Podcast
A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
Hosted by Mistral.vc · EN
Every founder has 1 goal: find product-market fit. We interview the world's most successful startup founders on the 0 to 1 part of their journeys. We've had the founders of Reddit, Gusto, Rappi, Glean, Cohere, Huntress, ID.me and many more.
We go deep with entrepreneurs & VCs to provide detailed examples you can steal. Our goal is to understand product-market fit better than anyone on the planet.
Rated one of the world's top startup podcasts.
50episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
He failed for 5 years. Then hit $20M ARR with 100% outbound. | Didi Gurfinkel, Founder of Datarails
Feb 2600:38:28Tap to summarizeDidi spent five years building a product that no one really wanted. He raised $10 million, tried endless pivots, and was known as the "black sheep" of his investors' portfolio. Then, with his back against the wall, he made one final bet on a boring, unsexy market: FP&A for Excel users.In this episode, Didi breaks down how that final pivot turned into a rocket ship. He reveals why he sold cheap monthly contracts to prove demand, how he used his kids to automate LinkedIn outreach, and why targeting the market everyone else ignores (Excel lovers) was the key to unlocking massive growth.Why You Should ListenHow to survive 5 years of wandering before finding PMF.Why he sold $790/month contracts to validate a pivot.How to scale from $0 to $20M ARR with 100% outbound sales.Keywordsstartup podcast, startup podcast for founders, product market fit, finding pmf, pivot, B2B sales, outbound sales strategy, FP&A software, excel automation, Didi Gurfinkel00:00:00 Intro00:02:42 The First 5 Years of Wandering00:11:39 Being the "Black Sheep" of the Portfolio00:14:12 Identifying the FP&A Opportunity00:20:55 The Pivot: Selling $790/Month Contracts00:30:30 Scaling from $1M to $20M with Outbound00:33:18 Why the Mid-Market is Wide Open00:34:22 The Moment of True Product Market FitSend me a message to let me know what you think!
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His startup powers OpenAI's Voice Mode. Last month, they became a unicorn. | Russ d’Sa, Co-Founder of LiveKit
Feb 2300:55:18Tap to summarizeRuss was running a moderately successful live streaming startup. Then he got a terrifying offer from a tech giant: sell to us for cheap, or we'll crush you. He had no leverage. He was about to fold.Then he got an email from OpenAI. They had secretly built ChatGPT's voice mode on his infrastructure. Overnight, everything changed. In this episode, Russ reveals the wild story of how LiveKit became the backbone of multimodal AI, why he almost sold his previous company for parts, and how to survive when the biggest companies in the world are breathing down your neck.Why You Should ListenHow to secretly power ChatGPT’s voice mode.Why you should build "boring" infrastructure instead of AI apps.How to negotiate an acquihire when you have no leverage.Why a "sell or die" threat from a tech giant was the best thing to happen.How to pivot from a failed consumer app to a unicorn infrastructure play.Keywordsstartup podcast, startup podcast for founders, product market fit, AI infrastructure, multimodal AI, OpenAI, ChatGPT voice mode, founder stories, pivot, LiveKit00:00:00 Intro00:02:49 The OG YC Batch Experience00:07:08 How to Sell a Failing Startup00:15:51 The "Good Cop, Bad Cop" Investor Negotiation00:35:56 The First Voice AI Demo That Flopped00:38:29 The Secret Email from OpenAI00:43:47 How to Scale Stateful Voice AgentsSend me a message to let me know what you think!
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He pivoted at $1M ARR—then raised $120M. | Kevin Tian, Co-Founder of Doppel
Feb 1900:36:21Tap to summarizeKevin was building a successful startup in the NFT space. They'd hit $1M ARR. But he looked at the market and realized it wasn't big enough. So he made the terrifying choice to pivot the entire company into cybersecurity.In this episode, Kevin breaks down how he navigated that transition without killing the business. He reveals how he sold his first $5k/month contract with no product, why he raised a massive seed round he didn't need, and how he convinced Andreessen Horowitz to lead his Series A in the middle of a strategic shift.Why You Should ListenHow to pivot from a bad market to a unicorn opportunity.Why he sold a $5k/month contract with zero product.How to raise a Series A from a16z during a pivot.Why you never truly "find" Product Market Fit.The danger of building for a niche market (and how to escape).Keywordsstartup podcast, startup podcast for founders, product market fit, finding pmf, pivot, cybersecurity, crypto startup, a16z, raising series a, Kevin Tian00:00:00 Intro00:02:17 Meeting at Uber and the "Glass Eating" Phase00:07:21 The First Idea00:11:52 Selling the First $5k/Month Contract with No Product00:16:52 The Decision to Pivot at $1M ARR00:29:43 Network Selling to Enterprise Cybersecurity00:32:03 Raising Series A from a16z During a Pivot00:33:36 Why Product Market Fit is Not a One-Time Event00:35:10 Action Produces InsightsSend me a message to let me know what you think!
