Sep 3, 2024 · 40m · product-market-fit
They hit $100M ARR—in a "crowded market". Here's how they got to $1M ARR in just 18 months. | Don... · PMF Show
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In this episode of The Product Market Fit Show, Vena founder Don Mal joins host Pablo to detail how Vena navigated a crowded financial software market to reach $1M ARR in 18 months and eventually surpass $100M ARR. Don shares key operational insights on embracing Excel, hiring outbound sales early, maintaining founder alignment, and leveraging domain expertise to build high-growth B2B SaaS companies.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Pablo holds 20.8% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Pablo as informed peer 4.0 Guest teaching 3.2 Guest disagreement 1.1 Pablo pushing back 1.6
speaking balance: gold is Pablo, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 28:15 Don rejects the soft time-saving framing of ROI
Don pushes back on Pablo's suggestion that productivity ROI is fluffy by arguing that CFOs primarily purchase certainty, risk reduction, and trust in reporting.
Hardest push from Pablo ▶ 27:53 Pablo challenges time-saving ROI as fluffy for non-user buyersPablo directly challenges Don's value proposition explanation, pointing out that time-saving metrics fail to compel executive buyers who do not use the software daily.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 13:47 Don explains the structural recycling of FP&A software vendorsDon educates Pablo on why the budgeting category never stays solved, breaking down how continuous market growth and vendor acquisitions maintain a rotating crop of competitors.
Pablo holds their own ▶ 36:29 Pablo breaks down the financial calculus of walking away from a million-dollar incomePablo articulates the exact risk-reward math for an established high-earning executive, showing the minimum exit required to offset guaranteed compensation.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Pablo as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Pablo pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Celebrating Vena's $100M ARR Milestone | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Pablo welcomes Don and celebrates Vena crossing $100M ARR. Don politely clarifies that he left five years prior when they were halfway there, before recounting Vena's founding story at Starbucks following IBM's acquisition of their former employer. | |
| Differentiating in the Market: Embracing Excel | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Pablo asks if competing tools replacing Excel were gaining traction and checks on legal constraints. Don explains how embracing Excel native desktop allowed them to win the mid-market easily and details their very first customer win. | |
| Technical Evolution: Transitioning from On-Premise to Cloud | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Pablo probes how early sales happened relative to product readiness. Don explains starting as on-premise software before transitioning to multi-tenant cloud and highlights the value of founders sticking to domains they know well. | |
| Overcoming Excel's Limitations in Mid-Market Finance | 4 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Pablo asks how a market like budgeting and planning avoids becoming completely solved. Don educates Pablo on the vendor recycling lifecycle where incumbents get acquired, creating continual openings for new agile players. | |
| Product MVP Essentials and Pricing Models | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Pablo asks about Excel's structural shortcomings and MVP requirements. Don explains the lack of database centralization and workflow controls, and reveals how they closed large regulatory contracts with major banks like Wells Fargo. | |
| Enterprise Banking Traction and Venture Funding | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Pablo inquires about pitch meetings with enterprise banks and the funding timeline. Don describes whiteboarding in front of Wells Fargo and summarizes their progression from friends and family checks to large private equity rounds. | |
| Hitting $1M ARR and Scaling Challenges | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Pablo asks about reaching $1M ARR in 18 months and the main operational growing pains. Don explains that scaling customer success and engineering to keep pace with demand was their primary bottleneck. | |
| Founder Alignment and ROI Value Proposition | 5 | 4 | 2 | 4 | Pablo challenges Don by arguing that productivity/time-saving ROI pitches can be fluffy when the buyer is not the daily user. Don counters by emphasizing that the true ROI for CFOs is confidence and trust in financial figures rather than headcount reduction. | |
| Don's New Venture: Una and Revenue Intelligence | 4 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Pablo explores Don's new company Una and questions how its revenue intelligence differs from standard CRM metrics. Don explains how Una unifies siloed customer journey data to pinpoint cross-stage go-to-market friction points. | |
| Repeat Entrepreneurship and Finding Early PMF | 5 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Pablo runs through the financial calculations of abandoning a guaranteed seven-figure salary for startup equity. Don explains the motivational and tax realities that drove his decision, concluding with advice on domain expertise. |
Statements from this episode (16)
Don Mal left Vena at $50M ARR before it reached $100M
“I mean, I left Vena five years ago when we were halfway there, but the company was well on its way, and so great to see that they have eclipsed the hundred million ARR mark.”
Don Mal: Vena differentiated by embracing Excel rather than replacing it
“All of the vendors were replacing Microsoft Excel as the tool that most companies use for budgeting and planning. We actually embraced Microsoft Excel as the grid technology in our software, so we kept people in a very familiar environment, and you know, we us…”
Mal: Planning software vendors replacing Excel succeed mainly in enterprise
“The vendors that have done well, you know, extremely well in the market where they replace Excel have gone more to the enterprise segment of the market, larger companies.”
Mal: IBM discontinued Clarity Systems' product after acquisition, opening market for Vena
“When IBM acquired the company where we worked, they discontinued the product that we then re-entered the market with our own approach, so we fill that void in a sense. Their product, the company that was sold to IBM, had an Excel look and feel capability withi…”
Lead generation is the absolute number one first hire for a startup
“Not only did we hire, you know, our first person to generate leads, but I've done that in my last two startups since as well. So it is the number one hire in my opinion. If you don't have leads, you don't have sales. If you don't have sales, you don't have a c…”
Vena sold perpetual on-premise licenses before pivoting to cloud within one year
“Early days, we were an on-premise solution actually. But within about a year, George, you know, really determined we needed to be a cloud first, you know, type of application be, you know, when I say cloud first, we cloud second, I guess, but it was really qui…”
Founders should launch products in domains they already know how to sell
“I always tell young entrepreneurs, Hey, look, stick close to your nettings, you know, come to market with something you already know how to sell.”
Six new FP&A vendors have entered the market since Vena and succeeded
“Since Vena, there have been another, let's call it half dozen vendors that have entered the space that are all doing well.”
Mal: Vena's early mid-market contracts averaged around $30,000 per year
“The primary one was budgeting and planning to mid-market, which, you know, might've been in that kind of 30,000 dollar per, per customer
per year range”
Vena landed Wells Fargo early, charging banks $500,000 for mission-critical reporting
“One of our first 20 customers was Wells Fargo, as an example, and we sold to all, you know, a lot of the big banks in the U.S. After that, but we were getting half a million dollars a year from the banks to use Venna for mission critical regulatory processes.”
Mal: Vena raised nearly $30M in its combined Series A/B round
“Before we actually did a series, proper series A, we actually called our series A and series B because we raised, I think, close to thirty million dollars you know, from our first real serious investor that came in.”
Vena took five years to hit $10M ARR, then eight to $100M
“If you go back to Vena, like those first five years, you're just building that first, like getting to five to ten million of ARR, you know, that's really what you're doing, I think, in most cases. But then if you think about where Vena is today, like eight yea…”
Don Mal: Vena reached $1M ARR in about 18 months
“A million would have been literally, I'd say maybe a year and a half.”
Don Mal: FP&A software ROI comes from leverage, not headcount reduction
“The biggest thing in that space is, is really getting the most out of your team. You know, when you think about the manual Sort of archaic way of doing budgeting and planning of like sending spreadsheets, chasing the numbers, manually consolidating the results…”