Cody started a ride-share business in 2017 with no capital. He focused exclusively on small towns (<100K) where Uber/Lyft weren't available. I would 100% have passed if he pitched me years ago—and I would've been dead wrong.

So far he's raised only $2.1M, compared to Uber's $30B+ raised. And yet, he build a business doing $20M+ in annual revenue that is live in a dozen markets and multiple countries.

Besides competing with massive companies, he was also weeks away from bankruptcy when ride-share froze during the early days of COVID. He goes through exactly what he did to survive—and to grow well beyond where he was pre-COVID just a year after.

If you're bootstrapping or competing with better funded players, check this episode out.

Why you should listen:

• Why even massive competitors often don't mean you can't build a business.
• How to hack your way to millions in revenue with no budget.
• Why customer service and success are the keys to unlock word-of-mouth.
• How to survive 3 weeks of cash and near-bankruptcy.

Keywords
Uride, rideshare, entrepreneurship, bankruptcy, business growth, startup challenges, market expansion


Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:01:48) Thunder Bay Ridesharing
(00:03:49) A Problem that Shouldn't Exist
(00:06:44) The Launch
(00:08:15) Growing and Outgrowing
(00:10:50) A Bylaw Loophole
(00:13:27) Expanding to Other Communities
(00:17:05) Three Phases
(00:21:54) Surviving
(00:29:18) The Demand Curse of Ride Sharing
(00:34:09) Unride Focus
(00:39:46) Long Ways to Go

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I tried to pay my employees as little as possible. I thought I was being resourceful—& it seemed to work. Until it totally backfired. I learned my lesson the hard way.

No founder wants to hire B-level or C-level talent. Everyone is looking for A-players. They know that startups are all about the people. But most founders don't put in the work. And they end up with B-level teams.

If you're serious about getting and keeping A-players there's only one way to do it. You need to have a coherent strategy, you need to be intentional, and you need to make it priority number one. Here's how.

Takeaways

• Why paying employees less than they're worth incentivizes the wrong behaviour
• Why you need to have a system for regular performance reviews and salary adjustments.
• How to attract and retain A players
• How great junior talent can outperform B-level experienced talent.

Keywords
founders, compensation, hiring, A players, salary strategy, employee retention, startup culture, leadership, team building, performance reviews

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Kyle left his job as a hacker at the NSA to launch Huntress. He bootstrapped for 3 years and burned all his savings. One of his co-founders quit. He got into an accelerator program, but had to sleep in his car for 16 weeks because he couldn't afford a hotel.

Finally, 3 years in he'd hit $1.5M ARR. So he pitched 60 VCs for a Series A—and got 60 'no's. He was forced to raise a small, $1M inside round.

But then things changed:

2018: $1.5M ARR
2019: $5M ARR
2020: $10M ARR
2021: $20M ARR
2022: $40M ARR
2023: $70M ARR
2024: $100M+ ARR

Huntress is valued at $2B.

The investors who backed his $1M bridge are up 140x.

Now every VC wants to invest—and Kyle's the one saying 'no'.

Why you should listen:

• How to know whether you should keep going or quit.
• What it takes to get through the first few years at a bootstrapped startup.
• Why revenue expansion is a huge lever for fast-growth (Huntress has 140% net revenue retention).
• How starting a startup can impact your personal life and relationships.
• How to work with partners to sell to long tail SMB customers.

Keywords
entrepreneurship, cybersecurity, product market fit, startup journey, military experience, SMB market, funding challenges, automation, human expertise, business growth

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:2:01) Working at the NSA
(00:6:14) A big win in counter cyber terrorism
(00:10:00) What gave way to Huntress
(00:14:22) Pitching to a startup accelerator
(00:16:29) Adopting curiosity
(00:21:04) Getting ahead of cyber criminals
(00:26:00) Starting to grow
(00:32:50) Cult or conviction
(00:35:00) It takes grit
(00:39:50) Learning from people's lessons
(00:42:20) Cockroaches and underdogs
(00:46:10) Three strikes, I'm out
(00:52:56) Having a military background
(00:56:17) One piece of advice

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MrBeast's 36-page framework leaked this week. It's how he built a $1B+ company and became the #1 YouTuber in the world. His channel is worth over $1B. For the first time ever, we get to see how MrBeast operates.

We go through the 7 most important things that startup founders can learn from MrBeast. From what maniacal obsession looks like, what it means to be an "A player", to how to teach employees to never take 'no' for an answer. In the leaked document called "How to Succeed at MrBeast Productions, he goes into specific details and share clear examples of what you should do.

MrBeast Mode puts Founder Mode to shame.

Keywords

MrBeast, onboarding, clear mission, hiring A players, obsession, extreme ownership, consultants, persistence, documentation

Why you should listen

• Have a clear mission that everyone understands.
• Hire A players who are obsessive and coachable.
• Obsession is crucial for success in content creation.
• Extreme ownership leads to better accountability.
• Consultants can save time and provide valuable insights.
• Persistence is key; never take no for an answer.
• Every employee should know the company's expectations.
• A strong culture is built on shared values and principles.
  
