Adeo Ressi, Founder Institute

86% Startup Traction Rate From 1500 Launches - How

Introduction to Adeo Ressi and the Founder Institute

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Episode Summary

Adeo Ressi's college roommate was Elon Musk, who told him entrepreneurship is like chewing glass and walking over hot coals at the same time. Ressi took that philosophy and built the world's largest startup traction program - one that has launched over 1,500 companies with an 86% survival rate.

In this episode, Adeo shares the three factors that predict startup traction - genetics, circumstance, and perseverance - and explains why your idea matters less than all three. He reveals how the Founder Institute uses psychometric testing to screen founders, why 65% of participants drop out before graduating, and the framework that turns aspiring entrepreneurs into funded founders across 100+ cities worldwide.

Adeo Ressi is the founder and CEO of the Founder Institute, the world's largest entrepreneur training and startup launch program. The organization was launched in 2009 and now operates in over 100 cities worldwide, helping aspiring founders build technology companies through a structured three-and-a-half-month program.

The numbers behind the Founder Institute's approach to startup traction are remarkable. Of the 1,500+ companies created through the program, 86% are still alive and 70% are doing well. About half are funded. The program has a 65% dropout rate by design - it mimics the real stresses of entrepreneurship so founders who can't handle the pressure discover that before investing years into a company.

Adeo breaks down startup traction into three factors: genetics (personality traits like stress tolerance and fluid intelligence), circumstance (personal and market conditions), and perseverance. He argues that your idea matters far less than these three factors - pointing out that even Twitter was arguably a "bad idea" but succeeded because of the people behind it.

The conversation covers how the Founder Institute uses psychometric testing to predict which founders will achieve startup traction, why sequencing matters (like naming your company before incorporating), and how peer-to-peer learning combined with structured mentorship creates better outcomes than either approach alone. Adeo also explains why a company dies when the founder gives up - making perseverance the single most important predictor of startup success.

Topics: First Customers|Product-Market Fit

Key Insight

Adeo Ressi's Founder Institute has launched 1,500+ startups with an 86% survival rate by screening founders with psychometric testing and training them through a structured 3.5-month program that mimics real entrepreneurial stress - proving that startup traction depends more on perseverance, genetics, and circumstance than on the quality of the idea.

Key Ideas

86% of Founder Institute graduates build surviving companies, with 70% doing well and about 50% funded
65% of participants drop out during the program, which is designed to filter founders who lack the perseverance for entrepreneurship
Psychometric testing measures traits like stress tolerance and fluid intelligence to predict startup traction potential
The 14% failure rate comes from founders who lacked passion for their specific business despite completing the program
The program runs in 100+ cities with classes capped at 50 people to ensure individual attention from three experienced CEO mentors per session

Key Lessons

🧠 Startup traction depends on three factors, not your idea: Adeo Ressi's framework prioritizes genetics (stress tolerance, fluid intelligence), circumstance (personal stability, market timing), and perseverance over the quality of the startup concept itself.
🎯 Perseverance is the strongest predictor of startup traction: A company dies when the founder gives up. The Founder Institute's 14% graduate failure rate traces directly to founders who lacked passion for their specific business, not to bad ideas or bad markets.
📉 High dropout rates are a feature, not a bug, for startup traction programs: The Founder Institute's 65% dropout rate filters founders who cannot handle entrepreneurial stress during training rather than after investing years and savings into a company.
🛠️ Sequencing startup tasks correctly accelerates startup traction: Simple ordering mistakes - like incorporating before naming your company - create expensive rework. Structured programs prevent these common errors by putting foundational steps in the right sequence.
🤝 Peer learning combined with mentorship produces better startup traction outcomes: The Founder Institute pairs weekly sessions with three experienced CEOs with founder-to-founder peer groups, creating both top-down and lateral knowledge transfer.
💰 Psychometric testing can predict startup traction potential before launch: The Founder Institute screens applicants for stress tolerance and fluid intelligence, measurable traits that correlate with entrepreneurial success. Higher scores don't guarantee success but reduce the difficulty.

Chapters

00:00Introduction to Adeo Ressi and the Founder Institute

00:57Elon Musk quote on entrepreneurship

03:10What the Founder Institute does and who it serves

05:45Program structure and weekly sessions

07:5586% survival rate and success metrics

08:02Origin story and the 2008 financial crisis

10:50Application process and psychometric testing

12:58Maintaining quality across 100+ cities

18:26Notable graduate companies including Udemy

19:08Why the 65% dropout rate matters

22:31Three factors for success - genetics, circumstance, perseverance

27:28Why the idea matters less than founders think

29:13Lightning round

Episode Q&A

How does the Founder Institute achieve an 86% startup traction rate across 1,500+ companies?

