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
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He raised $20M, hit $3.5M in revenue—& failed. Here are the top 3 lessons he learned. | Ned Phillips, Founder of Bambu
Feb 6, 202501:01:11Tap to summarizeNed had a chance to run Robinhood Asia but he turned it down. Instead, he launched a competitive product. He decided to go B2B and sell to banks and other financial institutions. He locked down a $400K revenue sale before writing a line of code. It seemed easy at first. Overtime, he grew to $3.5M in revenue, billions in assets under management and hundreds of thousands of users. He raised $20M in venture capital. But then the problems started. Enterprises that paid for large contracts didn't push the product—many had no marketing budgets. In some cases, they shelved the product altogether. The one-time revenue never turned into ARR. Running out of money, he was forced to raise a small bridge and lay off more than half his staff.He came close—but ultimately, he just wasn't able to recover. He sold off the company for parts and went through a wind down. This is his story—and the lessons he learned.Why you should listen: Why the difference between success and failure can be minimal.How to balance custom contracts with building scalable product. Why enterprises might not push the product they've paid $100K+ for.How to build a strong company culture.Why layoffs are the hardest thing a founder will go through.When things go south, "the days are long, but the months are short".Keywordsstartup, FinTech, B2B2C, customization, revenue models, marketing, client engagement, leadership, company culture, lessons learned, B2B sales, startup challenges, emotional toll, liquidation, lessons learnedSend me a message to let me know what you think!
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He exited for hundreds of millions—then invested in 20+ founders. Here's what he looks for. | Jason Van Gaal, Founder of ROOT
Feb 3, 202500:48:02Tap to summarizeJason built a data center company in the 2013. When he exited in 2019, it was the third-largest exit in Canada that year. He'd sold his previous startup and invested 100% of his capital into ROOT. He grew to 10s of millions and exited for 100s of millions. Now he's invested in over 20 angel-stage startups. He shares the story of ROOT and what he looks for in the startups and founders he backs. Why you should listen:Why seeing inefficiencies can lead to huge advantages vs competitors.How customer concentration can actually lead to a huge success.Why the 'Why Now' slide is so important.Why Jason values startups can get to free cash flow within 1-2 years.How to use the lead to conversation ratio as a leading indicator of PMF. Keywordsdata centers, investment, entrepreneurship, product market fit, angel investing, business growth, technology, risk management, funding strategies, customer relationships, investment, startup, venture capital, product-market fit, founder advice, business model, cash flow, total addressable market, team dynamics, entrepreneurial hungerSend me a message to let me know what you think!
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1st time founder completely pivots after YC—then grows 30x in a year to $2.2M ARR. | Pablo Palafox, Founder of HappyRobot
Jan 30, 202500:56:37Tap to summarizePablo is the first guest that has the same name as me-- so you KNOW this episode will be great. Pablo hustled for months just to get to $70K in ARR. He got rejected from YC, re-applied, and finally got in.But after months in YC, he realized his first product was not going to work. He had some traction, but not nearly enough customer pull. So he shut it down. He went back to square one. He did customer discovery in a totally different space and leveraged the latest in Gen AI. He then built AI agents that automate calls in the logistics space.Just a year after shutting down his first product, he'd grown to $2.2M in ARR. In December, he raised $15.6M from a16z. Here's how it happened.Why you should listen: Why you should be careful of "free" money from grants.Why YC changed the trajectory of Pablo's startup.How a big pivot is often necessary-- even when you have customer traction. Why the key is to find a true, no-brainer pain point.Meeting customers where they are can lead to smoother adoption of new technologies.How to build a product that provides clear ROI is essential for customer buy-in.Continuous exploration and adaptation are key to finding the right market fit.KeywordsHappy Robot, startup journey, product market fit, early stage funding, co-founders, computer vision, YC, venture capital, entrepreneurship, business development, funding, European founders, Y Combinator, customer acquisition, pivoting, logistics, AI agents, startup growth, Series A, market researchSend me a message to let me know what you think!
