A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
00:30:50 · Pablo Srugo
[00:30:50] S0: A lot of, a lot of stars get outta the building by having 10 interviews where they try to sell, you know, people on there . And that's getting, and that's not getting outta the building, I think is part of the point, right? Getting outta the building is getting as close to the customer's day to day , in your case, doing the job, right, but getting as close to it as possible. Yeah. Before you have some clear preconceptions about this is what I'm building and I hope people say yes when I try out to them . Mm-Hmm ,
00:31:15 · Mike Murchison, Pablo Srugo
[00:31:15] S1: <affirmative> , and this is the difference again, between commitment and attachment, right? If you're attached to how you think it's gonna work, I think your ego gets in the way. But if you're committed to solving the problem, the way you run those interviews, you're actually looking for someone to say no to you. Like you're, you're looking to create an iron , like just a, a, an airtight thesis that you know is that you can defend over and over again. 'cause you know it's right. And you're seeking the no , like you crave it because, because again, you're committed and you're not attached. You know? And , and I , I just to build on the , I think this , the other thing I was gonna say is like, you know , it's not like for us at least, that we knew this was gonna work. We felt the pain, the solution seemed like it was sort of a peer because the pain, it was so acute, we didn't really know. We then tested it. The reason we knew Ada worked in the early days or was going to work, 'cause we didn't get fired, you know, we, we ran this software and our managers, you know, they, they didn't care. Like they, they loved the fact that response times went down. They couldn't tell the difference between our responses and our software's responses. [00:32:23] S0: So you substituted yourself , colleagues [00:32:24] S1: Were having [00:32:24] S0: By software that still working as agents.
00:32:24 · Pablo Srugo, Mike Murchison
[00:32:24] S0: By software that still working as agents. [00:32:27] S1: That's right. So it's, you know, we, what , it's, it's a classic experiment. You know, we, there , we, we held one variable fixed, we manipulated another, and we saw that the, the results were the same and we knew that, that the software was, was validated. You know, I think that that, that was, that was a big moment for us. But, you know, I think that the, the , the point being that this, this, the way that these tests manifest , um, I think it's different in every, in every context, but so long again, is you're committed to solving the problem and not attached to how you get there. I think your one's ability to identify different types of tests that are useful becomes a little bit easier. [00:33:06] S0: So you've validated the problem . You've gone in, you've really learned what it's like to be an agent. You've built software, you started to replace yourself. When do you package the software and sell it to , to your first customer?
00:33:18 · Mike Murchison
[00:33:18] S1: Well, that's a good question. We , um, not long after that, then it became the next problem to solve is how do we get people to rec , how do we identify people who also have this problem and help them recognize that we can essentially solve it for them? And that we did through a, you know, initially I'd say two things. One was a lot of, a lot of outreach to friends and friends of friends companies. Uh, and the other was through a lot of cold emailing and, and messaging iteration, you know , on the, on the former, this is where I think it's really important , uh, that our communities support one another. I mean , this is, I think a , a core, a a core reason that Ada was validated in the early days after this period we just talked about was because, you know, the, the founders of companies, you know, that we all know today, the, you know, the Eva and Allen Lau from Wattpad, the Kirk Simpson from Wave , you know, the, the Mike ENSs from Wealthsimple , they all responded to our email and they said, I'd be happy to introduce you to our head of customer service. And they gave us an net bat . And it's not that, it's not that they gave us the deal, but they gave us the opportunity to get in front of the decision makers within their companies. And I think that we as startup founders in our community startup founders and and investors in our ecosystem, this is the role we, we need to play. It's a very simple decision that we can all make , uh, to support the future of our, of the Canadian tech ecosystem. We need to give each other more at bats. And , um, I think that that was, that was a , a huge, it was the learning from those that really informed the second thing, the messaging which allowed us to acquire customers that we didn't have any connection to. Love
00:35:06 · Pablo Srugo
[00:35:06] S0: That. So maybe as a final question, you know, you'd launched Volley before you'd gone some traction, you said it wasn't a complete failure and now you'd launched ADA and gone some traction. When did you know that ADA was the thing like that this was way different than what you had launched before? That this had really, really big potential.
00:35:22 · Mike Murchison
[00:35:22] S1: It was a pretty big deal when we made a dollar of revenue <laugh> . And , uh, I had not generated a dollar in SaaS revenue in my entire career before ada . And so the per one of my personal goals was, you know, $1 literally was make a dollar on the internet. And um, so that was one, that was one milestone. I was like, this, maybe this is gonna work. <laugh> , we , we , we can make $1 and we can make two. I I think, you know, there was no singular moment where, where, you know, it became clear that, you know, that that ADA was going to , uh, continue to , uh, succeed or continue to grow. You know, I, I don't know if I'll ever feel like there is, I, I, I feel like, you know, even now, like I, I feel so excited to be in a position now as, as a , a co-founder of, of ada where, you know, we're now in this privileged position where we can, we can look long term and make investments long term and really build for the future that we really, that we , we really are committed to realizing. But, you know, I, I really do believe that the, you know, the , the , the problems we're gonna solve ahead will really dwarf what we've done so far. You know, I don't think there's any like, singular moment where maybe there will be in the future where like, you know , we feel like, Hey, that was the, this, this is where we knew things all came together. But , um, it , I guess it's hard to say that maybe, maybe, maybe in a , in , in a couple seasons from now, I'll have a different reflection on that when I'm , um, lemonade is a little bit, little bit , uh, bigger and I'm, I'm thinking even further out. Maybe