The program combines psychometric testing to screen founders, structured sequencing of key startup tasks, weekly mentorship from three experienced CEOs, and peer-to-peer learning groups. The 65% dropout rate during the program filters out founders who cannot handle entrepreneurial stress.

Why does Adeo Ressi believe startup traction depends more on perseverance than on the idea?

A company dies when the founder gives up. Ressi argues that even bad ideas like Twitter became massive businesses because founders persevered. Without perseverance, failure is guaranteed. With it, you at least stay alive long enough to find what works.

What psychometric traits does the Founder Institute test to predict startup traction?

The test measures stress tolerance (entrepreneurship is extremely stressful) and fluid intelligence (the ability to quickly learn and apply rule sets). Higher scores in both traits correlate with better outcomes, though they don't guarantee success - they just make the path easier.

Why does 65% of the Founder Institute class drop out before graduating?

The program deliberately mimics the stresses of building a fast-growth technology company. Founders who cannot handle the pressure realize entrepreneurship isn't right for them during the program rather than after investing years and money into a company.

What three factors does Adeo Ressi say determine startup traction success?

Genetics (personality traits like stress tolerance and fluid intelligence), circumstance (personal stability and market timing), and perseverance (the refusal to give up). Of the three, perseverance is most important because without it, failure is certain regardless of the other two.

How does the Founder Institute maintain quality across 100+ cities worldwide?

Adeo built custom tracking systems that let him check the status of any founder in any city within three clicks. The platform collects peer ratings, mentor reviews, director opinions, and work progress - all rolled into dashboards that highlight the most promising companies globally.

Why does Adeo Ressi say the idea matters less than founders think for startup traction?

Ressi points to Twitter as an example of a questionable idea that became a massive business, and countless "great ideas" that failed. The founder's traits, circumstances, and willingness to persevere matter more than whether the initial concept sounds brilliant.

What causes the 14% failure rate among Founder Institute graduates who achieved startup traction initially?

Graduates who failed lacked genuine passion for their specific business. They completed the program because they were "on the treadmill" - going through the motions without deeply caring about the problem. Only after graduating did they realize they weren't passionate enough to continue.

How does the Founder Institute's structured sequencing help founders achieve startup traction?

The program orders key startup tasks in the right sequence - like naming your company before incorporating - to prevent costly mistakes. While there's no perfect order for everything, doing foundational steps in the right sequence saves time, money, and rework.

Book Recommendations

The Startup Playbook

by David Kidder

Links

Founder Institute: Website
Omer Khan: LinkedIn | X

Full Transcript

Omer (00:11.840)
Welcome to another episode of the SaaS Podcast.
I'm your host, Omer Khan and this is the 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.
Today's interview is with Adeo Ressi.
Adeo is the founder and CEO of the Founders Institute, the world's largest entrepreneur training and startup launch program which helps aspiring founders across the globe to build successful technology companies.
The Founders Institute was launched in 2009 and today is operating in over 75 cities worldwide.
Adeya, welcome to the show.

Guest (00:57.510)
Thank you.
I'm excited.

Omer (00:59.750)
Now, I gave the audience a brief interview overview of your product business, but can you tell us a little bit about yourself personally?
Who is Adeya when he's not working?

Guest (01:10.390)
Well, I wouldn't know the answer to that question because I work about 120 hours a week, so I don't think there is a day without working.
But Adeo works a lot.

Omer (01:23.810)
We like to kick things off with a success quote to better understand what drives and motivates our guests.
Do you have a favorite quote?

Guest (01:31.810)
Sure.
You know, a good friend of mine who was also my college roommate is Elon Musk and he actually stole this quote from another friend of mine, but it's fairly accurate and true.
I'm not sure it's motivational, but it, it goes.
Entrepreneurship is like chewing glass and walking over hot coals at the same time.

Omer (01:57.400)
I think I read that somewhere.
Maybe it would have been one of the blog posts that you wrote.

