A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders He walked away from $5M ARR—then built a $50M company. | Russ Fradin, Founder of Larridin
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Nov 10, 2025 Russ Fradin, a serial entrepreneur and founder of Larridin, shares insights from his extensive 30-year career in startups. He reveals his bold decision to walk away from a $5M ARR with Dynamic Signal to pursue a nascent $200K pipeline, which eventually led to significant growth and a sale at $50M ARR. Russ discusses the importance of recognizing emergent user behaviors and stresses that just because everyone praises your idea doesn't mean it's viable. His journey illustrates that early validation and actual sales matter more than compliments.
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Revenue Isn't Proof Of SaaS Stickiness
- A $5M ARR media business can still be non-sticky because customers treat it like a one-off media buy.
- What looks like product traction may actually be a software-enabled agency, not a true SaaS foundation.
Movie Launch Revealed Media-Style Usage
- A movie studio used Dynamic Signal to launch Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter but treated it title-by-title.
- That pattern showed the product would behave like media rather than core repeatable infrastructure.
Emergent Behavior Pointed To Employees
- Emergent behavior revealed employees, not external bloggers, were the ones consistently joining and sharing content.
- That insight unlocked a much larger, sticky opportunity around employee communication and advocacy.