  

Timestamps
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:00:42) 1. Have a clear mission
(00:02:05) 2. Hire A players
(00:03:49) 3. Be Obsessed
(00:05:22) 4. Extreme Ownership
(00:07:19) 5. Copy & Steal
(00:09:29) 6. Never take 'no' for an answer
(00:010:49) 7. Write a doc!

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Andres Bilboa is one of the co-founders of Rappi, the highest-valued app of LATAM ($5B valuation). Now he runs an incubator called Makers and has invested in dozens of startups.

In this episode, he shares how Rappi started with no funding and no network. They added restaurants into their platform without permission and gave cash to couriers to buy meals. Demand was through the roof. But just as they started closing funding and scaling, Uber and UberEats came to compete.

Here's the story of how Rappi found product market fit, and what Andres learned about founder psychology and mental health.

Why you should listen

• How to launch an MVP even if that means giving cash to couriers.
• How to fight off massive competitors like Uber and UberEats.
• Why founders with insane ambition and a relentless drive are more likely to achieve outsized returns.
• How the psychological aspects of entrepreneurship, such as fear of failure and the need for constant achievement, can impact a founder's well-being.

Keywords
Rappi, on-demand delivery, competition, growth, fundraising, founders, ambition, drive, entrepreneurship, fear of failure, achievement, therapy, fundraising

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:02:53) The Origin of Rappi
(00:06:58) How Rappi Works
(00:13:37) RappiCash
(00:15:55) Colombia's World Class Convenience
(00:18:05) It's a Winner Takes All Market
(00:20:44) Andres' Roles at Rappi
(00:22:27) Competing with Uber
(00:26:00) Crazy Doesn't Cut It
(00:29:51) The Problem is You are What You Achieve but Nothing Is Ever Enough
(00:40:44) Fear is Unproductive
(00:45:25) What is Makers
(00:50:30) One Piece of Advice

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Douglas has been in media and PR for over two decades. He’s the founder of Betakit Inc and has been running Betakit, Canada’s TechCrunch, for nearly 10 years. He understands what startups need to do to leverage PR, and how PR can help startups hire, fundraise and sell.

On this episode, we get tactical and go deep on exactly when it makes sense to use PR and how founders can get the most from it.

Why you should listen

• Why you should treat PR like a subset of inbound marketing
• PR is all about telling the right stories to the right audiences
• How to conduct media profiling to find the right journalists in the right channels so you can get other people to write about you

Keywords

PR, media strategies, startups, business goals, target audiences, media storytelling, marketing initiatives, traction, leads, stories, funding announcements, product launches, media profiling, channels, audiences, founder, pitch, media, framing, storytelling, target audience, channels, journalists, PR, origin story, company values, thought leadership, customer stories, employee stories

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:05:19) The 101 of Media PR
(00:06:04) Three Questions
(00:08:40) An Operational Lens for Media Engagement
(00:12:16) Understanding the Target Audience
(00:19:55) Inbound Marketing
(00:25:20) A Super Important Caveat
(00:29:08) Roam Auto as an Example
(00:34:00) The Right Channel
(00:36:40) Treating Media Pitching Like Investor Pitching
(00:43:04) Be Professionally Interested
(00:44:49) Putting a Human Face on Your Company

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In this episode, I sit down with Nick Frosst, Co-Founder of Cohere, the $5.5B AI startup that’s targeting the enterprise landscape.

We go through the origin story of Cohere, the challenges of building foundational models, and why he believes large language models (LLMs) won’t lead to artificial general intelligence (AGI). We also explore the fierce competition in AI, what sets Cohere apart, and Nick’s advice for founders building in AI today.


Why you should listen

• LLMs are powerful but have clear limitations and won't lead to AGI.
• Why AI startups need to start with real problems vs leveraging AI for its own sake
• Why ChatGPT was as much of a UI/UX revolution than a technological one
• What tech founders need to do to win in AI

Timestamps:

(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:21) AI Expectations
(00:06:05) A Unique and New Moment
(00:09:38) Resource Intensive Industry
(00:12:03) Zero to One
(00:15:07) Base Language Model to Chat Model
(00:17:15) Carving Out a Niche
(00:21:03) Open Source
(00:24:00) The Limits of LLMs
(00:26:18) Agents
(00:29:30) AGI
(00:34:04) A Little Bit of Data
(00:39:05) Speed of Development
(00:40:47) Finding True Product Market Fit
(00:43:37) One Piece of Advice

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Even if founders do everything right, they may still fail to find PMF. That's why even repeat founders have only 1.5% chance of building a unicorn.

We talk about product-market fit constantly in this podcast. Hopefully, we learn from what others did and improve our chances of finding PMF. But there is only one way to guarantee that one day you will find product market fit. We explore that in this episode.

**Got sick this week so re-releasing one of the most downloaded short episodes from last season that was originally published exactly a year ago today.**

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