How to Structure a Design Partnership

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Most of our early customers we were approaching them as design partners in a way because I mentioned the ability to do the customer development piece and sales piece at the same time. With this customer we very quickly moved into that design partnership capability where we did not just talk to them about the value of our product today or even in a year. We talked about what are the biggest problems they have in terms of their digital transformation around manufacturing. So it evolved into a true design partnership in the sense that that whole organization started basing their strategy in large part on some of the things that we can provide in the future. And so when we speak with let's say it's a new design partner we talk

Our guest today is Artem Kroupenev, VP of Strategy at Augury.

Augury is a leader in a category they helped to define known as “machine health.” The company sells products that combine hardware, AI, and SaaS within industrial manufacturing.

Artem joined the team at the very beginning of its journey and helped shape strategies for how the team measured product-market fit, go-to-market, and eventually, a strategy for designing a brand new market category they could compete in.

In our conversation today, we dive deep into measurable product-market fit and category-creation strategies. Artem shares particular wisdom on:

Augury’s storyboard-based approach to product vision
How to sell to a limited pool of customers
The REV (revenue, engagement and value) model from measuring product-market fit
When founders should start exploring creating a new category to operate in

You can follow Artem on Twitter at @artemkroupenev You can email us questions directly at review@firstround.com or follow us on Twitter @firstround and @brettberson.