The founderplaybooks.
Every episode also lives as a written breakdown — the frameworks, the spreadsheets, the dead ends, and the exact moments PMF clicked.
Astro Teller: How X Kills 1,000 Ideas to Find One Waymo
Astro Teller reveals X's moonshot process: kill criteria, learning per dollar, and the 'train the monkey' rule that built Waymo, Wing, and Google Brain.
- 02Ep 43·Jul 6, 2026
How Accrual Found PMF in AI-Powered Accounting
Accrual's founder shares how a 21-person team hit PMF, landed H&R Block, ran 100% pilot conversions, and raised $75M with radical transparency and lean team design.
- 03Ep 42·Jun 29, 2026
How Render Found Product Market Fit: Anurag Goel
Render CEO Anurag Goel on word-of-mouth PMF, founder-market fit, and building a $1.5B developer cloud with no marketing spend. Key lessons for early-stage founders.
- 04Ep 41·Jun 22, 2026
From Zero to $1M ARR in 6 Months: How Monk Found PMF
Monk's co-founder shares how AI-native AR automation hit $1M ARR in 6 months via cold outbound, a dashboard pivot, and sharp customer pain. Key lessons for B2B founders.
- 05Ep 40·Jun 15, 2026
ManifestOS: AI-Native Law Firm Model & Value-Led Growth
How ManifestOS raised $60M building an AI-native immigration law network using community acquisition, earned media, and 1,000 intake calls before launch.
- 06Ep 39·Jun 8, 2026
Amigo AI: From $12K Pre-Code to Series A in Healthcare
How Amigo AI validated demand before building, churned 100% of revenue to pivot into healthcare AI agents, and hit $1M ARR from a $20/month Slack community.
- 07Ep 38·Jun 1, 2026
How SolidRoad Hit $1M ARR With Cold Email Outbound
SolidRoad co-founder Mark reveals how a pivot to customer support AI, 500K cold emails, and 56 customer flights drove $1M ARR and a $25M Series A with 12 people.
- 08Ep 37·May 25, 2026
Series A in 2026: What the Data Says You Actually Need
Carta's Peter Walker breaks down Q1 2026 venture data: Series A valuations doubled, ARR bar at $3.5M, Bay Area commands 30% premium. Real benchmarks for founders.
- 09May 18, 2026
How to Raise a Seed Round Fast Using the FOMO Playbook
Pablo Srugo's 4-step FOMO fundraising playbook: build 50 VC targets, engineer warm intros, compress timelines, and close your seed round in weeks not months.
- 10Ep 39·May 11, 2026
How Ema Closes 7-Figure Fortune 500 AI Agent Deals
Ema founder Surojit Chatterjee on Hitachi's 55,000-employee AI deployment, compliance-first strategy, and why PMF means your average rep closes without you.
- 11Ep 36·May 4, 2026
From $500/Month to $300K Enterprise Deals: BackOps Playbook
Sean McCarthy built BackOps from a Slack bot to a Fortune 500 AI platform. Learn the exact discovery, rebuild, and enterprise sales tactics behind his $300K deals.
- 12Ep 34·Apr 27, 2026
From $1M to $13M ARR: AirOps CEO on AI Content Sales
AirOps CEO Alex Halliday on growing from $1M to $13M ARR: picking high-taste customers, consultative enterprise sales, and why positioning beats product.
- 13Ep 33·Apr 20, 2026
180 VC Rejections to $40M Series B: Bland AI's Playbook
Bland AI CEO Isaiah Granet on pivoting mid-YC, a $60K billboard that hit 1B impressions, firing 50% of customers, and winning seven-figure enterprise deals.
- 14Ep 32·Apr 16, 2026
From Dorm Room to $10M ARR: BoldVoice's B2C Playbook
Anada Lakra grew BoldVoice to $10M ARR and a $21M Series A. Learn her B2C playbook: launch fast, charge from day one, and scale via YouTube influencer ads.
- 15Ep 31·Apr 13, 2026
From $1M to $30M GMV: How Protege Found Product Market Fit
Bobby Samuels grew Protege 30x in one year with in-person sales, trusted data networks, and A-plus hiring. Key lessons for B2B founders finding PMF.
