Adam Gavish, DoControl

From Google PM to SDR - Founder-Led Sales at His SaaS

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Episode Summary

Adam Gavish had never sold anything in his life. He was a product manager at Google, working on sensitive government cloud projects. But when he co-founded DoControl, a SaaS security startup, he had no choice but to become the company's first SDR - and founder-led sales became his most critical skill.

In this episode, Adam reveals how he interviewed 50 security professionals before writing a line of code, pitched 22 VCs in a single week (21 said no), landed a first customer willing to pay just $2,000 a year, and then scaled deal sizes to $25K+ by reframing every sales call as a feedback conversation. He also shares DoControl's playbook for standing out against entrenched cybersecurity incumbents.

Adam Gavish is the former co-founder and CEO of DoControl, a SaaS security solution that helps companies protect sensitive data stored in their SaaS applications.

In 2020, while working as a product manager at Google, Adam faced the challenge of securely sharing sensitive company data with external partners. The experience made him realize the need for a better way to balance security and productivity.

Adam eventually teamed up with a friend to validate their idea. They leveraged their network to connect with 50 security professionals, spending three months interviewing them and digging into their challenges.

After building confidence in their idea, the founders traveled to Israel for a week and pitched to 22 VCs. All but one rejected them, but thanks to that one VC, the founders raised a $3 million seed round.

With funding secured, the founders formed a small team and collaborated with early design partners to develop an MVP. They also went back to the security professionals they'd interviewed in the hope of landing their first customer.

After three months, they reached a point where one company saw enough value to pay $2,000 annually and become DoControl's first paying customer.

To grow further, Adam had to take on the role of SDR, even though he had no prior sales experience. He found himself sending hundreds of LinkedIn messages each week, hoping to book customer calls. Despite the challenge of learning sales from scratch, Adam persevered and slowly started to gain traction with customers.

But as the company grew, the crowded cybersecurity market made it increasingly difficult for DoControl to communicate its unique value proposition. This became an uphill battle for the founders.

However, despite those challenges, the founders have grown DoControl into a multiple 7-figure ARR SaaS company and raised $43M in funding.

Topics: Founder-Led Sales|Positioning & Differentiation|Fundraising

Key Insight

DoControl co-founder Adam Gavish grew the company from a $2,000 first deal to 7-figure ARR through founder-led sales, despite having zero sales experience. He maxed out LinkedIn's weekly message limit, converted 5% of outreach into calls, and reframed every conversation as a feedback session rather than a pitch - a tactic that eliminated buying fatigue and turned prospects into design partners.

Key Ideas

Interviewed 50 security professionals over 3 months before building anything, using open-ended questions and reading body language to validate the problem
Pitched 22 VCs in one week in Israel with no product - 21 rejected, 1 invested $3M at seed
First paying customer paid $2,000/year, but the act of going through procurement validated real value
Grew LinkedIn connections from 3,000 to 17,000 by hitting the platform's weekly message limit consistently
Scaled deal sizes from $2K to $25K+ by increasing product value and refusing to price cheaply, since low prices signal low quality in enterprise sales

Key Lessons

🤝 Founder-led sales starts with feedback, not pitching: Adam Gavish told prospects "I'm not selling, I need your feedback" - a reframe that eliminated buying fatigue and turned cold outreach into collaborative product conversations at DoControl.
🎯 Validate with 50 conversations before writing code: DoControl's founders spent three months interviewing security professionals using open-ended questions and body language cues before building anything, ensuring the problem was real and widespread.
💰 A $2,000 deal can validate more than a $200K pipeline: DoControl's first customer paid just $2,000 a year, but the fact they went through procurement, legal, and finance proved the value was real enough to justify enterprise buying friction.
🤝 Founder-led sales means shaping the playbook, not closing deals: Adam distinguishes between a founder's sales role and a salesperson's. The founder's job is to understand prospect context and build the playbook so the sales team can execute effectively.
📉 Low pricing signals low quality in enterprise SaaS: Adam learned that charging more builds prospect confidence. When DoControl raised prices from $2K to $25K+, customers perceived the product as solving a harder, more meaningful problem.
🏢 Stack multiple differentiation points against incumbents: DoControl competes by combining event-driven monitoring, HR data cross-referencing, identity provider signals, and end-user input - not just one feature, but a unique combination larger vendors lack.
🚀 Hit LinkedIn's weekly limit and treat outreach as a numbers game: Adam grew from 3,000 to 17,000 LinkedIn connections by sending messages until he hit the platform cap every week, converting roughly 5% into calls and 5% of those into design partners.

Watch the Episode

Chapters

00:00Introduction

03:08Adam's favorite quote

03:36What DoControl does and who it serves

04:36Revenue, customers, and team size

05:07Origin story - discovering the problem at Google

06:33Decision to leave Google and start a company

06:57Validating with 50 security professionals

08:11How they found people to interview

09:42What questions they asked during validation

10:39The pitch that emerged from customer research

11:58Pitching 22 VCs with no product

14:04Raising a $3M seed round

14:49Working with design partners to build the MVP

16:52Landing the first $2,000 customer

17:22Becoming an SDR with no sales experience

18:21LinkedIn outreach strategy and hitting weekly limits

20:24Balancing customer requests with product vision

21:48Growing deal sizes from $2K to $25K

23:20Learning founder-led sales from scratch

27:55Messaging and differentiation in a crowded market

31:10Different messaging for different sales stages

32:54Competing against established incumbents

34:15DoControl's technical differentiation points

36:15Sales cycle length and enterprise dynamics

38:12Why Adam still does sales every day

40:10Lightning round

Episode Q&A

How did Adam Gavish validate the DoControl idea before building a product?

