A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders

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  • 5,0 (81)
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  • DUAS VEZES/SEMANA

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 quit his job, went all-in on AI agents—then grew to 100K users & a $30M Series A in a year. | Soham Ganatra, Founder of Composio

    HÁ 4 DIAS

    He quit his job, went all-in on AI agents—then grew to 100K users & a $30M Series A in a year. | Soham Ganatra, Founder of Composio

    Soham spent 6 months building AI that would auto-generate integrations between any software. He locked down Glean as an early customer because he had friends there. And it failed completely. So he pivoted. This time, he refused to work with friendly customers who knew him. Instead, he did 10-20 calls per day with strangers who would tell him his product sucked. He posted on Discord communities at 3am, wrote technical blogs that went viral on Reddit, and created fake landing pages to see what integrations people actually wanted.  In one year, Composio grew to 100,000 developers and raised $30M from Lightspeed in just 3 weeks.  His contrarian take: in AI, asking users what they want will just get you faster horses. Built it instead, and watch their eyes light up. Why You Should Listen: Why friendly customers will kill your startup.The 20  calls per day strategy that scaled Composio to 100,000 users.Why you can't validate AI products by asking.The exact Discord and SEO tactics that got their first thousand users without spending on adsKeywords (comma-separated): The PMF Show is a startup podcast. The Product Market Fit Show is a startup podcast. Startup Podcast, Composio, Soham Ganatra, AI agents, developer tools, pivot, Series A, Lightspeed, integrations, API, tool calling 00:00:00 Intro 00:06:44 Playing with GPT-2 before ChatGPT 00:12:37 Leaving his job to start Composio 00:21:16 Pivoting to integrations for AI agents 00:28:42 Why friendly customers are dangerous 00:31:01 Getting first users through viral content 00:36:01 Taking 10-20 customer calls per day 00:40:58 Scaling from 1,000 to 100,000 developers 00:43:58 MCP and the explosion of growth 00:48:59 Raising $30M from Lightspeed in 3 weeks Send me a message to let me know what you think!

    58min
  2. TechCrunch called this YC founder a fraud at 18—then he built a $10M ARR fintech. | Sahil Phadnis, Founder of Affiniti

    HÁ 6 DIAS

    TechCrunch called this YC founder a fraud at 18—then he built a $10M ARR fintech. | Sahil Phadnis, Founder of Affiniti

    Sahil was 18 when TechCrunch published a hit piece calling him a copycat. His co-founder Aaron was 16. They'd just raised $6 million from YC and top VCs for their crypto startup, then got subpoenaed by a state government and watched their business implode.  So they fired everyone, moved back to their parents' homes, and spent months cold-calling dentists and lawn care companies to find a real problem. What they discovered: 80% of SMBs still use community banks from 1995. Now Affiniti has 2,000 customers, $10M ARR run rate, and just raised $17M by partnering with trade associations to acquire customers at 25% the cost of traditional fintech.  This is the raw story of teenage founders who got punched in the face by Silicon Valley and came back swinging. Why You Should Listen: How getting destroyed on TechCrunch at 18 and subpoenaed by the government led to a $3M revenue pivot in 12 monthsWhy going back to square 0 is often the best moveThe trade association go-to-market strategy that worked for SMB.Why 200 VC rejections and raising $6M in peak 2021 couldn't save their first startup—but taught them everything they needed to know.Get comfortable with bad days—stoicism is the only way to survive.Keywords: Affiniti, Sahil Phadnis, SMB fintech, startup pivot, Y Combinator, teenage founders, Series A, B2B payments, startup failure, trade associations 00:00:00 Intro 00:01:50 COVID existential crisis at 16 00:08:36 Building websites for restaurants 00:11:11 Meeting Aaron on Instagram 00:15:17 200 VC rejections then raising $6M 00:23:03 Getting called a fraud on TechCrunch 00:29:15 Firing everyone and moving home 00:31:16 Faking toothaches to research SMBs 00:40:50 Launching Affiniti 00:47:00 The trade association growth hack 00:55:03 Raising Series A in 3 weeks 00:58:30 Stoicism and bad days Send me a message to let me know what you think!

