when the recession hit and ad spend dropped, growth ground to a halt. Nothing he did could revitalize growth. Ultimately, he decreased expenses and exited. He was able to return some cash to investors, find a home for his team and keep the product going. You tend to hear about what happens to t...

    39 min
  5. His startup Cameo was a unicorn—until it crashed 90%. Here's how he went from near-bankrupt to profitable again. | Steven Galanis, Founder of Cameo

    12 NOV

    His startup Cameo was a unicorn—until it crashed 90%. Here's how he went from near-bankrupt to profitable again. | Steven Galanis, Founder of Cameo

    Cameo is one of the best-known recent consumer startups. You've either used it or know someone who's used it to get famous people to create personalized videos. And, for a while, they were a total rocket ship. Year 1: $300K GMVYear 2: $4MYear 3: $20MYear 4: $100MThey were backed by Jeremy Liew, the VC who seeded Snapchat in 2012. Cameo became a unicorn in 2021. But as the markets turned, revenue decreased, investor interest waned, and their valuation dropped from $1B to $100M. After the restr...

    58 min
  6. VC funding is not popping back. THIS is the new normal—here's how to adjust. | Peter Walker, Head of Insights at Carta

    8 NOV

    VC funding is not popping back. THIS is the new normal—here's how to adjust. | Peter Walker, Head of Insights at Carta

    Q3 startup data just dropped. We chat with Peter Walker, Head of Insights at Carta about valuations at pre-seed, seed and Series A. Why the current fundraising environment is the new normal and not about to get much better. We also talk about trends in founder vesting, and why some founders are choosing to vest for longer.Finally, we go through what to do if you’re stuck with some product-market fit but mediocre growth, and why more exits are happening now than anytime in the fast couple of y...

    42 min
  7. His robotics startup raised $400M, his VC fund over $4B—& he ran both at the same time. Here's how he did it.| Lior Susan, Bright Machines & Eclipse Ventures

    4 NOV

    His robotics startup raised $400M, his VC fund over $4B—& he ran both at the same time. Here's how he did it.| Lior Susan, Bright Machines & Eclipse Ventures

    Lior is the Elon Musk of VC. In just 8 years, his venture fund went from 0 to $4B under management. And while doing that, he founded Bright Machines, which to date has raised over $400M. He's both the CEO of Bright Machines and the Managing Director of Eclipse Ventures. And he's not building "easy" software startups either. Bright Machines is looking to automate the entire manufacturing process with robots. He launched it with a $179M round and a 100-person team. Lior is not n...

    43 min
  8. This 1st-time founder raised $4M, kept the team to 5 people—& just raised a $28M Series A. | Parker Gilbert, Co-Founder of Numeric

    31 OCT

    This 1st-time founder raised $4M, kept the team to 5 people—& just raised a $28M Series A. | Parker Gilbert, Co-Founder of Numeric

    Parker quit his job as VP Finance at a late-stage startup in mid 2021. He raised $4M out of the gate because, well, it was 2021. But he didn't ramp up sales, he didn't hire 15 developers. He kept the team to 5 people for the first year. He worked with a dozen design partners until the value prop was perfect. He even refused to let customers pay upfront in annual contracts. He wanted monthly payments to light a fire for him and his team. This month, just 3 years after quitting his job, he clos...

    38 min
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Ratings & Reviews

About

Every 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, Rappi, Cohere, Glean, 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. Rated one of the world's top Startup Podcasts.

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