“My co-founder and I, we still think like to get to ten million, you just have to work really hard. That's really it. It really, it sucks. And it's like a lot of paid, but you can just work your way to ten million.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading:
filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard
(the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Shensi Ding
Opinion
Ding: Remote 'rockstar' engineers cannot succeed at Merge
“It doesn't matter if you're a rockstar engineer, because you wouldn't be a rockstar engineer at Merge.”
Shensi DingSep 18, 2025▶ 23:01She cold messaged 50,000 engineers—then grew to $10M+ ARR. | Shensi Ding, Founder of Merge · PMF Show
Insight
Ding: Delay monetization until your pipeline can reach $1M ARR quickly
“I think you should not collect revenue and not onboard customers until you know that you are going to get a million of revenue as quickly as possible.”
Shensi DingSep 18, 2025▶ 31:08She cold messaged 50,000 engineers—then grew to $10M+ ARR. | Shensi Ding, Founder of Merge · PMF Show
Insight
Ding: Building Integrations In-House Is as Pointless as Self-Hosting Servers
“There have been some situations where we've talked to companies where they're like, no, like our founder believes in like we build this in house and we can be uniquely good at it. And obviously I'm biased, but that is just fundamentally not true. There's no on…”
Shensi DingSep 18, 2025▶ 35:55She cold messaged 50,000 engineers—then grew to $10M+ ARR. | Shensi Ding, Founder of Merge · PMF Show
Opinion
Ding: Booking competitor sales demos just to snoop is unethical
“So I don't really believe in doing that. I actually think it's unethical, but there's a lot of things online. And if you're a really good stalker, which I am, you can find anything. You really find it. Everything's on YouTube. Everything is on a podcast. You c…”
Shensi DingSep 18, 2025▶ 10:29She cold messaged 50,000 engineers—then grew to $10M+ ARR. | Shensi Ding, Founder of Merge · PMF Show
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Ding sent outbound recruiting messages to 50,000 engineers for early Merge
“I don't even remember the exact number of engineers that I outbound, but I think it was like 50,000 or so.”
Shensi DingSep 18, 2025▶ 21:24She cold messaged 50,000 engineers—then grew to $10M+ ARR. | Shensi Ding, Founder of Merge · PMF Show
Insight
Ding: Founders unwilling to do awkward outbound outreach will not succeed
“Like, anyone who is too lazy to outbound, you're just not gonna make it. Like, that's just not, you just gotta get over that. Like, you have to be embarrassed. You have to do, like, all these, like, really awkward things.”
Shensi DingSep 18, 2025▶ 25:34She cold messaged 50,000 engineers—then grew to $10M+ ARR. | Shensi Ding, Founder of Merge · PMF Show
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