Adam and his co-founder interviewed 50 security professionals over three months, using open-ended questions and watching for frustration cues in tone and body language. They built their contact list through network referrals, asking each person "who else should I talk to?" to create momentum.

How did DoControl raise a $3 million seed round with no product?

The founders flew to Israel and pitched 22 VCs in a single week. Twenty-one said no, but one bet on the team and market size. Adam notes that in cybersecurity, seed investors evaluate team and market potential rather than expecting a working product.

What was DoControl's founder-led sales approach in the early days?

Adam became the company's first SDR despite having no sales background. He sent LinkedIn messages until he hit the weekly limit every week, framing outreach as feedback requests rather than sales pitches. About 5% of messages converted to calls, and 5% of those became design partners.

How did Adam Gavish grow DoControl's deal sizes from $2K to $25K per year?

As the product expanded from one use case to multiple workflows, Adam increased prices to match the added value. He learned that in enterprise sales, low pricing signals low quality - charging more builds confidence that the product solves a meaningful problem.

What founder-led sales tactic did Adam Gavish use to overcome buying fatigue?

Adam told prospects "I'm not selling anything, I just need your feedback" and positioned himself as a founder building alongside them. This made prospects feel like co-creators shaping the product, which reduced resistance and accelerated deal velocity.

How did DoControl differentiate against larger cybersecurity vendors?

DoControl uses an event-driven architecture that monitors SaaS activity in near real time, while competitors pull data every few hours. DoControl also cross-references signals from HR software, identity providers, and end-user input - not just data classification alone.

Why did Adam Gavish treat his first $2,000 customer as a major milestone?

The $2,000 annual contract was small, but the customer went through procurement, legal, and finance to sign it. That internal effort validated genuine product value. Adam focused on whether customers would do the work to buy, not on the dollar amount.

What messaging strategy did DoControl use in a crowded cybersecurity market?

Adam tested messaging across LinkedIn outreach, email campaigns, and live calls, then reviewed recordings and metrics to identify what resonated. He measured messaging success by how quickly prospects agreed to a call, not by whether they understood the full product upfront.

How does founder-led sales differ from traditional sales at DoControl?

Adam describes the founder's role as understanding prospect context and shaping the sales playbook - not closing deals directly. He still joins strategic calls to provide executive face time, but his sales team handles pipeline generation and closing.

Book Recommendations

Zero to One

by Peter Thiel

Links

DoControl: Website | LinkedIn | X
Adam Gavish: LinkedIn | X
Omer Khan: LinkedIn | X

Full Transcript

Omer (00:09.760)
Welcome to another episode of the SaaS Podcast.
I'm your host Omer Khan, and this is a show where I interview proven founders and industry experts who share their stories, strategies and insights to help you build, launch and grow your SaaS business.
In this episode, I talk to Adam Gavish, the co founder and CEO of Docontrol, a SaaS security solution that helps companies protect sensitive data stored in their SaaS applications.
In 2020, while working as a product manager at Google, Adam faced the challenge of securely sharing sensitive data with external partners.
The experience made him realize the need for a better way to balance security and productivity.
Adam eventually teamed up with a friend to validate their idea.
They leveraged their network to connect with 50 security professionals, spending three months interviewing them and digging into their challenges.
After building confidence in their idea, the founders traveled to Israel for a week and pitched to 22 VCs.
All of them but one rejected them.
But thanks to that one VC, the founders raised a $3 million seed round.
With funding secured, the founders formed a small team and collaborated with early design partners to develop an mvp.
They also went back to the security professionals they'd interviewed in the hope of of landing their first customer.
After three months, they reached a point where one company saw enough value to pay $2,000 a year and became Docontrol's first paying customer.
To grow further, Adam had to take on a role of sdr.
Even though he had no prior sales experience, he found himself sending hundreds of LinkedIn messages each week, hoping to book customer calls.
Despite the challenge of learning sales from scratch, Adam persevered and slowly started to gain traction with customers.
But as the company grew, the crowded cybersecurity market made it increasingly difficult for docontrol to communicate its unique value proposition, and this became an uphill battle for the founders.
However, despite those challenges, the founders have so far grown docontrol into a multiple 7 figure ARR SaaS company and they've raised $43 million in funding.
In this episode, you'll learn how the founders validated the problem and solution through extensive customer interviews before building anything, how Adam navigated the balance between addressing customer feature requests and staying true to docontrols core product vision how Adam developed his sales skills and embraced the SDR role to grow docontrol's customer base in the early days, what strategies the founders used to refine their messaging and differentiate themselves in a competitive market dominated by large established players and how Adam adapted his pitch and found new ways to communicate Do Control's value.
As the company expanded into the enterprise market.
So I hope you enjoy it.
Adam, welcome to the show.

