Garg: Founders Never Truly Achieve Permanent Product-Market Fit
Ashutosh Garg · He quit his cozy Google job & founded not 1 but 2 unicorns— then grew from $1M to $12M ARR in 2 y... · PMF Show · Aug 26, 2024 · at 33:02
Eightfold.ai co-founder Ashutosh Garg argues that product-market fit is an ongoing process of adaptation rather than a static milestone.
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“I don't think I ever feel that I have a true product market fit. This market is constantly evolving.”
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More from Ashutosh Garg
Garg: Lightspeed assigned an associate to join Eightfold's customer validation calls
“When I went to Lightspeed, right, and I was talking to Peter. So what Peter did was Peter assigned a junior person from the firm saying that, why don't you help Ashu set a few CHRO calls and see what comes out. So as I was building my thesis, Lightspeed was bu…”
Garg: Founders need 80% conviction and 20% open-mindedness during customer discovery
“So I say that almost like 80% is conviction, and 20% you are going over there with an open mind to listen what they can tell you that could be of interest, right?”
Garg: Evaluating 3–4 startup ideas prevents fear-driven attachment to bad concepts
“If you have one idea, then more often than not, instead of being excited about the idea, you have fear of not being able to pursue anything. And that forces you to keep doing what you're doing. If you have three, four ideas on day one, then you're not really m…”
Garg: Markets only reveal present problems, not long-term needs
“What market is going to tell you is today's problem. The market is not going to tell you where the problem will be in the long term. And that is for us to decide and figure it out, right? So as a founder, you are making a bet on the market, you're making a bet…”
Garg: Hiring one employee requires engaging over 100 candidates
“To hire An individual you are reaching out to or engaging hundred plus other people. So if you're a company of 10,000 employees, you have already engaged with a million people, and that million is equivalent to roughly the working population of Bay Area.”
Garg: Building a public company requires a $5B-$10B addressable market
“For any reasonable idea, you can build a business that will be five, 10, 15, twenty million dollars in revenue. Most markets are large enough for that. But one day you want to go public, you want to have a large company, and at that time you will need a revenu…”