Bobby Pinero - How to successfully execute big, bold, ambitious bets as a startup founder!
Nov 8, 2023
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Bobby Pinero, CEO at Equals, shares strategies for successfully executing ambitious bets as a startup founder. They discuss building full-size products as founders, navigating the spreadsheet market, and the qualities of successful founders. They also explore the power of self-belief and patience, as well as the importance of courage and perseverance in the startup world.
Putting credit card information upfront leads to higher user motivation and engagement rates.
Building a fully-featured product instead of an MVP helps stand out among competitors.
Creating a product for oneself enables a deep understanding of the target audience and resonates with them.
Deep dives
The Challenges of Freemium Pricing Model for Equals
After launching Equals, the company initially adopted a freemium pricing model with a free version of the product. However, this experiment didn't work well, as it led to lower activation and engagement rates. The company realized that the motivation and seriousness of users significantly increased when they had some skin in the game by putting their credit card information upfront. As a result, Equals reverted to a trial-based onboarding process with a paid setup, which led to better outcomes.
The Decision to Build a Full-Featured Spreadsheet
Unlike the MVP approach, Equals took a different route and built a fully-featured spreadsheet before launching. This decision was driven by the belief that Equals needed to stand out among competitors like Google Sheets and Excel, meeting the high expectations users have for spreadsheets. By building the full product, Equals aimed to provide a modern solution that fit the needs of the current generation's work environment.
The Importance of Building for Yourself
One key factor in Equals' success was that the founders built a product for themselves. Having personal experience as analysts using spreadsheets allowed them to create a solution that addressed their own needs and pain points. This allowed Equals to have a deep understanding of the target audience and design a product that resonated with them.
Differentiating Equals in a Crowded Market
Equals established its unique position in the market by focusing specifically on the analysis capabilities of spreadsheets. While competitors like Airtable, SmartSheets, and Coda targeted specific use cases within the spreadsheet space, Equals positioned itself as the go-to tool for data analysis. By targeting this specific job, Equals differentiated itself from other players and offered a product tailored to the needs of analysts.
Building an ambitious product with a gut feeling
The speaker shares the origin and development of their product, Equals. They explain how the idea came from a desire to enhance the capabilities of Excel and BI tools. The focus was on creating a tool that could perform tasks faster and more efficiently. The speaker emphasizes that the idea came first, and then market analysis followed. They highlight the importance of ambition and taking big bets in the startup world.
Lessons from fundraising and scaling
The speaker discusses their experience with fundraising for Equals. They explain that their ability to raise a $6 million seed round without a product was due to the relationships and credibility they built during their time at Intercom. They stress the importance of building relationships with investors and having a track record of exceptional work. Additionally, the speaker shares insights into scaling a company, emphasizing the need to adapt as the company grows and to maintain a high bar for hiring. They also mention the challenges of scaling and the importance of perseverance and willingness to transform as a leader.
Bobby Pinero (CEO at Equals) has been an analyst for the past decade. With 8 years at Intercom, building Finance, Analytics, Biz Ops, and several other functions, he built out functions that took the company from $1M ARR and ~20 employees to ~$200M ARR and ~700 employees.
He then launched Equals in the middle of 2021, raising a total of ~$23M from Kristina Shen at Andreessen Horowitz and David Sacks at Craft Ventures.
๐๐ผ About the Host:
Sharath is a founder, creator, and community builder. He is also a serial maker who built and shipped 15+ projects using no-code tools. His SaaS product Shoutout generated $30k ARR, which was sold to a UK-based product studio. Prev, Sharath worked for world-changing startups like Product Hunt and On Deck, where he helped build and nurture communities. He also grew his audience on Twitter from 200 to 22,000 using give-first principles and creating high-value content. Currently, he is the Head of Community + Brand at Threado, building a side project called GuestLab, and runs a newsletter called YC Founder Stories alongside hosting this podcast.
๐๐ผ Sponsor Corner:
Shoutout to Acquire.com for being the first sponsor of The Undefeated Underdogs podcast! Theyโre the best online marketplace to buy/sell startups and I know many founders who have sold their businesses there. If you're looking to wind down your business and cash in some of your founder chips, check them out - https://try.acquire.com/sharath/
๐๐ผ Description:
Tune in as Sharath and Bobby Pinero discuss the beauty of spreadsheets, pricing as a founder, and taking big bets as a founder.
๐๐ผ Timestamps:
00:00: Episode Highlight
00:29: Shoutout to Acquire.com
02:55: Introduction to Bobby Pinero and Equals - next-gen spreadsheets
06:29: The process of leaving corporate to build your own startup
11:55: Bobby's journey as a builder from early-stage startups to starting his own business
16:50: Maintaining courage as a startup founder
20:38: Why building in spreadsheets is Bobby's calling
25:27: Big bets vs small bets when building a startup
27:00: The founding story of Equals
30:28: The impact of raising money on building your product
34:31: How to get customer feedback when building a large product vs MVP
39:14: How Bobby built in public - in an unusual way
42:43: Pricing advice for early-stage startups
50:25: Frameworks for pricing and going freemium
53:51: Finding a niche in a crowded and competitive market
56:34: Finding the sweet spot to build in as a founder
59:57: Raising $6.6M for a seed round at Equals - process, networking, deciding the amount
1:04:11: Scaling Intercom from $1M to $200M
1:09:14: The similarities between Intercom and Equals
1:10:54: Lessons from building Intercom that are important at Equals
1:15:22: What's next for Equals?
1:18:02: How to keep going every single day as a founder
1:22:51: Outro and closing thoughts
๐๐ผ Resources:
Equals: https://equals.com/
Intercom: https://www.intercom.com/
Abbey, Business Operations at Equals: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abbey-minondo/
"How Freemium Nearly Killed My Business": https://wraptext.equals.com/the-fallacy-of-freemium-in-saas/
