A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
00:00:00 · Pablo Srugo
[00:00:00] S0: So today we're going to be talking about the really early days of HiMama. And specifically the topic is how to do customer discovery, proper customer discovery. We've had a few people come on the show to talk about this, but at the end of the day it's such an important topic that most founders get wrong, I've gotten wrong in my early days. And doing it right, I mean, not only saves you a bunch of time, it just makes it so much more likely that you solve a real problem, which without that you've really got nothing. Welcome to the Product Market Fit Show, brought to you by Mistral, a seed stage firm based in Canada. I'm Pablo. I'm a founder turned VC. My goal is to help early-stage founders, like you, find product market fit. Ron, maybe actually before we start could you tell us a bit, just really quickly, what does HiMama do? What is HiMama?
00:00:52 · Ron Spreeuwenberg, Pablo Srugo
[00:00:52] S1: Yeah, HiMama is software for daycares, effectively. And so we started the company in 2013. And this was just really good timing because the early childhood education sector, as it's called within that sector, was behind in terms of technology adoption. So when you think 2013, it's the age of Facebook. People are – there's starting to be more and more young parents who are digital native. They've had a smartphone, had access to the internet through most of their adult and teenage lives. And so we hit a very good timef rame there when Wi-Fi adoption was good. Tablet adoption was ramping up pretty aggressively. And we really rode that wave in this industry that really was a pen and paper type industry. And lots of times when I would tell people about what we're doing, I would show a visual of the cork board in the daycare center with the calendar and the pictures of what's happening and the letters to the parents about what's going on. And this is in 2013. And this was very common. So if you would tell a parent this, they would be like, yeah, totally, that's what my daycare is like. And meanwhile, parents are getting all their information online. So there's just a disconnect, and we helped close that disconnect. [00:02:22] S0: Perfect, so appreciate that context. Maybe we can start there then. How do you even notice this in the first place? What's the origin story for, for HiMama?
00:02:22 · Pablo Srugo, Ron Spreeuwenberg
[00:02:22] S0: Perfect, so appreciate that context. Maybe we can start there then. How do you even notice this in the first place? What's the origin story for, for HiMama? [00:02:31] S1: Yeah, so I now have a three- and five-year-old. But at the time I didn't have any kids, but I had a friend of mine who had a toddler. So he was about two years old, and he was going to a daycare program. And me and my friend were – we were just brainstorming business ideas. I knew I wanted to do something more entrepreneurial. I was doing consulting before and really wanted to play my hand at starting a business. This was something important to me. So I did what I don't recommend to anybody. I quit my job, and I just started talking to people and figuring stuff out. And I was talking – we were talking about that daycare. [00:03:11] S0: What drove you? I got to jump in on that. What drove you to do that? I mean, obviously, quitting your job to start a startup, most – many founders have done it. But usually they have an idea. Usually it's something that they've worked on. What made you actually take the leap ahead of that?
00:03:11 · Pablo Srugo, Ron Spreeuwenberg
[00:03:11] S0: What drove you? I got to jump in on that. What drove you to do that? I mean, obviously, quitting your job to start a startup, most – many founders have done it. But usually they have an idea. Usually it's something that they've worked on. What made you actually take the leap ahead of that? [00:03:25] S1: A little bit was – it was circumstance with my job. It was just a good opportunity to – I was doing (unclear) overseas. There was a deadline. My other in Toronto, they weren't going to miss me because I'd been gone for – so it was just like a good break. And I knew. I forget exactly how old I was. I guess I was – call it 30, didn't have any kids. I'm like, look, if, if there's a good time to start a company, it's now. We didn't have lots of big bills. We didn't have a mortgage and all that stuff. And this was a passion I had for a long time. So it was a little bit of a now or never moment. And we were chatting – we were chatting about this experience with daycare. And he was saying, every day he got home this – they call it a daily sheet. So it was just literally a sheet of paper. And it would say, okay, here's what Adam had for his snack today. Here's when he used the potty. Here's the activities that he did. And it was just such a poor experience from the parent's perspective. [00:04:33] S0: So that's the really high-level problem. Okay, there might be something here. Maybe we can digitize the space, which is a pretty classic move that many industries have gone through. What do you do at that point?
00:04:33 · Pablo Srugo, Ron Spreeuwenberg
[00:04:33] S0: So that's the really high-level problem. Okay, there might be something here. Maybe we can digitize the space, which is a pretty classic move that many industries have gone through. What do you do at that point? [00:04:45] S1: Yeah, so 2013, believe it or not, what I did was I just literally opened the yellow pages, and I found 10 daycares, and I just called them. And I just had a few questions to learn a little bit more about problems we might be able to help you with. I'm not selling anything. I'm just looking for five to ten minutes of your time. And just gauge a reaction, and then almost just do a score for those ten calls. And say of the ten, what happened? And I would say of the 10, 70, 80% were let's say, intrigued. Their interest was piqued. They were like, hmm, okay, that's interesting. [00:05:25] S0: It’s worth digging into this because I think everybody – everybody's a strong word, but most founders understand you got to go and talk to customers. It's just said so often. But I think what happens in these discussions, especially the early ones, can be night – the difference between success and failure. Often, what founders will do, and I was guilty of this, was you just start pitching. And you start selling. Even if you don't, even if you're like, no, I'm doing real research, all your questions are so pointed, so you're going to get the answers you want. How did you approach this to make sure that you were truly discovering insights and really verifying that you were actually onto something?
00:05:25 · Pablo Srugo, Ron Spreeuwenberg
[00:05:25] S0: It’s worth digging into this because I think everybody – everybody's a strong word, but most founders understand you got to go and talk to customers. It's just said so often. But I think what happens in these discussions, especially the early ones, can be night – the difference between success and failure. Often, what founders will do, and I was guilty of this, was you just start pitching. And you start selling. Even if you don't, even if you're like, no, I'm doing real research, all your questions are so pointed, so you're going to get the answers you want. How did you approach this to make sure that you were truly discovering insights and really verifying that you were actually onto something? [00:06:02] S1: Yeah, I mean, I think the way to think about it is – at least in SaaS and in almost any business you might start, this is going to be a ten-year commitment if you're truly going to create something big in most cases. And you want to know <laugh> if it's a good idea or not. And if it's not, that's fine. But it's also in your best interest to know that sooner rather than later. So I was just trying to be as objective as possible. I approached it from the mindset of I'm a scientist, I'm a researcher. Not like I am starting a company and I'm an entrepreneur, but more like I'm doing research objectively in this space. I want to know is this something that's worth spending the next ten years of my life on or not? If the answer is no, that's cool, but you'd much rather know that at that stage versus after you've invested three years of your life in it.