Adam Gavish (03:06.860)
Hi.
Thank you for having me.

Omer (03:08.300)
My pleasure.
Do you have a favorite quote, something that inspires or motivates you that you can share with us?

Adam Gavish (03:13.500)
There's one by Kobe Bryant, actually by Kobe Bryant and Shaq.
We're Shaq, tell him.
There is no me in team but Kobe.
Tell him.
Yeah, but it's.
I

Omer (03:27.940)
love that.
So tell us about docontrol.
What does the product do, who's it for, and what's the main problem that you're helping to solve?

Adam Gavish (03:36.500)
Yes, absolutely.
So Docontrol is a SaaS security solution, helping security teams understand protect sensitive data stored in SaaS applications such as Microsoft SharePoint or Google Drive or Slack, Zoom, Jira, GitHub and so on and so forth.
We begin to help by just discovering how much data do you have, who owns it, how it exposed, how sensitive is it, and then helping you eliminate those holes and exposures to reduce what we call attack Surface.
And then by that we significantly reduce the risk that organizations take in as a company, I know that now I have a lot less data exposed to the wrong person any given time.
And moving forward, we help to build automation and workflows around all different business logic to either enable or restrict access data based on the business context.

Omer (04:36.570)
Got it.
Okay, give us a sense of the size of the business.
Where are you in terms of revenue, customers, size of team?

Adam Gavish (04:44.090)
So we are in the early few millions of er, across a couple of dozens of customers, primarily from the us.
That's where our idea customer profile is.

Omer (04:53.210)
Got it.
And I think you've raised 43 million.

Adam Gavish (04:56.250)
Yeah, we raised CD A and B between 2020 to 2023.
Yeah, so far so good.

Omer (05:03.370)
And how big is the team?

Adam Gavish (05:04.570)
We are a group of 50 people in the US and Israel.

Omer (05:07.930)
Okay, cool.
So let's kind of talk about where the idea for this business came from.
It was founded in 2020.
So where did the idea come from?
What were you doing at the time?

Adam Gavish (05:23.050)
Yeah, so I was a product manager at a company called Google where I was in charge of one of the very sensitive projects in launching a govcloud solution for the federal market.
And of course as a product manager, I had to collaborate with third party partners, research agencies, marketing, PR and all of that.
And of course I shared information with them over Google Drive because trying to work and every couple of weeks information security would just reach out to me via ticket and say, hey, remove that permission.
They're not employees.
I know they're not employees.
I'M trying to work with them.
But after several times, I went to the eighth floor, I got a bag of cookies.
We had good cookies at Google.
And I asked them, why are you doing it?
And they told me, it's not you, it's me.
You know, we have over 100,000 employees.
We can't possibly know the business context of why people are doing what they're doing.
But one thing for sure, can't have company information shared to the wrong person forever, which totally makes sense.
But to me, I thought maybe there's a better way to do that with minimal frustration and more productivity.

Omer (06:33.730)
Okay.
So many people kind of come across these types of problems and then they just go back to work, right?
They just go back to their day job.
Right.
So what was it about this problem that kind of made you want to go out and solve it?
And what did you do?
Like, how long did it take before you said, okay, I'm actually going to.
I'm serious about this, I'm going to go and actually do something.

Adam Gavish (06:57.500)
So I actually didn't want to open a startup.
I had a good life.
But my partner is very persuasive and very smart person.
And we decided to just test the water, just talk to a bunch of security people here in New York, where I live, and really validate the problem.
It's one thing to experience the problem, but it's another thing to validate that with the actual Persona you could potentially sell a solution to.
And we talked over the course of about three months.
We talked with over 50 security professionals from various companies, large public, super small startups.
And they all mentioned there is a problem in this space in different variations, but there is a problem, there is a pain.
And that made me understand, okay, there might be something there.
I'm convinced, I'm in.
But of course, to kick it off, you got to have funding.
The technology is so complex, you can't possibly bootstrap it.
And that's what we did.
We flew to Israel for a week, booked 22 meeting with VCs.
Everybody said no, but one.
But all you need is one.
Wow.

Omer (08:11.390)
So wait, so let's go back to the validation.
So you say you spoke to about 50 security professionals.
Were these people all in your network or were there like strangers that you got time with?

Adam Gavish (08:26.910)
So what we did is we reach out to all of our friends in the area that are kind of executive or even the leaders of companies, and we just ask them to connect to the security guy or go.
And then when we met those people, we asked Them, hey, do you have other security people I can talk to in the city?
And that's how you build a momentum.
You build a database of just friendly innovator security people who just love to give back to the community.
None of them were people who we actually know.
I couldn't reach out to my customers at Google, of course.

Omer (09:07.730)
So basically it sounds like you kind of tapped into your network to get those initial meetings through people that either they were in the security space or they knew somebody.
And then you use that good old who else do you know, who else should I talk to question, which many of us don't use, but it can work very well if you're, if you're good at it and you do it consistently.
So that got you more doors open and more conversations started.
What were you asking them?
Because at that point I guess you don't really know what problem you're solving.

