Pietro Saccomani is the CEO of FeedBear (and founder of MixBloom and MobiLoud). FeedBear is a tool to collect and prioritize feedback from customers and internal teams.  In our discussion, Pietro explains how to collect customer feedback and the ways in which companies often get it wrong. He also shares his insights on how to prioritize customer feedback and how to turn it into actionable insights for your team to act on. Pietro talks about his experience purchasing the company on MicroAcquire, and his journey as a bootstrapped founder. Whether you're a founder, product manager, or just interested in the startup world, this episode is a must-listen. Get ready to gain valuable insights and practical learnings from Pietro's experience. Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction (02:10) What is FeedBear? (03:05) Best-practices for gathering customers feedback (07:06) Making sense of customer feedback and prioritization (08:13) Building in public (10:58) Feedback everywhere (Social media, Slack, Discord...) (13:58) The origin story of Feedbear? (17:05) The micro-acquisition space (20:53) Feedbear's growth strategy (organic, content, & SEO) (27:25) Using generative AI for content strategy (29:56) FeedBear's ICP (ideal customer profile) (34:11) Why a "red ocean" is a good thing (choosing a crowded space) (36:12) Building a bootstrapped business (not taking VC) (40:30) Lightning Round (40:52) Trust and acceptance are important for delegation (45:26) Conclusion Guest contact info: twitter.com/psaccomani linkedin.com/in/pietrosaccomani/ www.feedbear.com/ Sponsor: This podcast is brought to you by grwth.co. Grwth offers fractional CMOs, paired with best-in-class digital marketing execution to support early-stage startup success. With a focus on seed and series A companies, Grwth has helped a number of SaaS, digital health, and e-commerce startups build their go-to-market function and scale up. To learn more and book a free consultation, go to grwth.co. Get in touch with Mosheh: www.linkedin.com/in/moshehp  twitter.com/MoshehP hello@pmfpod.com  www.pmfpod.com

As our special guest this week, we have Ömer Artun, who founded AgileOne in 2006 and held the CEO role until he sold it to Acquia in 2019. Now he's pursuing his dream of running his own restaurant. Omer explains how to leverage customer data to anticipate their needs, preferences, and behaviors. During our conversation, he also gave us some insight into his experience building, scaling, and selling AgileOne. He emphasizes the importance of having “grit as startups don't fail because it's a bad idea or Startups only fail if the founder gives up”.  Timestamps:  (00:00) Intro (03:20) Appeal for Turkey (04:40) How did you get into predictive marketing and why did you start AgilOne?   (06:52) The early days of AgileOne (09:40) Today's data infrastructure (Snowflake, AWS, etc) (14:15) Leveraging predictive marketing across acquisition, activation, and retention (22:39) Retention & churn data points for SaaS businesses (24:27) Customer LTV vs. upside potential; and uplift modeling (27:27) Attribution modeling (and leveraging LTV) (32:07) Defining LTV cohorts and payback period (35:25) Getting started with predictive analytics (36:55) Leveraging customer data in a privacy-first world (38:48) Raising VC funding for AgileOne and selling the company (41:56) Founders vs VCs: misalignment of incentives (46:02) The burden of entrepreneurship (47:25) Generative AI and augmented analytics (49:05) Lightning Round (54:00) Conclusion Guest contact info: omer@artun.com  Support Turkey: Ahbap Organization: https://ahbap.org/disasters-turkey Sponsor: This podcast is brought to you by grwth.co. Grwth offers fractional CMOs, paired with best-in-class digital marketing execution to support early-stage startup success. With a focus on seed and series A companies, Grwth has helped a number of SaaS, digital health, and e-commerce startups build their go-to-market function and scale up. To learn more and book a free consultation, go to grwth.co.  Get in touch with Mosheh: www.linkedin.com/in/moshehp  twitter.com/MoshehP hello@pmfpod.com  www.pmfpod.com

