A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders

Jay Myers is the founder of Bold Commerce, known for revolutionizing e-commerce with innovative checkout solutions. In this episode, he shares his journey launching Kickbooster, an affiliate management program. He discusses the experimental mindset necessary for startups and the unique challenges of crowdfunding affiliate tracking. Jay emphasizes the crucial role of early customer engagement and effective communication in product launches. He also outlines strategies for navigating the launch of SMB products while maintaining a strong community presence.

Once you have clear traction, once revenue is up and to the right and growing quickly, investors come to you.But what about early on? How do you get people to invest millions of dollars when all you have is an idea?Stephany, the founder of Tealbook, has raised over $70M. She got her first cheque from an angel investor she met during her kid's soccer game. In this episode, she dives into how she raised her first few rounds. Angels investors invest in people- and Stephany shares details into how to build relationships that may catalyze your round.Check this episode out to learn how to raise your first round.Send me a message to let me know what you think!

How do you launch a marketplace? How do you get beyond the chicken-and-egg problem? Derrick's answer: Fake it Till you Make it.When launching Drop (a rewards app with millions of downloads), Derrick needed both consumers and brands to join. Instead of going after both at once, he found a way to seed supply and added brands' logos to his website, whether they had joined or not. It may have led to some Cease and Desist letters (or Conversation and Discussion letters, as he called them), but it also led to considerable growth.If you're about to launch a marketplace or are struggling to get it off the ground, listen to this episode and see how Derrick did it.  Send me a message to let me know what you think!

In this conversation, Corey Gross, Founder and CEO of Sensibill, shares his insights into closing enterprise sales, especially with banks. He discusses the lengthy sales cycles and complex hurdles that startups face when entering the enterprise market. Corey emphasizes the importance of building relationships, leveraging mock-up demos, and identifying champions within organizations to facilitate sales. He also outlines how to navigate pilot projects and the critical role of early partnerships in establishing credibility within the financial sector.

Most startup founders recognize they need advisors. The question is who do you get, how do you get them, and how do you structure it all? In this episode, Darryl shares his framework for how to set up the perfect board of advisors.  It starts by imagining that you're five years in the future once your startup is a huge successand asking yourself- what are all the key pieces that are required? From there, Darryl methodically targets advisors that will help with each of the key pieces. He discusses how to get in front of them, how to convince them to join, and how to structure the advisory board.As a startup founder you will need advisors to help on your journey. Listen to this episode to learn how to do it right.Send me a message to let me know what you think!

Running a startup is hard. Doing it alone, especially when it's your first time, can be downright tortuous. Lindsey started off on her own, without much of a network in the startup scene in Toronto. Not only that, as a business type she didn't have the skills needed to build a prototype, let alone the full product. On this episode, she discusses how she methodically set out to find her co-founder through three steps: networking, networking, networking.If you're a solo founder looking for your second half, you'll want to give this a listen.Send me a message to let me know what you think!

For even the most successful startups, finding product-market fit is often a long journey and Klipfolio was no exception.Founders often feel that one more feature, one more UI change will get them to product-market fit. The reality is that the path to PMF is more of a step function. If your first product doesn't quite get you there, a small change is unlikely to get you the results you're hoping for. You likely need to dramatically change your product or even your market.In this episode, Allan shares the story of how Klipfolio went from consumer to enterprise and back to SMB before finally finding real product-market fit. He shares lots of clear details on what true product-market fit feels like. If you're a founder of a company that hasn't quite made it beyond PMF, you'll want to check this out.Send me a message to let me know what you think!

It’s one thing to work hard. It’s another to work hard with a well-researched destination in sight. In this episode of The Product Market Fit Show, Rob Boukine gets real about the mistakes he made in his early days as cofounder of Noibu and dives deep on how he pivoted his business. He discusses the importance of using customer discovery to ensure your products are “need to have” rather than “nice to have”. If you’re working hard but nothing is working out as expected, perhaps his advice on tracking down the right pain point will hit home. Send me a message to let me know what you think!

Launching is often thought of as a huge event. Lots of noise, lots of PR. One big bang. For Ray, it's just a series of many small experiments. Ray realized that the number one value prop for a consumer was coverage: when a user opened the app, the majority of merchants that were walking distance needed to show up. So, he set up an experiment. He targeted a handful of office buildings and a dozen merchants, all located on the same block. He didn't need to onboard all the merchants in Toronto, just all the merchants on this one block.If you're about to launch a consumer product or a marketplace, check out what Ray has to say. Send me a message to let me know what you think!

"Ideas are a dime a dozen". Maybe. But executing on a mediocre idea won't get you very far. In this episode, Ray, a multi-time founder who sold his first company to Google, discusses how he came up with the idea for Ritual. It was not your typical aha-moment. Many ideas came together over a long time until the idea for a pick-up order app was born. Since then, Ritual has gone on to launch in over 40 cities and raise over $100M. If you feel you want to be a founder but are struggling to come up with a great idea, maybe Ray's story will help you out.Send me a message to let me know what you think!