Adam Gavish (09:42.940)
No, I had some experience in doing some product research and I knew that the one thing I should never do is ask very specific questions because that limited limits their way of thinking.
Instead you just ask open ended question and let them talk and let the conversation flow.
So we were asking things about, hey, how do you know how much data you have in SaaS application and how it is exposed on a high level?
And then we let them speak and you gotta pay attention to the tone of voice and body language and how they talk about those things.
And wherever you feel like there is some slight frustration, you double down on that and dive deeper to better understand why did they react this way?
When we talked about, for example, managing permissions for third party vendors, why is it so annoying you?
And then you do it again and again and again.
It's like a muscle, right?

Omer (10:39.330)
Okay, cool.
So where did you land after those 50 conversations like you mentioned?
Okay, we flew out to Israel and we had those VC meetings booked.
But what problem did you, what was your pitch?

Adam Gavish (10:55.840)
Yeah, of course.
So after consolidating all the feedback we got from those 50 people, looking at the market, looking at existing players, looking at technology, advanced, all those stuff, we landed on the idea that to solve for SaaS security, you have to understand SaaS applications and existing solutions.
Try to solve that by leveraging your network traffic or your endpoint traffic and things that are really great, but they're not your actual SaaS application API where you can truly fetch the information, cross reference different pieces of data from SAS application and understand why the data is exposed and how can I fix it and things like that.
That was the very unpolished first pitch.
And then the pitch of course evolved from every meeting to another, of course based on the feedback we got.
So I think we had like maybe 22 different versions of the deck within a week.

Omer (11:58.470)
Okay.
You've sort of narrowed down the problem that you're going to solve.
You've got deeper insights because you've had all these conversations with security professionals.
You have your own experience from having worked at Google and seen firsthand some of these kind of security issues and risks and so on, but you didn't have a product.

Adam Gavish (12:22.640)
Nope, nothing.

Omer (12:24.400)
So in some sense it's not that surprising that Most of the VCs said no because they said, okay, you got an idea, but you don't have a product, you don't have customers, you don't have any traction.
So why was it that one VC saw this differently?

Adam Gavish (12:39.170)
I think when you raise a seed round, the majority of the decision is around the team and the potential and how big is the market and who else is in the market in terms of validating the market less about what do they have today?
Again, I'm talking specifically for the market.
I'm operating in cybersecurity because they know in cybersecurity for the most part it's not about building a quick and dirty PLG SaaS solution that you can ship.
It's not that this is pretty cool by the way, but it's not that it's building an enterprise focused solution with a bunch of enterprise ready features that have nothing to do with your product.
But you have to get them done.
It takes time, it takes people, it takes money and they get that.
So I think at the beginning they're trying to understand, okay, do we have the right team in place, do we have the right market in place?
Is there a potential there?
And then they bet it's a big bet.
It's early stage.

Omer (13:35.830)
Yeah.
And I'm curious, like this VC that said yes, was that one of the earlier meetings you had or one of the last meetings that you had?

Adam Gavish (13:45.670)
Good question.
I would say something in the middle, I don't quite remember, but definitely not early, definitely not the late.
Something in the middle.

Omer (13:52.870)
So your pitch was getting better and better from each time you go and

Adam Gavish (13:56.670)
talk to people, even within the process with them.
We got much better from the first bit to the, you know, advanced due diligence.

Omer (14:04.850)
Okay, great.
So how much did you raise and then what did you go and do with that money?

Adam Gavish (14:08.930)
So we raised today sounds nothing.
It was a humble round of $3 million.
And so the first Thing we did is of course, putting together like a small SWAT team, people we work with, people we studied with, you know, close friends, people we trust.
Right.
The second thing is we went back to those 50 CISOs, 50 security executives and asked them, hey, we're kicking things off.
We would love to partner with you on building the right solution.
No commitment, no nothing.
All we needed is like maybe Weekly, BI weekly, 30 minute call with your team to make sure we are doing the right thing.
And then I think we found maybe two.

Omer (14:49.230)
Two of them said yes.

Adam Gavish (14:50.510)
Two or three or something like that.
It's very, very.
It's super hard, right?
And then you talk to them and they tell you, okay, first we need to understand how much data do we have.
Okay?
Then you go back to your team and say, okay, let's connect to those apps and the first feature will be, okay, give me all the data they have in let's say Google Drive.
Show it on the screen.
Then you go back to them and then the feedback will be like, okay, we need analytics.
We need to understand from an aggregation perspective how it looks like.
And then the next one will be, okay, then we need to break it down by department because we need to solve it business unit by business unit and so on and so forth.
They get more and more and more and more feedback and feature request, and they build accordingly until you get to a point where you find a flow, a user story, a use case they can work with.
It could be very small, but it's something that provides value.
That's the goal at the beginning.
Just show them the value somehow.
And I think it took us about three months to get there to a point where one of them really got nice value.
We uncovered information he didn't know about before, which is great.
Then the next question is, okay, how much value is it for them to pay?
And that's so hard because then you're moving away from, okay, we have one flow.
It works.
It provides value to what is the minimal set of flows providing value that this customer is willing to pay for?
I don't even care how much they pay, because for them to pay, it means they need to go to procurement, to legal, to finance.
They need to pitch it internally to require the work.
If they are willing to do that, it means they really get the value, otherwise we're wasting their time.
Right?
And so that's what we wanted.
We wanted a paying customer.
And I think they paid like $2,000, which is.
It's like an iPhone and a half, right?
It's nothing in enterprise sales.

