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5x founder asked Ford for a contract so large—they acquired his company instead. | Amar Varma, Founder of Mantle
Season 4 Episode 85
Amar is a 5x founder who helped birth Tinder (it was the 10th project—after the first 9 failed), then sold his next company to Ford for putting a platform in every single vehicle they make.
But the wildest part? He got Ford to commit in under a year by doing something most founders would never do: he asked for SO MUCH money that only the CEO could approve it. That one move made him "part of the transformational change" instead of a vendor they could ignore.
In this episode, Amar breaks down the exact pricing strategy he used to land an 8-figure deal, why founders who sell discounted pricing are sabotaging themselves, and what it actually takes to compete against billion-dollar incumbents like Carta (his current company, Mantle, is doing exactly that).
If you're trying to sell to enterprise, wondering if you should bootstrap or raise, or questioning whether your market even exists—this episode will reset how you think about all of it. Amar's built companies in mobile, vehicles, security, and fintech. He knows what works.
Why You Should Listen:
- Learn the pricing trick that got a CEO to sign off to an 8-figure deal.
- Discover why asking for MORE money (not less) is how you win enterprise deals
- Why getting told "you're nuts" might mean you're dead right
- Master the one metric that matters more than ARR in the early days
Keywords:
startup podcast, startup podcast for founders, enterprise sales, 5x founder, product market fit, pricing strategy, Tinder origin story, competing with incumbents, bootstrapping vs raising, SaaS pricing
Chapters:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:56) The Start & Finding PMF for Tinder
(00:09:04) Xtreme Labs
(00:12:18) Autonomic
(00:17:03) The Contract Turned Acquisition
(00:22:04) The origin of Mantle
(00:28:56) Going into a Dominated Category
(00:32:39) Raising & Pitching for Mantle
(00:40:01) One Piece of Advice
Send me a message to let me know what you think!
Published on 1 month ago