As Founder and CEO of Pex, the next VISA for Digital Rights, Rasty understands the business of UGC attribution. During our conversation, we covered the early days of Pex, its current status, and how a combination of stubbornness, stupidity, and luck kept Pex growing. In this presentation, Rasty discusses how to sell your product or service independently as a startup founder and the significance of understanding the difference between a start-up company, a small business, and an enterprise business. We talked about the 100-year-old copyright laws, the new AI generative content, and the ongoing lawsuits that courts are looking at. Lastly, Rasty talked about Pex's transparent culture as well as how employee personas are created in order to create diversity within the team. Timestamps: (00:00) Start (02:50) What is Pex (and why is attribution important)? (05:58) Shazam for video and UGC (using automatic content recognition) (08:00) How does Pex's system work? (10:46) How much data are you processing? (11:35) Copyrights 101 (what is fair use?) (14:03) Sticking with it during the (difficult) early days of Pex (18:01) The importance of a supportive team (20:45) Landing the first deals (selling to enterprise) (27:54) Exploiting cloud infrastructure (30:04) Selling to Startups, SMBs, and Enterprises (32:21) The importance of selling by yourself as a founder (36:29) Generative AI (Chat-GPT) and copyright law (41:29) Unique company culture (48:40) Remote work vs. in-office (52:10) Tips for leadership (58:16) Lightning round (1:01:12) What makes a great board member? Guest contact info: https://twitter.com/synopsi/https://pex.com/ Definitions and Acronyms: UGC: User-Generated Content. ACR: Automatic Content Recognition. Exabyte = one billion gigabytes. Sponsor: This podcast is brought to you by grwth.co. Grwth offers fractional CMOs, paired with best-in-class digital marketing execution to support early-stage startup success. With a focus on seed and series A companies, Grwth has helped a number of SaaS, digital health, and e-commerce startups build their go-to-market function and scale up. To learn more and book a free consultation, go to grwth.co. Get in touch with Mosheh: www.linkedin.com/in/moshehp twitter.com/MoshehP hello@pmfpod.com www.pmfpod.com

I sit down with futurist, inventor and founder, Alan Smithson, to explore the fascinating world of AI and the metaverse.  We talked about the metaverse and its associated technologies and how AI is changing the landscape for virtual reality and augmented reality. Alan shares his vision for the future across many vectors, and he provides practical guidance for founders and brands thinking about how to incorporate the metaverse into their strategies. From blockchain to replicators in every home, Alan shares his insights on the next frontiers of technological advancement and their impact on the way we live and work. Tune in for a thought-provoking conversation that will inspire and inform!  Timestamps: (0:00) Introduction (3:16) What is the Metaverse? (6:05) Defining XR, AR, VR and MR (7:57) Using AI to to map the world’s interiors (11:15) Where are we on the hype cycle curve? (15:53) Age of abundance or dystopic future? (19:27) Chat-GPT and education (24:41) TikTok spying on Americans (26:05) Replicators in every home? (27:55) The future of energy (32:23) What’s governments’ role? (35:54) What does MetaVRse do? (38:06) Metaverse real estate (40:18) How should brands get started with the metaverse? (42:26) What’s happening at Meta? (44:40) The lightning round Guest contact info: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alansmithson/ https://metavrse.com/ https://themall.io/ Further reading: https://alan-smithson.medium.com/practical-guide-to-ai-in-the-metaverse-583020bbe61f https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/abcs-r-alan-smithson/ https://alan-smithson.medium.com/the-metaverse-manifesto-2206d893a3bb https://engine.metavrse.com/view?i=8399 https://alan-smithson.medium.com/a-brand-guide-to-the-metaverse-part-i-benefits-examples-a371bb74160  Sponsor: This podcast is brought to you by grwth.co. Grwth offers fractional CMOs, paired with best-in-class digital marketing execution to support early-stage startup success. With a focus on seed and series A companies, Grwth has helped a number of SaaS, digital health, and e-commerce startups build their go-to-market function and scale up. To learn more and book a free consultation, go to grwth.co. Get in touch with Mosheh: www.linkedin.com/in/moshehp twitter.com/MoshehP hello@pmfpod.com www.pmfpod.com

Advancements in artificial intelligence have taken the world by storm recently, however, these new technologies also introduce ethical dilemmas for individuals, companies, and society as a whole.  In this episode I speak with Reid Blackman, Ph.D., a leading expert on AI ethics. Reid is the author of Ethical Machines, and the founder of Virtue Consultants. Prior to starting Virtue he was a professor of philosophy for over 10 years.  We dive into important and timely questions about the ethical implications of AI, including: privacy, bias, explainability, plagiarism, job-displacement and more. Reid also offers a practical framework for founders and executives to implement ethical AI in their companies. This episode provides a great introduction to the complex and important topic of AI ethics and highlights some of the key considerations that startups and companies should keep in mind when developing and deploying AI applications. Timestamps: (0:00) Introduction (1:44) Giveaway details (2:44) What is ethics?  (5:20) Why is it important for founders to think about ethics? (8:47) The "big three" of AI ethics — privacy, bias, and explainability (14:32) More on bias (19:18) Risks of self-driving cars (22:24) The trolley dilemma (26:23) Is generative AI plagiarism? (29:53) Open AI's pivot from non-profit to for-profit (32:28) How should Chat-GPT be used in education?  (35:47) Who is responsible to address mass unemployment due to automation and AI (41:04) Practical framework for building ethical AI (43:41) AI ethics vs. corporate "values"  (46:25) Communicating your AI ethics framework (47:59) Frequent stumbling blocks faced by companies (50:44) Final Thoughts Guest contact info:https://www.linkedin.com/in/reid-blackman/ https://www.reidblackman.com/ https://www.virtueconsultants.com/ Sponsor: This podcast is brought to you by grwth.co. Grwth offers fractional CMOs, paired with best-in-class digital marketing execution to support early-stage startup success. With a focus on seed and series A companies, Grwth has helped a number of SaaS, digital health, and e-commerce startups build their go-to-market function and scale up. To learn more and book a free consultation, go to grwth.co. Get in touch with Mosheh:www.linkedin.com/in/moshehptwitter.com/MoshehPhello@pmfpod.comwww.pmfpod.com

