How his AI-first services company grew $0 to $40M ARR in one year. | Eric Foster, Founder of Tenex

DescriptionBhaskar was employee #1 at AppDynamics, which was sold to Cisco for $3.7B. He and co-founder Jyoti found a way to change how enterprise monitoring tools worked. From tracking low-level code metrics that ops teams didn't understand to monitoring what the business actually cares about.In this episode, Bhaskar breaks down how that one insight won them Netflix and Priceline as early customers, why they ran production POCs that no competitor would dare try, and how a free download called AppDynamics Lite generated over 60% of their leads—in an industry where getting started normally took weeks of professional services and six-figure contracts.Why You Should ListenWhy selling to developers is operating on hard mode.How one-day POCs became the killer enterprise sales weapon.Why freemium disrupted an industry that required weeks of professional services to get started.How they grew from $2M to $12M in revenue in just one year post launch.Keywords startup podcast, startup podcast for founders, product market fit, AppDynamics, application monitoring, enterprise SaaS, B2B sales, finding pmf, freemium strategy, Cisco acquisition, production POCChapters00:00:00 Intro00:11:33 Choosing the ICP00:20:37 Landing Netflix with Freemium00:28:44 Growing from $2M to $12M in Year Two00:30:10 The Free Download Strategy That Generated 60% of Leads00:32:04 Days from the NASDAQ Bell—Then Cisco Offered $3.7B00:41:28 The Moment of True Product Market FitSend me a message to let me know what you think!

Yogi spent 20 years living the nightmare of enterprise accounting. As a senior finance leader at Rubrik, he watched highly paid professionals spend three weeks every month manually wrangling data into spreadsheets—a problem that caused mass burnout and multi-million dollar stock corrections.When ChatGPT launched, Yogi knew the technology was finally ready to solve the problem. In this episode, he breaks down how he left his executive track to found Maxima, how he landed massive enterprises like Scale AI and Rippling as early design partners, and why he managed to raise $41M from top-tier VCs like Kleiner Perkins and Redpoint before he even had a pitch deck.Why You Should ListenHow a 1st-time founder raised an $11M Seed and a $30M Series A in a year.Why replacing accountants with AI is a bigger opportunity than replacing SaaS tools.How to use the "Design Partner Playbook" to secure Fortune 500 customers.Why charging for an MVP creates the friction you actually need to find true PMF.The difference between selling "digital shelves" and selling "folded laundry" in the age of AI.Keywordsstartup podcast, startup podcast for founders, AI in accounting, enterprise SaaS, product market fit, finding pmf, raising seed round, raising series a, B2B sales, design partners00:00:00 Intro00:07:37 Leaving a CFO Track to Become a Founder00:11:52 Raising an $11M Seed Round from Kleiner Perkins00:20:07 The Design Partner Playbook00:22:34 Why You Must Charge Your Early Design Partners00:28:36 The Aha Moment for Product Market Fit00:33:20 Selling "Folded Laundry" Instead of "Digital Shelves"00:36:47 Raising a $30M Series A Pre-EmptivelySend me a message to let me know what you think!

Omar already built and sold an AI startup for over $100M. But when the generative AI wave hit, he realized the technology wasn't just the future of software—it was the future of labor. So he started Eudia to completely transform how enterprise legal teams operate.In this episode, Omar breaks down how he scaled from $2M to $20M ARR in just 12 months. He reveals the exact cold email strategy he used to land C-suite design partners, why he bought an existing legal services company to accelerate his AI platform, and why replacing human labor with AI is the ultimate business model.Why You Should ListenWhy selling AI as a service is a much bigger opportunity than selling SaaS.How to secure Fortune 500 design partners using cold emails.Why playing to win beats playing not to lose.How to build a data moat that AI wrappers can't compete with.Why ARR shouldn't be your only measure of startup success in the AI era.Keywordsstartup podcast, startup podcast for founders, AI startups, product market fit, AI enabled services, legaltech, B2B SaaS, enterprise sales, finding pmf, generative AI00:00:00 Intro00:01:45 Why AI is the Future of Labor00:04:55 Replacing In-House vs. Outsourced Legal Teams00:09:35 Selling His First AI Startup for $100M00:12:11 Why the $1 Trillion Law Firm Industry is at Risk00:21:59 Landing Fortune 500 Design Partners via Cold Email00:28:26 Playing to Win vs. Playing Not to Lose00:33:45 Raising a $6M Seed Round with an 80-Page Transcript00:38:53 Buying a Legal Services Company to Accelerate Growth00:44:55 Scaling from $2M to $20M ARR in 12 MonthsSend me a message to let me know what you think!

