A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
00:23:33 · Ron Spreeuwenberg, Pablo Srugo
[00:23:33] S1: Yeah. And if you look at so many businesses that are even extremely large today, most of the stories in the media about them are about all their big successes. But if you go back to the early days, oftentimes they started like that too. They started like that too. The Airbnb folks were selling cereal for a while to stay alive. Uber was just black, those limos, proper limos in one city. Everybody starts somewhere. You just have to start. That's the key, right? [00:24:09] S0: That's right, and you have to provide, I think, real value. To close the loop on this, when did you land your first customer? And what were those early releases like?
00:24:23 · Ron Spreeuwenberg
[00:24:23] S1: So what we did, which is very common in education in ed tech is we launched with – we launched with somebody on – call it a pilot. So we just gave them two or three iPads, gave them the product for free because we just wanted to. We didn't want – we knew it was going to be buggy and maybe not an optimal experience. So we're just like let's get somebody using it to see how it goes. So we went with one of the folks that we had talked to through this whole process. And how did it go? I mean, it was super MVP. I think we were – Alana finished development and getting the product live 30 minutes before the day started that day. So it was very last minute. But this is the nice part of doing it this way. Having them use it is huge. This is where you go from being the conceptual tech entrepreneur product design person engineer to okay, this is in the real world now. And so things like process, what processes do they have during the day, how does this fit into what their day looks like starts to come out a little bit more. What happens if the teacher's late? What happens if they can't find the iPad? What happens if their wifi is a little hit or miss? The training aspect because then you're immediately – you're starting to get these questions. And you're like, okay, obviously they have these questions. This is now starting to inform what does our training look like for this product? And then also seeing that some teachers were using it much more thoroughly and much better than others. So already you're seeing inconsistency in user behavior, which informs training, but also is starting to form thoughts on your user profiles in terms of, for example, teachers who were younger, usually digital native, and they picked it up and they're like, like, okay, this is just like I'm using Facebook on my smartphone. And then teachers who were not digital native, tried to avoid technology, and they were trying to use the same product in the classroom. Two totally different use cases in terms of how you work with those users. So these are the kinds of things that are starting to come out from having this be in person.
00:27:05 · Pablo Srugo, Ron Spreeuwenberg
[00:27:05] S0: And once you released v1, had some usage, figured out and saw some of these bugs, and figured out onboarding a bit, you started, I'm assuming, really selling it. In those early days, did this just take off or was it more of a slow burn, would you say? [00:27:22] S1: Slow burn for sure, which has pros and cons. I almost saw it as a positive. I would get a lot of resistance, a lot of hesitation from childcare directors saying we don't – this isn't for us. This isn't our thing. We prefer not to have technology at all in our centers and what have you. We don't think our teachers will be able to do this and do their job effectively. We don't think parents are going to look at it anyways. Lots of objections, lots of resistance. But what I would say is this was actually very motivating for me because I saw the people on the other end who were very excited. And I could see that they were the early adopter profile. They were the folks who – you go in their center, they had some other tech. And they had parents who were more progressive in terms of tech adoption. So I knew that everything was going to go that way. And so it was almost positive to me to know that these folks are going to come around. So cool. I'm happy they're not in a big rush because we can figure out our product and iterate a bit more, get more of these early adopters on board. And over time, they're going to see and, and their parents are going to start asking for this type of product and this type of solution. So it was slow burn, and I again saw that as a positive for us.
00:27:22 · Ron Spreeuwenberg, Pablo Srugo
[00:27:22] S1: Slow burn for sure, which has pros and cons. I almost saw it as a positive. I would get a lot of resistance, a lot of hesitation from childcare directors saying we don't – this isn't for us. This isn't our thing. We prefer not to have technology at all in our centers and what have you. We don't think our teachers will be able to do this and do their job effectively. We don't think parents are going to look at it anyways. Lots of objections, lots of resistance. But what I would say is this was actually very motivating for me because I saw the people on the other end who were very excited. And I could see that they were the early adopter profile. They were the folks who – you go in their center, they had some other tech. And they had parents who were more progressive in terms of tech adoption. So I knew that everything was going to go that way. And so it was almost positive to me to know that these folks are going to come around. So cool. I'm happy they're not in a big rush because we can figure out our product and iterate a bit more, get more of these early adopters on board. And over time, they're going to see and, and their parents are going to start asking for this type of product and this type of solution. So it was slow burn, and I again saw that as a positive for us. [00:29:03] S0: Perfect, so let's stop it there. Let me ask the two questions that we always end on. The first one is, when did you know that you had real product market fit?
00:29:13 · Ron Spreeuwenberg
[00:29:13] S1: I think there was like three things. One really nailed it. Two were in the early discovering stages. One was that I was seeing tons of workarounds, very heavy workarounds. I gave you the digital camera example. They were doing e parent email lists, Facebook groups, all these different inefficient workarounds that I knew our solution would – It was one of these things where it's not two X better, it's 10 X better sort of thing. So that was one. The second one was when I was doing some of these conversations there was a couple daycares that were thinking about or had already started building their own solution like this, which is a huge lift for a small daycare to build this type of product. So that was a huge validating factor to me. But if they're willing to put in that time and effort, this must be a thing. The third one that really nailed it was we had one of our first five customers. And she really fit that profile of what I was talking about. And she was a younger woman, very entrepreneurial. You could see she just got it. She understood her parents, her audience, her customers. And I knew she was our ideal customer profile. She was so excited when she launched with HiMama. It was an absolute hit. And all her parents loved it. And it was just the perfect implementation where you saw everything click with a customer who was really the customer we were looking for. And that's when I was like, okay, this is definitely going to be a thing because there's going to be more and more directors like this young woman who are just really going to get it. And that's when I knew for sure. Whether it was going to be a one millionaire, or 10 millionaire, or 100 millionaire business, that I didn't know. But I knew it was going to be something that was going to – I can make a living on and probably hire some staff and make something of it.
00:31:39 · Pablo Srugo, Ron Spreeuwenberg
[00:31:39] S0: There are a few better feelings for a founder than providing clear customer value and just seeing the effects of that. [00:31:47] S1: Yeah, a hundred percent. [00:31:48] S0: There are a few better feelings for a founder than providing clear customer value and just seeing the effects of that. [00:32:03] S1: I think one of the biggest things I would say, and I'm working with more and more early-stage entrepreneurs now as well. And I find a lot of folks are a bit too focused on their product and not enough on sales and marketing. And in the same way that we just had this whole conversation about finding product market fit for your product, I think there's basically the equivalent of finding product market fit for your sales and marketing pitch. I don't think this is where a lot of founders are spending enough time. In those early conversations when you're trying to figure out problem solution, also ask them about information that you can use for marketing. Where do they get information? What associations do they work with? What events do they go to? Who do they talk to about this, that, and whatever. You got to make those calls as a founder and try out different pitches and angles. You really have to nail your pitch. And I think a lot of early-stage entrepreneurs maybe actually have product market fit and have a good product, but they don't know how to pitch it where it really resonates with their target audience. And I think that's very critical. So that's one, one lesson I think I would take away.