A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
00:31:26 · Pablo Srugo
[00:31:26] S1: So this is like a selling through events strategy. And the LinkedIn thing is interesting. On the one hand, I'm like, is that just a new channel that's going to get crowded like every other channel? Which it might. But the second piece of it is, because I'm thinking of myself, the nice thing about LinkedIn, which will always be true, is you're one click away from the profile. And so if you have some credibility, that's always going to be at least marginally better than something like email where it's just harder to know. Like, you're not going to take that long. Somebody messages you, you kind of like, ignore it. That's it, right? So on LinkedIn, somebody messages you, you might click on the profile, maybe, and then you're like, oh, this person is actually legit. Let's see what they said. You know what I mean? The fact is, it's probably less crowded, so that's part of it. But maybe that's the other side of that equation, which is, if you have credibility, you can exploit it a little bit better on LinkedIn.
00:32:13 · Keith Peiris, Pablo Srugo
[00:32:13] S0: Yeah, yeah. That's totally right. The other thing that I did, I think if you sell complex software, it's very hard to get anyone to understand why your complex software is better than someone else's. So I think the short form that people use, they look for references. They look for customers they know to understand whether this is legit. And it turns out the easiest way to get good reference customers is to give your software away for free to a couple of people in that network and work hard until they're happy. So I would say our first 10 YC customers were not even customers. We're like, please use our software. Here's a Slack with us. We're going to make it better with you. And we're not going to stop until you're happy. [00:32:53] S1: And who did you go? Did you go after some really hot YC companies or just any? What kind of logos did you get through that strategy? [00:32:59] S0: We did a mix. We got a couple of hot ones. We got a couple of ones that were emerging. And we're like, we're just going to earnestly work towards making you happy. When they were happy, it turns out it's a highly networked group of people. They started posting. You know, in Telegram chats and Bookface and others. And then we started to get referrals. You know, and it was around that time that then we started to charge a little. You know, and we were able to sort of build out organically from there.
00:32:59 · Keith Peiris, Pablo Srugo
[00:32:59] S0: We did a mix. We got a couple of hot ones. We got a couple of ones that were emerging. And we're like, we're just going to earnestly work towards making you happy. When they were happy, it turns out it's a highly networked group of people. They started posting. You know, in Telegram chats and Bookface and others. And then we started to get referrals. You know, and it was around that time that then we started to charge a little. You know, and we were able to sort of build out organically from there. [00:33:26] S1: Now going back to the event strategy, you use LinkedIn to reach out, you use these kind of credible names to say, hey, like we work with, you know, XYZ, whatever. And then you get them into an event. So now, okay, fine, they're at an event. How does that translate into you getting more customers for your product? How did you do that final link? [00:33:43] S0: Yeah, we were pretty honest about it. We're like, look, we brought the speaker here to talk about go-to-market. Just so you know, you know, we're building an agentic CRM. Let me show it to you for two minutes. And if you're interested in learning more, I've got like a computer in the back and I can give you a demo after. And it turned out the product demoed well. You know, we build good software. At the end of the night, you know, we always had 10, 20, 30 people that were like, show me what you're building. I'm interested. And that's sort of how it turned into something.
00:33:43 · Keith Peiris, Pablo Srugo
[00:33:43] S0: Yeah, we were pretty honest about it. We're like, look, we brought the speaker here to talk about go-to-market. Just so you know, you know, we're building an agentic CRM. Let me show it to you for two minutes. And if you're interested in learning more, I've got like a computer in the back and I can give you a demo after. And it turned out the product demoed well. You know, we build good software. At the end of the night, you know, we always had 10, 20, 30 people that were like, show me what you're building. I'm interested. And that's sort of how it turned into something. [00:34:13] S1: And that's where you found the wedge of like, it's not just, oh, a new system of record that looks and works better. It's like, I'll help you land more customers through this new, like exploiting your, your, your existing network. [00:34:24] S0: Yeah, exactly.
00:34:24 · Keith Peiris, Pablo Srugo
[00:34:24] S0: Yeah, exactly. [00:34:25] S1: It goes back to kind of the other points, but you know, the nature of the beast and all these things, any strategy, take this event strategy, you could run it for, you know, really any vertical. And you can probably for sure get a lot of that. In other words, you could do the email stuff as just a matter of time or whatever. If you have credibility, you might get the same or similar response rate. If you have good speakers, you might get the events. But if you don't solve a top of mind problem, you won't get them to use the product at the end of the day, right? Like you'll get the whole thing except the piece that matters. So you still, this is why the growth tactics are just tactics and they need to be put on top of something that at the core is really working. Frankly, changing the core is just so hard. I don't know that they're like, they don't see it or whatever. It's just like, you've got a core, you've built the core, you want it to just work. You're hoping you add a little thing like this and it's just going to take off. And if you're not solving top of my problem, like it's going to fail at some point in that funnel.
00:35:18 · Keith Peiris, Pablo Srugo
[00:35:18] S0: Yeah, this is so true. It's funny. Now I have some friends that are building different kinds of systems of record, like an HRIS or a CRM vertical. It's so hard, I've found, to struggle when you have a platform because when you're building a platform, you sort of need to build horizontal capability first and then you very quickly have to figure out how to package the capability to find pain and solve pain. And it's just like a little bit of a different style of thinking than building the wedge first. And I feel like you have to go back and forth over and over and over again to make sure you don't overbuild the platform, underbuild the platform, overbuild for the wedge. And, you know, I feel like we change our mindset on that like every few months. [00:36:02] S1: So the other tactical kind of deep dive I want to do is launch videos. So how would it make a launch video hit a million views every time you've had at least four, I believe, launch videos that have hit over a million views these days? I think since the Cluely era, everybody wants to make a great launch video. I saw one for like the Wispr Flow notetaker go crazy viral recently, but they already, you know, they have a massive following. So it's probably easier for them than the average person. What have you learned doing these videos? Like, put it this way. Like, I'm a founder. I'm like, yeah, I've got this product. It's a solid product. Believe me. I want to have the absolute best odds that when I make this video, it hits a million views. Like, step by step, what should I do?