Guest (02:04.200)
We do an event called the Founder Showcase a few times a year.
There's one coming up in May and he was a speaker at the Founder Showcase when the.
There were lots of problems in both Tesla and SpaceX.
Tesla was struggling to get money and SpaceX and had a few failures of their initial rockets.
And he actually was being interviewed on stage and you know, they asked him what is it like to be an entrepreneur?
And that was his answer.
So that is.
It's not necessarily motivational, but it's just a reminder no matter how challenging it gets, it can always get worse.
And it probably will get worse, though it is a bit of a roller coaster ride.
So there are times when it's really bad and there are times when it's really good.
You just have to roll with the punches.

Omer (03:10.070)
Now, could you give the listeners a better understanding of the Founders Institute?
Who are your target customers, I guess.
And what are the pain points that you're trying to solve for them?

Guest (03:24.710)
So we are a incubator and training program.
And we target people who are in the very inception of their entrepreneurial career.
Now, of course, whenever you say something like that, that is our target audience.
And for everyone out there, you're going to have a target audience and you're going to have the actual audience.
So your target audience might be a hypothetical customer, and I can describe the hypothetical customer very precisely.
But you're also going to have other people that still use your product or service that may not be precisely in your target audience.
So in our case, we take people who have a day job.
Their Average age is 34 and a half years old, 36% female.
They usually achieve some degree of success in their career.
So they're relatively senior for their age.
They're also earning a notable amount of income and something in their professional career has inspired them to create a business.
Right.
They're unsatisfied with something that they do on their day to day life that they think they can improve or fix.
They may have tried to fix it in their current company or their current environment and they realized, I really need to break off on my own and turn this into a business to try and change the world.
They then start the process of thinking through creating a company and they realize that it's a lot harder than they had thought, a lot more challenging than they realized.
So they look for a program that can help them.
And the Founder Institute is that program.
So we run a three and a half month long program.
It's done in person.
We do it in over 100 cities around the world today, and we'll be in about 200 cities by the end of 2015.

Omer (05:45.110)
Wow.

Guest (05:45.990)
And there's a session once a week at night and three experienced CEOs come in and talk to the founders in the program about the things that they did to be successful and build their business.
Then we give the founders in the program very specific things to do to build their business.
These are things that every entrepreneur has done, but we have organized them and thought through them in such a way that they are sequenced correctly.
So a lot of times entrepreneurs will go and just do things as they need to do them, but they're not necessarily done in the right order.
And there maybe is no right order for everything, but there's a right order for a lot of things.
A great example, you should probably have a good name for your business before you incorporate, but that doesn't always happen.
In fact, a lot of times people incorporate with a random name and then rename their business later on.
And that can be very expensive.
So we order the key things that you need to do as a new entrepreneur.
Founders go and do that for the remainder of the week.
And they share their best practices and challenges in groups of peers so that there is not only mentor to founder learning, but there's founder to founder learning as well.
So that combination of mentorship, a very structured approach to build a business, and peer support is effective.
86% of the 1500 companies we've created worldwide are alive.
70% of them are doing well, and about half of them are funded.
So we take people off the street, we turn them into entrepreneurs, and the likelihood of them being successful is fairly high compared to the global averages.

Omer (07:55.610)
How did you come up with the idea for building this organization?

Guest (08:02.620)
Well, you know, that's a good question.
Basically, in 2008, there was the global financial collapse.
And at that time, I had already started helping entrepreneurs because I had been an entrepreneur for I am and I continue to be an entrepreneur, but I've been an entrepreneur for about 20 years.
And the field of entrepreneurship needs a lot of help.
It is not really a profession, right?
It's more like a passion.
And the field of entrepreneurship needs structure, it needs programs, it needs help.
And so when there was this massive crash in 2008, it became clear to me that bankers and politicians had been running the world.
And they, for lack of a better way of saying it, they ran the world into the ground.
They had set up systems and policies that allowed the financial system to nearly collapse.
And it was clear to me that if entrepreneurs had a seat at the table at the highest levels, that that just would not be the case.
Right?
We would never experience such a pandemic again.
Because entrepreneurs solve problems, they create value, they make the world a better place.
And these people were not prominent members of the world at the time in such a way that they influenced policy and really had a major effect on some of these systems that were in place that caused the crash in the first place.
So I set the Founder Institute up to produce a high volume of very successful entrepreneurs all around the world that could rise to the occasion and be leaders in their respective cities and countries in such a way that they would have a positive impact on the world overall, the country, the city where they operate, preventing against bad decisions and things that led us into dark time.

