First Customers·Adam Gavish, DoControl

DoControl: A Founder’s Lessons on Validating & Selling Your SaaS

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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.

This episode is part of our First Customers series.

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