A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
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
00:36:55 · Pablo Srugo
[00:36:55] S0: If you've listened to this episode and the show and you like it, I have a huge favor to ask for you. Well, it's actually a really small favor , but it has huge impact. But whichever app you're listening to this episode on, take It Out, go to Product Market Fit Show and leave a review, please. It's going to help. It's not just gonna help me to be clear. It's going to help other founders discover this show because the algorithms, whether it's Spotify, whether it's Apple, whether it's any other podcast player, one of the big things they look at is frequency of reviews. It's quantity of reviews. And the reality is, if all of you listening right now, left reviews, we would have thousands of reviews. So please take literally a minute, even if you're just writing like, great podcast, or I love this podcast, whatever it is, just write a few words. Obviously the longer the better, the more detailed the better. But write anything, leave five stars and you'll be helping me. But most importantly, many other founders just like you, discover the show. Thank you.