A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
00:58:00 · Pablo Srugo, Jonathan Awad
[00:58:00] S1: Well, I think on the customer side, like you obviously have to know where the line is, but the way I think about it is if you're selling to a big company, there's so many layers behind the person you're talking to that you have to somehow enable them to go win for you. And if you're just like, hey, we're like, we just were born yesterday and we have zero customers, like, you know, then now they have to relay that information. They can't, because they'm keeping themselves, they're doing something wrong now. So you have to give them enough where they, you know, when they get asked that question, hey, like, are they talking to anybody else? They can be like, yeah, well, they told me they were talking to a lot of people. I haven't looked at it, but they told, [00:58:32] S0: okay, good enough. Let's move on, right? It is what it is. Some of our customers or prospects see this like, [00:58:38] S1: it's fine. [00:58:39] S0: It is what it is. We have hundreds of customers now. It is what it is. For the founders, for the people that this matters, if you're not massaging it a bit, you're not trying. Your product is not magic 99.99999% of the time. It's not that easy to use. It's not that easy to understand. I'm telling you, you're not the exception. You have to inspire confidence. You have to get something to work with. And if you're just like, yeah, no idea what we're doing. No one else has tried it. Please waste your, not waste your time, but like, please give us your super valuable time to improve our product for free. We're not giving you advisor equity. We're not.
00:58:39 · Jonathan Awad, Pablo Srugo
[00:58:39] S0: It is what it is. We have hundreds of customers now. It is what it is. For the founders, for the people that this matters, if you're not massaging it a bit, you're not trying. Your product is not magic 99.99999% of the time. It's not that easy to use. It's not that easy to understand. I'm telling you, you're not the exception. You have to inspire confidence. You have to get something to work with. And if you're just like, yeah, no idea what we're doing. No one else has tried it. Please waste your, not waste your time, but like, please give us your super valuable time to improve our product for free. We're not giving you advisor equity. We're not. [00:59:18] S1: Try it out. [00:59:19] S0: And then tell all your friends. Why would they do that? Like genuinely, why would they do that? It's stupid. Don't do that. [00:59:27] S1: Any last piece of advice, like top piece of advice? I mean, we mentioned a lot of things. I think we've delivered a lot of value, but anything else top of mind for founders, early stage founders looking for product market fit.
00:59:27 · Pablo Srugo, Jonathan Awad
[00:59:27] S1: Any last piece of advice, like top piece of advice? I mean, we mentioned a lot of things. I think we've delivered a lot of value, but anything else top of mind for founders, early stage founders looking for product market fit. [00:59:36] S0: Things that I do that help me are very simple and nobody does it. I have little post-it notes everywhere around my apartment, on the mirrors, on anywhere like on my desk. And they're very happy, as for inspirational, affirmative things. They're such a useful thing to do. If you don't have super positive self-talk, you're not going to make it. If you can't overcome anxiety of any little thing that's giving you anxiety, it's really going to be uphill, really difficult. You should understand that, especially if you've raised any money at all, you're in the top 1% of people in the world. This is amazing. You're so lucky. Like just be grateful. It's painful, but so what? You need that perspective to manage and to survive. [01:00:19] S1: Like it's, [01:00:19] S0: you're, you got to get out of your head, have a few friends that you talk to [01:00:23] S1: and just like vent it out [01:00:24] S0: and then keep it happy and remember all the wins. Like everything's a win. Anything's a win. You got to just say super, super positive because it's a long journey and there's going to be crap. Like crap is not a bug. It's a feature. Bad things happen normally. So if you just like get over it really fast and take it as a gift, then you're going to crush and you have to do that to crush, especially in sales, especially if you've
01:00:24 · Jonathan Awad, Pablo Srugo
[01:00:24] S0: and then keep it happy and remember all the wins. Like everything's a win. Anything's a win. You got to just say super, super positive because it's a long journey and there's going to be crap. Like crap is not a bug. It's a feature. Bad things happen normally. So if you just like get over it really fast and take it as a gift, then you're going to crush and you have to do that to crush, especially in sales, especially if you've [01:00:45] S1: never done it before. [01:00:46] S0: It's like, don't worry about it. It's fine. [01:00:48] S1: You know, [01:00:48] S0: I came up with this concept called swag selling, which is sell without acting greedy, S-W-A-G, but with swag and with confidence. So without acting greedy is like, look, we've made something amazing. If you want it, great. If you don't, I don't care. Let's just be friends and like we'll figure it out. Everyone else wants it. Tons of other people are using it. We're so busy. It's fine. If you don't want the thing your competitor has, if you don't want the thing that's going to get you promoted or make you look amazing at work, that's fine. [01:01:16] S1: I don't care [01:01:16] S0: because other people are using it. I'm so busy and I don't care. But like we can be friends and like this can be great. And that energy and that confidence is what's necessary to get through the day, get through sales. And if you're not doing that, whoo, it's tough. You really have to just like avoid anxiety by all means necessary and like do the thing, be grateful and have fun.
01:01:16 · Jonathan Awad, Pablo Srugo
[01:01:16] S0: because other people are using it. I'm so busy and I don't care. But like we can be friends and like this can be great. And that energy and that confidence is what's necessary to get through the day, get through sales. And if you're not doing that, whoo, it's tough. You really have to just like avoid anxiety by all means necessary and like do the thing, be grateful and have fun. [01:01:33] S1: Love it, dude. It's been amazing. Thanks for jumping on the show. [01:01:36] S0: Heck yeah. Thanks, man. [01:01:37] S1: You remember like the first person who told you about Bitcoin? The first person who told you about Uber? You want to be that person because being first is cool. So be a cool person and tell your founder friends. Send it to them on WhatsApp. Put it in a WhatsApp group. Put it on a Slack channel. Let people know about the show. Let people know about this episode. Don't let somebody else beat you to the punch and share it with your founder friends first. Remember what Ricky Bobby said. If you ain't first, you're last.