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He sold his first startup for $100M. Then raised $250M in 18 months. | Dileep Thazhmon, Founder of Jeeves
Feb 1600:55:54Tap to summarizeDileep sold his first company for over $100M. For his second act, he didn't just want another win; he wanted to solve a problem that banks refused to touch: global business banking.In this episode, Dileep breaks down how Jeeves scaled to $7M ARR in just over a year by doing things that "don't scale"—like physically mailing credit cards to Argentina. He reveals the counterintuitive strategy of raising from dozens of small investors, how to pivot a fintech when interest rates skyrocket, and why being an outsider was his biggest advantage in building a global banking infrastructure from scratch.Why You Should ListenHow to get to $7M ARR in one year through unscalable acts.Why a "messy" cap table with 50+ investors is actually a secret weapon.The "Beat Down" Framework: A brutal stress test for vetting your idea.The offline marketing stunt that actually worked.Keywordsstartup podcast, startup podcast for founders, product market fit, fintech startup, global expansion, second time founder, Y Combinator, fundraising strategy, B2B banking, finding pmf00:00:00 Intro00:02:04 Selling His First Company for $100M00:08:19 The "Beat Down" Framework for New Ideas00:19:38 The One Metric That Matters for PMF00:24:44 Why Join YC as a Second-Time Founder?00:29:15 Shipping Cards to Argentina by Hand00:39:13 The Pivot to Jeeves Pay When Cards Got Shut Down00:43:25 The "Messy Cap Table" Fundraising Strategy00:49:27 The Moment of True Product Market FitSend me a message to let me know what you think!
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He sold his first 2 startups. His 3rd grew to $1M ARR in 3 months. | Chaz Englander, Founder of Model ML
Feb 1200:49:44Tap to summarizeChaz has founded 3 companies. The first sold for over $40M. The second sold to GoPuff for even more. Now, he’s on his third act with Model ML, having just raised $75M Series A <2 years in.In this episode, Chaz breaks down the playbook behind his successes. He reveals how he raised his first million by pitching strangers on LinkedIn, why his delivery startup was just a text message system on the backend, and why speed is the only defensive moat left.Why You Should ListenHow to pitch strangers on LinkedIn for angel checks.Why you should always say you're raising "a bit more" than you actually are.Why "Product Market Fit" is no longer static in the age of AI.How to launch a massive consumer business.Why getting a paid design partner isn't enough.Keywordsstartup podcast, startup podcast for founders, serial entrepreneur, fundraising strategy, product market fit, rapid scaling, AI startup, exit strategy, MVP, fintech00:00:00 Intro00:04:46 Pitching Strangers for Angel Checks00:07:51 The "Fake" Fundraising Strategy00:23:28 Why MVPs are Dead in the AI Era00:25:01 Selling to GoPuff While Running Out of Cash00:32:25 The Origin of ModelML00:38:30 The Design Partner Playbook00:46:13 From $5k to $100k MRR in 3 MonthsSend me a message to let me know what you think!
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He fired all his customers. Then built a $1B startup in 2 years. | Jay Madheswaran, Co-Founder of Eve
Feb 900:52:16Tap to summarizeJay was running a respectable AI startup with $3M ARR. But he knew it wasn't a venture-scale rocket ship. So, he decided to fire all his customers, pivot the entire company, and bet everything on a new vertical: legal AI for plaintiff attorneys.Eve went from zero to unicorn status in under two years, raising $100M at a $1B valuation. In this episode, Jay breaks down the brutal reality of pivoting a revenue-generating company, how to achieve "demo shock" in an antiquated industry, and why 4-hour user sessions were the first sign that he had struck gold.Why You Should ListenHow threatening to shut down your product can reveal PMF.Why firing all your existing customers might be the only way to scale.How to achieve a 40% conversion rate from cold outreach to demo.Why you should target mid market instead of enterprise if you want to deploy AI fast.Keywordsstartup podcast, startup podcast for founders, product market fit, finding pmf, pivot, legal tech, AI startup, B2B sales, unicorn startup, Jay Madheswaran, Eve00:00:00 Intro00:02:27 From VC to Founder00:08:42 The First Idea: RPA for NLP00:16:52 The Hard Decision to Pivot at 3M ARR00:24:26 Product Discovery While Still Supporting Old Customers00:33:56 40 Percent Conversion from Cold Outreach00:39:56 Firing Customers to Find True PMF00:41:06 The 4-Hour User Session Signal00:46:05 From 1M to 10M ARR in One Year00:49:11 The Moment of True Product Market FitSend me a message to let me know what you think!