Omer (10:50.370)
Now, if someone is interested in applying for the Founders Institute training program, what's the process that they need to go through to get through successfully?

Guest (11:06.130)
It's not that.
I mean, it makes it sound like it's like a long, drawn out endeavor.
You fill out a few questions online that might take 15 minutes and then we send you a, essentially a psychometric test that takes 45 minutes to an hour to complete.
And then we review your psychometric test results against your application questions and submitted information and we make an admissions decision fairly quickly.
So the process to apply maybe takes like an hour and 15 minutes or maybe an hour and a half at the most.
And you know, tens of thousands of people apply every year.
It's fairly straightforward.
And if you have what it takes to be successful, or, you know, if we think you have what it takes to be successful, I should say, then you're admitted into the program.
And you know, we have very good enrollment rates and application rates and all the like.
So we tend to build classes in cities as far reaching as Kabul, Afghanistan, 25 to 35 people fairly easily.
Some of the bigger classes will get up to 50 people.
But we cap limit participation in the program to no more than 50 people because the ability for us to add value to a startup and to a new founder, we don't want too many people in the program where we can't individually help those that are present.

Omer (12:58.640)
Now you mentioned tens of thousands of people applying every year and you have the training program running in 100 plus cities around the world and that's going to rapidly grow this year.
How do you ensure that there's a, you know, the level of quality of the programs is at a level where you expect it to be?
I mean, how can you, how do you oversee this, this huge operation now?

Guest (13:32.380)
Well, you know, there's a lot of answers to that question.
Obviously, you know, there's no silver bullet per se.
So probably the most important thing that we do is I am a programmer.
I started my career as a programmer in the 90s, probably 94, and I stopped programming in the late 90s as I became more successful as a CEO.
And then I picked it back up in 2005, around then 2004, 2005.
So when we started the Founder Institute, it was very clear to me that if we're going to achieve a massive scale, which was always the goal, that we would need highly advanced systems to manage and track the various programs in great detail.
So I built them.
Everything that we do is meticulously tracked.
I can look at within three clicks, I can look at anyone in the world and get a detailed status update of what they're working on.
The detail is greater if they're enrolled in the program.
But we also have a fair amount of data once they graduate as well.
And then that data is not just data submitted by the individual.
We have extensive rating and reviews.
So if I look at a founder in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, I can see all the work that the founder has done to build their company.
I can see detailed thoughts that peers have about the founder.
I can see detailed thoughts that mentors have about the founders.
I can see ratings by both peers and mentors.
I can see the opinions of the directors.
And this is all rolled up into easy to use dashboards, allowing us to focus on the most promising companies that the world has to offer today.
So, you know, it really diligent development of advanced tracking systems allow us to keep abreast of everything that's happening.
But, you know, that's not good enough because, you know, one of the biggest problems with people and new companies is they don't apply a critical eye to all the data that they collect.
So we regularly reevaluate all of our assumptions about how we measure and evaluate people so that we're constantly innovating on the things that we look for to predict.
So in my particular business, right, I take a human being and I unlock their potential.
Now, some of those people can't unlock their potential.
Maybe they are too busy in their day job, they have a family emergency.
There's many, many reasons.
But then there are some people that totally unlock their potential.
And so we're constantly reevaluating the systems and the analysis to identify those that have real opportunity to change the world and those that are just going to fail.
And we then make decisions based on that information and we're updating the analysis and the thinking all the time to get better and better at what we do.
So it's just not enough to track and collect and watch.
You need to constantly be critically thinking about why your business is operating the way it is, how you can improve.
And if you get that right, then you can really grow very fast.

Omer (18:26.840)
Now, you mentioned that about 70% of the companies that graduate from the Founders Institute are doing very well today.
And there are, you know, a number of probably, you know, well known companies out there that went through the Founders Institute, such as retailagents and Udemy.
Is there a, you know, any one particular company that you're particularly proud of in terms of the way that they went through the Founders Institute and the level of success that they've been able to achieve by having gone through that program?

