CloudFlare VC Interview - Was It the Job of a Lifetime?

Episode Summary:

In this episode of SaaS Origin Stories, Phil Alves is joined by Dani Grant, CEO, and Co-Founder at Jam.dev. This successful SaaS startup offers developers and project managers a fast and reliable debugging solution. Dani shares her insights on the different ingredients that make up a successful startup, including funding, attaining product market fit, and working with small and agile teams. Along the way, she also busts some commonly-held startup myths.

Guest at a Glance:

Name: Dani Grant

What she does: Dani is the CEO and Co-Founder at Jam.dev, a SaaS startup that offers a fast and reliable debugging solution. 

Connect with Dani: LinkedIn

Topics we cover:

• Don't start without concept validation 
• Investor meetings: how to ace them
• Is product market fit enough on your mind?
• Myth Busting - #1 -  Go-to-market speed is critical
• Myth Busting - #2  - Ship fast; just get it in front of the customer

Key Takeaways:

Worry About Concept Validation Before Thinking About Market Validation

The concept of fast and reliable debugging software was born out of Dani’s struggles while working as a project manager at Cloudflare, where project delays due to endless communications cycles on bugs and fixes were endemic. So the concept of Jam.dev was to deliver software that would speed up the debugging process. 

To validate the concept, she connected with over 50 project managers across various industries to understand if the problem was universal. Validating your idea is the first brick of your SaaS startup and a nifty talking point when in front of investors.  

We interviewed over 50 project managers across different industries to check if this was an issue they faced as well.

Be Who Your Investors are Looking For - Helpful Tips for Investor Meets

Dani spent two years at a VC listening to pitches, and she offers her insights on the typical investor's playbook. The investor's appetite is minimal, so how and what you pitch is critical. Don’t focus on the investment you need; instead, focus on making the meeting a great experience for the investor. One that they will remember for a while and hence remember your proposal. 

Face-to-face meetings are better than Zoom meetings. Keep your answers short and engaging, don’t jump into micro details. Offer a top view and then move on to offer further details. 

Make your meetings memorable. When answering questions, give a high-level overview first and then offer to go into details. You’re now letting the VC steer the conversation.

Achieving Product Market Fit and Beyond

The amount of mind space you devote to thinking about product market fit depends on the evolution stage of your startup. It should be front and center leading up to the launch and a couple of quarters down the line, and the retention rate is a good indicator of fit level. 

As the retention rate stabilizes, start thinking about how to tweak your product to improve the fit, customer feedback is vital at this stage. Once you achieve the desired PMF, other business priorities will occupy your mind, and you will think less about PMF.  

We moved from living and breathing PMF to not thinking about it, and we probably achieved our product market fit somewhere in between. 

Myth Busting - Go to Market Speed is Critical - Don’t Reiterate the Prototype

Once you have your prototype, don’t think of it as the Holy Grail, which doesn’t need fixing. Spending a few weeks revisiting your prototype and making required changes and upgrades can save you valuable time that you would spend on improving the framework post-launch. Pre-launch delays are less costly than post-launch ones. 

Spending a few weeks or even a month reiterating your prototype allows you to set a solid foundation and move faster one or two years down the line.

Myth Busting - It Will Never Be 100% Right, so Ship Fast is Better Than Ship Right

The conventional logic says to get the product in front of the customer as fast as possible. But shipping a buggy product that is still a work in progress is a recipe for disaster. Dani gives the example of her startup, where they iterated the base software for 18 months before taking it to the market. At every iteration, they would use it as a customer to check if the software did everything it promised.  

In a SaaS environment, people rely on software to do their daily tasks, which must work every time.