Are you struggling to find the right target market for your startup? Don't make the mistake of trying to appeal to everyone, it's a recipe for disaster! I had the privilege of interviewing Jakob Knutzen, founder and CEO of Butter. Jakob is a management consultant turned agency director, turned startup founder. He has a very thoughtful and intentional way of approaching product market fit for his startup. Jakob shares his insights on Butter's targeted approach to finding their ICP (ideal customer profile), how to segment your market, how to use data to make informed decisions, and the keys to success for geographically distributed companies. We also talk about community building, fundraising and more. I really enjoyed this conversation and I’m sure you will too. Timestamps: (0:00) Introduction (1:56) What is Butter?  (3:07) Jakob's background (6:35) How to find your ICP (ideal customer profile) (10:23) Defining Product Market Fit (13:14) Identifying the right activation moments (17:13) Product-led motion vs. product-assisted motion (18:40) Analysis-myopia — losing the forest for the trees (22:19) Gaining qualitative feedback from customers (25:07) Leveraging community (28:22) Influencer marketing (30:59) Launching on Product Hunt (32:35) Other growth channels (34:47) The grand vision for Butter (36:14) Thinking about the competitive landscape (38:10) Fundraising lessons learned (40:50) Keys to remote work success (43:43) Lightning round (45:55) Final thoughts Guest contact info: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakobknutzen/ https://twitter.com/JakobKnutzen https://www.butter.us Sponsor: This podcast is brought to you by grwth.co. Grwth offers fractional CMOs, paired with best-in-class digital marketing execution to support early-stage startup success. With a focus on seed and series A companies, Grwth has helped a number of SaaS, digital health, and e-commerce startups build their go-to-market function and scale up. To learn more and book a free consultation, go to grwth.co. Get in touch with Mosheh: www.linkedin.com/in/moshehp twitter.com/MoshehP hello@pmfpod.com www.pmfpod.com

Sean founded Flurry in 2005 — building it into the most widely adopted analytics tool for mobile apps. He later went on to sell the company to Yahoo.  In 2015 he started Outlier.ai, a pioneering company in the field of Augmented Analytics. That company was acquired in 2022.  Sean has invested in hundreds of startups and has advised hundreds more. He has an immense wealth of knowledge and 1st-hand experience building, scaling, and exiting tech startups and he was kind enough to share those insights with us on this show.  Timestamps: (0:00) Introduction (1:50) Sean’s background (4:05) Mistakes avoided and mistakes repeated the second time (7:56) Common mistakes of 1st time founders  (12:08) Finding the right go-to-market motion for your company (17:17) Hiring for the go-to market motion and lessons learned (21:54) Sticking with your conviction despite negative signals (29:13) Experience having sold 2 companies (38:55) How should founders think about data and metrics? (43:01) What is augmented analytics and what’s happening in that space? (50:05) Lightning round and final thoughts Further Reading: https://breakingpoint.substack.com/p/you-have-too-many-metrics Traction (the book): https://a.co/d/5bJ7MR9 Guest contact info: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sbyrnes https://twitter.com/sbyrnes https://breakingpoint.substack.com https://www.thestartuphelpdesk.com  Sponsor: This podcast is brought to you by grwth.co. Grwth offers fractional CMOs, paired with best-in-class digital marketing execution to support early-stage startup success. With a focus on seed and series A companies, Grwth has helped a number of SaaS, digital health, and e-commerce startups build their go-to-market function and scale up. To learn more and book a free consultation, go to grwth.co. Get in touch with Mosheh: www.linkedin.com/in/moshehp twitter.com/MoshehP hello@pmfpod.com www.pmfpod.com