Guest (19:08.370)
Well, you know, there are 1500 companies that we've created, so it's you know, I'm proud of the fat of anyone that gets through the program.
To be honest, it's a very hard.
We have a 65% dropout rate.
So 65% of the people that start on day one decide to leave for one reason or another.
So usually because the program helps them realize that entrepreneurship is not the right path for them.
So anyone that makes it through deserves pride and admiration because the program is hard.
But again, the program is only hard because entrepreneurship is like chewing glass and walking over hot coals at the same time.
So if entrepreneurship was easy, then the program would be easy.
But the program is designed to mimic the stresses and challenges faced by entrepreneurs when they build a fast growth, technology enabled company now.
So if you can make it through the program, you know, again, 86% of the time, you're going to build a business that's going to be around for a while.
Now, if you look into the 14% that don't, there's one flaw in the program, which we think about a lot, and that is you get tossed on a treadmill and you're starting to run.
And sometimes you know that you just keep working on the business that you came in with, and we try and force you to rethink your assumptions and to make sure that it's something you're passionate about.
But sometimes when you're just on the treadmill, you're on the treadmill, you're going through the motions, you're running on the treadmill, and you sort of make it to the end of the program, you start building the business and you realize, man, you know, maybe I shouldn't have been on a treadmill with this company at all.
So, you know, people realize after the program that they weren't as passionate as they thought with the business they were working on.
And that's where we see that 14% failure rate.
Now, that's a tricky one to solve for because we ask people, are you passionate about it?
They say, oh, I totally am passionate about it.
Are you sure you're passionate about it?
I'm totally sure.
And we make them work really hard.
So they say they're passionate about it, they're working really hard on it.
But only after the program did they really realize, nah, maybe not.
So I think there's room to grow.
I think we could probably break 90% survival rate on the grads that go through the program, and that's certainly an objective that we hope to achieve.

Omer (22:31.510)
Now, you recently wrote a blog post about what makes a successful entrepreneur, and you called out Three aspects to that.
First was what you called the genetics.
Secondly was circumstance.
And thirdly was perseverance.
Could you talk a little bit about those three points and why you think that they are the three most important things in your mind of a successful entrepreneur?

Guest (22:59.850)
Well, they should be sort of obvious, but so.
I'll reorder them a little bit.
Circumstance is hopefully very obvious.
I mean, if you have a death in the family or so there's personal circumstances, right?
Or you just went through bankruptcy, you know, you're probably not in a position to launch a billion dollar company, right?
Either you're not mentally in the position, you don't have the, you don't have the time, you don't have the resources.
So there are some extenuating personal circumstances, but there are also market circumstances, right?
You know, if you go out today and you try and build a billion dollar company around fax machines, that's not the best idea given the way the market is.
So you have personal circumstances and market circumstances that are heavily at play in terms of genetics.
So, you know, tall people are predisposed to being good at basketball, but that doesn't mean that they're going to be good at basketball.
Right?
And there are some attributes in your personality that will make you better suited to handle the stress and opportunities that entrepreneurship presents, right?
Entrepreneurship is very stressful.
So if you have a low stress tolerance, you probably won't do well as an entrepreneur.
It's also very mentally demanding in certain ways.
And there's fluid intelligence measures your ability to quickly learn and apply rule sets.
So having a higher fluid intelligence makes you a better entrepreneur because you can deal with problems at a faster rate.
So there's a genetic component to human makeup that predisposes certain people to be more successful as an entrepreneur than their counterparts.
Now that doesn't mean that their counterparts can't be successful.
It just means it will be significantly more challenging for them to accomplish the same thing as someone who has the traits that some of which I just outlined.
Now, last but not least, perseverance.
So it's pretty straightforward.
A company dies when the founder gives up.
And as I was mentioning before, you know, the 14% of Founder Institute graduates that are bankrupt or otherwise closed, the founders gave up, and the founders gave up because they didn't have the passion or perseverance to continue.
So you can have the right circumstances, you can have the right genetics and have all the amazing traits to be successful.
But if you pick something you're not passionate about and things start getting very hard you're going to throw in the towel.
And when you throw in the towel, the company will go bankrupt.
So perseverance is in some ways the most important of the three.
Right?
Because you can be in a somewhat bad circumstance.
You might not have the perfect traits, but if you persevere, you know, let's put it the other way.
If you don't persevere, you're guaranteed to fail.
And if you do persevere, you're not guaranteed to succeed, but at least you're not dead.
Not get bankrupt, not closed.
So you have a real shot of making it to the other side.

Omer (27:28.700)
Now, I think a lot of people listening to this would say, okay, I get it.
Genetics, circumstance, perseverance, they all make sense.
But what about my idea?
Isn't that the most important thing?
And you left that out quite intentionally in this list, didn't you?