- 16Ep 30·Apr 9, 2026
Ex-Amazon VP Raised $20M to Rebuild E-Commerce with AI
Spangle co-founder Maju Kuruvilla explains why 40% of e-commerce traffic is wasted, how AI rebuilds storefronts in real time, and the future of seller vs. buyer agents.
- 17Ep 29·Apr 6, 2026
22 VC Rejections to $100M ARR: Amanda Kahlow on AI Sales
Amanda Kahlow built 6sense to $200M ARR after 22 rejections. Now she's collapsing the B2B sales stack with AI at 1mind—and raised her Series A in 3 days.
- 18Ep 28·Apr 2, 2026
How Stuut Hit $1M ARR in 2 Months Using AI for Accounts Receivable
Tarek Alaruri built Stuut to $1M ARR in 2 months using AI for accounts receivable. Learn how he pre-sold $65K contracts and achieved 40% collection improvements.
- 19Ep 27·Mar 30, 2026
From $2M to $12M ARR: AppDynamics' Freemium Enterprise Playbook
Bhaskar Sunkara reveals how AppDynamics grew $2M to $12M ARR in one year, drove 60%+ leads via free download, and sold to Cisco for $3.7B.
- 20Ep 27·Mar 26, 2026
How Yogi Goel Raised $41M to Replace Enterprise Accountants with AI
Former Rubrik executive Yogi Goel raised $41M in one year to build Maxima, an AI platform automating enterprise accounting. Learn his design partner playbook and fundraising strategy.
- 21Ep 24·Mar 23, 2026
How Omar Haroun Scaled Eudia from $2M to $20M ARR in 12 Months
Learn how Omar Haroun scaled AI legal platform Eudia from $2M to $20M ARR by targeting enterprise labor budgets, using cold emails for Fortune 500 sales, and focusing on customer referrals.
- 22Ep 25·Mar 19, 2026
Helen Hastings: How to Build an AI-Enabled Service That Replaces QuickBooks
Learn how Helen Hastings raised $20M to build Quanta, an AI-enabled accounting service that replaces QuickBooks. Get her playbook for user research, fundraising, and scaling service businesses.
- 23Ep 22·Mar 16, 2026
From $2M Revenue to Zero: How CookUnity's Founder Built a $750M ARR Company
How Mateo Marietti built CookUnity into a $750M ARR marketplace by shutting down $2M revenue to pivot from on-demand to subscription meals. Product-market fit lessons.
- 24Ep 23·Mar 12, 2026
How This 3x Founder Hit $1M ARR in 5 Months with AI Customer Service Automation
Roy Moussa built GetVocal from zero to $1M ARR in just 5 months. Learn his playbook for enterprise AI success and the Context Graph technology behind it.
- 25Ep 20·Mar 9, 2026
From Zero Sales to $200M ARR: Filevine's Legal Tech Growth Story
How Ryan Anderson built Filevine from 8 months of zero sales to $200M ARR through events marketing, product customization, and AI transformation.
- 26Ep 21·Mar 5, 2026
How Method Security Raised $25M & Landed a $1M Contract by Building in the Dark
Sam Jones built Method Security in isolation for a year, raised $25M from a16z in 3 days, and landed $1M+ contracts. Learn his contrarian enterprise cybersecurity approach.
- 27Ep 18·Mar 2, 2026
How Michel Tricot Raised $185M Before Finding Revenue Model | Airbyte
Learn how Michel Tricot raised $185M for Airbyte through open source community building, then hit $1M ARR in 4 months. Includes Magic Wand validation framework.
- 28Ep 19·Feb 26, 2026
From 5 Years of Failure to $20M ARR: Didi Gurfinkel's FP&A Pivot Story
How Datarails founder survived 5 years of failed pivots, validated FP&A with $790/month contracts, and scaled to $20M ARR through 100% outbound sales targeting Excel users.
- 29Ep 17·Feb 23, 2026
How LiveKit Powers OpenAI's Voice Mode: From Near-Death to AI Unicorn
Discover how LiveKit went from struggling startup to powering ChatGPT's voice mode. Learn about voice AI infrastructure, WebRTC, and the pivot that created a unicorn.