Helen was a software engineer who noticed a massive problem: accounting software for startups was broken, manual, and weeks out of date. Instead of just building a shiny new dashboard on top of legacy platforms, she decided to completely replace the offshore accounting model with AI.In this episode, Helen breaks down how she raised a $4.7M seed round pre-product as a solo founder and why she chose to build an AI-enabled service instead of pure software. She reveals the exact user research playbook she used across 200 interviews, how to rebuild a monopoly like QuickBooks, why hitting product-market fit actually forced her to stop taking new customers, and how she raised a $15M Series A.Why You Should ListenHow to raise a $4.7M seed round as a solo founder with zero revenue.Why building an AI-enabled service beats selling pure SaaS.Why saying "yes" to too many customers will destroy your growth.How to conduct 200 user interviews before writing a single line of code.Why rebuilding a legacy monopoly is no longer a crazy idea.Keywordsstartup podcast, startup podcast for founders, product market fit, AI enabled services, fintech startup, user research, solo founder, raising seed round, B2B SaaS, finding pmf00:00:00 Intro00:02:13 The Origin Story00:05:31 Doing 200 User Interviews Before Building00:11:49 The "Magic Wand" Framework for User Research00:14:33 Raising a $4.7M Seed as a Solo Founder00:22:27 Why AI-Enabled Services Beat Pure SaaS00:28:50 Rebuilding QuickBooks from Scratch00:39:34 The Public Launch and PR Strategy00:50:06 Why Saying "Yes" to Customers Hurt Growth00:53:46 The Moment of True Product Market FitSend me a message to let me know what you think!

Mateo had already built a successful food company in Argentina. But he wanted more. So he moved to New York with no network, no credibility, and a dream to build the "Spotify for Food."The first two years were messy. He nearly ran out of money multiple times, relied on corporate expense accounts to keep the lights on, and failed a major expansion into LA. But then, he noticed a strange behavior: some customers were ordering 10 meals at a time. That single insight led to a massive pivot, a partnership with world-class chefs, and eventually, a $750M run rate.In this episode, Mateo breaks down the gritty reality of building a marketplace from scratch, how to survive the "messy middle," and why sometimes you have to kill your revenue to save your company.Why You Should ListenWhy he shut down a $2M revenue stream to pivot to a model with $0 ARR.How identifying the small group of users who would be "very disappointed" unlocked massive scale.Why he failed at expanding the first time, but succeeded the second time by changing just one variable.Keywordsstartup podcast, startup podcast for founders, product market fit, food tech, marketplace startups, pivot, founder story, CookUnity, scaling a startup, immigrant founder00:00:00 Intro00:02:50 Moving from Argentina to New York00:07:43 Why Leave a Successful Business?00:13:37 The "Airbnb for Food" Vision00:22:44 Faking Traction with Corporate Stipends00:28:41 The $2M Pivot: Shutting Down On-Demand00:34:54 Why Unit Economics Mattered More Than Revenue00:42:14 The COVID Inflection Point & Chef Partnerships00:48:09 Failing Fast in LA vs. Succeeding Later00:51:54 The Moment of True Product Market FitSend me a message to let me know what you think!

Roy is a three-time founder who has cracked the code on enterprise AI. After selling his first company and realizing his second idea was too slow, he pivoted to solving a massive problem: customer service automation.In this episode, Roy breaks down how GetVocal went from zero to $1M ARR in just five months. He reveals the "Context Graph" technology that allows them to beat LLM wrappers, why he believes purely generative AI is useless for business, and how he turned a single deployment into an enterprise-wide contagion.Why You Should ListenHow to hit $1M ARR in 5 months with a single salesperson.Why "Context Graphs" are the secret to building AI that doesn't hallucinate.How to expand from a single agent to 80 agents across the enterprise.The critical difference between Deterministic and Probabilistic AI Why starting with a personal passion project failed, but pivoting to enterprise worked.Keywordsstartup podcast, startup podcast for founders, product market fit, enterprise AI, customer service automation, finding pmf, context graphs, AI agents, B2B sales, Roy Moussa00:00:00 Intro00:02:29 From Engineer to 3-Time Founder00:08:11 The Failed Pivot00:12:49 Solving Sales Efficiency First00:16:06 The Pivot to Customer Service00:18:57 Why Chatbots Failed & The Hybrid AI Solution00:25:43 What is a Context Graph?00:34:46 The "Contagion" Effect: 80 Agents in 8 Weeks00:39:34 Competing with Decagon & The Human-Centric Approach00:41:58 Hitting $1M ARR in 5 MonthsSend me a message to let me know what you think!

Ryan was a successful lawyer with a massive problem. He couldn't find a task management tool that worked for his firm, so he built one himself. He thought he'd solved the problem, but for 8 agonizing months, he couldn't sell a single subscription.In this episode, Ryan breaks down the gritty reality of bootstrapping Filevine into a $3B legal tech startup doing over $200M in revenue. He shares how a random Instagram ad campaign ended his sales drought, how he fought off a Tiger Global-backed competitor built on Salesforce, and how he's completely rewriting his company's architecture to win the AI legal tech war against the likes of Harvey and Legora.Why You Should ListenHow 8 months of zero sales almost broke him.Why building customizability into your core product is the ultimate defense.How to recruit top engineers when you have zero funding.Why SMBs often have "beer money but champagne tastes."How to pivot from SaaS to AI.Keywordsstartup podcast, startup podcast for founders, legaltech, product market fit, bootstrapping, B2B SaaS, enterprise sales, AI startup, founder story, finding pmf00:00:00 Intro00:07:20 Recruiting an Amazon Engineer with No Funding00:11:52 The First Conference and the "Terrible" MVP00:15:23 The Dark Months: Zero Sales from Cold Calling00:19:28 The GTM that Saved the Company00:27:36 Why In-Person Events Beat Cold Calling00:36:19 Moving Upmarket to Avoid Demanding SMBs00:37:32 Beating a $50M Salesforce-Backed Competitor00:46:45 Rewriting Filevine for the AI EraSend me a message to let me know what you think!

