Aydin Mirzaee, co-founder of Fluidware (bootstrapped survey software acquired for ~$100M), reflects on how his startup secured its earliest enterprise contracts with the Canadian federal government.
“It was like, we had product market fit as a survey tool built for the federal government, not because our software was so great, but because it met these accessibility guidelines that nobody else met at the time.”
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More from Aydin Mirzaee
Insight
Adding niche features to generic SaaS tools alienates mass-market users
“The difference is if you, as a generic tool built all those specialized functions, it would become really, really difficult for everybody to use. So you actually alienate your other users. So you're kind of in this circumstance where you have to cater to one m…”
Aydin MirzaeeMar 15, 2023▶ 31:04Aydin Mirzaee, Founder of Fluidware (Bootstrapped to ~$100M exit) | How to Find Product Market Fit · PMF Show
Insight
Mass-market SaaS companies culturally struggle to pivot to enterprise sales
“The challenge is like when you're an everybody tool and you don't have enterprise in your blood it's a different way of being, right? Like you're doing sales driven motion... And if your company culture is a certain way, it's not easy to change your company cy…”
Aydin MirzaeeMar 15, 2023▶ 37:07Aydin Mirzaee, Founder of Fluidware (Bootstrapped to ~$100M exit) | How to Find Product Market Fit · PMF Show
What-if
Googling competitors would have stopped Mirzaee from launching Fluidware
“Had I searched on Google to see how many other survey tools there were, I would have told like my other co-founders that, Hey, we probably shouldn't do this because there's like. 10 pages worth of search results of other online survey tools.”
Aydin MirzaeeMar 15, 2023▶ 2:29Aydin Mirzaee, Founder of Fluidware (Bootstrapped to ~$100M exit) | How to Find Product Market Fit · PMF Show
What-if
Early VC funding would have blocked Fluidware's initial $625K public-sector niche
“I think, like, if you had invested in Fluidware, you would have told us you're not allowed to do that. Like, let's do the math here. So, 25,000 times 25, what is that? Like, you know, 625,000? Like, that's your whole market? Like, you're doing all of this for …”
Aydin MirzaeeMar 15, 2023▶ 19:23Aydin Mirzaee, Founder of Fluidware (Bootstrapped to ~$100M exit) | How to Find Product Market Fit · PMF Show
Disclosure
Fluidware revenue tripled to $4.5M after pivoting to an enterprise product
“So we went from like one and a half million to four and a half million and like, you know, continue to double from there.”
Aydin MirzaeeMar 15, 2023▶ 32:53Aydin Mirzaee, Founder of Fluidware (Bootstrapped to ~$100M exit) | How to Find Product Market Fit · PMF Show
Disclosure
Procter & Gamble purchased 5,000 seats from bootstrapped startup Fluidware
“I think our, like the customer that was, we were the most excited about and our largest one at the time, It was Procter and Gamble, and they bought 5000 seats, like 5000 seats for, like, one customer”
Aydin MirzaeeMar 15, 2023▶ 33:14Aydin Mirzaee, Founder of Fluidware (Bootstrapped to ~$100M exit) | How to Find Product Market Fit · PMF Show
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