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, 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. Rated one of the world's top startup podcasts.

  1. He raised $250K, had thousands of users, but failed— because he didn't pivot fast enough. | Darius Vaillancourt, Founder of Howdy

    2 DAYS AGO

    He raised $250K, had thousands of users, but failed— because he didn't pivot fast enough. | Darius Vaillancourt, Founder of Howdy

    Darius started an EdTech startup to help users of online courses collaborate with each other. It blew up during COVID when everyone felt isolated. It gained thousands of users. They were engaged. They came back to use the platform. And, most importantly, they dramatically improved completion rates for online courses.Darius thought he had it. But it turned out universities didn't want to pay. What users cared about was not what universities (the buyers) cared about. His biggest lessons is that...

    28 min
  2. Stripe bought his startup for $1.1B—just 2.5 years after he quit his job. | Zach Abrams, Co-Founder of Bridge

    5 DAYS AGO

    Stripe bought his startup for $1.1B—just 2.5 years after he quit his job. | Zach Abrams, Co-Founder of Bridge

    Zach was burned out after a decade of working at top roles in Coinbase, Square and Brex. He quit with no startup idea-- and then, he went right back in. Given their background, Zach and his co-founder quickly raised an $8M seed round to build an NFT-related product in Web3.One month later, they completely abandoned their idea. They realized it was never going to work. Then, the floor fell from underneath them. FTX went bankrupt. SVB fell apart. They took punches to the face for the first 6 mo...

    55 min
  3. The 5 Steps to Product-Market Fit w/ Chris Saad, ex-Head of Product at Uber, Host of The Startup Podcast

    JAN 9

    The 5 Steps to Product-Market Fit w/ Chris Saad, ex-Head of Product at Uber, Host of The Startup Podcast

    We took examples from the last 100 episodes and built a clear, 5 step path to finding product market fit:1.Before Startup Mode, There’s Research Mode —> Become an expert to find problems worth solving. 2.Only the Insanely Focused Survive —> Focus all your resources to do more with less. 3.You have to be in the market to win the market —> Use niche markets to discover unique insights. 4.Forget Growth. Find Value. —> Optimize for value delivery and growth will follow....

    51 min
  4. How Gusto’s $10B founder raised $6M, built a team of 5—& hit $5M ARR in just 2 years. | Josh Reeves, Founder of Gusto

    JAN 6

    How Gusto’s $10B founder raised $6M, built a team of 5—& hit $5M ARR in just 2 years. | Josh Reeves, Founder of Gusto

    Gusto is a $9.5B startup that does $500M ARR. Josh built an absolute monster of a company-- and it all started with payroll software for SMBs. Not just that, he started by servicing only new tech startups that were based in California. It was exceptionally niche, and it worked.After YC, he raised a $6M seed round from tier 1 angels, back when large seed rounds were not at all common. But, unlike others, he didn't spend the money. He kept his team small as they iterated on the product. By the ...

    57 min
  5. The top 5 early-stage startup lessons for 2025

    JAN 2

    The top 5 early-stage startup lessons for 2025

    We go through the top 5 product-market fit lessons I've learned from speaking to well over 100+ founders on this show over the last 3 years.These are the top 5 things you should keep top of mind going into 2025.Why you should listen:Small teams outperform larger ones in early stages.Paying employees well is needed to build A+ teams.Go all-in on fundraising to do it faster. Mind your burn rate to maintain flexibility.Creating undeniable value is essential for growth.Keywordsproduct market...

    12 min
  6. He raised $1.3M, hit $100K ARR—but failed. Here's the lesson every founder needs to hear. | Tolga Ermis, Founder of PromiseQ

    12/30/2024

    He raised $1.3M, hit $100K ARR—but failed. Here's the lesson every founder needs to hear. | Tolga Ermis, Founder of PromiseQ

    Tolga stumbled upon a problem in the security monitoring space. Motion cameras generated way too many false alerts. So he decided to solve it using AI. He raised over a million dollars and got several customers.But he always felt he was pushing a boulder up a hill. At one point, one of his large customers churned and went with a competitor. Tolga pivoted, but it was too late. Now, thinking back, he realizes that one of the main issues is he may never have been solving an important-enough prob...

    30 min
  7. 24 ways to get your first customers—based on real examples from the last 100 episodes.

    12/26/2024

    24 ways to get your first customers—based on real examples from the last 100 episodes.

    There are a few things harder when building startups than getting your first few customers. When you're on a standstill, getting momentum is incredibly hard. Going from zero to one takes an incredible amount of effort—you have absolutely no credibility, no proof points. So to help you out I went through 24 ways of getting your first customers using 24 different examples from this show. Why you should listen:Figure out how to land your first few customers. You are guaranteed to find at least o...

    24 min
  8. He bet on voice AI when no one else did. Now he has $1M+ customers & $100M raised. | Ankit Jain, Founder of Infinitus

    12/23/2024

    He bet on voice AI when no one else did. Now he has $1M+ customers & $100M raised. | Ankit Jain, Founder of Infinitus

    Ankit left his job as a VC to launch a Voice AI platform—back in 2018! It wasn't the voice AI of today. The first demo sounded like a robot. But still, he convinced large enterprise customers in the healthcare space to try it out. He found a highly manual, call intensive workflow in the back office and autoamted it using AI.Years later, he's raised $102M and has dozens of large $1M+ enterprise customers using the product. He talks about how he started it, how he saw the AI opportunity so earl...

    40 min
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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, 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. Rated one of the world's top startup podcasts.

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