A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders

Jaksot

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  He turned off a product with 20M users and went from 70 people to 7—then raised a $47M Series A. | Keith Peiris, Co-Founder & CEO of Lightfield 14.09.2026 45min

  Keith raised a $43M Series B for Tome. The product had 20 million users. But retention was terrible and nobody cared enough to complain. So he turned it off before he knew what he'd build next, went from 70 people to 7, and started over. Lightfield just closed a $47M Series A. In this episode, Keith breaks down how he knew Tome would never grow up, why customers lighting up your Slack at 3am is the signal you actually want, and the exact playbook he used to sell an AI-native CRM to YC founder...
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  VCs chased crypto and passed on his “boring” startup—then he raised $385M at a $2B valuation. | Aaron Schumm, Founder & CEO of Vestwell 07.09.2026 49min

  Aaron started Vestwell in 2016. Two years in, he had $500K in ARR and an investor asking if it would ever make money. During the 2021 bull market, VCs told him 401ks were too boring—they were busy chasing crypto. Then Morgan Stanley signed. Today Vestwell has 2.5 million people saving on the platform, over $200M in ARR, and just raised $385M at a $2B valuation. In this episode, Aaron breaks down why he white-labeled everything instead of building his own brand, how losing the JP Morgan bid as...
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  He sold his 8-figure business to bet on a side app—then grew it to 20x in a year. | Andrew Antos, Co-Founder & CEO of Within 31.08.2026 49min

  Andrew spent two and a half years selling AI contract review to lawyers. It stalled at $800K. He rebuilt the company around finance teams and grew that to $10M. Then he demoed a little internal tool on the side at his own conference, and nobody wanted to talk about anything else. It did $350K in five weeks. He sold the $10M business and went all in on the side tool—Within went from zero to nearly $20M in 18 months. In this episode, Andrew breaks down the 30-and-100 rule he uses to validate ev...
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  He spent $0 on marketing for 2 years—then raised $400M at a $3.25B valuation. | AJ Loiacono, Co-Founder & CEO of Judi Health 24.08.2026 55min

  AJ spent two years selling health benefits with no customers and no references. His competitors told buyers their service was free. He charged a flat fee and told the truth about where the money actually went. Two years in, at $10M ARR, a Fortune 500 company called him. Judi Health just raised $400M at a $3.25B valuation. In this episode, AJ breaks down how he beat three Fortune 15 giants by operating 70% more efficiently, why he spent zero on marketing for two years and let customers sell fo...
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  He spent $150K on brand before he had a product—then closed $1.5M ARR in 1 month. | Niklas Lindgren, Co-Founder & CEO of Endra 17.08.2026 46min

  Niklas quit law school to install CCTV cameras in iPhone repair shops. Eight years later he sold that business to private equity at 26. Then he went after the most boring software in the world: the 1997 tool engineers use to design the wiring and plumbing inside buildings. He spent $150K on a website before he had a product and DM'd engineers on Reddit to find his first users. His first month of sales was $1.5M, all enterprise. Endra has now raised $75M, including a $50M Series A led by a16z....
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  He lost all 5 of his first deals—then built the next Looker and raised $250M. | Colin Zima, Co-Founder of Omni 10.08.2026 52min

  Colin spent eight years building Looker into a $2.7B Google acquisition. Then he left to compete with his own product. He thought traction would take a month—it took nine. A hundred demos got him five verbally-committed customers, and he lost all five. So he spent two months killing bugs, went on one podcast, and won every single trial that came out of it. Omni just raised over $250M. In this episode, Colin breaks down how to tell the difference between a product that's genuinely better and o...
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  He fired almost everyone, kept 2 engineers—then grew 12x and raised a $30M Series A. | Rafael Broshi, Co-Founder of Notch 03.08.2026 52min