Guest (27:44.580)
Well, I mean, what is a good idea?
You know, is Twitter a good idea?
Probably not.
You know, I'm not even sure if Twitter is like a good idea now.
You know, I don't know that, like, sending 140 character messages is symbolic of the future that we want to have as a civilization.
Right.
And in fact, if you look at what Ed Williams, the founder of Twitter, has done, his next company is Medium, and Medium is a long form narrative company.
And you might even argue that, frustrated with the short form, Evan sort of broke out and started the long form.
Right.
Again, he's created something called Blogger beforehand.
So what is a good idea?
There are a lot of big businesses that have bad ideas or certainly ideas that you could argue whether they're good or not.
And there's a lot of, you know, great ideas that are out of business.
So I don't think the, at the end of the day, the three things I mentioned matter more towards success than the nature of the idea itself.

Omer (29:13.260)
All right, Adeo, it's now time for our lightning round.
I'm going to ask you a series of questions and I'd like you to answer them as quickly as possible.
Are you ready?

Guest (29:20.540)
Sure.

Omer (29:22.140)
What's the best piece of business advice that you ever received?

Guest (29:28.780)
Never give up.

Omer (29:31.100)
What book would you recommend to our audience and why?

Guest (29:35.180)
Oh, that's a toughie.
I don't read as many books as I should, so I don't want to answer that question.
I sort of skim books at this point in my career.

Omer (29:51.430)
All right.
And I think I know the answer to this one as well.
But I'll ask, you know.

Guest (29:55.750)
Okay, sorry.
There's a book by David Kidder.
And I'm forgetting the name right now, but he interviewed about 150 entrepreneurs and about their advice and actually that's pretty good.
But I know the author.
I forget the title.
David Kitter.

Omer (30:13.390)
Yeah, I'll look up the book and I'll add it to the show Notes.
What's the one most important attribute or characteristic in your mind of a successful entrepreneur?

Guest (30:22.930)
Perseverance.

Omer (30:24.770)
What's your favorite personal productivity tool or habit?

Guest (30:31.170)
Oh, there's a.
Well, I use two asana for group task management.
I use my calendar, which is Google Calendar at the moment, for I pretty much calendar out my entire life to 15 minute increments or less.

Omer (30:54.400)
If you had to start over tomorrow, what type of business or market would excite you most that you'd want to go and build a business in?

Guest (31:08.560)
Yeah, I'm not torn.
So lightning round these are.
I would say that there I like the Internet of things right now, but the problem with that question is I lie.
I really don't see myself doing anything besides what I'm doing right now, so.
But I do think the Internet of things is interesting and it's mostly untapped today, so that's the most interesting field with the greatest amount of opportunities.
That is still the Wild West.

Omer (31:48.760)
What's an interesting or fun fact about you that most people don't know?

Guest (31:55.240)
I lived on a commune growing up.

Omer (31:58.840)
All right, and finally, what is one of your most important passions outside of your work?

Guest (32:05.970)
Well, if I had more time, it would be playing video games.
I saw a funny quote by Elon, who again was my college roommate, that he loves to play video games and he actually plays more video games now than I do.

Omer (32:24.130)
Wow.

Guest (32:24.850)
We both love playing video games and I wish I could do it more, but I don't get the opportunity.

Omer (32:31.810)
Awesome.
Edea, I want to thank you for joining me today and sharing your experience and insights with our audience.
Now, if folks want to find out more about Founders Institute, they can go to FI Co. And if they want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Guest (32:51.230)
Probably just you can tweet something to me a dayoreci.
I've been using Twitter more, even though I just busted on it a little bit.
And thank you so much, Omer, for a lovely conversation.

Omer (33:04.430)
Thank you.
It was a pleasure.
Adeo.

