Hughes: SolidRoad fired early sales customers to focus on customer support
Mark Hughes · He hit $1M ARR by sending 500,000 cold emails—then raised a $25M Series A in 6 days. | Mark Hughe... · PMF Show · Jun 1, 2026 · at 6:36
Mark Hughes, co-founder of SolidRoad, explains how the startup pivoted from sales roleplay training to customer support simulations after analyzing early customer usage.
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“We went after the sales vertical because my background was sales. I was an early sales hire at Intercom and we applied the tool for like AI role play for sales, got some early customers there, then ended up actually firing those customers because what we found was even in the customers we did close, They were like startups that really didn't have the problem. And then when we went more upmarket to larger companies, it was actually the support org that was using it more than the sales org”
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