- 30Ep 16·Feb 19, 2026
How Kevin Tian Pivoted at $1M ARR and Raised $120M for Doppel
Kevin Tian pivoted Doppel from NFTs to cybersecurity at $1M ARR, secured his first $5k contract with no product, and raised $120M+ from a16z during the transition.
- 31Ep 14·Feb 16, 2026
From $100M Exit to $250M Raised: Dileep Thazhmon's Global Banking Strategy
How Dileep Thazhmon built Jeeves into a global business bank serving 25 countries after selling PowerInbox for $100M. Learn his Beat Down Framework and unscalable growth tactics.
- 32Ep 13·Feb 12, 2026
How Chaz Englander Built 3 Successful Startups: From $40M Exit to $75M Series A
Serial entrepreneur Chaz Englander reveals his proven playbook for building successful startups, from LinkedIn fundraising tactics to achieving rapid growth in AI-era companies.
- 33Ep 12·Feb 9, 2026
How to Pivot from $3M ARR to $1B Valuation: Jay Madheswaran's Eve Story
Jay Madheswaran fired all customers at his $3M ARR startup and pivoted to legal AI. Learn how Eve reached unicorn status in 2 years with 40% cold outreach conversion.
- 34Ep 11·Feb 5, 2026
Account Based Marketing Secrets from Briq's Founder — Enterprise Sales Playbook
Bassem Hamdy reveals his exact ABM playbook: identifying challengers who kill deals, 1-person webinars, selling risk vs. time, and why trade shows don't work.
- 35Ep 10·Feb 2, 2026
From YC Rejection to $1.8B Unicorn: Max Junestrand's Legora Story
Max Junestrand built Legora into a $1.8B AI legal tech unicorn after YC rejection. Learn his strategies: pausing sales post-Series A, 55% demo conversion, hypergrowth scaling.
- 36Ep 9·Jan 29, 2026
From Studio Apartment to $100M+ Revenue: Spot & Tango's DTC Pet Food Journey
Discover how Russell Breuer scaled Spot & Tango from cooking dog food at home to $100M+ revenue through UnKibble innovation, vertical integration, and data-driven marketing strategies.
- 37Ep 6·Jan 26, 2026
How Harman Narula Built Canary Technologies Into a $600M Company | PMF Show
Learn how Harman Narula built Canary Technologies into a $600M hospitality platform starting with digital forms and 100 daily cold calls. Outbound sales secrets revealed.
- 38Ep 7·Jan 22, 2026
100K Signups in 30 Days, 99.9% Churned: How Fathom Hit $10M ARR
Rich White's wild journey: 100K Zoom signups nearly killed Fathom when 99.9% churned. Learn how visible meeting bots drove viral growth to $10M ARR.
- 39Ep 8·Jan 19, 2026
Product-Market Fit vs. Go-To-Market Fit: Bob Tinker
Bob Tinker built MobileIron to $150M ARR by mastering both PMF and GTM Fit. Learn the Deal Grind, the magic question, and the surfing framework for startups.
- 40Ep 5·Jan 15, 2026
How Terra Security Hit $1M ARR in One Quarter
Shahar Peled hit $1M ARR in one quarter with zero marketing spend. Learn his Service-as-Software playbook, design partner strategy, and 40% SQL-to-close rate.
- 41Ep 4·Jan 12, 2026
How Decagon Hit $1M ARR With 2 People in 6 Months
Ashwin Sreenivas built Decagon to $1.5B in 2 years with 2 founders. Learn his customer discovery playbook, the $150k PMF test, and how to close enterprise deals early.
- 42Ep 3·Jan 8, 2026
Unicorn in 18 Months: How Serval Replaced ServiceNow
Jake Stauch built Serval into a $1B company in 18 months by replacing ServiceNow with AI. Learn his PMF signals, discovery tactics, and 50%+ close rate strategy.
- 43Ep 2·Jan 5, 2026
4 Years to Launch, $1M ARR in 30 Days: Siqi Chen's Story
Siqi Chen lost 95% of his revenue to COVID, spent 4 years building Runway, then hit $1M ARR in 30 days with a viral launch. Here's how he did it.
