#365 – How Dimitri Masin hit $1M ARR in 5 months by refusing to launch early

Jun 11, 2025

Ask episode

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

A story about creating trust in a skeptical market by choosing quality over speed - on purpose.

This episode is for SaaS founders building in regulated industries—and anyone tired of chasing the next quick win.

Most SaaS companies fail because they launch too early. Dimitri Masin, Co-Founder & CEO of Gradient Labs, took a different path. He spent 14 months building before serving a single customer—against every startup playbook. His AI customer support platform now guarantees better performance than human teams and hit $1M ARR in five months after launch.

And this inspired me to invite Dimitri to my podcast. We explore how setting impossibly high standards creates customer trust that competitors can't match. Dimitri shares tactical insights about building for regulated industries, creating objective guarantees, and why most automation claims are misleading math. You'll discover the quality standards that created 100% POC win rates.

We also zoom in on two of the 10 traits that define remarkable software companies:

They focus on the essence
They acknowledge they can't please everyone

Dimitri's story is proof that traction often starts by doing what most others avoid.

Here's one of Dimitri's quotes that captures his quality-first philosophy:

"We kind of set the bar very, very high for us, because from the beginning... the bar needs to be at least as high as humans in those companies can produce, or higher, ideally."

By listening to this episode, you'll learn:

Why building for 14 months before launch created competitive advantage
What objective guarantees do for risk-averse financial services buyers
When focusing on one vertical becomes your biggest growth lever
Why 50% ticket automation only delivers 20% business value

For more information about the guest from this week:

Guest: Dimitri Masin, Co-Founder & CEO Website: gradient-labs.ai LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dimitrimasin/

Want to dig deeper into the 10 traits of remarkable SaaS companies?

Get my book The Remarkable Effect at valueinspiration.com/book
Or sign up for Espresso with Ton at valueinspiration.com/daily - a 2-minute daily email to sharpen your thinking and strategy.