He built Uber for parking & exited. Then raised $100M+. Here's his formula for finding product-market fit. | Shmulik Fishman, Founder of Argyle · podgraph
Shmulik Fishman says Argyle's first paying customer, Level Goals, paid $1 per verification, and Argyle had no paying customers until late 2019, a year after founding in 2018.
Fishman argues Argyle sells better, faster, cheaper versions of services businesses already pay for, so buyers need no new budget, while pilot customers should use the product free during design.
Argyle's $20m Series A followed a market analysis showing Equifax's roughly $2.7bn in income verification sits inside an estimated $11bn market, mostly still manual.
How Argyle Found Product-Market Fit After a Parking Startup Failed
Argyle found product-market fit by taking a slow, manual, paper-based verification market and selling a faster, cheaper version to buyers who already pay for it. Fishman's path ran from a failed parking business through crude early products, free pilots and founder-led sales. Proof of daily use by clients, plus a clear market size, then unlocked investors and enterprise customers.
Takeaways
Argyle sells a cheaper version of existing spend. Everything Argyle builds is a better, faster, cheaper, more automated version of something businesses already pay for, such as manual income verification. Buyers need no new budget, and Equifax's gap on gig income gave Argyle an opening.
A scrappy, low-tech MVP reached early users. Argyle's first version was a website where Uber drivers generated a certificate for a screenshot to show Avis clerks. Avis job posts asked for that resume, a deliberately crude route to the first few hundred users.
Give pilots free, charge at general release. Fishman gives pilot customers the product free while they help design it, and charges once a feature is in general release. Srugo ties this to half-baked hardware like the AI Pin, shipped with promised features.
Founder-led sales builds learning, so delay a VP of sales. Fishman was heavily involved in the first 100 clients, keeps sales lean, and calls himself a product manager masquerading as a CEO. Srugo says hiring a VP of sales too early stalls growth, and founder-led sales is a learning flywheel.
Startup weakness lets you ship rougher product. A startup lacks credibility with large enterprises, and Fishman sees that as an advantage because it can ship rougher product than big competitors. Buyers also find internal pitches easier once the product has already been tried.
Market sizing drove the Series A. Bain led a roughly $2.5m seed after a cold LinkedIn email. The $20m Series A followed about a year later, built on analysis that Equifax does about $2.7bn within an income verification market of about $11bn, mostly manual.
Product-market fit is daily use, and the real build comes later. Fishman defines fit as clients who keep using the product every day. Enterprise moves slowly, with 12 to 24 months to shift a main verification flow. Argyle rebuilt its API several times and is on v3.
From parking to Argyle
In 2014 Fishman and a cofounder built an Uber for parking in San Francisco. Users and investors liked it, but unit economics lost money because each car needed a human and a spot.
The company raised about $50m over several years. In 2016 it pivoted to fleet management software for renters such as Avis and Enterprise.
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That work showed Avis verified employment through phone banks and paperwork, and Equifax ran a large pre-employment screening business.
Argyle let gig drivers log into Uber or Lyft accounts so employers could check driving history and ratings.
Founded in 2018, Argyle won its first paying customers in late 2019. Level Goals paid $1 per verification for loans of $100 to gig workers.