A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
00:15:27 · Pablo Srugo, Rand Fishkin
[00:15:27] S0: What were some of the big competitors coming up at that point? [00:15:29] S1: The two big ones were SEMrush and arus , but there were another, another 10 or 20 software as a service businesses that were all sort of, you know, nipping at heels and getting to the five to $10 million revenue size. But SEMrush, I think in, maybe it was 20 17, 18, somewhere around there, I think they went public and their numbers showed, you know, like $120 million in revenue a year. And they're way over that now. [00:15:51] S0: Yeah. What are they now? I'm just looking at a market cap , $2 billion company. There you go. <laugh>. So that was the opportunity. [00:15:57] S1: If I had been more persuasive and a sort of better CEO , um, and remain CEO and like done a great job, I, I think Moz could have been in a, in that position or a similar position. Right? Certainly in 2013, for example, if you were to survey 10,000 SEOs and say, what software do you use and what , what , what do you recommend most Moz would've been number one and M 20 18, 5 years later, Moz was probably number three. Um, and today, I don't even know if it's number five.
00:15:57 · Rand Fishkin, Pablo Srugo
[00:15:57] S1: If I had been more persuasive and a sort of better CEO , um, and remain CEO and like done a great job, I, I think Moz could have been in a, in that position or a similar position. Right? Certainly in 2013, for example, if you were to survey 10,000 SEOs and say, what software do you use and what , what , what do you recommend most Moz would've been number one and M 20 18, 5 years later, Moz was probably number three. Um, and today, I don't even know if it's number five. [00:16:27] S0: What do you think about, I mean, in your case, like you, you kind of get , you had your own personal reasons for, let's say, moving away from being CEO . Like now you've had like enough time to just think, think about all that. Maybe in , not necessarily in your case, but more generally, what was it like to not be the CEO of your, of the company you founded? Right. And I say that as someone who, we went through something similar to Jim Track . I was COO, so I wasn't CEO , but I co-founded with my co-founder, who was CEO . And at one point we transitioned, brought in a professional CEO . And I know for him it was almost impossible. He was just like, I can't, he, he ended up leaving like quickly. I was fine 'cause I was already used to that role. But it's like, how do you go from just, you have the final say, you know, every time. And sure. You delegate and all these sort of things to, holy crap, I don't have that <laugh> anymore. Like, it's tough, you
00:17:11 · Rand Fishkin, Pablo Srugo
[00:17:11] S1: Know , I remember having some conversations with , um, with the CEO after I had stepped down and was like, Hey, if the company we're doing great and you were overruling my decisions, I think I'd be like, well, hey, you know, she's crushing it, it's doing a great job. So I , I'll sit back and enjoy the ride. And if we were sort of on the same page and she were like listening to me and doing the things that, that we agreed were , were the best and the company wasn't doing well, I'd be like, well, all right , let you know. Let's put our heads together and keep, keep hammering away at this and try and come up with something. But the combination of that feeling not listened to and poor performance, oh , that is just, you know, emotional and, and psychological killer. So that, that really sucked. I think it sucked for her too. I don't, I think she had a terrible time. I don't envy her experience either. I, I don't think that was fun for anybody. So , uh, in 2018, I left , uh, Moz , I started, well , <laugh> okay, opinions vary. Pablo one kind toand interpretation is , uh, he was frustrated and felt like he wasn't contributing as much as he could. And so he left to go start another company [00:18:17] S0: Graciously. Yeah. [00:18:18] S1: Yeah. Yes. And another interpretation is , um, the leadership of that company was sick and tired of his and wanted him gone. <laugh> , um, [00:18:28] S0: Walked you to the door and you took the last step . Sorry , <laugh> . Yeah, yeah, yeah,
00:18:28 · Pablo Srugo, Rand Fishkin
[00:18:28] S0: Walked you to the door and you took the last step . Sorry , <laugh> . Yeah, yeah, yeah, [00:18:32] S1: Yeah. I think I wrote in, in the blog post that I wrote about my departure, which was, which was like the next morning on SparkToro's website , um, which I had started that night that , um, that post said on a scale of zero to 10, where zero is, you know, escorted outta the building by security, and 10 is like, everybody hugs and it's tears and happiness, and congratulations. My departure was like a four. [00:18:56] S0: I , that's common. I think there's few cases very common . I mean, like Google is one where they actually, you know, very much graciously gave it off to , to Eric Schmidt or whatever. But in general, CEO goes from CEO to not CEO , you know, again, the company has to do, I mean, Google <laugh> did exceptionally well. So I think everybody was pretty happy with that outcome. But yeah, I think in most cases it looks more like the gym track or, or like what happened to Moz where , uh, it's, you know , yeah, a three to five out of
00:18:56 · Pablo Srugo, Rand Fishkin
[00:18:56] S0: I , that's common. I think there's few cases very common . I mean, like Google is one where they actually, you know, very much graciously gave it off to , to Eric Schmidt or whatever. But in general, CEO goes from CEO to not CEO , you know, again, the company has to do, I mean, Google <laugh> did exceptionally well. So I think everybody was pretty happy with that outcome. But yeah, I think in most cases it looks more like the gym track or, or like what happened to Moz where , uh, it's, you know , yeah, a three to five out of [00:19:21] S1: 10 messy , messy , ugly . That's right . You , I think the, the heartbreaking thing about a lot of it is, you know, Geraldine and I, my wife and I have this conversation, have had it a couple of times where, where we're like, gosh, you know, if we could go back in time and Moz failed completely, like, it just, you know, kind of went to zero. It never sold, didn't come worth anything, but all those relationships were preserved. Like everybody had stayed on the same page, fighting the good fight together, going down with the ship together, you know, and we were still going out to dinners together and looking after each other's kids and going on vacations and being like, Hey, you know, we, we tried our best and I still love you. I would, I would take that deal, huh? I would take that deal in a heartbeat. [00:20:05] S0: Malls worked out for you, I would think as a shareholder, [00:20:07] S1: Yes. And I think for, for Geraldine and I alone, nobody else. [00:20:13] S0: I see. So we,
00:20:13 · Pablo Srugo, Rand Fishkin
[00:20:13] S0: I see. So we, [00:20:14] S1: You know , I had done, I had done, over the years, I had done a , an intentional sort of, you know, tough negotiating job of retaining a tremendous amount of my shares in the company. So I think at the, at the end of the company's life, I still own , you know, Geraldine and I had 18% of the company, 17%, something like that, which is very, very high for a f for a founder, especially a founder who's no longer at the business. But , uh, when the company sold a ton of people's shares were underwater, they, they lost money working at the company, which me off so badly. I wanna say every swear that there is , right? [00:20:47] S0: Because they had what options that were worthless or RSUs that they bought into or something. Okay. [00:20:52] S1: Exactly. Which you have to pay taxes on those options when you execute them. And then if the money is not worth anything, like, you technically get the credit, I guess, towards future tax payments. Sure. The [00:21:02] S0: Tax laws have <laugh> .