A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders

Soham spent 6 months building AI that would auto-generate integrations between any software. He locked down Glean as an early customer because he had friends there. And it failed completely. So he pivoted. This time, he refused to work with friendly customers who knew him. Instead, he did 10-20 calls per day with strangers who would tell him his product sucked. He posted on Discord communities at 3am, wrote technical blogs that went viral on Reddit, and created fake landing pages to see what integrations people actually wanted.  In one year, Composio grew to 100,000 developers and raised $30M from Lightspeed in just 3 weeks.  His contrarian take: in AI, asking users what they want will just get you faster horses. Built it instead, and watch their eyes light up. Why You Should Listen: * Why friendly customers will kill your startup. * The 20  calls per day strategy that scaled Composio to 100,000 users. * Why you can't validate AI products by asking. * The exact Discord and SEO tactics that got their first thousand users without spending on ads Keywords (comma-separated): The PMF Show is a startup podcast. The Product Market Fit Show is a startup podcast. Startup Podcast, Composio, Soham Ganatra, AI agents, developer tools, pivot, Series A, Lightspeed, integrations, API, tool calling 00:00:00 Intro 00:06:44 Playing with GPT-2 before ChatGPT 00:12:37 Leaving his job to start Composio 00:21:16 Pivoting to integrations for AI agents 00:28:42 Why friendly customers are dangerous 00:31:01 Getting first users through viral content 00:36:01 Taking 10-20 customer calls per day 00:40:58 Scaling from 1,000 to 100,000 developers 00:43:58 MCP and the explosion of growth 00:48:59 Raising $30M from Lightspeed in 3 weeks Send me a message to let me know what you think! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/1889238/open_sms]

Sahil was 18 when TechCrunch published a hit piece calling him a copycat. His co-founder Aaron was 16. They'd just raised $6 million from YC and top VCs for their crypto startup, then got subpoenaed by a state government and watched their business implode.  So they fired everyone, moved back to their parents' homes, and spent months cold-calling dentists and lawn care companies to find a real problem. What they discovered: 80% of SMBs still use community banks from 1995. Now Affiniti has 2,000 customers, $10M ARR run rate, and just raised $17M by partnering with trade associations to acquire customers at 25% the cost of traditional fintech.  This is the raw story of teenage founders who got punched in the face by Silicon Valley and came back swinging. Why You Should Listen: * How getting destroyed on TechCrunch at 18 and subpoenaed by the government led to a $3M revenue pivot in 12 months * Why going back to square 0 is often the best move * The trade association go-to-market strategy that worked for SMB. * Why 200 VC rejections and raising $6M in peak 2021 couldn't save their first startup—but taught them everything they needed to know. * Get comfortable with bad days—stoicism is the only way to survive. Keywords: Affiniti, Sahil Phadnis, SMB fintech, startup pivot, Y Combinator, teenage founders, Series A, B2B payments, startup failure, trade associations 00:00:00 Intro 00:01:50 COVID existential crisis at 16 00:08:36 Building websites for restaurants 00:11:11 Meeting Aaron on Instagram 00:15:17 200 VC rejections then raising $6M 00:23:03 Getting called a fraud on TechCrunch 00:29:15 Firing everyone and moving home 00:31:16 Faking toothaches to research SMBs 00:40:50 Launching Affiniti 00:47:00 The trade association growth hack 00:55:03 Raising Series A in 3 weeks 00:58:30 Stoicism and bad days Send me a message to let me know what you think! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/1889238/open_sms]