    1h
  3. Paul Graham Said His Startup Was Worthless—2 Months Later He Hit $1M ARR. | Jon Noronha, Co-Founder of Gamma

    4 DE SET.

    Paul Graham Said His Startup Was Worthless—2 Months Later He Hit $1M ARR. | Jon Noronha, Co-Founder of Gamma

    Jon spent 3 years building Gamma with barely any traction—just a few hundred users after burning millions. Then ChatGPT dropped. In desperation, he pivoted to AI-powered presentations in March 2023 with one year of runway left. What happened next was insane: Paul Graham publicly mocked their launch tweet calling it worthless—then it went viral.  They went from 2,000 signups a day to 60,000. Their servers crashed for three days, but when they came back online, panicked users threw $50K at them thinking they needed to pay to make it work. Within two months of launching payments, they hit $1M ARR and became cashflow positive.  This is the raw story of how a dying startup caught the AI lightning and never looked back. Why You Should Listen: How to survive 3 years with no traction.Why 80% hype and 20% value can still build a real business The exact onboarding flow that turned 5% activation into viral growthHow negative viral engagement can still drive massive revenueThe difference between 10x better and 50% betterKeywords: Gamma, Jon Noronha, AI presentations, product market fit, pivot to AI, viral growth, Paul Graham, ChatGPT, cashflow positive, productivity startup 00:00:00 Intro 00:02:15 Why presentations haven't changed in 40 years 00:11:55 User research reveals the real problem 00:26:26 The market crashes and runway shrinks 00:34:32 ChatGPT drops and everything changes 00:43:19 Paul Graham trashes the launch tweet 00:48:59 Going viral by accident 00:51:33 60,000 signups a day breaks everything 00:55:07 Hitting $1M ARR in 2 months 00:58:47 Endurance is everything Send me a message to let me know what you think!

    1h
  4. He quit Google, launched Rubrik—then grew to $1B ARR & a $16B market cap. | Soham Mazumdar, Co-Founder Rubrik & Wisdom AI

    2 DE SET.

    He quit Google, launched Rubrik—then grew to $1B ARR & a $16B market cap. | Soham Mazumdar, Co-Founder Rubrik & Wisdom AI

    Soham co-founded Rubrik by taking what he learned from building Google's data center tech to enterprises desperate for cloud migration. Two quarters later, he hit $1M ARR. And a few years later, a $16B IPO.  Soham breaks down why paid pilots beat free trials, how to sell enterprise hardware before it works, and why early customers become your biggest champions when you solve real pain.  Now building WisdomAI after watching the ChatGPT moment unfold, he shares what's different about competing in AI's gold rush versus owning an ignored category. Why You Should Listen: Why early customers  endure broken productsHow he hit $1M ARR in 2 quarters selling enterprise hardwareWhy you should always charge for pilotsCustomer feedback is the only PMF signal that mattersKeywords: Rubrik, Soham Mazumdar, enterprise sales, data backup, IPO, product market fit, B2B SaaS, cloud migration, WisdomAI, data centers 00:00:00 Intro 00:04:26 Leaving Google to start a company 00:11:00 Building the founding team 00:14:27 Landing the first customer in Australia 00:22:30 Hitting $1M ARR in two quarters 00:25:42 Go-to-market strategy and the DeLorean stunt 00:30:30 When Arvind left to start Glean 00:34:10 Starting WisdomAI after the ChatGPT moment 00:51:22 Advice for early stage founders Retry Claude can make mistakes.  Please double-check responses. Send me a message to let me know what you think!

    54min
  5. He Bootstrapped to $55M in Revenue—without ever having to hit 100% YoY growth. | Stéphan Donzé, Founder of AODocs

    28 DE AGO.

    He Bootstrapped to $55M in Revenue—without ever having to hit 100% YoY growth. | Stéphan Donzé, Founder of AODocs

    Stéphan bootstrapped AODocs to $55M in revenue and 250 employees without taking a dime of VC money—while competing directly with venture-backed competitors. Starting as a services company in 2012, he spotted the cloud migration wave early and built document management for enterprises moving to Google Workspace.  In this episode, Stéphan breaks down why doubling every two years beats hypergrowth, how to win enterprise deals with zero funding, and why touching business-critical documents means year-long sales cycles but 10-year retention. This is the anti-Silicon Valley playbook that actually works. Why You Should Listen: Why the founder must personally close every single deal in 0 to 1How doubling every 2 years (not every year) creates a more stable businessThe brutal reality of enterprise POCs: doing it for free before getting paidWhy you can't have both fast customer acquisition and high retentionHow being French/European became an advantage against US competitors Keywords AODocs, bootstrapping, Stéphan Donzé, enterprise sales, document management, SaaS, Google Workspace, cloud migration, product market fit, B2B 00:00:00 Intro 00:01:12 Bootstrapping vs VC backed 00:03:44 From services to SaaS 00:19:08 Landing the first customer  00:20:47 Why they turned down VC money 00:25:32 The 997 grind—four days on-site with customers every week 00:35:21 Why you can't have fast sales and high retention 00:40:33 Product-market fit Send me a message to let me know what you think!