- 44Ep 104·Dec 29, 2025
B2B SaaS Is Dead: How AI Founders Win in 2025
Pablo Srugo explains why the B2B SaaS playbook is obsolete, what triple-threat competition means post-ChatGPT, and why Service-as-Software is the next big opportunity.
- 45Ep 104·Dec 22, 2025
60 VC Rejections to $100M ARR: Kyle Hanslovan's Huntress Story
Kyle Hanslovan burned his savings, slept in his car, and got 60 VC rejections before Huntress hit $100M ARR. Here's how he built a $2B cybersecurity company.
- 46Ep 101·Dec 18, 2025
He Killed a $100K Product & Pivoted to Raise $375M
Viraj Parekh killed a working product after customers kept asking about the backend tech. Here's how he validated the pivot, landed first customers, and raised $350M.
- 47Ep 100·Dec 15, 2025
Five Steps to Product Market Fit — Pablo Srugo
Pablo Srugo's 5-step PMF framework from 60+ founder interviews: research mode, insane focus, niche markets, value over growth, and faster pivots.
- 48Ep 99·Dec 11, 2025
How Juicebox Hit $10M ARR in 2 Years and Raised $30M from Sequoia
David Paffenholz killed a viral app, fixed brutal churn manually, and scaled Juicebox to $10M ARR with 24 people before raising $30M from Sequoia. Here's how.
- 49Ep 98·Dec 8, 2025
How Jennifer Smith Built Scribe to $1.3B Ignoring Her VCs
Jennifer Smith ignored investor pushback, launched a janky MVP, and ran PLG + enterprise sales simultaneously. Here's how Scribe reached $1.3B and 95% Fortune 500 penetration.
- 50Dec 4, 2025
From $166M Snap Exit to $50M AI Video Startup — Alex Mashrabov
Alex Mashrabov sold to Snap for $166M, then built Higgsfield AI — raising $50M to help brands produce 10,000+ AI video ads per year. Key lessons inside.
- 51Ep 96·Dec 1, 2025
How Tenex Hit $43M ARR in Year One: Eric Foster
Eric Foster built Tenex to $43M ARR in year one. Learn how AI-native ops, outcome-based selling, and founder-led sales collapsed the enterprise sales cycle.
- 52Ep 95·Nov 27, 2025
Series A Fundraising Data: What Carta's Q3 2025 Shows
Carta's Peter Walker shares real 2025 benchmarks: median seed is $20M post, Series A is $60M post, and only 20% of seed companies graduate in 2 years.
- 53Ep 94·Nov 24, 2025
Growth Buyout: How Metropolis Raised $3.5B on AI Parking
Alex Israel explains how Metropolis built a 20M-member AI parking platform by acquiring legacy operators instead of selling to them—the growth buyout playbook.
- 54Ep 93·Nov 20, 2025
How Instalily Hit $1M ARR in Months With AI Agents
Amit Shah left 1-800-Flowers to build Instalily. Learn how operator market fit, 100+ trade shows, and AI agents drove $1M ARR in months.
- 55Ep 92·Nov 17, 2025
He Validated a $120M Insurance Startup in One Weekend
Wayne Slavin built Sure — embedded insurance for Tesla, Toyota & Mastercard — after a fake checkout flow converted 15.91% in a single weekend. Here's the full playbook.
- 56Ep 91·Nov 13, 2025
How Matt Espinoza Hit $8M ARR in 6 Months with Volume
Matt Espinoza grew Clover to $8M ARR in 6 months: 1,000 AI videos/day, Reddit SEO hacks, and 15,000 cold emails. Inside his 'volume negates luck' playbook.
- 57Ep 90·Nov 10, 2025
He Left $5M ARR Behind—Then Built a $50M Company
Russ Fradin walked away from $5M ARR at Dynamic Signal to chase a $200K signal—and built to $50M ARR. His pivot playbook and lessons for founders.
- 58Ep 89·Nov 6, 2025
Product-Price-Market Fit: How Deliverr Hit $100M ARR
Harish Abbott explains how 2 changes — a flat pricing model and a dynamic delivery badge — took Deliverr from 10 customers to $100M ARR and a $2B Shopify exit.