Jon spent 3 years building Gamma with barely any traction—just a few hundred users after burning millions. Then ChatGPT dropped. In desperation, he pivoted to AI-powered presentations in March 2023 with one year of runway left. What happened next was insane: Paul Graham publicly mocked their launch tweet calling it worthless—then it went viral.  They went from 2,000 signups a day to 60,000. Their servers crashed for three days, but when they came back online, panicked users threw $50K at them thinking they needed to pay to make it work. Within two months of launching payments, they hit $1M ARR and became cashflow positive.  This is the raw story of how a dying startup caught the AI lightning and never looked back. Why You Should Listen: * How to survive 3 years with no traction. * Why 80% hype and 20% value can still build a real business  * The exact onboarding flow that turned 5% activation into viral growth * How negative viral engagement can still drive massive revenue * The difference between 10x better and 50% better Keywords: Gamma, Jon Noronha, AI presentations, product market fit, pivot to AI, viral growth, Paul Graham, ChatGPT, cashflow positive, productivity startup 00:00:00 Intro 00:02:15 Why presentations haven't changed in 40 years 00:11:55 User research reveals the real problem 00:26:26 The market crashes and runway shrinks 00:34:32 ChatGPT drops and everything changes 00:43:19 Paul Graham trashes the launch tweet 00:48:59 Going viral by accident 00:51:33 60,000 signups a day breaks everything 00:55:07 Hitting $1M ARR in 2 months 00:58:47 Endurance is everything Send me a message to let me know what you think! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/1889238/open_sms]

Soham co-founded Rubrik by taking what he learned from building Google's data center tech to enterprises desperate for cloud migration. Two quarters later, he hit $1M ARR. And a few years later, a $16B IPO.  Soham breaks down why paid pilots beat free trials, how to sell enterprise hardware before it works, and why early customers become your biggest champions when you solve real pain.  Now building WisdomAI after watching the ChatGPT moment unfold, he shares what's different about competing in AI's gold rush versus owning an ignored category. Why You Should Listen: * Why early customers  endure broken products * How he hit $1M ARR in 2 quarters selling enterprise hardware * Why you should always charge for pilots * Customer feedback is the only PMF signal that matters Keywords: Rubrik, Soham Mazumdar, enterprise sales, data backup, IPO, product market fit, B2B SaaS, cloud migration, WisdomAI, data centers 00:00:00 Intro 00:04:26 Leaving Google to start a company 00:11:00 Building the founding team 00:14:27 Landing the first customer in Australia 00:22:30 Hitting $1M ARR in two quarters 00:25:42 Go-to-market strategy and the DeLorean stunt 00:30:30 When Arvind left to start Glean 00:34:10 Starting WisdomAI after the ChatGPT moment 00:51:22 Advice for early stage founders Retry Claude can make mistakes.  Please double-check responses. [https://support.anthropic.com/en/articles/8525154-claude-is-providing-incorrect-or-misleading-responses-what-s-going-on] Send me a message to let me know what you think! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/1889238/open_sms]

Stéphan bootstrapped AODocs to $55M in revenue and 250 employees without taking a dime of VC money—while competing directly with venture-backed competitors. Starting as a services company in 2012, he spotted the cloud migration wave early and built document management for enterprises moving to Google Workspace.  In this episode, Stéphan breaks down why doubling every two years beats hypergrowth, how to win enterprise deals with zero funding, and why touching business-critical documents means year-long sales cycles but 10-year retention. This is the anti-Silicon Valley playbook that actually works. Why You Should Listen: * Why the founder must personally close every single deal in 0 to 1 * How doubling every 2 years (not every year) creates a more stable business * The brutal reality of enterprise POCs: doing it for free before getting paid * Why you can't have both fast customer acquisition and high retention * How being French/European became an advantage against US competitors  Keywords AODocs, bootstrapping, Stéphan Donzé, enterprise sales, document management, SaaS, Google Workspace, cloud migration, product market fit, B2B 00:00:00 Intro 00:01:12 Bootstrapping vs VC backed 00:03:44 From services to SaaS 00:19:08 Landing the first customer  00:20:47 Why they turned down VC money 00:25:32 The 997 grind—four days on-site with customers every week 00:35:21 Why you can't have fast sales and high retention 00:40:33 Product-market fit Send me a message to let me know what you think! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/1889238/open_sms]