The backlash is coming! 😱😱 In this episode we talk about the risks of AI content generation and what it means to do SEO in 2023. Alexander shares how he grew his company’s website traffic from 0 to 1 million monthly visitors in under 6 months; and lessons learned building and growing INK. If you’re involved in content strategy or SEO in any way, or if you're curious about the effects of artificial intelligence on search, you’re definitely going to want to listen. Timestamps: (0:00) Introduction (1:52) What is INK and how's it different from other generative AI tools? (4:47) What's it mean to focus on content consumption? (7:16) Is Chat-GPT a game-changer? (9:45) Should kids be allowed to use Chat-GPT for schoolwork?  (12:50) What will GPT-4 bring? (18:20) Are we approaching Artificial General Intelligence?  (23:48) Transitioning from service business to SaaS (30:03) How to get great customer reviews?  (34:24) Going from 0 to 1M web visitors in 6 months (41:57) How to do SEO in 2023?  (45:54) How to know if your writers use AI writing assistants?  (50:28) What about link-building?  (54:32) What other channels?  (1:00:39) Lightning round   (1:09:02) Final thoughts Guest contact info: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adridder https://twitter.com/adridder https://inkforall.com/?fpr=mosheh76  Sponsor: This podcast is brought to you by grwth.co. Grwth offers fractional CMOs, paired with best-in-class digital marketing execution to support early-stage startup success. With a focus on seed and series A companies, Grwth has helped a number of SaaS, digital health, and e-commerce startups build their go-to-market function and scale up. To learn more and book a free consultation, go to grwth.co. Get in touch with Mosheh: www.linkedin.com/in/moshehp twitter.com/MoshehP hello@pmfpod.com www.pmfpod.com

If you follow Tech Twitter then you probably already know who Sara is. Before starting Winnie, Sara was Director of product at Postmates. She was an early employee at Twitter, and also worked at YouTube and Google. In today’s conversation, Sara shares how her company initially struggled to find product market fit and her journey pivoting the product to success. We also dive into the nature of multi-sided marketplaces; launching new product lines, and how to choose a co-founder. Sara has got really insightful and down-to-earth advice that I think you’ll find valuable. Timestamps: (0:00) Introduction  (1:50) What is Winnie? (2:18) How did your background lead you to start the company? (3:52) What did the initial product look like? (7:22) How did Winnie iterate to find PMF? (12:20) Gathering customer feedback with NPS (14:26) What are the dynamics of two-sided marketplaces? (17:15) Solving the chicken and egg problem (19:16) Figuring out PMF for each constituent of the marketplace (20:21) Expanding the product offering; the “sophomore act” (23:31) How do you ensure you don’t make assumptions about your customers? (25:57) How big is Winnie today? (28:06) What growth channels have worked for you? (30:38) How to choose a co-founder (33:22) Advice for working with family (35:18) Hiring part-time employees (36:41) Managing a remote team; (38:58) Lessons from working at Google, Twitter & Postmates (40:39) Lightning round (+ The future of Twitter) (45:50) Final thoughts Guest contact info: https://twitter.com/sm https://winnie.com/ Sponsor: This podcast is brought to you by grwth.co. Grwth offers fractional CMOs, paired with best-in-class digital marketing execution to support early-stage startup success. With a focus on seed and series A companies, Grwth has helped a number of SaaS, digital health, and e-commerce startups build their go-to-market function and scale up. To learn more and book a free consultation, go to grwth.co. Get in touch with Mosheh: www.linkedin.com/in/moshehp/ twitter.com/MoshehP hello@pmfpod.com www.pmfpod.com

With the release of Chat-GPT, everybody is suddenly talking about AI.  How does Chat-GPT work? Is it truly a game-changer? What will happen to Google and the field of SEO?  In the previous episode (#7), I talked to Pascal Weinberger, CEO of Bardeen.ai, and we talked about Bardeen’s journey and the growth lessons he learned along the way. If you haven’t listened to that episode yet, you should definitely check it out.   When I was chatting with Pascal I took the opportunity to pick his brain about artificial intelligence and he was generous enough to take me down that rabbit hole, so I’m excited to share that conversation with you here, in this special bonus episode. Timestamps: (2:55) How does Bardeen leverage AI? (6:13) Is Chat-GPT truly a game changer? (13:19) How does Chat-GPT change the SEO game? (19:31) Is Google ahead of OpenAI? (21:41) Is there room for startups in the future? (23:49) What are transformers? (27:00) Can machines understand? (28:47) Symbolic AI vs. machine learning (33:29) When will we see the singularity? Links and further reading: www.bardeen.ai/ai www.aleph-alpha.com "Attention Is All You Need" https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper/2017/file/3f5ee243547dee91fbd053c1c4a845aa-Paper.pdf Episode of Invest Like the Best: https://www.joincolossus.com/episodes/77957344/lowin-explaining-the-new-ai-paradigm Guest contact info: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pascalweinberger/ https://twitter.com/bardeenai www.bardeen.ai Sponsor: This podcast is brought to you by grwth.co. Grwth offers fractional CMOs, paired with best-in-class digital marketing execution to support early-stage startup success. With a focus on seed and series A companies, Grwth has helped a number of SaaS, digital health, and e-commerce startups build their go-to-market function and scale up. To learn more and book a free consultation, go to grwth.co. Get in touch with us: www.linkedin.com/in/moshehp/ twitter.com/MoshehP hello@pmfpod.com www.pmfpod.com