A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
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?
00:20:53 · Pablo Srugo
Today, they actually are effectively like a , a warehouse for some really big name companies, big brand name companies like Ikea or, you know, enterprise , uh, enterprise customers. But they started off by storing students things over the summer, right? And like, how do you go from there to, to there? And , and it's because Mark was like constantly willing to listen to indications that , uh, that there could be a bigger opportunity. The other, the owner , actually, here's an , here's a really interesting one. Uh , Rodolph , who's the founder of Potluck, they're doing over eight figures in AR today. They, they pivoted like, you know, five different times, but at one point they were selling research. What they're doing is localized research and they were selling it to malls. And so the idea was like, you're a mall and you wanna know, like you wanna effectively survey the people that visit the mall. And so they have this like infrastructure that uses Facebook and Instagram and these different, different platforms to understand like who might have visited the mall and just survey them. And this is before covid, they're doing this, they're actually gaining real traction. They're getting pretty close to eight figures in a RR on the side. They start getting hit up by like actual research agencies like, like Gartner , these sort of, these sort of players that just want generic research and for whatever reason, and this is the , the difference, like focus would tell you just do malls , like forget this other stuff, right? Opportunity tells you like you're doing malls, it's going well, but here's something that you should at least maybe listen to, right? And so he did listen to it and he serviced them in a small way. Covid happens. Malls shut down <laugh> , his business literally goes to zero. He luckily has this other thing on the side with the gardeners of the world. And it turns out everybody needs surveys now because nobody knows what the hell's going on. The best founders, I will say are insanely focused on what they need to get done. And at the same time, they somehow are opportunistic enough to not have full blinders on to see where opportunities might lead them because the future's just, it's not predictable.
00:22:47 · Rob
[00:22:47] S1: The , the big focus for me is that you can be focused on the moon and you can be off by, you know, a half a degree in your trajectory and miss the moon and never come back to earth, right? Like it's just small things that deviate and they move you a little bit off and then you're never gonna be recovering. That original idea is gone, now you're heading to Mars, you're dead. Like , and that's, that's the challenge with, with focus is that if you don't take it seriously and if you don't believe in the idea, that's the other thing here is that if, if your idea, you don't have the deep belief in the idea or of the business, your focus will wane. If you're not interested in the idea or you have an expertise in the idea, your focus will wane. And that, that leads to destruction in my mind.
00:23:33 · Pablo Srugo
[00:23:33] S0: You have to be in the market to win the market, right? And uh, I I , I posted online about , um, this idea that you have to do research, you have to start with niche markets. And somebody was like, you know , what about open ai ? Like open AI from the get go was like, you know , no <laugh>, right? Like, I'm gonna raise like a billion dollars and I'm just gonna do it. And that is legit. Like you have exceptions. You know, the idea is the vast majority of billion dollar companies start off with niche markets, which is why for me as a vc, like Tim is just not all that important. Honestly. Like I I do look at , um, back in the envelope really quickly, could this in theory become big? And that's like as far as I go at seed, right? Like later on it takes on more importance because you just never know how markets are truly gonna evolve. However, you do have examples of companies that just went big from day one, right? You got your Teslas, you got your Amazons, you got your open ai . Like these are top down founders who decided like electric big, like I'm doing electric cars or like e-commerce big, like I'm doing e-commerce store for everything, right? That was like from day one. But I guess like my thing is, you know, we said something else like for every, for every uh , thousand startups, you get one unicorn for every thousand unicorns, you get one Amazon, right? So like, I still stand by. I think you have to start generally speaking with niche markets and you have to let the market pull you over time versus trying to kind of strategize your way to success. PowerPoint, your way to success,
00:25:00 · Rob
[00:25:00] S1: The niche is, is the most important thing that you can do. Figuring out in the market who your customers are and will they pay for your pay for what you're offering, what your , what your , what your services or what your software is or whatever it might be. I think that that is the most important question that you need to have answered. Uh , everything else is all crap. You , uh, af before and after that. Like, you have to have that answer.