A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
00:00:00 · Jonathan Awad, Pablo Srugo
[00:00:00] S0: When I felt true product market fit, it was this moment upon reflection, like we just won another deal and we're going through the pipeline, we're going through HubSpot and we realized that we had just won the last 20 deals in a row. People in the beginning are buying the founder. They're buying you. So if you're just only talking about your product, [00:00:18] S1: they're like, [00:00:18] S0: well, I don't know you that well. I don't trust you. You're going to be there for me. You're going to respond in two minutes. If something goes wrong, is your SLA 20 minutes? Are you going to duck and dive and cover? I don't know you. So all I ever did when I really kind of realized this reciprocity in humans was I was like, well, if I become as close as possible to as many buyers as possible and I'm valuable to them and I give them something outside of just our product, they'll give us a chance. And that's what we did, which is basically get introduced to tons of investors for the first time and plan out all the meetings like a month in advance and then segment them out week, week, week, week. And that's what we did. What I didn't know, which is why the story is crazy, week one, SVB crashed. Oh God. That's product market fit. Product market fit. Product market fit. I called it the product market fit question. Product market fit. Product market fit. Product market fit. Product market fit. I mean, the name of the show is product market fit. Do you think the product market fit show has product market fit? Because if you do, then there's something you just have to do.
00:00:18 · Jonathan Awad, Pablo Srugo
[00:00:18] S0: well, I don't know you that well. I don't trust you. You're going to be there for me. You're going to respond in two minutes. If something goes wrong, is your SLA 20 minutes? Are you going to duck and dive and cover? I don't know you. So all I ever did when I really kind of realized this reciprocity in humans was I was like, well, if I become as close as possible to as many buyers as possible and I'm valuable to them and I give them something outside of just our product, they'll give us a chance. And that's what we did, which is basically get introduced to tons of investors for the first time and plan out all the meetings like a month in advance and then segment them out week, week, week, week. And that's what we did. What I didn't know, which is why the story is crazy, week one, SVB crashed. Oh God. That's product market fit. Product market fit. Product market fit. I called it the product market fit question. Product market fit. Product market fit. Product market fit. Product market fit. I mean, the name of the show is product market fit. Do you think the product market fit show has product market fit? Because if you do, then there's something you just have to do. [00:01:15] S1: You have to take out your phone. You have to leave the show five stars. It lets us reach more founders [00:01:20] S0: and it lets us get better guests. [00:01:22] S1: Thank you. Jonathan, welcome to the show, dude. [00:01:27] S0: Hey, good seeing you, Pablo. Excited to have you here, man.
00:01:27 · Jonathan Awad, Pablo Srugo
[00:01:27] S0: Hey, good seeing you, Pablo. Excited to have you here, man. [00:01:30] S1: I mean, just raised a $20 million Series A. Started this about three years ago, which used to be like insane speed. And now it's like it's three years, the new decade. It's just crazy, man. The speed of some of these things, dude. But in my books, three years to an A is already on a huge, fast trajectory. [00:01:46] S0: So yeah, no, I really appreciate it. Especially when you look on Twitter and some people live on Twitter, some people live on LinkedIn. It seems like people are doing $40, $50, $60 million raises in six months. But this is like a very small percentage of companies. The rest of the companies right now are like every day grinding it out. And it's been super fun at Baselayer. I mean, I had this recently. [00:02:08] S1: I sent a deal to a friend of mine for a Series A. And I think the company started like, I think it's like 22, right? So it's like four years old. And he's like, dude, like they've been around for a long time. Like what happened? I'm like, man, like really? Like, you know, the first year and a half, you might just be like in discovery mode, not doing anything, right? It's just, it's wild.
00:02:08 · Pablo Srugo, Jonathan Awad
[00:02:08] S1: I sent a deal to a friend of mine for a Series A. And I think the company started like, I think it's like 22, right? So it's like four years old. And he's like, dude, like they've been around for a long time. Like what happened? I'm like, man, like really? Like, you know, the first year and a half, you might just be like in discovery mode, not doing anything, right? It's just, it's wild. [00:02:23] S0: The expectations change like crazy. They definitely do. And the best and worst part about it is because we're just so in it, you feel the expectations changing year over year over year. What made a lot of sense in 2023 is so different in 24 and 25 and 26, especially on things like team sizes. Back before, you know, it's like, oh, so how big are you guys now? And you never really knew what they were getting at. And I was like, well, you mean revenue? Do you mean valuation? Do you mean team size? Like, what are you getting at? Very often they mean team size. And team size was this weird kind of like badge of honor. Oh, you have a hundred people. You have 200 people. Whoa. [00:03:02] S1: And now. [00:03:03] S0: The opposite. The badge of honor is like, whoa, you have 20 people and you're doing all this. And so we're super proud of our team size personally. How many are you guys? We're 30 people. We lost eight figures in revenue with 20 people. Love it.
00:03:03 · Jonathan Awad, Pablo Srugo
[00:03:03] S0: The opposite. The badge of honor is like, whoa, you have 20 people and you're doing all this. And so we're super proud of our team size personally. How many are you guys? We're 30 people. We lost eight figures in revenue with 20 people. Love it. [00:03:17] S1: We're going to get into all that. We have like two tactical deep dives we want to go into. Actually, we're going to talk about because you saw you still selling five figure deals and moving up to six figure deals. And you've got this like hack to deliver value to champions and get credibility with enterprise buyers. We're going to go deep into that. We're going to go deep into what you've done to grade just to generate kind of insane top of funnel and something that everybody could do. So we're going to talk about that at the end. But the first question which we always start with is tell me about the moment when you felt like you'd found true product market fit.
00:03:17 · Pablo Srugo, Jonathan Awad
[00:03:17] S1: We're going to get into all that. We have like two tactical deep dives we want to go into. Actually, we're going to talk about because you saw you still selling five figure deals and moving up to six figure deals. And you've got this like hack to deliver value to champions and get credibility with enterprise buyers. We're going to go deep into that. We're going to go deep into what you've done to grade just to generate kind of insane top of funnel and something that everybody could do. So we're going to talk about that at the end. But the first question which we always start with is tell me about the moment when you felt like you'd found true product market fit. [00:03:46] S0: Yeah, I love this question. I actually just wrote a post on the best questions to ask founders in interviews. Like when you're actually trying to interview for the company, not just like something like this. But I love when employees and future employees ask me like this particular question because it's so fun. When I felt true product market fit, it was this moment upon reflection like we just won another deal and we're going through the pipeline. We're going through HubSpot and we realized that we had just won the last 20 deals in a row. Like no matter who the competitor was, no matter the situation, the ICP, you know, the different products that we're selling, we just won back to back to back to back. [00:04:24] S1: No lost deals. No no's in 20.