Omer (16:52.610)
What?
$2,000 a month?

Adam Gavish (16:54.450)
No, a year.

Omer (16:55.650)
A year?

Adam Gavish (16:56.690)
A year.
So it's like, it's literally nothing.
But again, it validates the fact that there is value.
There's so much value.
You went to procurement, legal, finance to get the contract done.
That's what we wanted.
And then you build it from there.
Then, okay, 2000.
It's ridiculous.
We build an enterprise business.
How do we make them pay?
20, 50, 100.
And that's where you really start to build the business.

Omer (17:22.340)
So you said there were like two or three customers that were working with you.
So presumably it was one of these that started paying you.
Where did the next few come from?
You had to find other people.
You had to.
Beyond these initial two or three.

Adam Gavish (17:37.430)
So that was an interesting part in the journey because I officially became an sdr, a sales development representative.
I didn't have any experience with sales.
I'm a product guy.
I'm a software engineer.
I didn't know how to sell, like sell cold call.
But that's what it takes because this is a numbers game.
There's hundreds of thousands of companies in the US right?
So many different people on LinkedIn.
It's a numbers game.
At the end of the day, somebody will answer, somebody will reply.
Somebody will be willing to go on a call and give it some feedback.
So effectively we build like a small pitch and we sent it to so many security people, we hit the weekly limit in LinkedIn every single week, by definition.

Omer (18:21.820)
So what were you doing?
You were building a list of finding people on LinkedIn and then sending them.
Sending them a message or a connection request with a message.

Adam Gavish (18:30.320)
Yeah, you send them a message again, something super simple around, hey, I'm not selling to you anything.
I'm trying to build a relationship.
I'm working on an idea that I discovered at Google.
Would love to get your feedback.
And then let's say 5% of those really go on a call.
And then 5% of the 5% maybe start to work with you as a design partner.
Those are the numbers.
It's like super hard.
But the market is so huge that you hit it.
It's okay.
Just takes time and consistency.
And it's just me, it means my partner, so we're too.
It's good.

Omer (19:05.800)
How many messages or LinkedIn connection requests do you need to send to hit the limit on LinkedIn?
Like what are we talking about here?

Adam Gavish (19:14.360)
I think, I mean, when I started the journey, I had maybe 3,000 friends connection on LinkedIn.
Today I have 17,000.

Omer (19:25.970)
So.

Adam Gavish (19:27.570)
But that's what it takes, again, it's about getting the market awareness, market presence, getting to know people.
You got to be likable.
You got to really care about those people.
You got to really become interested in those people.
Who are they, what's their background, what are they doing for living, you know, and you build a relationship and this is a valuable skill later on when you really try to close the deal.
Right.
So, yeah, so we discovered more potential design partners.
And from three it became 10, and then from one paying customer it became five.
From $2,000, I think we hit 12, and then 16, and then I will never forget the first customer we hit in like 25k a year.
To me, that was becoming like a serious amount.
Right?
25k is a serious amount, but it gives you the confidence to keep pushing.
You know, the only reason they pay is because they get value.

Omer (20:24.480)
So were you selling them on the same use case as that first customer or did you have to, like, as you started talking to these additional customers, the requirements just got like, you had a long list of things that they wanted to solve or, you know, I'm kind of curious about how close were you with that first customer versus what everybody else wanted the next, you know, nine or ten?

Adam Gavish (20:51.290)
Yeah.
So it's a delicate dance between what the customer want to what we think is best for overall customer base and what aligns with our vision.
And so that's where luckily I was experienced as a product manager.
So it wasn't new to me.
It was new in terms of the pace.
It's much faster on a startup versus Google where I worked.
But here you kind of lead the customer gently to your roadmap and to what makes sense to other customers.
And you try to understand if it makes sense for them as well, because they might not, they might not think about that angle that the other customer thought about to cross reference between the feedback and you try to get to the minimal common denominator of feature requests that customers want, and then you ship it and see how they react in

Omer (21:48.240)
terms of pricing, like going from 2,000 a year to 25,000 a year.
That's great, right?
You're kind of closer in the ballpark of where you want to be and selling these enterprise type deals.
But how, what were you doing with the pricing?
Were you trying to like, each sale, you know, incrementally kind of increase the price and test it, or did you just say, okay, the 2000 thing was just the initial validation, we're now going to charge everybody 25k?
Like, how did you get to that point of charging them that much.

