He raised $1.5M, hit $400K ARR in 9 months— but had to Exit Early. Here’s the top 3 lessons he learned | Rob Palumbo, Co-Founder of Outpoint

Rob founded Outpoint in 2020 to help marketers optimize their ad spend. He was a growth marketer and his founder a data scientist. He had team-market fit, a solid thesis, and paying customers. But when the recession hit and ad spend dropped, growth ground to a halt. Nothing he did could revitalize growth. Ultimately, he decreased expenses and exited. He was able to return some cash to investors, find a home for his team and keep the product going. 

You tend to hear about what happens to the best 1% of startups. Here’s what tends to happen to the other 99%.

Keywords

Outpoint, product market fit, startup journey, acquisition, growth marketing, venture capital, business strategy, lessons learned, entrepreneurship, market dynamics

Why you should listen

• Why a great team and thesis won’t always lead to success
• How things out of your control can completely change your trajectory
• Why you should build something that works in both up and down markets
• How to find an acquisition when things aren’t going well.

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:01:13) The origin of Outpoint
(00:14:49) Outpoint's Runway in 2022
(00:19:21) Trying to sell your company
(00:26:07) Lessons Learned
(00:28:53) Almost Finding Product Market Fit
(00:30:23) Planning a Startup vs starting one organically
(00:34:30) Closing Thoughts

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