Podcast Episodes

He "kind of" had PMF for 8 years—until, after a rebuild, he raised $100M | Ben Alarie, Founder of Blue J

Season 4 Episode 84

Ben Alarie spent 8 years building Blue J with "partial product market fit"—real customers, real revenue, but no real market pull. Then he made a bet that would either kill the company or 10x it: he p…

Published on 1 month ago

They failed every POC—then grew their cybersecurity platform to $100M ARR in 5 years. | Dean Sysman, co-founder of Axonius

Season 4 Episode 83

Dean thought he'd have to bootstrap Axonius because no investor would fund a solution to a problem that had existed for 20 years. He was wrong—they've raised $500M. 

The breakthrough came when a Fortu…

Published on 1 month, 1 week ago

He tested his pitch on Uber drivers—then built a cybersecurity platform to $180M raised. | Casey Ellis, Founder of Bugcrowd

Season 4 Episode 82

Casey  turned hackers into a marketplace and built Bugcrowd to $180M+ raised. But the real story isn't about cybersecurity—it's about how he validated a two-sided marketplace with almost no product, …

Published on 1 month, 1 week ago

He quit Google & his 1st startup failed—but his 2nd grows at $1M ARR every 10 days. | Zach Llyod, Founder of Warp.dev

Season 4 Episode 81

Zach spent 8 years at Google leading engineering for Google Docs, then left to build a photo sharing app with zero go-to-market plan. 

Reality hit hard: "At Google, anything you launch gets millions o…

Published on 1 month, 2 weeks ago

He tried to return $200K to investors 30 days in—then exited to Microsoft 5 years later. | Alex Sherman, Founder of Bluefish AI

Season 4 Episode 80

Alex had $2,000 in his checking account when Microsoft acquired his last company. For years, he paid himself $30K while his friends made six figures at corporate jobs. He had only 2 months of runway …

Published on 1 month, 2 weeks ago

A drug dealer threatened to kill him—then he grew 50x in 3 Years to $50M ARR. | Brett Carlson, Found of ServiceUp

Season 4 Episode 79

Brett had a drug dealer's car for 13 days. By day 11, the death threats started coming. This is the reality of building ServiceUp, the "DoorDash for auto repair." 

Brett literally stole DoorDash's ent…

Published on 1 month, 3 weeks ago

He pitched 100 VC and spent 3 years building— then grew to $7B AUM. | Doug Scott, Founder of Ethic

Season 4 Episode 78

Doug Scott and the Ethic team spent years building technology before landing real customers. While other startups were growing fast, Ethic was focused on building, and after two years had only a mode…

Published on 1 month, 3 weeks ago

PMF Observations: Speed is the only startup moat—& why most founders lose it.

Season 4 Episode 77

Arnold Schwarzenegger mastered three completely different fields—bodybuilding, acting, and politics—with one simple philosophy: reps, reps, reps. This solo episode reveals why speed of execution is t…

Published on 1 month, 4 weeks ago

He spent 5 months working with customers before building—then grew to $10s of millions ARR. | Aviv Leibovici, co-founder of Buildots

Season 4 Episode 78

Aviv spent months walking construction sites carrying tools for managers just to understand their problems—speaking to customers is "bullsh*t"—you need to work beside them to see reality. 

His company…

Published on 2 months ago

She cold messaged 50,000 engineers—then grew to $10M+ ARR. | Shensi Ding, Founder of Merge

Season 4 Episode 75

Shensi cold messaged 50,000 engineers to build Merge. She worked 9am-9pm every day, gave her first customers two months free to prove herself, and refused to hire anyone remote—even during peak COVID…

Published on 2 months ago