  Rafael launched a crypto insurance product in 47 states, backed by a real carrier. Everyone told him it was genius. Nobody needed it. He shut it down with $2M left in the bank, fired almost everyone, and rebuilt with two engineers on $20K a month. Notch just raised $30M. In this episode, Rafael breaks down how a POC he entered through the back door turned into a seven-figure contract, why "isn't everyone doing this?" is the feedback you actually want, and how to tell whether an enterprise dea...
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  He worked out of a police department for free for a year—then built a $6.8B company. | Ben Rudolph, Co-Founder of Peregrine 27.07.2026 40min

  Ben and his co-founder had no product, no law enforcement background, and no pitch—just an offer to help detectives solve cases. One commander took a chance, handed them background checks, and said "let's see what you can do." They worked out of that police department every day for 18 months. Peregrine just raised $250M at a $6.8B valuation. In this episode, Ben breaks down how researching every police captain in the Bay Area landed their first design partner, why working as free crime analys...
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  1st-time solo founder does 90 interviews in 90 days—closes a $25M Series A 2 years in. | Damien Lewke, Founder of Nebulock 20.07.2026 50min

  Damien left his job to start a startup solo. Two years later, Nebulock closed a $25M Series A. In between: 90 customer interviews in 90 days, a year of design partners, and a Fortune 500 deal that closed in 6 weeks. In this episode, Damien breaks down how his 90-in-90 customer discovery sprint killed his original architecture before he wasted money building it, how his design partner program converted 100% into paying customers, and how a POC playbook needing just 2 hours of customer time clo...
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  He tries 1,000 ideas a decade & kills nearly all—that's how X built Waymo & Google Brain. | Astro Teller, CEO of Moonshots at X (Alphabet) 13.07.2026 48min

  Astro has run X, Alphabet's Moonshot Factory, for 16 years. His teams created Waymo, Wing, and Google Brain—by testing over 1,000 ideas a decade and killing nearly all of them. His whole system rests on one uncomfortable rule: celebrate the people who kill their own projects. In this episode, Astro breaks down why you should do the hard thing first, how pre-written kill criteria force intellectual honesty, and why X maximizes learning per dollar instead of progress—and never tracks whose idea...
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  He raised $75M—but kept his team to 21 people & pays everyone the same salary. | Cos Nicolaescu, Co-Founder of Accrual 06.07.2026 57min

  Cos was the CTO of Brex, which he helped scale from 40 people to over 1,000. Before that, he led engineering at Stripe. When he finally left, he had no startup idea—just a co-founder he trusted and one rule: whatever they built had to have massive impact. Six months of brainstorming later, they landed on accounting. In this episode, Cos breaks down why he capped the company at 21 people after raising $75M, why everyone—engineers and salespeople alike—earns the exact same salary, how he hit a ...
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  He quit Stripe and hit $10M ARR in 4 years—with $0 marketing spend. | Anurag Goel, Founder of Render 29.06.2026 47min

  Anurag was employee #8 at Stripe, set for life and free to do anything next. Instead he spent a year and a half hunting for a problem worth decades of his life. He chose to build a product to make it simple for developers to ship apps, going head-to-head with AWS. In this episode, Anurag breaks down how he hit $10M ARR in 4 years with zero marketing spend, why refusing to launch a free tier was his most expensive mistake, and how putting engineers on customer support rotations quietly shaped ...
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  He shut down his last startup and gave the money back—then hit $1M ARR in 6 months. | George, Founder of Monk 22.06.2026 46min

  George had to wind down his last startup and give investors their money back. He went deep into the valley of despair, certain he'd missed his window to build something big. Then he met a co-founder, decided to start over, and started selling. In this episode, George breaks down how a customer signed a $36K pilot off nothing but a Loom and a one-pager, how cold email took him from zero to $1M ARR with no sales team, and why a "seven out of ten" is the most dangerous hire you can make. Why You...
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  He quit his $50M ARR startup to work as a paralegal—then raised a $60M Series A. | Dan Mishin, Founder of Manifest 15.06.2026 42min

