A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
00:53:27 · Pablo Srugo
[00:53:27] S0: I like both of them because I also think one of the things that's often missed when you're selling B2B is oftentimes like you're not selling to, you're certainly not selling to the owner. Like it's not, you're not thinking dollars. Like when you sell to a consumer, you're literally transferring money from somebody who's, it's my money and now it's going to you, right? Most of the times when you're selling B2B, you're selling to someone, it's not their money. And so they're not fully like adversarial in that sense where it's like they're taking money out of their pocket and give it to you. They're probably going to make the same salary anyways. They're going to have whatever money they have to spend on their own things. They're taking money from their business, right? And maybe they have a budget and these sort of things. So it's not like they just don't care, but it makes a big difference because oftentimes you can kind of flip it where it's both of you kind of against, if you want to think it that way, the enterprise and the system, right? And it's like, listen, you've already bought into Assured. You know, this is going to deliver ROI. You want to like look good and also like have an easier job or whatever it is that you want to get out of this product. Let's like work together to get you there, which kind of fills into all, you know, obviously that means building trust and also means saying, look, if you really want to get about October, if you don't, it's fine. We could do November, but if you really want to do about October, that's best for you. And then, so then, you know, they're really truly a champion in that way. And I think that's often kind of lost. I think people get it over time, but especially at the beginning, first time founder, especially like you forget that that's really what's going on.
00:54:43 · Rahul Shivkumar, Pablo Srugo
[00:54:43] S1: Totally. And even add in your first call, like that, that discovery call that you're doing, you should really understand they're not just like what they're looking for, but also their buying process. Does it have to go through legal? Does it have to go through compliance? Right? Like, do you need us to show like our security certificates or things like that? Like if you leave your first call not understanding that you actually have done a bad job. Wow. [00:55:04] S0: Perfect. Well, listen, let's stop it there. I'll ask the last question. Any piece of advice that you kind of feel like you give first time founders or even just early stage repeat founders a lot, like anybody that's kind of in that early stage finding product market fit, what's something that you'd want to kind of leave them with?
00:55:04 · Pablo Srugo, Rahul Shivkumar
[00:55:04] S0: Perfect. Well, listen, let's stop it there. I'll ask the last question. Any piece of advice that you kind of feel like you give first time founders or even just early stage repeat founders a lot, like anybody that's kind of in that early stage finding product market fit, what's something that you'd want to kind of leave them with? [00:55:18] S1: Yeah. This one probably gets said a lot, but one of the things that I think we did really well was we did a lot of the jobs before we hired for them. Right? So as an example, like the BDR workflows, my co-founder and I were BDRs, right? Like we were doing some of that work ourselves. We understood what it meant to be good in that role. Maybe not great, but we understood what it meant to be good in that role before we hired for it. I think mistakes we've done on the hiring side have been hiring without understanding what that role is actually going to do. Right? Like a good example is, I mean, this may not apply super early stage, but later on you're hiring an executive. Investors will often tell you, go hire a VP. Right? But I think you really have to, and what is that VP going to do? And you almost have to do that job first before you can hire someone for it. And I think there's this general tendency to hire quickly and not do the unglamorous work, but I'd say like, do it so you can actually understand it really well. You can understand why you should have a human BDR and serve like an AI, right? And like double down on those decisions.
00:55:18 · Rahul Shivkumar, Pablo Srugo
[00:55:18] S1: Yeah. This one probably gets said a lot, but one of the things that I think we did really well was we did a lot of the jobs before we hired for them. Right? So as an example, like the BDR workflows, my co-founder and I were BDRs, right? Like we were doing some of that work ourselves. We understood what it meant to be good in that role. Maybe not great, but we understood what it meant to be good in that role before we hired for it. I think mistakes we've done on the hiring side have been hiring without understanding what that role is actually going to do. Right? Like a good example is, I mean, this may not apply super early stage, but later on you're hiring an executive. Investors will often tell you, go hire a VP. Right? But I think you really have to, and what is that VP going to do? And you almost have to do that job first before you can hire someone for it. And I think there's this general tendency to hire quickly and not do the unglamorous work, but I'd say like, do it so you can actually understand it really well. You can understand why you should have a human BDR and serve like an AI, right? And like double down on those decisions. [00:56:17] S0: Perfect. Well, Rahul, thanks so much for spending time, man. You've been amazing. [00:56:20] S1: For sure. Great. Thanks for having me. Listen,
00:56:20 · Rahul Shivkumar, Pablo Srugo
[00:56:20] S1: For sure. Great. Thanks for having me. Listen, [00:56:22] S0: when you go to like a restaurant, you eat a nice, you know, meal, maybe a fancy one, maybe not. Do you leave a tip? I assume you probably leave a tip. You probably leave a tip 100% of the time. Well, guess what? A review is just like a tip. And I know you haven't been leaving one. So just like the waiter that doesn't get a tip after hours of great service, I'm getting a little frustrated. So take your phone out and leave a review. It helps the show move up rankings. It helps us get better guests. It doesn't just help me. It helps way more founders. Thank you.