- 59Ep 88·Nov 3, 2025
PMF Is Never a Destination: Dheeraj Pandey on Building $20B+ Companies
Nutanix founder Dheeraj Pandey explains why PMF must be re-earned at every stage, why 130%+ NRR signals real traction, and how platform thinking drives billion-dollar scale.
- 60Oct 30, 2025
How TurboPuffer Cut Vector DB Costs 95% and Won Cursor
Simon Eskildsen built TurboPuffer to make vector databases 100x cheaper. How he won Cursor, Notion, and Linear — and why he turned down a $30M Series A.
- 61Oct 27, 2025
Product-User Fit vs. Product-Buyer Fit: Snyk's $300M Lesson
Guy Podjarny burned $4M to hit $100K ARR at Snyk. One insight—product-buyer fit—drove $4.5M ARR in 12 months. Here's the full breakdown.
- 62Ep 85·Oct 23, 2025
How a 5x Founder Turned a Contract Into a Ford Acquisition
Amar Varma explains the pricing move that triggered Ford's acquisition of Autonomic, the real Tinder origin story, and how Mantle competes with Carta.
- 63Ep 84·Oct 20, 2025
Fake vs. Real PMF: How Blue J Went from $2M to $25M ARR
Blue J founder Ben Alarie on 8 years of partial PMF, a full product rebuild on RAG-based LLMs, and the hypergrowth that followed: $2M to $25M ARR in 2 years.
- 64Ep 83·Oct 16, 2025
How Axonius Grew to $100M ARR in 5 Years | Dean Sysman
Dean Sysman reveals how Axonius created cyber asset management, survived 20 POC bugs, and grew to $100M ARR in 4.5 years. Key: messaging + time-to-value.
- 65Ep 82·Oct 13, 2025
How Casey Ellis Built Bugcrowd to $180M Raised
Casey Ellis validated Bugcrowd's hacker marketplace with $500, landed Google in month 4, and raised $180M+. Learn his Uber pitch method and GTM playbook.
- 66Ep 81·Oct 9, 2025
From Google to $1M ARR Every 10 Days: Zach Lloyd's Warp Story
Zach Lloyd quit Google, survived a failed startup, then built Warp to $1M ARR every 10 days by pivoting to agentic development. Key founder lessons inside.
- 67Ep 80·Oct 6, 2025
From $2K in the Bank to Microsoft Acquisition: Alex Sherman's PMF Journey
Alex Sherman survived 18 months of 2-month runway before retail media exploded and Microsoft acquired PromoteIQ. Now he's building Bluefish AI for Fortune 500 CMOs.
- 68Ep 79·Oct 2, 2025
From Drug Dealer Death Threats to $50M ARR: ServiceUp's Story
How Brett Carlson built ServiceUp to $50M ARR by copying DoorDash, surviving death threats, and pivoting from B2C to B2B fleet repair with 5x higher order values.
- 69Ep 78·Sep 29, 2025
From $5M to $7B AUM: Doug Scott's Decade-Long Overnight Success
Doug Scott pitched 100+ investors and spent 3 years building Ethic before one go-to-market insight drove 5x growth. How he reached $7B AUM in fintech.
- 70Ep 77·Sep 25, 2025
Speed Is the Only Startup Moat — Here's How to Keep It
Pablo Srugo reveals why execution speed is the only real moat for founders — and how Twitter hit top 5 in the App Store with 300 small iterations, not one big bet.
- 71Ep 78·Sep 22, 2025
Stop Talking to Customers—Work Beside Them | Buildots
Buildots co-founder Aviv Leibovici on spending 5 months on construction sites before building, the 90% adoption failure, and the Excel hack that drove 3–4X growth.
- 72Ep 75·Sep 18, 2025
Cold Outbound to $10M ARR: Shensi Ding's Merge Playbook
Shensi Ding cold-messaged 50,000 engineers and ran demos 9am–9pm to grow Merge to $10M ARR. Her unfiltered B2B SaaS go-to-market playbook.
- 73Ep 74·Sep 15, 2025
7 Years to $1M, Then $100M ARR: Eldon Sprickerhoff's Story
Eldon Sprickerhoff bootstrapped eSentire for 7 years to $1M ARR, then scaled to $10M in 3 years after one key hire. Here's exactly how he did it.
