Founders in Arms
01:02:50 · Rajat Suri, Immad Akhund, Jean-Denis Greze
[01:02:50] S1: well. Well, [01:02:53] S0: thankfully, launched in 2019, and the world was not so crazy. So there was not really any good business new bank for a long time after we launched. So I think, actually, Jean is probably the best one to answer this. [01:03:09] S2: I don't think we've won enough to answer it. I was... It's funny that... Not funny, but you're not quite answering the question, but I... You know, if you ask me, someone's gonna start a bank in 2019, I [01:03:21] S0: would be like, what are [01:03:22] S2: you doing? Like, you know, there's lots of banks out there. If Chase is a very capable company with great interest.
01:03:22 · Jean-Denis Greze, Immad Akhund
[01:03:22] S2: you doing? Like, you know, there's lots of banks out there. If Chase is a very capable company with great interest. [01:03:28] S0: And and I would... I guess, as a as a maybe, like, a more direct thing because, you know, even if there wasn't that many new banks, that would do businesses, there were one other banks. And, also, you you still have to win people's attention. Like, you have to, like, do something that'd okay. I think it kinda ties to broad market, but, I guess, In my experience with Mercury and Mercury's company, we also had product market then towards the end. Like, when you really have strong product market then, like, the market is pulling you, and, actually, like, you don't have to work that hard to go through the noise, which isn't, like, a very fulfilling answer as a founder. I'm just saying, like, make something good. But, like, it is kinda... At least my reality has been, like, you make something compellingly good enough, and then, like, the... For the first year, we grew, and we had to do nothing to grow. Like, we just had to, like, keep up with the scale, and we grew, like, 40% a month. So it's not really fulfilling answer because, like, you can't make that happen necessarily. But, like, at least my experience with SMB and all consumer is, like, when you have product market fit, like, you you... Like, the product itself is, like, the thing that's getting through the noise. [01:04:41] S2: And then you can
01:04:41 · Jean-Denis Greze, Immad Akhund, Rajat Suri, S8
[01:04:41] S2: And then you can [01:04:42] S0: talk about, like, what are the factors that makes, like, a strong product market fit, which, I guess, I could I could entertain her, but it's a longer story. [01:04:50] S1: Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of elements to it. Right? Sometimes it could be a launch that gets people attention. Sometimes it could be, like, winning a major customer. Like, for when I asked them for Presto or when we won Applebee's, We have to put our tablets on their tables. That's when we... That's when everyone started taking notice of us. It's like, oh, you know, big chain is using you guys now. Right? And so, like, you know, there there tends to be moments, and you never know when that moment will come. It could come five years into your journey as it did with Presto. Right? It took many years to get to that moment. And so you never know when things will will break out. I mean, you could look at companies like Hugging Face. Right? And, you know, their winding journey to get into product market fit and took many years, and they did and many pivots in. So... But you are looking for those moments, and when those moments happen, you gotta capitalize on them. It was happening [01:05:37] S0: with Town. [01:05:37] S1: Right? So... [01:05:41] S2: Go ahead. [01:05:42] S8: You know, how do you define the success, like, metrics internally and externally? Like, for example, do your business for Town? Like, what is the ROI that you're demonstrating? And other metrics, it's very different with AI native.
01:05:42 · S8, Immad Akhund
[01:05:42] S8: You know, how do you define the success, like, metrics internally and externally? Like, for example, do your business for Town? Like, what is the ROI that you're demonstrating? And other metrics, it's very different with AI native. [01:05:56] S0: So the question was how do you define success in one of the metrics? I have, like, maybe a controversial opinion, but the only thing that matters is how much worse profit you're making. So I feel like people can spend a lot of time justifying success in lots of different metrics and, like, your core metrics should be gross profit. You can have, like, secondary KPIs, but maybe it's controversial. Do you
01:05:56 · Immad Akhund, Jean-Denis Greze
[01:05:56] S0: So the question was how do you define success in one of the metrics? I have, like, maybe a controversial opinion, but the only thing that matters is how much worse profit you're making. So I feel like people can spend a lot of time justifying success in lots of different metrics and, like, your core metrics should be gross profit. You can have, like, secondary KPIs, but maybe it's controversial. Do you [01:06:18] S2: think that's controversial? I mean, I think in... Yeah. The world's gross profits. No. No. No. No. So I was... Like, we just... We only look at, like, revenue and willingness today. Okay. Like, I think, you know, I think we're not yet at the the gross profit stage, but we will be hopefully one day. But for me, it's it's willingness today. It's... It tells you very quickly whether you build a feature that you try to charge for, do people value it or not. It... You we have a seven day trial, so we find out pretty damn quickly if people are willing to pay when we try a new marketing campaign, when we, you know, incentivize a certain new sharing flow that should go viral, when we introduce a feature that's cost extra tokens. Like, we found out really quickly whether people are are willing to do that. And the second one for us is NRR, which might be different for other people, but it's not just initial willing to to pay, but are are are you willing to pay more over time? Because that tells us we're going deeper into providing value to you. You're finding more things to automate in your work. So those are the two main ones for us.
01:07:18 · Immad Akhund, S3
[01:07:18] S0: I would I would add. I was maybe being too reductive. I think especially early on, like, retention churn is, like, also super important, which, like, NRL kinda speaks to it. But, you know, you wanna have... I I did... Like, very high retention and, like, something that, like, you know, maybe everyone knows this, but, you know, like, in d d thirty, like, thirty days later, what percentage are still using it? Sixty days later, you want that to tail off and, ideally, tail off, like, very high. Capital. [01:07:52] S3: You mentioned very briefly this, like, from a marketing perspective, this verticalization that you wanted to be the... That each of them should see it as AI for this category. [01:08:02] S0: But I imagine most of the [01:08:03] S3: categories you're going after has some kind of, like, AI competitor, whether it's, you know, AI for car dealerships or AI for investment banking would like to implement their beta or, like, AI for customers involved and so on. So, like, do you see it as effectively competing in, 20 different verticals? Or how how are you thinking about [01:08:21] S0: --.