Adam Gavish (22:22.990)
Generally speaking, it comes down to the kind of value the customer gets, because the first customer got certain value, and then the tenth customer got a whole different product, whole different package.
So it only makes sense to increase the price.
But that's where a lot of founders are really scared.
But what I've learned in the US Is that Chip doesn't perceive as good.
It's the opposite.
When you charge more, you kind of make a perception that your product is worth it.
It's expensive for a reason, because it's all a meaningful problem that it's super hard to solve on your own or with scripts or with the other product.
And I think it works.
And today, 25 is for us.
It used to be insane back then, but today, again, the product evolved so much, which has hundreds of thousand, if not a million, but you got to be determined to charge that amount.

Omer (23:20.660)
It sounds like, you know, getting those initial customers and.
And getting to that first million in ARR was largely through outbound sales.
And with you being the SDR on the team, you told me earlier that it's like, you know, I mean, you mentioned you hadn't done that before, you didn't have a sales background, but you've really enjoyed doing that role.
Just, can you.
Can you walk us through?
Like, how.
How did you learn those skills?
What were some of the things that you think are most important?
Like, you know, if somebody's listening to this, they're in a position where, you know, they're a founder, and maybe they're in that position where they have to go out and start selling and they don't really know how to do that well.
Or, you know, maybe they don't even know what an SDR is.
Right.
So what advice would you give them or give yourself back then, in terms of here's a good way to go about it and learning some of those skills that you need?

Adam Gavish (24:23.720)
I think that for me, specifically for a founder, I'm not a sales executive.
For me, selling is having a conversation with a customer where he doesn't think I'm selling.
Right.
I'm not talking about Python letpow.
I'm not pushing for doing something to get none of that.
Instead, the opposite.
Hey, I'm not selling anything.
Don't worry about it.
I have a sales team for that, you know, and it gets a job done because it kind of lowered down the pressure.
Right?
Because this is what we call buying fatigue in the market, where they don't have time to talk to so many Vendors all the time.
But when somebody approach them and tell them, hey, I only need your feedback, I need to know what to build, it means a lot.
I can change the industry.
They feel like they kind of becoming part of history.
Like, I worked with that vendor when they were so young.
I helped them shape the product.
It kind of.
It brings them pride in a way.
And to me, the beauty in this story is, you know, it comes down to understanding people, what people want.
People want to learn new things.
People want to feel like they're part of something bigger.
People want to stay on top of the latest technology, specifically in our space.
And that's what I deliver for them in the call.

Omer (25:41.540)
Give me an example of that.

Adam Gavish (25:43.220)
So I would talk with sales executive that maybe they were earlier in their career and they wanted to know more vendors and more people and more VCs and more whatever.
And I would just tell them, hey, I would love to have you as part of our journey to help us build the best product possible.
Did you hear me saying I would like to sell you?
No.
Right.
I would love to work with you on the product.
It's a different way than telling you, hey, it cost 24k and here's the term, fine here, it's different, but it is selling for sure.

Omer (26:24.570)
So what is that mindset in terms of what you're describing there?
Just like, hey, I don't think of it as selling.
I think of this as having a conversation and I'm looking for feedback, and I'm just trying to add some value for them as well.
I think that's a great way to think about it.
What else did you have to do or learn to be able to.
Because you got to.
You got to get that.
You got to find those people first.
You got to figure out what kind of message to send them and get their attention to.
Actually, you need to get to the point where they'll actually listen to the first word or the first sentence.
Right.
So how did you learn to do that?

Adam Gavish (27:06.320)
By failing a lot.
Most of the messages you send at the beginning, they don't work.
Nobody replies.
So you change.
You change.
You do a lot of habitats until something works.
Then you're like, okay, I got that.
And then the second thing is when you're actually doing a call with them, I failed many, many times.
The pitch wasn't right.
They didn't understand me.
I didn't hit on the right problem.
Sometimes I was too fast.
Sometimes I didn't care about them enough.
I didn't try to build a relationship.
There's a lot of moving pieces that I had to learn.
And it just takes time and consistency.
The more you do it, the better you are at it.
And there's no magic formula.
Every single founder had to find it for their own journey.
There are no two pictures equal, you know.

Omer (27:55.870)
Yeah, yeah, totally, totally.
The other thing I think I want to try and understand is like with this, with, with a product like docontrol and the security space, number one, it's a pretty crowded market.
And I know when you and I were chatting earlier, you said, hey, you know, getting really having a very specific problem that we're solving and being having super clear messaging is so important.
Can you help us understand like, what was the process you went through to get to a point where you felt happy that, that maybe you didn't have the perfect messaging, but you had the messaging that got people's attention.
How did you get there?

Adam Gavish (28:47.260)
I don't think you ever get there because the market is changing all the time, right?
It's up and down all the time when people are not buying or they start buying.
And so I think the main thing you have to do is to really kind of suspect your messaging all the time and test it all the time and test it in different mediums.
You need to test it in your no show campaigns, in your emails.
You need to test it in how you follow up with prospects via email, in how you approach cold calling via LinkedIn, in how you interact with prospects on a call.
You take all of that feedback from the different mediums and you just review it every once in a while, every few weeks to nail down, okay, what worked and what didn't work.
And I feel like if you pay attention to details like body language, voice tone on a call, you understand when people really understand you and when people lose you.
You have to distinguish between the two.
We reviewed a lot of recording of our calls.
We record our calls and we review them after the call to again to investigate and understand what works better.
We have a lot of metrics on all the emails.
Open rate, click through rate to understand what works better.
Right.
Same goes for the website and you always test it on the go.
A successful messaging can only be measured by how quickly customers are willing to talk to you.
Right.
If they don't understand or they could maybe don't understand the problem, maybe don't understand how you solve the problem and then they're going to be hesitant.
They might not want to talk to you, but if they're talking to you, they're going to call a Call and going to work with you.
It means that they understand.
Right.
It doesn't have to be perfect.
It needs to be understandable.