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He exited for $200M— then bootstrapped his next startup to $100M in revenue. | Alex Hawkinson, Founder of BrightAI
Jan 27, 202500:43:19Tap to summarizeAlex sold his last IoT startup for over $200M to Samsung. He felt the needed to build something much bigger, so he started BrightAI. The goal was to use AI and IoT to solve big problems for enterprises. A few years later, he bootstrapped to $100M in revenue across just 7 customers. Last quarter, he raised $15M in venture funding. He shares how he closed million-dollar enterprise projects before building a product, why he refuses to go after just one vertical, and some of the biggest lessons he's learned after years building startups.Why you should listen:Why impact is the biggest driver for starting startups. How to find champions and get enterprise design partners.How AI and IoT can combine to solve real-world issues.How to make sure you don't get stuck in a niche forever.How to tell if you're on to something in less than 18 months since launching. KeywordsSmartThings, Bright, IoT, critical infrastructure, pest control, AI, technology, innovation, entrepreneurship, product development, AI, pest control, multimodal AI, revenue streams, platform scaling, product-market fit, early-stage founders, entrepreneurship, sustainability, critical infrastructureSend me a message to let me know what you think!
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The early-stage fundraising playbook—here's how to raise your first few rounds. | Nathan Beckord, Host of How I Raised It
Jan 23, 202500:29:24Tap to summarizeNathan has interviewed 100s of founders on how they raised their first few rounds. In this interview, we go through some of the most compelling stories he's heard. We go through step-by-step what you should do to raise a round, how to get meetings, how to tell stories, and every other piece of the fundraising puzzle.If you're planning to raise a round anytime this year-- check this episode out.Why you should listen:Why you need to look for believers in the early days.Why you need to meet way more investors than you might want to.How to create momentum for your round.Why spending more time planning will mean spending less time raising. Keywordsfundraising, startup, venture capital, investor relations, fundraising process, founder stories, capital raising, startup funding, investor introductions, fundraising strategiesSend me a message to let me know what you think!
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He lost his only 2 customers & was ready to quit—then he grew to $1.5M ARR in a year. | Josh Domingues, Founder of Flashfood
Jan 20, 202500:50:00Tap to summarizeA few years into building Flashfood, Josh was $35K in debt with no money in his account. Just a few months earlier, he'd lost both the pilot customers he'd worked so hard to lock in. He'd worked for months to land them and had delivered what he promised.But both retailers told him the problem he was solving was not important enough.And then, he met Loblaws-- one of Canada's largest retailers. They loved the case studies he had. They tested it out and quickly launched it across 100% of their locations. "I was going to shut down the company." That's how close it came to failing completely. Instead, a year after meeting Loblaws he was doing $1.5M ARR and had raised a $3M seed round. Now, he does 10s of millions in revenue and will soon be profitable.Here's the story. Why you should listen:Why startups often drive founder to near bankruptcy.Why you need to keep testing your startup until you hear 'no'.Why sometimes large customers might be easier to close than small ones.How to get champions to close enterprise deals. Why you might be a top priority for some customer sets and not others.Keywordsfood waste, grocery stores, app development, early stage founders, product market fit, sustainability, entrepreneurship, discount food, consumer behavior, environmental impact, enterprise sales, customer priorities, stakeholder buy-in, corporate culture, product-market fit, revenue growth, grocery industry, startup challenges, business strategy, environmental impactSend me a message to let me know what you think!
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He raised $250K, had thousands of users, but failed— because he didn't pivot fast enough. | Darius Vaillancourt, Founder of Howdy
Jan 16, 202500:27:50Tap to summarizeDarius started an EdTech startup to help users of online courses collaborate with each other. It blew up during COVID when everyone felt isolated. It gained thousands of users. They were engaged. They came back to use the platform. And, most importantly, they dramatically improved completion rates for online courses.Darius thought he had it. But it turned out universities didn't want to pay. What users cared about was not what universities (the buyers) cared about. His biggest lessons is that he should've pivoted much sooner. Here's why.Why you should listen:Why success and failure are often not that far apart.Why engagement and usage don't always lead to revenue.How to figure out the KPI that matters for your buyer.Why users and buyers are not one and the same.Why you need to pivot much sooner than you might think-- or like.Keywordsstartup challenges, entrepreneurship, online learning, EdTech, market dynamics, product development, business strategy, lessons learned, networking, pivotingSend me a message to let me know what you think!