  Dan founded and scaled a $50M ARR, SoftBank-backed startup—and could've stayed to make tens of millions. Instead, he handed it to his chief of staff and started from scratch. He wanted something bigger. He took an entry-level paralegal job to learn everything about law hands on. Then he built Manifest, which just raised a $60M Series A. In this episode, Dan breaks down why he did intake calls for 1,000 legal clients before building anything, how free Slack communities turned Fortune 500 HR ma...
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  He churned 100% of his revenue on purpose—then grew 10x to $2M ARR in under 12 months. | Ali Khokhar, Founder of Amigo AI 08.06.2026 53min

  Ali quit his job a few months after ChatGPT launched, convinced AI would eat labor marketplaces like Upwork. With no co-founder and no code, he collected $12K from real customers—using a faked demo and a cloned voice. Then he pitched 100 VCs in 10 days and got 47 straight 'no's. In this episode, Ali breaks down how he banked $12K in revenue before writing a single line of code, how a $20/month Slack community drove Amigo's first $1M in ARR, and why he churned every existing customer to go all...
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  He hit $1M ARR by sending 500,000 cold emails—then raised a $25M Series A in 6 days. | Mark Hughes, Co-Founder of Solidroad 01.06.2026 42min

  Mark was running a startup out of a tiny annex office in Dublin with zero product usage. Then one customer turned it on and overnight he saw usage spike to thousands of simulations. He got to $1M ARR 100% through outbound, by sending 500,000 cold emails. A few months ago he closed a $25M Series A. In this episode, Mark breaks down the pivot from sales roleplay to customer support that unlocked his first real traction, the cold outbound playbook that took him to $1M ARR (500K emails, 250 meeti...
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  Q1 2026 w/Carta: What you need to raise a Series A. | Peter Walker, Head of Insights at Carta 25.05.2026 38min

  The AI boom is making founders feel like the market is wide open, but the data tells a sharper story: valuations are up, round sizes are bigger, and the bar to “count” in a top-tier fund’s Monday meeting keeps rising. We sit down with Peter to translate Q1 2026 venture capital trends into founder reality, from seed-stage pricing distortions driven by AI infrastructure to the quieter pressure building across the rest of the startup market. We get specific on early-stage fundraising benchmarks...
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  How to get a VC (like me) to wire you $2M in under 2 weeks (the FOMO playbook) | Solo Episode 18.05.2026 21min

  I meet 1,000+ founders every year. Most are bad at fundraising. I also interview 100+ of the world's best founders on my podcast each year. Most are incredible at fundraising. One raised $14M in 17 days. another was 3x oversubscribed on a $3M round. another closed a seed in hours from a single X post. All are first-time, unproven founders. They don't waste time becoming "friends" with VCs. They have a business to build. They treat fundraising for what it is: a process where you manufacture...
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  Coinbase's ex-CPO bet on AI agents before ChatGPT—now he's closing 7-figure Fortune 500 deals. | Surojit Chatterjee, Founder of Ema 11.05.2026 37min

  Surojit spent 14 years at Google building mobile ads into a $100B+ business and then took Coinbase public as Chief Product Officer in 2021. In early 2023, before "agent" was even a word in AI papers, he started Ema in stealth—betting on a future where teams of AI agents would replace the "human glue" inside Fortune 500s. In this episode, Surojit breaks down how a Hitachi deployment across 55,000 employees became Ema's true PMF moment, why he spent the first year obsessed with SOC 2, ISO 42001...
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  How this 1st-time founder went from closing customers for $500 a month to $300,000 a year. | Sean McCarthy, Founder & CEO of BackOps 04.05.2026 55min

  Sean was spending four days a week inside customer warehouses at Amazon Shipping when he noticed the same thing everywhere: back-office admin staff churning every six months, buried under the same repetitive claims and reshipping tasks. He talked to eighty-five warehouse owners, quit Amazon in July 2024, and cold emailed his way to a pre-seed round within weeks. In this episode, Sean breaks down why he paused all sales to rebuild BackOps as an enterprise-grade platform, how an SOP recorder th...