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Sarah Ahmad, Stable

How to Validate a SaaS Idea With Zero Code

Sarah Ahmad and her co-founder Colin met freshman year of college and moved to San Francisco to work as engineers. They quit their jobs to build Mistro, a platform providing benefits for remote teams internationally. They got into Y Combinator's Winter 2020 batch, raised a pre-seed round, and had paying customers. Then COVID hit. You'd think a remote work tool would thrive when the entire world went remote. Instead, it was silent. They couldn't even give the product away for free. COVID had pressure-tested their product-market fit and exposed the truth - nobody needed what they were building. Sarah went back to basics. She ran discovery conversations with hundreds of operations managers and founders. One problem kept surfacing: companies without physical offices didn't know what to do about their business address and physical mail. The incumbents in the space had been around since the 2000s with clunky software. Nobody was raving about them. Instead of making the same mistake again - building a full product before validating demand - Sarah took a completely different approach to SaaS product validation. She posted a simple landing page in the YC community. The response was immediate. Dozens of founders emailed saying they needed it tomorrow. The first version of Stable was embarrassingly manual. A mail partner in San Francisco, Google Drive for document storage, Zoom for onboarding, and a Stripe link for payment. Sarah was manually emailing customers when mail arrived. They ran it this way for the first 100 customers before writing any code. Today, Stable is the leading AI-powered virtual mailbox for businesses with over 10,000 customers, 8-figure ARR, and a team of 50-60 people. They operate in 20+ locations across the US with processing centers in the Bay Area, New York, and Dallas. Their customers range from solopreneurs to enterprises like DoorDash, Realty Income, and GitLab. In this conversation, Sarah shares how the SEO playbook that built the business stopped working when AI overviews took over Google search results, why physical operations are her moat against AI disruption, and the moment she had to shift from product building to company building.

Nate Baker, Qualia

How Qualia Found First Customers by Living in One's Basement

Nate Baker is the co-founder and CEO of Qualia, a software platform for title companies that helps coordinate the complex process of buying a home. Today, Qualia generates over $100 million in ARR with a team of 600 and has raised more than $200 million. In 2015, Nate was 21 years old and decided to build software for the real estate industry. He had no experience in that space. He didn't talk to any customers. He just did some research and decided that was the thing he was going to do. Then he started building. Still without talking to anyone. Nate admits this was a mistake. He and his co-founders got key things wrong about how the business would work. They wasted months building things they eventually threw away. It wasn't until they found their first customer that they started making real progress. Their first customer was Barry Feingold, a state senator in Massachusetts who also ran a real estate law firm. Barry believed in the vision, taught them the industry, made introductions, and helped them understand what actually mattered. The relationship was unconventional: Nate and the first 25 employees rotated through living in Barry's basement. New hires would get a call Sunday night: "Your onboarding is in Andover. You're going to live in Barry's basement for two weeks. He's going to teach you title. You have to tutor his kids in math." But then Barry's existing software vendor found out he was working with Qualia and shut off his access overnight. Nate and his team didn't even have the core features built yet. They had to figure it out fast. It became the most productive month in company history. Barry didn't just become a customer - he introduced Qualia to his competitors. Those network-based relationships became the foundation for the first 10 customers. Nate learned that your first customers must come from your network, not cold outreach.

Ryan Wang, Assembled

Zero Revenue for 8 Months From One SaaS Pricing Mistake

Ryan Wang is the co-founder and CEO of Assembled, an AI platform for customer support that helps companies manage both human and AI agents more efficiently. In 2016, Ryan was a machine learning engineer at Stripe. He and his co-founders spent two years building before launching in 2020 - the same day WHO declared COVID a global pandemic. Their momentum vanished. About a quarter of demos didn't show up. Their SaaS pricing model - usage-based with no minimums - meant customers could scale to zero without leaving. It took 8 months to earn their first dollar of revenue. In 2016, Ryan was a machine learning engineer at Stripe. He and his future co-founder Brian built ML tools to automate support tickets, but they realized the real problem wasn't automation - it was workforce management. That became the spark for Assembled. The three co-founders spent two years building before they launched in 2020. They lined up a TechCrunch story, hit the front page of Hacker News, and then their launch landed the same day the World Health Organization declared COVID a global pandemic. Momentum vanished. About a quarter of demos didn't show up. It took them eight months to earn their first dollar of revenue. The SaaS pricing trap: When they finally got customers, they had usage-based pricing with no minimums. Customers could scale usage to zero. When usage flatlined during the pandemic, the team blamed themselves before realizing customers weren't leaving because of the product - they were just cutting costs. How Ryan fixed the SaaS pricing problem: 1. Shifted focus from chasing growth to serving customers who were getting value 2. Met customers in person, sat with support leaders, and built what actually mattered 3. Added pricing minimums to prevent revenue from dropping to zero 4. Built sticky features that justified the investment That hands-on approach worked for about 10 customers. Then it broke at 50. Onboarding took weeks. Some features worked in demos but failed in production. So they rebuilt onboarding to get it down to days and cleaned up the product so it could scale. Eventually they grew from their early customers to dozens more and reached 8-figure ARR.

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