A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
00:05:35 · Lee Silverstone, Pablo Srugo
[00:05:35] S1: Yeah, and it was one of the founders or something. And he was like, yeah, we're doing the same thing. Get out of here. Then we did the same thing for Gymtrack. Pablo and I both go to the gym. We still do. It's still a huge part of my life. It was a huge part of my life then. It still is a huge part of my life now. I spend probably 10 hours at the gym a week. We were like, you know what sucks, writing stuff down with pen and paper. That was it. That was the impetus for the whole thing. And then it was like, well, wouldn't it be cool if you could track everything automatically? Well, how could you do that? And it just started, we just started drawing it. [00:06:09] S0: Actually, by the way, you're missing one step. You came home one day and you're like, man, wouldn't it be cool if you could – people don’t know how to do exercises. You could scan a QR code and it would tell you how to do the exercise. I was like, no, that's not cool. It is cool? [00:06:23] S1: I don't remember that. I don't, that's funny. I don't remember that. That's awesome. [00:06:29] S0: Then it became, yeah, what would be cool is not having to track your reps. The first iteration, at least the way I remember was this is what I'm saying. I have an aside. One of the, let's say, findings, even just through the show, is if an idea starts with people who know nothing about an industry saying wouldn't it be cool if? [00:06:53] S1: It's probably – [00:06:54] S0: It's not leading to somewhere that you want it to lead to. [00:06:56] S1: Yeah.
00:06:56 · Lee Silverstone, Pablo Srugo, Rob Woodbridge
[00:06:56] S1: Yeah. [00:06:59] S0: Then it builds because it's like, oh, QR code's not that cool. Okay, but tracking is cool. Then it was tracking on select weight stack machines. You put the pin, it goes up and down. I remember us talking, yeah, that makes so much sense. It goes up and down. I'm sure you could track that, but it isn’t enough. [00:07:16] S1: Yeah , yeah , yeah . [00:07:16] S2: It'd be super cool to track that, right? Yeah. I can imagine how cool it would be. [00:07:18] S0: Then it was what if you could just track everything? What if you could track the whole workout? [00:07:26] S1: And that's one of those crazy things too that when you look back on it, not to digress from the story, but that lesson of the everything comment I think is one of the scariest things I've ever – you'll ever hear at a startup. This product would be cool if it did everything right. It won't be good until it does. Everything is like one of those things that I think back on all the time, which is – now if I hear a startup telling me something like that, or I'm thinking about a company and it's like, well, wouldn't it be great if, and then it's like, well, it has to track everything and be this like massive platform in order to derive any value from it. You're just like, yeah, that's crazy. You can't do crawl, walk, run. It's like one of those things when you look back on it. We should have been like, whoa, whoa, whoa, red flags. This is a bad idea.
00:07:26 · Lee Silverstone, Pablo Srugo
[00:07:26] S1: And that's one of those crazy things too that when you look back on it, not to digress from the story, but that lesson of the everything comment I think is one of the scariest things I've ever – you'll ever hear at a startup. This product would be cool if it did everything right. It won't be good until it does. Everything is like one of those things that I think back on all the time, which is – now if I hear a startup telling me something like that, or I'm thinking about a company and it's like, well, wouldn't it be great if, and then it's like, well, it has to track everything and be this like massive platform in order to derive any value from it. You're just like, yeah, that's crazy. You can't do crawl, walk, run. It's like one of those things when you look back on it. We should have been like, whoa, whoa, whoa, red flags. This is a bad idea. [00:08:17] S0: Rob, what was, by the way, I'm curious your perspective because you actually – so we met you. I mean, you became CEO in 2016, halfway through. You were VP marketing maybe a few months before that. I think you and Lee did a podcast really early days. You must have had some outside view of what are these kids doing? [00:08:34] S1: Remember that? You remember that? Yeah, not until just now that has, I didn't remember that for the past nine years or whatever it's been, but now I remember that.
