A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
00:13:07 · Rob, Pablo Srugo
[00:13:07] S1: Do I start the library ? [00:13:08] S0: Like I'm trying to message these people and uh, and nobody answers. There is no one size fits all . I can tell you like one, one small tip. Like if you are more, if you are younger, first time founder, like, you know, playing the student card and like this idea of like, look, I'm a student working on something and you know, I just need your expertise. Like, that'll typically open a lot more doors than it should. The other thing though is their signal and everything. My point being like, if you're trying to message who you believe is your ICP and you're talking to a lot of them and you get like no answers, just know that when you go to sell to them, it's gonna be the same thing if not worse. And so, like that alone is a signal of like how easy or hard it's gonna be to penetrate into that, into that audience.
00:13:47 · Rob
[00:13:47] S1: You have to offer value. So can I tell a story here ? Just, it's a really quick one because I was running a , a local company here , uh, in Ottawa and we did , uh, it administration from Blackberry. So really early mobile stuff, like early two thousands, very, very early. Blackberry was the dominant , uh, device. And it was a two-way pager at that point, no big screens, anything like that. And uh, and uh , like you have a thousand questions in this emerging industry and there are way smarter people than me. So what did I do? I thought like, there's gotta be a better way for me to, to get through this hurdle of starting this business and growing this business. So I would go out to all these CEOs and I would hit them up as a fellow CEO and I got zero responses, like the same thing. Like they have no time, no interest whatsoever. And then I thought, well , there's this thing, these things called podcasts that are just emerging at that time, 2006, 2007. And I thought, okay, well this is what I'm gonna do. I'm just going to , uh, start a podcast and interview them and ask them to be interviewed . Like , 'cause everybody wants their ego fed and this is what I did . So I just started interviewing , I said , listen , I run a podcast . Everybody said yes . So I did thousands of these interviews and that was my quantitative qualitative research right then and there. Like , and I , they were long form , early days, long form . Uh, and, and the outcome was that, that I had thousands of interviews and tens of thousands of hours of knowledge accumulated from the experts in the field. Like we're talking about people that I would never have been able to reach before. And I , I don't think you can do this anymore 'cause everybody does a podcast. But that's a perfect example of finding a way around the gate to get the information that you need. And then I would publish these just outta curiosity to anybody who would listen. I wouldn't edit them, I wouldn't do anything. And then those were downloaded two , 3 million times a month as a result because the information was relevant at the time. So there are ways to do this, but you just have to be a little bit of inventive to , uh, a little bit inventive to find out
00:15:38 · Pablo Srugo
[00:15:38] S0: The next one, only insanely focused . Survive . I mean, that one yeah, is a little, you know, hard to argue against, I think because it's a little bit like kind of obvious. I mean, everybody talks, but I , I will say this, everybody talks about focus, everybody preaches focus. And I'll tell you like very few founders are truly insanely focused because the way I like to think about it is another thing I, I realized running Gym Track was like, you, you, like, no matter what, this is different than being a vc, frankly. Like I always , I always laugh at VCs that are like, oh man, I'm so busy. I'm like, dude, whatcha you so busy with? Like, all you gotta do is invest in like, you know, a startup a month at most. Like you're probably doing like three year , like just, that's it, <laugh> like the rest is just, but as a founder, you actually have that many things to do. And so if you put 'em in a list, like you got 50 things, you got a hundred things. And what inevitably happens is you're like, you get into this like, you know, checklist mode where you're like, okay, I got 50 things to do. Like, let's cross 'em off. And guess what Rise is quickly. When you're in that mode where Rise is top of the list is the things that can get done, like making a logo that can get done, like filing a trademark that can get done, designing a website that can get done, you know, what can't get done, find product market fit, you know, it's hard to do, like sell sell your product, right? Like, and those are the things that find your first kind of fall off. And so what I started thinking about is, okay, you know what, like it's easy enough for me to say here are the most important things and , and prioritize them . But I want , I want something that's like kind of more intense than that for me. It's just ones and zeros. Like a thing is either must do critical, it's a one or it's not, and it's a zero. And and there are , there are a few things on your list today where you're like, if I don't get these done this quarter, this year, whatever, I will not survive. And there are other things that you're like, even if I didn't get them done, I'll still be fine, I'll still survive an exam . Like, here's an example of this to me, it was just so funny. Uh, the founder of Form AI is a series B stage startup in , uh, in Toronto, the founder Nabil .
00:17:33 · Pablo Srugo
And he told me, he's like, you know, when we started like you , you incorporate and usually like a numbered corporation, and then most founders will spend like a good amount of time trying to come up with a name. He's like, I was so focused on just like pleasing customers. Like I had one customer that I was trying to kind of, I had a relationship with them before. And so we were really just building the product and trying to deploy it that we just didn't name the company and, and <laugh> . And they asked me like, I , this doesn't have a name. It got to the point we hired a few employees on no company name, and then my CTO was like, dude, like I need a company name because it's getting to the point where I can't hire <laugh> because people are like, man, I'm not working for like a no <laugh> , you guys don't even have a name. What's wrong with you? Right? So he is like, fine. So we named it, right? But that's the level of insane focus. It's almost like he didn't do that thing until it , it became an actual blocker, right? Versus okay, presents itself. So you get it done at the expense of something else because there's always trade offs and there's always so many things to do. And that I tell that story because, and that's why I use the word insane. It's like, that's actually insane to not, you know, take the time to name your own company. But it's that, that level of focus that I think just gets things done.
00:18:43 · Rob
[00:18:43] S1: There's no, I don't think there's a better example of that. Like , uh, the first thing I've done with every one of my companies is name 'em dude , logo, business card, slogan, like every like, and then I'm like, okay, what do we do <laugh> ? Like , okay , I
00:18:57 · Pablo Srugo
[00:18:57] S0: Named every company, man , I remember we told, we talked with Lee about the one that was like, it was supposed to be a skip the dishes, like start delivering.ca , man, we even had a website. We had it all. We had it all. And then Gym track , man, oh, we went back so many times on Gym Track . But you know, it's like everybody knows what that does. Gym track , we track gyms. That's it simple. So we actually, it was so, it was so descriptive we couldn't get a trademark. Honestly , the only thing that I, that I think like if we're playing, you know, devil's advocate you on all these trying to , because reality's so messy, right? And that , that's really what we're trying to do here is like, there are examples where it was, it was like, I forget who it was that told me, it was like, you know , do you have to be focused? And yet you also have to be like, open to opportunity because it's true that like, well , I find that right ? Like , wait, wait , how do you square that story ? Right ? Wait , stop, stop that . <laugh> , I think you're just saying words like <laugh> , I'm just saying words. They don't, but, but, but , but wait, bear with me, right? Like , uh, <laugh> , um, 'cause here's the thing, like on the one hand, if you're not, like, you are such a small team, you have so many things to do. If you're not focused, you're actually not, you're just not gonna get the important things on . But the other side is like, it's true that the best founders are opportunistic because you really don't know what's gonna happen and you can't predict all this stuff. You can't strategize your way to success. And so you do have to have enough of an ear on the ground to see when things are worth paying attention to, especially when you're pre-product market fit. Like you have a thesis that this is the thing you need to do because this is the thing that's gonna get me to product market fit. And it turns out there's actually a bigger opportunity over here and you didn't listen to it. And that's a tough balance. Like , um, there , there's a few, there's a , there's, you know, a few examples. I think maybe Bolt , like that's one of the better ones. Mark, mark , uh, bull , right ? They're doing like a hundred million dollars today. And what they do today is like, not at all , uh, what they used to do, right?