Omer (30:36.910)
Right?
Right.
Yeah.
I spoke to a founder recently who told me that they really struggle with their messaging and they would get on a customer meeting.
So there was something they said that would get them in the meeting, but then they were having to spend 80% of that time explaining what the product did.
Right.
And then that's when you know that there's a problem because, you know, it's like your customer should kind of have known that at least a basic level before they get to the meeting.

Adam Gavish (31:10.940)
Not necessarily, because those are different things.
The first goal is how do I lure them in for a meeting, that one type of messaging.
The second thing is, okay, how do I get them excited within the meeting?
That's a different thing.
Then when they become the customer, they come to renew.
What ROI messaging do I use to help them renew?
Those are very different messaging frameworks that you have to put in place.
I don't think that the fact they understand what you do and come to a meeting right away means they're going to understand the product right away.
Those are two different things.

Omer (31:46.330)
Yeah, that's a fair point.
And I think that the same goes for, like, if you have messaging which gets people's attention and interest, doesn't necessarily mean that's the messaging that gets you to close the sale.
It just got them to click the link on the website or whatever.
Right.
So you've got two problems here.
Right.
As far as I can see, probably, maybe lots of other problems.
But the two that I'm seeing here, one is you've got to figure out that messaging and you've got to get the meeting with the customer and persuade them that you can solve these problems that they have.
The second problem that you have is you are a startup in an industry with a lot of established incumbents, players who've been around for a long time, who probably have more, you know, brand equity and trust because of the time they've been around.
So you've also got to persuade these people, probably not that they're going to maybe not use some of those products in place of yours.

Adam Gavish (32:54.290)
Yeah, you got to be very careful there because if you're going to talk trash on your competitors, customers don't like that.
Right.
It's a sign of weakness, in my opinion.
Instead, I would just talk about identify what kind of gap they have from their current solution.
That's a very legit qualifying question.
It's one of the first questions actually, what doesn't work for you?
Why are you here on a call with me?
And then they tell you this doesn't work, or this or that, and you use that to establish your differentiation point.
A critical component of the messaging is how am I differentiated?
Why me?
Why did better?
Do I have a faster product?
Do I have a more reliable product?
Is it easier to maintain?
Is it easier to roll out?
There are many, many things you can say.
And the faster you find the differentiation points, especially from the larger vendors, the better your position in a call with a prospect.
Because they smell that.
They smell whether you understand or don't understand your space.
And when you have a very clear differentiation point, it gives the prospect the confidence that you know what you're doing, you're here for a reason.
Let's go test it out.

Omer (34:15.520)
So let's say you're talking to a prospect today.
What's your differentiation point?
So if they say, I'm going to

Adam Gavish (34:22.039)
tell them that, hey, docontrol is event driven, which means that whenever users perform any kind of activity on SaaS application, that SAS application push that event activity to do control in near real time so that we can really monitor for user behavior with very low latency versus larger companies that pull those events every couple of hours.
And then you have blind spots.
That's just an example.
Another example is larger vendors.
They tend to scan your data for pii, pci, phi, like sensitive data, which is excellent, but it's just one signal.
If somebody is sharing PII externally, it could be totally legit, but it could also be very dangerous to distinguish between the two.
Our differentiation point is that we also connect to HR software to understand employment status.
If the person is leaving, it's a high risk situation.
We connect to your identity provider to understand what group the person is coming from, whether or not they should be dealing with sensitive data.
We scan the actual data for the classification, of course, and we also reach out to the end user to ask for the input.
And that way you bring something fresh, something new, something they haven't heard about.
Get them excited, get them to wanting to try it out.
You touch on the pain with a new technology that can solve a gap.
Acknowledge just previously.

Omer (35:41.880)
Yeah, yeah, no, I like that.
Yeah, I think it's.
Sometimes we think that there's one differentiation point and the example you just gave is there can be multiple ways that you're different.

Adam Gavish (35:53.720)
There have to be multiple ways because again, the more you grow the business, the more differentiation points you have to find in order to really justify for a larger deal with a larger customer than, you know, I'm asking them to leave a very legit product behind and come to me.
So it's better worth for them.

Omer (36:15.180)
Yeah.
And typically, what, what does your sales cycle look like?
Like, how long does it take for you to close these types of deals?
Because, you know, this is, this is like, this is kind of one of those places where it's like I heard this quote where somebody said to me or somebody said like, hey, if I do my job right, like nobody cares, but if I screw up, I get fired or something.
Right.
And it kind of hits me like that kind of the security space is a little bit like that.
Where these people are doing these jobs and trying to keep the organization safe and.
And if they're doing their jobs, it's like nobody cares.
Right.
But to make a big decision like this and change something out and then to have to go and get the decisions made internally and like you talked about, like how to, how to get the funds and the budget and the authorization.
It sounds like it's not an overnight thing.

