Product-Market Fit·Adam Markowitz, Drata

Product-Market Fit: From Edtech Vitamin to $100M Painkiller

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Adam Markowitz spent seven years selling a nice-to-have in edtech. Then he built Drata and signed 1,000 customers in his first year. The difference? Product-market fit so strong that prospects were calling to complain his sales team was too aggressive - and Adam told them "you're welcome."

In this episode, Adam reveals how experiencing a compliance pain at his first startup became the foundation for Drata, why he refused to sell to anyone until his team used their own product to get SOC 2 compliant, and how a "give before you take" approach to AWS made Drata a top 5 ISV on Marketplace in under two years.

Adam Markowitz is the co-founder and CEO of Drata, a trust management platform that helps companies automate compliance, security assurance, and third-party risk management.

Adam never planned to be a founder. He wanted to be an astronaut. That led him to aerospace engineering, and in 2008 he landed his dream job working on NASA's Space Shuttle program. Three years later, NASA retired it.

So he taught himself to code and built Portfolium, a platform that helped students prove their skills with real project work instead of resume bullet points. It took years, but he eventually got it into over 500 universities. The company was acquired for $43 million.

But it was during those long university sales cycles that Adam experienced a moment he never forgot. A CIO at the largest four-year public university system in the country asked him to prove his company's security posture. He couldn't. His entire company was built on the idea of proving things with evidence - and here he was, asking a customer to just take his word for it.

That pain became the seed for Drata. After Portfolium's acquisition, Adam got the band back together - same co-founders, same early engineering team. They spent six months building the first version, talking to dozens of companies and auditors to validate the problem before writing code. Then they did something most founders wouldn't: they refused to sell to anyone until they'd used their own product to get SOC 2 compliant first.

When they finally launched, product-market fit was immediate. Adam signed 100 customers in six weeks and 1,000 within the first year. The difference from his edtech days was stark - he'd gone from selling a vitamin to selling a painkiller.

Adam used three strategies to accelerate Drata's growth to $100M ARR:

Dogfooding before selling - using Drata to earn their own SOC 2 gave instant credibility
Building an Auditor Alliance that kept auditors independent while making audits faster
A "give before you take" AWS partnership that made Drata a top 5 ISV on Marketplace by bringing thousands of new customers to the platform

Today, Drata has over 8,000 customers across 60 countries, more than 600 employees, and crossed $100 million in ARR before its fourth birthday. The company has raised over $300 million.

This episode is part of our Product-Market Fit series.

Key Insight

Drata crossed $100M ARR in under four years by solving a compliance pain that founder Adam Markowitz experienced firsthand at his previous startup. The team validated the problem by talking to dozens of companies and auditors before writing code, then refused to sell until they used their own product to get SOC 2 compliant - signing 100 customers in six weeks and 1,000 in year one.

Key Ideas

Validate before building: spoke with dozens of companies and auditors before writing a single line of code, finding identical pain patterns across every conversation
Dogfood before selling: refused to accept paying customers until Drata had used its own product to earn SOC 2 compliance
100 customers in 6 weeks and 1,000 in year one after launching with 12 design partners who stayed close during the 6-month build
Give before you take: brought thousands of first-time AWS Marketplace transactions, becoming a top 5 global ISV in under 2 years
Two-thirds of pipeline sourced or influenced by partners, with auditor and cloud partnerships forming a compounding distribution moat

Key Lessons

🎯 Product-market fit shows in buyer urgency, not just signups: Drata signed 100 customers in 6 weeks and 1,000 in year one - a stark contrast to Adam's edtech company where the first 5 university customers took years to close.
🛠️ Dogfood your product before selling it: Drata refused to accept customers until they used their own tool to get SOC 2 compliant, giving them instant credibility and proving the product worked under real conditions.
🔍 Validate by talking to every stakeholder, not just buyers: Adam spoke with dozens of companies and auditors before writing code, discovering identical pain patterns that made the initial product scope obvious.
🤝 Give before you take with strategic partners: Drata brought thousands of first-time customers to AWS Marketplace before asking for anything in return, becoming a top 5 global ISV in under two years.
📉 Selling a vitamin versus a painkiller changes everything: Seven years in edtech taught Adam what a nice-to-have feels like. At Drata, customers lined up because compliance wasn't optional - it was blocking their deals.
🚀 Reassemble a proven team to compress execution time: Adam brought back the same co-founders, engineers, and go-to-market team from Portfolium. The muscle memory from working together for 7 years accelerated every phase of Drata's launch.
🏢 Keep partners independent to build a distribution moat: Drata's Auditor Alliance kept audit firms independent rather than competing with them. Two-thirds of Drata's pipeline is now sourced or influenced through partner channels.