00:08:34 · Lee Silverstone, Rob Woodbridge, Pablo Srugo
[00:08:34] S1: Remember that? You remember that? Yeah, not until just now that has, I didn't remember that for the past nine years or whatever it's been, but now I remember that. [00:08:41] S2: It was early on. I had my own podcast, Untethered TV, and you were maybe episode two or three. I did that for 10 years. You were really early on. I found you guys through Invest Ottawa or Oak. It was probably Best Ottawa at that time. Maybe it was Oakley, which was an economic development group here in Ottawa. And you were the darling company. Every once in a while you have these startups that emerge. They get into this rarefied air where everybody wants to work for them, invest in them, and be around them. It's like this little moment of celebrity. You poke your head through the clouds, and it's sunshine. You can't do any wrong. That's where I saw you guys. I thought at the very moment, the way it was described to me. After I did the podcast with you, Lee, I literally said, there's two companies that I wish I could have been involved with in the early stages. One of them was Audible.com because I love audiobooks. The second one was Gymtrack. I love audiobooks and going to the gym and can you imagine these are two companies right in it. I fell in love with the idea I had. I got it as well. It was like this virus. Wouldn't it be cool? That is so cool. And that's what it was. [00:09:57] S0: This is maybe a perfect segue because you mentioned we were, let's say, hot, right back in Ottawa, which is – this is a low bar, but hey. [00:10:04] S1: Hey , hey.
00:10:04 · Lee Silverstone, Rob Woodbridge, Pablo Srugo
[00:10:04] S1: Hey , hey. [00:10:05] S2: You excelled at the low bar. [00:10:07] S0: We excelled at the low bar. That's like, that's my my thing, man, big fish, small pond. I’m in. Yeah. When that happened, that happened right after Lee. I don't know if you remember it this way, but I remember it's kind of a step function. When we got into 500 Startups, we were like whatever, and then we got into 500 Startups. Then all of a sudden it was like, well, who are these guys from the perspective of Ottawa community. [00:10:33] S1: Yeah, I think – I mean, I remember it a little bit differently in the sense that a bunch of these accounting firms and law firms started to introduce us to angels. There was this sense and semblance of hey, these guys maybe know what they're doing. [00:10:48] S0: It was buildup. [00:10:50] S1: Yeah. It was like – but there was no kind of proof point that we had any idea exactly what we were talking about. There was no anchoring to reality. It was just, I don't know, maybe they're the smartest people ever. Maybe they're idiots. Who knows? It was this slow burn. Then when we got into 500 Startups, that was when everything – it was this force – it was this forcing function. I remember being in the airport flying to San Francisco for the first time, and walking to the gate, and getting a phone call from an angel we had been speaking to. It was like, hey, I heard you got into 500 Startups. I'm in. Let me write a check. [00:11:27] S0: That’s right. That's what I'm saying, yeah, exactly.
00:11:27 · Pablo Srugo, Lee Silverstone
[00:11:27] S0: That’s right. That's what I'm saying, yeah, exactly. [00:11:29] S1: Do you remember that? And I was like, hey, send him the safe in the airport on the way there. [00:11:35] S0: I've mentioned this story, but I actually didn't live it. I really want to hear from you and your recollection of how we got into 500 Startups, how you got us into 500 Startups in the first place. It started at the beginning because I almost forced you to not go on this trip. Do you remember that. [00:11:53] S1: Yes, you almost kiboshed it, which in retrospect maybe would've been good for the company. Who knows? Yeah, so I remember we were – the guys at Micrometrics were a New York desk and there was an invest all in this open office space. They were like, hey, we're going to Startup Fest in Montreal. I think you were like, man, what are we going to go to like a startup festival for? How is there any value in that? I was like, it's networking, it's investors, it's whatever. You were like, no, man, that's so stupid. I got work to do. Classic Pablo wants to get things done and done. [00:12:22] S0: One hundred percent Pablo right there. Just to be clear, the work I was doing was getting grants, that was for sure work.