Adam Gavish (37:05.850)
I think it used to be like that for security people, but a little bit less today because today they're really business enablers, not just security.
The guardian of your crown jewel.
Today they really enable the business in a secure manner.
I'm enabling you to use, I don't know, ChatGPT, but without the sensitive data exposed to ChatGPT.
But I'm enabling you to use that.
I'm enabling you to collaborate via Slack.
But whatever, there's sensitive data involved.
I'm going to intervene gently to make things right.
But it's always about an enablement.
Today it's different.
I think a little bit different.
Going back to the question for sales cycle, anywhere between two, three months to six to eight months, depending on the company side we're working on Fortune 500 deal now takes forever, but we also close deal within the same quarter with smaller account, you know, thousand 1500 people.
Organization, those are much easier to work with.

Omer (38:12.730)
Are you still doing sales today?

Adam Gavish (38:14.130)
Of course.
Every single day.
You have to.

Omer (38:16.810)
You really do love it.

Adam Gavish (38:18.890)
I mean, to me, sales is people and I like people, you know, getting to know new people every single day, you know, laughing about things, laughing about the cowboys losing again.
Whatever it is, it's fun.
But that's my job.
I have to support my sales team because they bring me the strategic executive to provide FaceTime to their customers, to make them feel super important because the CEO is in the dynamic.
I'm not cold calling customers anymore because I have a great team doing that today.
But I am definitely hands on helping them to shape the playbook, making sure that product and sales are aligned on what our value proposition and how the roadmap looks like.

Omer (39:00.740)
So you really.
Yeah, it's funny.
It's like you kind of hadn't done any sales before and now you've realized that you actually really enjoy it.
And I think a lot of founders, maybe if they put the same mindset as you in terms of it's an opportunity to connect with people and meet people and, and just have conversations where you're learning and maybe you can help, maybe you can't.
It kind of takes a lot of the stigma away about sales.
I think.

Adam Gavish (39:26.800)
I think a founder doing sales is very different from a salesperson doing sales because a salesperson by definition is measured by new money attainment quota.
Whatever.
A founder is expected to fail at sales all the time for sure.
Like, but your job is not to really do sales.
Your job is to do what it takes for the sales team to do sales.
Right.
To be there and understand the right context from the prospect to shape the playbook for the sales team for them to do sales.
So it's very different from classic sales guy.
Maybe that's why I like it.
Yeah.

Omer (40:10.460)
All right, we should wrap up.
I'm going to go into the lightning round.
I've got seven quick fire questions for you.
What's one of the best pieces of business advice you've received?

Adam Gavish (40:19.670)
One of the best business advice I received is that always hire people who are better than you in a certain domain.
Always.

Omer (40:29.270)
What book would you recommend to our audience and why?

Adam Gavish (40:32.230)
Zero to One by Peter Thiel.
It's amazing.

Omer (40:35.350)
What's one attribute or characteristic in your mind of a successful founder?

Adam Gavish (40:40.890)
Optimistic.

Omer (40:42.010)
What's your favorite personal productivity tool or habit?

Adam Gavish (40:46.010)
I'm the king of reminders, so I don't need to remember anything because I'm utilizing Gmail, Snooze, Slack, reminders, all of that good stuff.
So every Monday, 8am I have probably 30 or 40 different emails coming back to me to make sure I'm staying on top of everything.

Omer (41:03.370)
Love it.
King of reminders.
What's a new or crazy business idea you'd love to pursue if you had the time?

Adam Gavish (41:14.080)
Let's talk about it this week with our chief of staff.
I would love to build a product where you input question and answers representing your sales playbook.
And that product will use generative AI to output an amazing sales playbook.
Diagram a couple of slides and then also take recordings that can autocorrect your salespeople against the question and answer provided earlier.
To me, that's amazing.

Omer (41:41.680)
There you go.
What's an interesting or fun fact about you that most people don't know?

Adam Gavish (41:46.960)
I'm still a gamer.
I'm playing Counter Strike every week.
I love it.
To me, it's my meditation.

Omer (41:57.280)
Meditation.
And finally, what's one of your most important passions outside of your work, other than gaming?

Adam Gavish (42:06.180)
Outside of work.
I love my family.
I love my kids.
They're the world to me.
I love growing them.
I love laughing with them.
Besides that, I really love playing basketball, skiing and playing poker.

Omer (42:19.940)
Love it.
Cool.
Adam, thank you so much for joining me.
It's been a pleasure chatting and unpacking the story of docontrol.
If people want to check out the product, they can go to Docontrol IO.
And if folks want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Adam Gavish (42:38.160)
LinkedIn.

Omer (42:39.120)
LinkedIn.
Of course.
We'll include a link to your profile in the show notes.
So thanks so much.
It's been a pleasure.
Wish you and the team the best of success.

Adam Gavish (42:47.920)
Thank you so much.
Appreciate it.

Omer (42:49.600)
Cheers.

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