Carriers wouldn't talk to him, so he started with kids' smartwatches—then landed AT&T, Revolut and Klarna and now wins 90% of deals. | Hermann Frank, Co-Founder & CEO of Gigs

Hermann wanted to build Stripe for phone plans. Every carrier said no and investors passed. So he plugged into an aggregator with terrible economics and sold to kids' smartwatch makers losing 30 to 40% of devices to returns. That niche paid for his seed and Series A. Then AT&T opened the door. Today Gigs powers phone plans for Revolut, Klarna, Nubank and Cash App and wins 90% of the deals it goes after.

In this episode, Hermann breaks down why a small niche with a sharp pain point beats a big market with a mild one, how a founder tells a 15-year story to investors without losing them, and why landing an enterprise customer is statesmanship, not salesmanship.

Why You Should Listen

• Why 30 to 40% return rates made kids' smartwatch makers the perfect first customer.
• How building on an aggregator with no margin got Gigs its first deal with AT&T.
• Why you should borrow another company's story until you have your own.
• How working every layer of an enterprise at once wins 90% of deals.

Keywords startup podcast, startup podcast for founders, product market fit, finding pmf, Gigs, Hermann Frank, embedded telecom, eSIM, telecom API, fintech, enterprise sales, founder led sales, niche markets, Y Combinator, Stripe for telecom, storytelling for fundraising

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Intro
• 00:02:03 Product Market Fit Three Times
• 00:06:21 From Berlin Wi-Fi to Stripe for Telecom
• 00:16:10 No Carrier Would Talk to Them
• 00:19:35 Kids' Smartwatches With 40% Returns
• 00:24:11 Why Fintechs Want to Sell Phone Plans
• 00:30:22 Telling a 15-Year Story to VCs
• 00:37:18 Statesmanship, Not Salesmanship
• 00:43:33 Stay in Sales Longer Than You Should