Sam spent years at the Air Force and Palantir before deciding to build Method Security. Instead of launching an MVP and iterating with customers, he did the opposite: he shut out the world and built in the dark for a year based on his own conviction.In this episode, Sam breaks down his contrarian approach to building a platform for the enterprise and government. He reveals how he raised millions from Andreessen Horowitz with just a prototype, why he refuses to hire a sales team, and how he landed a seven-figure contract right out of the gate.Why You Should ListenWhy he ignored the "talk to users" advice and built in the dark for a year.How to raise a $5.5M seed round from a16z in just 3 days.The "2-Hour Bootcamp" strategy that shortens enterprise sales cycles.Why keeping your engineering team dangerously small creates speed.How to turn a design partnership into a $1M+ contract.Keywordsstartup podcast, startup podcast for founders, product market fit, cybersecurity, a16z, Palantir, enterprise sales, design partners, government contracting, founder led sales00:00:00 Intro00:02:00 From Air Force to Palantir00:06:28 The "Shared Notion Space" of Ideas00:10:04 Raising Seed from a16z in 3 Days00:17:23 The "Dark Period": Building Without Users00:22:23 Structuring Enterprise Design Partnerships00:28:48 The "2-Hour Bootcamp" Sales Strategy00:31:03 Why the Org Chart is Flat (15 Reports to CTO)00:34:02 Converting Pilots to Commercial Contracts00:41:07 The Moment of True Product Market FitSend me a message to let me know what you think!

Michel raised $185M and achieved a unicorn valuation before he fully cracked monetization. How? By building a community so strong it broke his engineering team.In this episode, Michel breaks down the chaotic journey from a failed YC marketing idea to becoming the standard for open-source data movement. He reveals why he killed a high-growth fintech product, how he used the "Magic Wand" question to find his true direction, and the specific insight that allowed Airbyte to hit $1M ARR in just 4 months after launching their enterprise product.Why You Should ListenHow to hit $1M ARR in 4 months with a bare-bones product.The "Magic Wand" framework for validating startup ideas.Why you should sometimes optimize for Vanity Metrics.How to raise $150M+ by solving the "build vs buy" dilemma.The critical difference between Project Market Fit and Product Market Fit.Keywordsstartup podcast, startup podcast for founders, open source business model, data infrastructure, product market fit, Y Combinator, pivoting, fundraising, developer tools, Airbyte00:00:00 Intro00:09:37 The Failed Marketing Product & COVID Pivot00:16:13 The "Magic Wand" Framework for Ideas00:20:52 Launching Open Source to Solve "Build vs Buy"00:24:39 Bootstrapping a Community on Reddit & Hacker News00:30:17 Why Too Many Users Broke the Team00:34:32 Project Market Fit vs. Product Market Fit00:36:16 Hitting $1M ARR in 4 Months00:37:53 Managing a Unicorn Valuation Without Revenue00:41:20 Advice for Early Stage FoundersSend me a message to let me know what you think!

Didi spent five years building a product that no one really wanted. He raised $10 million, tried endless pivots, and was known as the "black sheep" of his investors' portfolio. Then, with his back against the wall, he made one final bet on a boring, unsexy market: FP&A for Excel users.In this episode, Didi breaks down how that final pivot turned into a rocket ship. He reveals why he sold cheap monthly contracts to prove demand, how he used his kids to automate LinkedIn outreach, and why targeting the market everyone else ignores (Excel lovers) was the key to unlocking massive growth.Why You Should ListenHow to survive 5 years of wandering before finding PMF.Why he sold $790/month contracts to validate a pivot.How to scale from $0 to $20M ARR with 100% outbound sales.Keywordsstartup podcast, startup podcast for founders, product market fit, finding pmf, pivot, B2B sales, outbound sales strategy, FP&A software, excel automation, Didi Gurfinkel00:00:00 Intro00:02:42 The First 5 Years of Wandering00:11:39 Being the "Black Sheep" of the Portfolio00:14:12 Identifying the FP&A Opportunity00:20:55 The Pivot: Selling $790/Month Contracts00:30:30 Scaling from $1M to $20M with Outbound00:33:18 Why the Mid-Market is Wide Open00:34:22 The Moment of True Product Market FitSend me a message to let me know what you think!