- 74Ep 73·Sep 10, 2025
From Failed Pivot to $30M Series A: Composio's AI Agent Growth
Soham Ganatra shares how Composio grew to 100,000 developers and raised $30M from Lightspeed — by ditching friendly customers and running 10–20 cold calls per day.
- 75Ep 72·Sep 8, 2025
From YC Fraud to $10M ARR: Sahil Phadnis's SMB Fintech Pivot
Sahil Phadnis was called a fraud on TechCrunch at 18. He pivoted to build Affiniti—$10M ARR, 2,000 SMB customers, using trade associations to cut CAC by 75%.
- 76Ep 71·Sep 4, 2025
How Gamma Went from Dying Startup to $1M ARR in 2 Months
Gamma co-founder Jon Noronha shares how a dying startup survived 3 years of no traction, pivoted to AI presentations, and hit $1M ARR in 2 months after Paul Graham trashed their launch tweet.
- 77Ep 70·Sep 2, 2025
From Google to $16B IPO: Rubrik's PMF Playbook
Rubrik co-founder Soham Mazumdar on hitting $1M ARR in 2 quarters, why paid pilots beat free trials, and how to find PMF in enterprise hardware.
- 78Ep 69·Aug 28, 2025
Bootstrapping to $55M: Stéphan Donzé's Anti-VC Playbook
How Stéphan Donzé bootstrapped AODocs to $55M without VC money—using founder-led sales, long enterprise cycles, and 40% annual growth over hypergrowth.
- 79Ep 68·Aug 25, 2025
How Andrew Filev Bootstrapped Wrike to a $2.2B Exit
Andrew Filev bootstrapped Wrike for 17 years without pivoting and sold for $2.2B. His contrarian playbook on compounding, product, and AI agents explained.
- 80Ep 67·Aug 21, 2025
Series A in 2025: The $3M ARR Bar & What It Takes
Carta data reveals the new Series A bar: $3M ARR, 2.1-year median timeline, and 20% seed-to-A conversion. What founders must know to raise in 2025.
- 81Ep 66·Aug 18, 2025
How Hedra Hit $10M+ ARR in Months With Zero Outbound
Hedra founder Michael Lingelbach breaks down how his AI video app reached eight-figure ARR with no outbound sales, a creator-led launch, and a deliberate V2 rebuild.
- 82Ep 65·Aug 14, 2025
How Ross McNairn Grew Wordsmith AI to Millions in ARR in 18 Months
Ross McNairn's playbook: test co-founders with deliberate conflict, build Slack-native, stay at 8 people, and pivot to the pain nobody else solved. Wordsmith AI's PMF story.
- 83Ep 64·Aug 11, 2025
How Rick Song Built Persona to $100M ARR by Expecting Failure
Rick Song grew Persona to $100M ARR by expecting failure, avoiding hyper-optimization, and hiring only trusted people. Key lessons for early-stage founders.
- 84Ep 63·Aug 7, 2025
Neil Patel: Give Software Away Free to Build Bigger
Neil Patel says skip product-market fit — give software away free, collect leads at scale, and monetize via adjacent services. Here's the full playbook.
- 85Ep 62·Aug 4, 2025
0 to $5M ARR in 3 Months: Roy Lee's Viral Growth Playbook
Roy Lee grew Cluely from zero to $5M ARR in 3 months using engineered virality and short-form content. Here's his full tactical playbook for founders.
- 86Ep 64·Jul 31, 2025
She Raised $1.3M, Delivered Results, Then Shut Down
Mary Beth Snodgrass built a health tech startup that worked — and still failed. Learn the 7 reasons Healthiby shut down despite real patient outcomes.
- 87Ep 60·Jul 28, 2025
How Wispr Flow Hit 50% MoM Growth—Tanay Kothari
Wispr Flow founder Tanay Kothari on pivoting from brain-computer hardware to a voice dictation app with 50% MoM growth, 20% paid conversion, and $30M raised.
- 88Ep 59·Jul 24, 2025
Why Every Startup Problem After PMF Is a People Problem
Pablo Srugo reveals why startup challenges beyond product market fit are people problems — and how free pricing built Zeffy an unbeatable moat.