A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
00:05:11 · Pablo Srugo, Jonathan Awad
[00:05:11] S1: It's a crazy hack. I mean, it really is a crazy hack, YC. Just to go on a tangent, it's like you get crazy momentum on sales because you sell to the batch and then you get crazy momentum on fundraising because like the supply demand is so off because they throw like a thousand investors at you. So it's a nice little head start for sure. [00:05:26] S0: Yeah. And that head start can fade though. And so, you know, when you do 20 in a row, this was like after the first like 20, 30 deals. Like, all right, cool. Like a bunch of the early ones and we'll get into the early ones were, you know, maybe not as replicable and then just back to back to back to back. And these are big companies too. You know, we went from five figure to six figure. One of our first 50 deals was a seven figure deal. Shout out to FIS, global public company and one of the largest fintechs in America, one of the largest fintechs in the world. And it was one of our first 50 customers. So it was awesome. And that's the moment I was just like, we are here and we figured it out. You know, Tim, our co-founder, CTO, him and the engineering team, they really built something super durable, enterprise ready. And, you know, we've had really no trend. I think one customer has turned all time [00:06:14] S1: at Basel. Crazy. I normally ask follow-up questions about like, why is that PMF? But it's like 25 figure plus deals in a row, not a single one lost. It's pretty in your face. I mean, it's kind of hard to deny at that point. When was this, by the way,
00:06:14 · Pablo Srugo, Jonathan Awad
[00:06:14] S1: at Basel. Crazy. I normally ask follow-up questions about like, why is that PMF? But it's like 25 figure plus deals in a row, not a single one lost. It's pretty in your face. I mean, it's kind of hard to deny at that point. When was this, by the way, [00:06:26] S0: timeline wise? So we went live April 2024, a production live, first API customer. It was like early 25, which feels like an eternity ago. [00:06:37] S1: The world changes fast, man. It's crazy. [00:06:39] S0: But it was like, in the beginning, you know, you get a few customers here, you get a few customers there. There were a lot of deals that were kind of like pending, if that makes sense. A lot of kinks that we had to iron out and shout out to our first, you know, real few customers. Super patient with us, giving us tons of feedback, saw how fast we moved. And something that I always say is one of the reasons people love to work with us is I have an internal SLA of we need to get back to customers on Slack and email in under 20 minutes. Wow. Aggressive. When you put that tone, I mean, I'm, if I, I go for two minutes, one minute. [00:07:14] S1: Yeah, sure, sure.
00:07:14 · Pablo Srugo, Jonathan Awad
[00:07:14] S1: Yeah, sure, sure. [00:07:15] S0: Like I love to, it's just delight. It's this, whoa, did the CEO, did the CTO, did the engineer, one of the engineers just respond to me in a few minutes, but the 20 minutes is super doable and it's all about the act. I saw this on Twitter yesterday, somebody brought it up. Someone from A16Z brought it up of like, act. Are they saying acknowledged, acknowledged, or act like in disgust? But the act is a, is a classic engineering thing. Like act, acknowledge, I hear you, I'll get back to you. And there's just so much delight there. And so in our first few customers, it was all about just get back to them so fast. Yes, yes, I hear you. We see it. We're going to work on it. And then as fast as you can turn around, as, possible. And I think that's why we got so much good feedback in the beginning from all those customers. And then we were able to hit this, you know, product market fit probably like just within the year, like early the following year. I don't think you can really justifiably feel product market fit until there's this like kind of overwhelming volume of evidence. You know, some people get there even faster, [00:08:15] S1: but for us, I mean, [00:08:15] S0: it's financial services, right? So financial services, they're not going to make a one month, two month decision, two week decision. Snap decision of changing their whole compliance program, their whole risk program. You know,
00:08:15 · Jonathan Awad, Pablo Srugo
[00:08:15] S0: it's financial services, right? So financial services, they're not going to make a one month, two month decision, two week decision. Snap decision of changing their whole compliance program, their whole risk program. You know, [00:08:27] S1: the funny thing about customer success, you're talking about like getting back to people quickly. I find it's the most, out of all the things you need to do to get customers, win customers, retention, referrals, all that stuff, right? You think about sales, marketing. Customer success is like the most in your control. Like everybody could have this SLA. Everybody could reply under 20 minutes if they just did it. You know what I mean? And the impact that that has on retention and referrals is massive, right? Like you tell people about the fact that you love this company because whenever you have a problem, they just get back to you right away. You know, you're never going to churn from that if you're getting any value from the product, you're not going anywhere. [00:09:04] S0: The delta between expectation and reality is the happiness delta. I've always thought of it like that. They expect this, you give them this, and it could just be as simple as, I remember frustrated Slack, I hear you, thank you so much for calling that out, we're going to get on it right away. And you respond right away and you don't shy away [00:09:24] S1: from it, you don't duck,
00:09:24 · Pablo Srugo, Jonathan Awad
[00:09:24] S1: from it, you don't duck, [00:09:25] S0: you don't cover. You're just like, yes, I see you, I hear you, thank you so much, we're on it. And you take that punch in the face with a smile because feedback is a gift. It's really just up to you and how you handle it. And you know, the other thing, this is something I've noticed is like, the faster you reply, the more you can get away with what you just said. In other words, if I reply in a minute, I can tell you, [00:09:45] S1: hey, we're on it, we'll get back to you because it's like, okay, you just got it. If you wait a day, now you're kind of stuck because you kind of have to resolve it. You can't get back a day later and be like, we'll be on it. It's like, what do you mean? You just saw it? What's wrong with you?
00:09:55 · Jonathan Awad
[00:09:55] S0: It's just so human. And I love that. You're so right, by the way. The faster you respond to an email, the faster you respond to a Slack, the less it can say and the less you can do in that moment and the more you get away with. And so I love that SLA, like onboarding at Baselayer employees and I'm like, hey, look, we can get into the product. We can get into the industry. We get into all that stuff. Here's how we operate because this is excellent and this is what excellence is. And I've seen it before. We have investment banking background. Investment banking, it's so normal. SLA 20 minutes. SLA two minutes. Yeah, right. What else are you doing? That's the attitude. What are you, sleeping? Yeah, exactly. Who said you were allowed to sleep? Like literally, that was the energy. No matter what time of night, no matter if it's on the weekend. Weekend? What do you mean? It's just Saturday. And so I brought that energy plus, you know, the tech side of things, like a little bit more fun side of things. I'm not sure of being like this militant investment banking thing to the company. It's an expression though of, it was so good how reliable they were, how consistent they were, how on top of things they were. You knew you were going to get an answer. I loved that. And I was, I admired it so much. And it was just so excellent the way to operate that I totally agree of like, you can be like, act, we'll get back to you. And then you have like way more time and way more grace. Totally agree. So let's go back to the beginning.