A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
00:12:54 · Ben Rudolph, Pablo Srugo
[00:12:54] S0: Yeah, he definitely took a chance on us. We were very open and transparent with him in that we want to build a company. We were looking for folks to learn from and wanted to be design partners with, and he was open to that. And so, we tried a lot of people before we got a yes here. So it's definitely challenging. [00:13:15] S2: Did you do a lot of the customer discovery before this, before jumping in and starting to try to work with this person to help them solve a case? How much did you already know going into it? In terms of what the world was like? [00:13:26] S0: Yeah, I mean, we did as much as we could, right? We read all these cases that he had worked personally. We learned about the law enforcement structure, police department structure, how they work, how they operate, how do warrants work, these types of things. But you really, in order to make that jump to being an expert, you have to work it and so that was our approach. [00:13:46] S2: And so then what happens? So he lets you in, what do you start doing at that point? [00:13:50] S0: Yeah, he gave us a room in the department and anytime there was a case, they would essentially treat us as crime analysts and they'd be like, hey, we got a new homicide in. Here's what we know about the case. Can you help us with it? And we would be like, sure. And then, so we would sit there all day, poring over these files, trying to figure out what happened, pinpoint a phone number. [00:13:50] S2: Just manually? You're basically free labor for these guys, or you're building tech to do this?
00:13:50 · Pablo Srugo, Ben Rudolph
[00:13:50] S2: Just manually? You're basically free labor for these guys, or you're building tech to do this? [00:13:50] S0: Definitely free labor at the beginning. I mean, I'm a programmer, so I was writing software to do this. So that was definitely helpful, but this is a job, right? This is what they would do. They would sift through this many times, very manually. [00:14:29] S2: So step one really was finding somebody to let you do the job for free. Just so you could learn the intricacies, the subtleties of what the job was. [00:14:35] S0: Yeah. [00:14:36] S2: It reminds me of, you know, I had a company on here a while ago. A company called Ada, and the way that they built the product, which was a chatbot. Again, we're talking 2015, but it was by working as customer service agents. Literally doing the work, responding and getting hired by seven different companies. And then, just learning the job that way and starting to build tools to automate themselves out of that job. And that was ultimately it, that product. Is that similar to what you guys did? [00:15:02] S0: Yeah, exactly. That's exactly the way I would frame it. It was the purest form of method acting.
00:15:02 · Ben Rudolph, Pablo Srugo
[00:15:02] S0: Yeah, exactly. That's exactly the way I would frame it. It was the purest form of method acting. [00:15:09] S2: Tell me a little bit more about, because this is the key, right? If you want to automate something or help transform, let's say, an industry or whatever. You do need somebody to let you in. You need somebody to give you all that exposure and especially talking about law enforcement. It's not trivial, I don't think, for somebody to do this. I mean, you mentioned a lot of people said no. Why did this person say yes? I mean, fundamentally, I'm just thinking about, two people with no. Let's say, law enforcement background. They don't have a product. I'm going to let them in. I'm going to give them background checks. I'm going to give them all sensitive potential information. I guess, worst case, they don't help me. Best case, they do but it's kind of, anyways, what's the driver there? [00:15:45] S0: I think about that question a lot. I'm not sure I have a satisfying answer for you as to exactly why this person said yes. But I do think the way we crafted our message, the way we wanted to be, we had a service orientation approach, and I think that resonated with this person who was very technologically forward. And we told them, we were your scientists and we wanted to learn the space, and build, and deliver great technology for him.
00:15:45 · Ben Rudolph, Pablo Srugo
[00:15:45] S0: I think about that question a lot. I'm not sure I have a satisfying answer for you as to exactly why this person said yes. But I do think the way we crafted our message, the way we wanted to be, we had a service orientation approach, and I think that resonated with this person who was very technologically forward. And we told them, we were your scientists and we wanted to learn the space, and build, and deliver great technology for him. [00:16:11] S2: They probably believed already that with tech they could do a lot more. There's just so many gaps and then just like, I don't have a budget, I don't have the time. And all of a sudden you two walk in, and they're like, yeah, okay, I could see this makes sense. Something like that, which is kind of why I have to go through so many. Because you need one that actually is already almost all the way there. Is that ring true? [00:16:29] S0: A hundred percent and I also think there is like an aspect to, great, I got two free crime analysts. Who know how to write software and work with Excel really well, that's great. [00:16:39] S2: Right, so you're working with these people. They're starting, they're handy cases and you're learning on the job. What happens next?
00:16:45 · Ben Rudolph
[00:16:45] S0: We had that case that led to that kind of expert witness experience and we raised our first initial seed capital after that. And we got our first two or three person office. And we grew really slowly for the first, I'd say, probably three or four years. Word of mouth, our very next customer was the city next door and it was because the chief talked to that chief. And was like, hey, these guys are actually doing a lot of good work for us. And that word of mouth growth is, how we built the product and deeply empathize with the problem space. And had the opportunity to go that extra mile. I mean, we learned so much during that time. One of our first customers was Albuquerque, and I remember I was on site one time. And I was doing a case with one of the detectives, and there is this technology called ShotSpotter that detects gunshots. And I was pulling up these gunshots at time of the crime, and I was like, oh, my God, there's so many guns firing. Was there a mini war? What is happening? And the guy's like, no, no, this is. So there was a homicide, gun goes off, but there is this tradition or something that happens in Albuquerque where at the end of night, at the end of a party. Someone takes out their gun and shoots it in the air. Everyone else takes out their gun, shoots it in the air. So this homicide happened, gunshot goes off, people think it's related to a party happening next door. Everyone shoots, and so you look at the map, you're like, everyone's shooting their gun. What's going on? And so you learn these little bits of context on how they do their job, and that coupled with us constantly iterating the product to make sure that we could meet their needs.
00:18:26 · Pablo Srugo, Ben Rudolph
[00:18:26] S2: How big was the seed round that you raised back then? [00:18:26] S0: Yeah, back then we raised, it was either $1 or $2 million. [00:18:26] S2: Okay, so $1 or $2 million and this was? What's the timeline? When do you guys start and then when does the seed round happen? [00:18:26] S0: The seed round was nine or ten months after we started the company. [00:18:26] S2: Yeah, it's funny, comparing it to the stuff you see today. This is, and then you end up where you end up. Which is obviously hugely successful, but it's good to remember what I would always call that reality, right? I don't know that this can stay forever, but nine months to raise a million dollars today is like, oh my god. You should be raising, you know, ten, and you should be growing crazy. But this is how you ultimately end up with the real business. It's worth billions of dollars. Most of the businesses that end up even at this stage, which is still way less than one percent. Have a starting story that looks more like this than the highlights they see on TechCrunch today.