Startup Field Guide by Unusual Ventures: The Product Market Fit Podcast Jyoti Bansal on how Traceable found product-market fit
Mar 19, 2025
Jyoti Bansal, CEO of Harnessio and TraceableAI, and co-founder of Unusual Ventures, shares his journey in software entrepreneurship alongside his long-time friend John Vrionis. They delve into the recent merger of Harness and Traceable aimed at revolutionizing the DevSecOps landscape. Jyoti reveals the insights that founded Traceable and emphasizes the iterative nature of achieving product-market fit. He offers valuable advice for early-stage founders, stressing the importance of customer discovery and resilience in building successful companies.
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Traceable's Founding Insight
- Jyoti Bansal's insight for Traceable stemmed from his AppDynamics days, where customers wanted to use tracing for security.
- He realized that application security could leverage similar techniques as performance monitoring.
Starting Traceable
- Bansal started Traceable in 2019 with the conviction that API security needed a solution.
- Despite prior success, he emphasizes that product-market fit is always a journey, requiring validation and pivots.
Evolving the "What"
- Traceable initially focused on protection, but discovered customers needed API discovery and cataloging first.
- This required a shift in their technology approach to a lighter-weight solution.