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He wrote the book on Account Based Marketing. Here are his GTM secrets for enterprise. | Bassem Hamdy, Founder of Briq
Feb 500:39:17Tap to summarizeBassem took Briq from a failed data idea to a Series B leader in construction financial automation.But the path wasn't linear. In this episode, Bassem reveals how he pivoted to RPA bots, why he killed a high-growth fintech product to survive the 2023 cash crunch, and how he uses a relentless "Go-to-Market" strategy. He breaks down his exact ABM playbook, why he hates trade shows, and why he believes AI orchestration is a bigger shift than the cloud.Why You Should ListenHow to identify the "Challenger" who will kill your deal.Why trade shows are a waste of money (and what to do instead).The "1-Person Webinar" hack to close high-value accounts.The brutal reality of cutting 50% of staff to survive.Why selling "risk reduction" beats selling "time saved."Keywordsstartup podcast, startup podcast for founders, product market fit, account based marketing, construction tech, go to market strategy, enterprise sales, finding pmf, robotic process automation, ai orchestration00:00:00 Intro00:06:23 The RPA "Aha" Moment with a Tech Giant00:11:52 Selling Risk vs. Selling Time Saved00:13:27 The "New CFO" Signal in Account Based Marketing00:17:06 Identifying the "Challenger" in Enterprise Sales00:23:22 The 1-Person Webinar Strategy00:29:19 Killing the Fintech Product to Survive 202300:36:20 Why You Never Truly Have Product Market FitSend me a message to let me know what you think!
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He got rejected from YC—then grew to $1.8B in under 2 years. | Max Junestrand, Founder of Legora
Feb 200:52:15Tap to summarizeMax went from a YC rejection to building a $1.8B company in less than two years. His company, Legora, is the fastest YC-backed company to become a unicorn in history. His path to insane growth was not standard: after raising a massive Series A, Max told his board he was pausing all new sales for six months to rebuild the product infrastructure.In this episode, Max breaks down the "burn the boats" mentality that drove their growth, the specific demo tactics that convert 55% of prospects, and how to build an engineering culture that ships fast enough to beat incumbents like Thomson Reuters.Why You Should ListenWhy he shut down sales for 6 months immediately after raising $35M.How a single live demo stunt at a conference generated 150 qualified leads.The aggressive pitch strategy that turned a YC rejection into an acceptance.How to close a $10M round with Benchmark after a single meeting.Why you should encourage your enterprise clients to run bake-offs.Keywordsstartup podcast, startup podcast for founders, product market fit, AI legal tech, Y Combinator, hypergrowth, enterprise sales, Benchmark Capital, fundraising strategy, rapid scaling00:00:00 Intro00:06:51 Getting Rejected by Y Combinator00:15:37 Living on 50k Euros with Design Partners00:30:19 The Live Demo That Booked 150 Meetings00:34:06 Raising $10M from Benchmark in 30 Minutes00:35:13 Shutting Down Sales After Raising Series A00:46:36 How to Win 85 Percent of Competitive Deals00:50:05 The Moment of True Product Market FitSend me a message to let me know what you think!
Transcribe →Why new Carta data shows bridge rounds might be worse than you think. | Peter Walker, Head of Insights at Carta
Feb 13, 202500:31:17Tap to summarizeCarta just released their report for Q4 2024. Peter is Head of Insights at Carta, and the person who owns their data practice. We sit down to talk about the largest trends he saw across fundraising, industries, graduation rates and even hiring practices. Carta data shows that graduation rates from Seed to A are much lower for companies that have raised a bridge round. We analyze why that might be and what that could mean for early-stage founders.VCs read and understand all this data. If you want to operate on equal footing— you should too.Why you should listen:The role of AI in the venture capital landscape.Why there are a trend of larger funding rounds going to fewer companies.Why so much capital is being allocated to AI companies.Valuations for seed and early-stage companies are on the rise.Why bridges and extensions have become so popular. Why bridge rounds have lower graduation rates to Series A.What the data shows about how hiring practices are changing.Keywordsventure capital, AI, fundraising, market trends, valuations, startup ecosystem, early stage, late stage, investment, venture capital, bridge rounds, seed extensions, startup growth, hiring practices, AI impact, early stage funding, market trends, valuations, exitsSend me a message to let me know what you think!
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He exited for $335M—& felt "emptiness". So he quit, gave up millions in earnout, & grew to $1M ARR in 6 months. | Alon Arvatz, Founder of IntSights & PointFive
Feb 10, 202500:51:43Tap to summarizeAlon was a hacker for the Israeli Defence Forces' cyber department. There he saw the most advanced methods used in cyber warfare. So when he left, he started IntSights-- a company that helped enterprises defend themselves from cyber attacks. He was a first-time founder who didn't even know the word 'unicorn'. He made all the mistakes you could make. But he had real, undeniable pull. He grew to $1M ARR in a year and to $4M a year later. By the end of it, he was doing $30M in revenue and exited for $335M.But when I asked him what it felt like to sell for hundreds of millions, he said it 'felt like emptiness'. Alon is a builder—that's all he wants to do. So he quit post-acqusition and left millions of dollars on the table. Moeny he was guaranteed to make if he just stayed in his role.Instead, he started PointFive to help enterprises reduce wasted spend on cloud infrastructure. He know nothing about the space. One year in, he's raised $36M and grown to millions in ARR—it's even faster than IntSights.Here's the story.Why you should listenWhy Alon felt empty after exiting for $335M.Why he left millions of dollars on the table to start a new startup.Why the mistakes he made in his first startup helped his second one grow way faster.Why he raised $36M in under a year.Why true customer pull comes from solving top of mind problems.KeywordsLinkedIn, video content, cloud cost optimization, engineering responsibilities, startup funding, second-time founders, product market fit, customer traction, entrepreneurshipSend me a message to let me know what you think!
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