    43min
  6. He Bootstrapped Wrike to $10M ARR—then exited for $2.2B. | Andrew Filev, Founder of Wrike & Zencoder

    25 DE AGO.

    He Bootstrapped Wrike to $10M ARR—then exited for $2.2B. | Andrew Filev, Founder of Wrike & Zencoder

    Andrew bootstrapped Wrike and grew it from 0 to a $2.2B exit by doing the exact opposite of what every startup book tells you. No pivots. No talking to customers before launch. No narrow niche. Just 17 years of relentless focus on one problem while everyone else was pivoting every 18 months.  In this episode, he breaks down exactly why bootstrapping saved his company (and why VC would have killed it), why he ignored customer development and just built in a bunker, and how manning the support phones himself became his secret product development weapon.  Now building Zencoder (AI coding agents), he shares why the future isn't about replacing developers but making every human "superhuman" at their job. This is mandatory listening for any founder questioning conventional startup wisdom. Why You Should Listen: Grew to $2.2B with no pivots for 17 years while competitors kept "failing fast"How he doubled revenue every year from $0 to $100M+ ARRWhy manning support phones himself was better than any customer development processWhy copycats helped Wrike grow fasterThe future of AI agentsKeywords: Wrike, Andrew Filev, bootstrapping, 2 billion exit, product market fit, SaaS, Zencoder, AI coding agents, no pivot strategy, collaboration software 00:00:00 Intro 00:03:30 Moving to Silicon Valley from Russia to build for millions 00:10:06 Going all-in after previous side projects failed 00:11:27 Why he never pivoted once in 17 years 00:18:47 Launching without talking to customers first 00:24:12 Manning support phones and discovering the real roadmap 00:29:01 When Microsoft Project, Basecamp, and Jira were the competition 00:34:31 The only job definition—double the business every year 00:54:16 Why Developers won't be replaced, and become superhuman 01:01:57 The $2.2B exit and making employees' dreams come true 01:04:36 Finding product-market fit at Zencoder vs Wrike 01:06:55 Focus on people—everything traces back to them Send me a message to let me know what you think!

    1h8min
  7. Q2 2025: The new Series A Bar is $3M ARR—& only 20% of seed startups make it. | Peter Walker, Head of Insights at Carta

    21 DE AGO.

    Q2 2025: The new Series A Bar is $3M ARR—& only 20% of seed startups make it. | Peter Walker, Head of Insights at Carta

    Peter Walker from Carta drops the hard data every founder needs. Based on actual cap table data from 1000s of startups, this Q2 update reveals the brutal new reality. It takes 2+ years to go from seed to A (up from 1.6), you need 3X the revenue you used to, and if you're not AI, you're getting half the attention.  But there's good news too—teams are finally getting leaner, exits are picking back up, and the worst of the funding winter might be behind us.  If you're raising in 2025, this is your reality check. Why You Should Listen: $3M ARR is the new Series A bar—& it takes 1 in 4 founders 3.5+ years to get thereHalf as many seed deals are getting done but at 20% higher valuations—you're either in the AI club or you're outFounders own just 56% after their first priced round and only 10% by Series D—every round costs more than you thinkKeywords: Carta data, Series A requirements, startup fundraising 2025, seed to Series A timeline, ARR benchmarks, AI startup valuations, bridge rounds, founder dilution, startup team size, venture capital trends Send me a message to let me know what you think!

    57min
  8. His Video AI app hit $10M+ ARR in Months—with 0 outbound sales. | Michael Lingelbach, Founder of Hedra

    18 DE AGO.

    His Video AI app hit $10M+ ARR in Months—with 0 outbound sales. | Michael Lingelbach, Founder of Hedra

    Hedra CEO Michael Lingelbach breaks down how his generative video app went from zero to millions of users and an eight-figure run rate in months — then deliberately slowed down to rebuild a V2 that enterprises would pay for. We dig into the prosumer-to-pro upsell, why free users are a false signal, and how a creator-seeded launch can outpull ad spend.  Michael shares the GTM that signs enterprise contracts every few days with no outbound, the exact moment he killed feature churn to ship a real workflow, and what to hire (and fire) in the first 10 people. If you’re building AI or any early product, this is a must-listen blueprint on getting from hype to revenue. Why You Should Listen How Hedra hit an 8-figure run rate in months — with a prosumer → enterprise wedgeThe “free user” trap: why signups ≠ demand and how to price for painWhen to pause growth to build V2 that actually sells (workflow > tech demo)A creator-led launch playbook that drives virality without paid influencersHiring early: bring in a talent lead fast, staff for speed, survive co-founder changesKeywordsAI video, generative AI, product market fit, Hedra, Michael Lingelbach, creator tools, PLG, enterprise SaaS, go to market, startup growth 00:00:00 Intro 00:02:25 Why he built his own proprietary models 00:10:19 Target use cases faceless channels marketers podcasts 00:15:31 Early hiring lessons 00:38:00 Free vs paid 00:51:03 V2 launch and shift to enterprise  00:53:46 Hitting eight figure run rate and scaling GTM Send me a message to let me know what you think!

    1h6min
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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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