Watch the Episode

Chapters

00:00Introduction

00:28What Drata does and the trust problem it solves

01:39Revenue, customers, and team size

03:09From astronaut dreams to NASA's Space Shuttle program

05:11Building Portfolium after NASA retired the shuttle

07:03Teaching himself to code and finding a CTO

08:26Selling Portfolium for $43 million

09:43The long road to product-market fit in edtech

12:15The university sales cycle that changed everything

15:39How the Portfolium pain led to founding Drata

19:44Validating the problem before writing code

23:28Getting the band back together

26:29Using Drata to get their own SOC 2 before selling

28:20Signing 100 customers in six weeks

29:08How Drata differentiated in a crowded market

34:19What broke at 1,000 customers

36:22Building the Auditor Alliance partner program

39:09The AWS Marketplace strategy and give-before-you-take

42:48Why aggressive sales culture was intentional

46:53AI tailwinds for compliance and trust

50:36Lightning round

55:08Closing thoughts

Episode Q&A

How did Adam Markowitz find product-market fit at Drata after years of selling a nice-to-have in edtech?

Adam went from selling a "vitamin" at Portfolium to a "painkiller" at Drata. The compliance problem was so urgent that customers lined up - 100 signed in six weeks versus years to close university deals in edtech.

Why did Drata refuse to sell to customers before getting their own SOC 2 compliance?

Adam's company was built on the principle of proving trust with evidence. Selling a compliance tool without being compliant themselves would have contradicted their core mission - the same lesson he learned when a university CIO challenged him at Portfolium.

How did Adam Markowitz validate Drata's product-market fit before writing any code?

Adam and his co-founders spoke with dozens of companies and auditors over months, documenting patterns in a shared Google Doc. The same exact words kept appearing across conversations, making the problem and initial scope obvious.

How did Drata sign 1,000 customers in its first year?

A combination of inbound marketing, outbound sales, and partner channels. The team had set up lead routing and operational infrastructure during the 6-month build phase, so nothing slipped through the cracks when demand hit.

Why did Adam Markowitz deliberately build an aggressive sales culture at Drata?

Adam viewed aggressive follow-up as an expression of appreciation for the opportunity. When CISOs called to complain about his sellers being aggressive, he responded "I know, you're welcome" - preferring relentless pursuit over missed opportunities.

How did Drata become a top 5 ISV on AWS Marketplace in under two years?

Drata brought thousands of customers who had never heard of or transacted on AWS Marketplace, creating value for AWS before asking for anything in return. This "give before you take" approach got them on AWS's radar quickly.

How did Drata's Auditor Alliance program become a competitive moat?

Rather than competing with auditors, Drata kept audit independence intact while helping firms conduct audits faster. Today, a third of pipeline is sourced through partners and another third is influenced by them - two-thirds overall.

What did Adam Markowitz learn about product-market fit from spending seven years in edtech?

Portfolium took 3 years just to discover that universities needed learning outcomes assessment tools, not just career portfolios. At Drata, Adam validated the problem in months by talking to dozens of companies before building - a direct lesson from the edtech grind.

How is AI creating tailwinds for Drata's product-market fit and growth?

New AI-specific compliance frameworks are emerging, companies need assurance around AI adoption, and every vendor introducing AI components creates new third-party risk criteria - all three of Drata's core use cases are accelerating.

Book Recommendations

Courage Is Calling

by Ryan Holiday

The Hard Thing About Hard Things

by Ben Horowitz

The Messy Middle

by Scott Belsky

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