A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
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?
00:36:44 · Keith Peiris, Pablo Srugo
[00:36:44] S0: It's kind of a product of the company. What do I mean by that? It's very hard to make a video that goes viral for everyone. I mean, you can and there's plenty of cases for it, but I find that what we were looking for, we actually weren't optimizing for a million views. We were optimizing for the people in our ICP feel something when they watch this. And we're like, we need to define this so narrowly so that we can validate if this is true. And in our case, at the time, a year ago, our ICP is different now. We were like, we have to hit a B2B pre-seed founder creator who is on the cusp of finding product market fit. And we need to write a story that emotionally resonates with this person. And we don't care if a late-stage CRO takes this seriously or not. We are going to go very, very narrow and make sure it works. That's sort of the first step. The second is, in our case, this is our taste. You know, we wanted to make it more about the story and the hero's journey than just a product demo. Because, you know, at this point, everyone's got product demos and they all have agents and they all kind of look the same. So we're like, it's really about the hero's arc. And then third, I think the bar to do a video is very high now in terms of production. So we spent a lot of time, the creative at our company, he's like interviewed a lot of directors, looked at lots of styles, looked at lots of videographers. It was a full-time project. [00:38:12] S1: What's the budget, realistically, time and dollars, if you want to make a video like this?
00:38:12 · Pablo Srugo, Keith Peiris
[00:38:12] S1: What's the budget, realistically, time and dollars, if you want to make a video like this? [00:38:16] S0: We spent two months on it and it's low six figures. [00:38:19] S1: For like a minute video, I assume? [00:38:21] S0: Yeah, I think it was like a minute, probably like a minute 30, two minutes. And honestly, the first 10 takes were not great. Yeah. You sort of have to like grind and grind and grind until it looks good. [00:38:34] S1: And great to who? Like this is you guys watching it and being like, ah, it's not good enough? Or is there some way to kind of test it? [00:38:40] S0: Yeah, I mean, for us, we just showed it to people who we want to sell to. We're like, what do you think of this? You know, do you like this? [00:38:47] S1: And people were honest. I mean, most people would be like, oh yeah, it's good. It's nice. Yeah, I like it. Like, no?