Flo Crivello is the founder and CEO of Lindy, a no-code platform for building AI agents to automate workflows. Before Lindy, Flo built Teamflow, a virtual office platform that raised $50M but ultimately failed when the pandemic ended and remote work habits shifted.
In this episode, early-stage B2B SaaS founders will learn the "Pivoting to AI Agents" playbook that took Lindy from zero to 100K users. Flo reveals his controversial "Build in Public" strategy on Twitter that generated a 70,000-person waitlist before a single line of code was written, why he fired his entire go-to-market team to restart from scratch, and how a single YouTube review catalyzed their growth from "middling" to exponential.
In this episode, Flo also explains why positioning Lindy as "The Zapier of AI" worked better than "AI Employee," the signal (Lindy 2.0) that finally shifted them from pushing uphill to chasing growth downhill, and the reality of shipping an ugly product that sends emails to the wrong people.
This episode is brought to you by:
π This episode is sponsored by Mailtrap. Try it at β β Mailtrap.ioβ β β use code THESAASPODCAST for 20% off
π Key Lessons
- π The Hard Pivot: How to recognize when your startup is dead (Teamflow) and make the painful decision to pivot, including laying off 50+ people.
- π The 70K Waitlist: How Flo used a "Build in Public" strategy on Twitter to generate massive demand before the product existed.
- π‘ Positioning Strategy: Why positioning Lindy as "The Zapier of AI" (a familiar anchor) worked better than "AI Employee" (a scary new concept).
- π οΈ Shipping Ugly: Why you must launch before you are ready (even if the product sends emails to the wrong people) to get true feedback.
- π The "Boulder Downhill" Moment: Recognizing the specific signal (Lindy 2.0 launch) that shifted them from pushing uphill to chasing growth downhill.
π Chapters
- Introduction and Favorite Quotes
- Overview of Lindy: No-Code AI Platform
- Business Metrics and Team Size
- Flo's Background and Team Flow
- The Birth of Lindy
- Building a Twitter Following
- Launching Lindy and Initial Challenges
- Iterating and Improving the Product
- Advice for Founders: Shipping Early and Making Noise
- Customer Reactions to Early Product Issues
- Vision vs. Reality: The Gap in Expectations
- Positioning the Product in the AI Market
- The Turning Point: Lindy 2.0
- Navigating Rapid Growth and Competition
- Lightning Round: Insights and Advice
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