A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders

They say the best founders can walk through walls. Well, nothing can stop Nabeil.For the first two years, Nabeil and his team worked out of his house. His entire house, except for his bedroom, was an office. He would nap while changes were loaded to production only to wake up 2 hours later to test again. He got in a car crash a week before launch and didn't even set aside time to deal with it.  A year later, Nabeil managed to convince a pilot to let him off a plane so he could make a business meeting! Insane focus meant there was only one thing that mattered: launching on time.If you want to see how deals get closed in Startupland, check this episode out.Send me a message to let me know what you think!

Many founders start companies because they want to get rich. Honestly, that’s what I did. Unfortunately, only caring about making money often leads to bad startup ideas. Focus on value instead. Another observation... seed stage VCs are called “investors”, just like hedgefund managers or stock pickers. It’s a poor choice of words. Finding seed VCs to back you is less about finding “investors” and more about finding “believers”.Send me a message to let me know what you think!

To find product-market fit you need to deliver clear and exceptional customer value.The story of Applyboard shows you exactly what that looks like. Martin changed the lives of thousands of students who he helped study abroad. He impacted not just them but their entire families. In the meantime, he delivered 10x ROI to schools: for every $1,000 they paid Applyboard they made $10,000+ on tuition. You can't push yourself to unicorn status. You need the market to pull you there. And that only happens if you provide incredible customer value. If you want to understand what that looks like, check this episode out.Send me a message to let me know what you think!

Two observations from the Loopio episode:1. When you're working on your first startup, everything is hard. It's natural to think that the second time around will be much easier. It's not! 0 to 1 is always hard.2. Most VCs will tell you that you need a really big addressable market. Yet many successful founders started off without worrying about market size at all. Early on, market size doesn't really matter.Send me a message to let me know what you think!

Starting your second startup should be much easier, right? Well, yes and no. Jafar was the founder and Chief Revenue Officer of Loopio, which went on to raise $200M+ and land thousands of customers.  He left to start Barley. This is the story of how he decided to leave, and what it was like to start over a second time.On the one hand, some things, like fundraising, are much easier. On the other hand, the 0 to 1 journey is just as hard. Delivering value in a big market is no easy task, even if you've learnt from prior mistakes.In this episode, he shares what skills transfer over and which ones don't. If you're a repeat founder, or a prior founder thinking of starting a new one, check this episode out.Send me a message to let me know what you think!

Before the pandemic, there were 24 employees at Certn (Or Certonians, as they're called). After the pandemic, there were 500. That's 20x growth in just two years. That only happens for one reason...  insane product-market fit.This is the story of how Certn got there. Andrew (CEO) walks us through his five-step process to find product-market fit. He used that in the early days of Certn to veto his initial idea and quickly shift to tenant verification. Through continuous PMF-ing, he uncovered employee verification as well. When COVID hit, he was in the right place, at the right time, with the right product.The rest is history.If you're on the road to product-market fit, you need to check this episode out.Send me a message to let me know what you think!

Bootstrapping isn't sexy. At least not at first. As they say, it's not greed that runs the world but envy. And when your founder friend raises $10M, it's hard not to want it too. But 10 years later, when you're running a $100M+ per year bootstrapped business, all of a sudden things aren't looking too bad. No runway to worry about. No pressure to sell. When you bootstrap a business past product-market-fit, the ones that raised $10M+ start to envy you. In this episode, Vitaly shares exactly how they did it. From humble beginnings building a minimum viable product for one client, to making a $500/mo salary and raising minimal VC funding, to one of Canada's largest startups today. Raising money in 2022 isn't easy. Even if it was, it's not clear raising it is optimal. It's always good to do more with less. If you're bootstrapping or thinking of it, this is the episode for you.Send me a message to let me know what you think!

What's the most important asset of any startup? It's easy. The talent. The software you build is not defensible. It can be replicated. The team you build is what's special. And the culture you develop is what's unique.In this episode, Rob shares some incredible advice from his days at Uber and as the CEO of Float on how to build a high-performing team. He talks about hiring A+ talent by spending 80% of his time on recruiting and paying 90th percentile. He shares his hiring philosophy about hiring with high conviction (appropriately called "F--K Yes and F--K No"). And he talks at length about what culture is and how to make it work for your startup.If you're running a team of any size, you have to check this out. Guaranteed at least three tips you can copy or your money back!Send me a message to let me know what you think!

Wealthsimple is arguably the hottest private startup in Canada, with over 3M users and a valuation of over US$4B.In this episode, Mike (CEO) shares stories he’s never shared before. He goes deep into how he came up with the original idea, launched the product, and got early traction.From getting rejected by YC, to running around Toronto hosting Lunch & Learns, and calling every single one of his first customers personally, this episode is filled with stories you wouldn’t expect given where Wealthsimple is today.But all start-ups have humble beginnings. Wealthsimple is no exception. If you want to learn how one of the biggest successes coming out of Canada got started, check this episode out. Send me a message to let me know what you think!

When you launch a product and no one buys it, the decision is rather simple. You kill the product. At the very least, you make some serious changes to it. What happens when you do real customer discovery, launch a product that solves a pain point, and get some traction, but can't really seem to take off? What happens when your product is generating revenue, but true product-market-fit still seems unattainable? Michael, the CEO of LumiQ, shares the story of two products.  The Luminari recruiting marketplace, which generated close to $1M in sales but couldn't scale. And LumiQ, his current product and the result of a major pivot, which is on a path to 8 figures in ARR.If you want to understand how to identify the need to pivot, how to conduct proper research to find the right pain points, and how to execute the change, this is the episode for you.Send me a message to let me know what you think!