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Stripe bought his startup for $1.1B—just 2.5 years after he quit his job. | Zach Abrams, Co-Founder of Bridge
Jan 13, 202500:55:25Tap to summarizeZach was burned out after a decade of working at top roles in Coinbase, Square and Brex. He quit with no startup idea-- and then, he went right back in. Given their background, Zach and his co-founder quickly raised an $8M seed round to build an NFT-related product in Web3.One month later, they completely abandoned their idea. They realized it was never going to work. Then, the floor fell from underneath them. FTX went bankrupt. SVB fell apart. They took punches to the face for the first 6 months straight.But, when everyone was paying attention to Gen AI in late 2022, Zach kept going deep in Web3. He noticed stablecoins were growing but there was no platform for developers to build with. So he built Bridge, a Stripe-like API for stablecoins.The first months post-launch were underwhelming-- until they landed a fast-growing customer. From then on, the next year was exceptional 10x+ growth. Then Stripe noticed them.In Oct 2024, they were acquired for $1.1B. Just 2.5 years after he started.Here's the story of how it all happened. Why you should listen:Why even $1B+ exits still feel like rollercoasters from the inside. How to quickly abandon ideas and pivot to what truly matters.How they found a massive opportunity where no one else was looking.Why starting outside of the Bay Area was critical to their success.Keywordsstartup, billion-dollar exit, stablecoins, investor relations, crypto, fintech, market dynamics, entrepreneurship, pivot, challenges, stable coins, startup journey, acquisition, fintech, market resilience, product market fit, Pablo Srugo, Bridge, Stripe, entrepreneurshipTimestamps(00:00:00) Intro(00:2:46) Starting at the Worst Time(00:8:56) The Emotions on Pivoting a Month After Raising(00:11:44) Pivoting(00:18:24) Leaving Brex(00:20:36) Working on Something Out of Trend(00:28:34) The Core Beliefs of Bridge(00:32:56) Launching & First Customer(00:38:57) Sometimes you Can't Think Too Much(00:42:29) Series A(00:44:24) The Acquisition(00:49:05) The Feeling of Exiting for a Billion(00:52:24) One Piece of AdviceSend me a message to let me know what you think!
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YC founder raises $6M, keeps team to 5 people—then grows to $500M ARR & a $9.5B valuation. | Josh Reeves, Founder of Gusto
Jan 6, 2025Tap to summarizeJosh built an absolute monster of a company-- and it all started with payroll software for SMBs. Not just that, he started by servicing only new tech startups that were based in California. It was exceptionally niche, and it worked.After YC, he raised a $6M seed round from tier 1 angels, back when large seed rounds were not at all common. But, unlike others, he didn't spend the money. He kept his team small as they iterated on the product. By the time they raised their $20M Series A, they were only 10-15 people. Gusto is now a $9.5B startup doing $500M ARR. Here's the story of how they got started, gained initial traction, and took off.Why you should listen:Why starting super small can lead to massive outcomes.Why you need a huge, no-brainer pain point to succeed.How to use early customer interviews to deeply understand your ICP. Why small teams allow for faster decision-making and execution.Why deep passion about the problem set is so important.KeywordsGusto, Josh Reeves, entrepreneurship, startup, payroll, small business, Y Combinator, business model, innovation, technology, fundraising, startup, product-market fit, team building, customer satisfaction, growth strategy, small business, Gusto, entrepreneurship, SaaSSend me a message to let me know what you think!
Transcribe →How to find great startup ideas
Aug 8, 2023Tap to summarizeMost bad ideas are born the same way. A founder says to themselves: "Wouldn't it be cool if...". I know because I did it. "Wouldn't it be cool if your workouts were automatically tracked" was the genesis for Gymtrack, my failed startup. When you do this, you are starting from the solution, not the problem. Great startup ideas come from uncovering real problems. That's why we always say that before Startup Mode, there's Research Mode.Send me a message to let me know what you think!
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