This is the first post in a weekly series documenting our journey through
Product Club. The wins, losses, and bad jokes — on full display. Bullshit-free.
We applied to Product Club in much of the same way you’d buy a lottery ticket. You don’t really think you’re going to win, but you have a few dollars in your pocket and enough common sense to not let probability kill the fun. So why not?
I had a lot of friends that were applying, and they had good ideas. They had traction. What did we have? Well, a few Figma designs and a functioning settings page with a fancy animation. We had barely started building, we weren’t just early — we were embryonic.
Some time passed, and I had important things to do, like correct people on the internet who were wrong. I forgot about the application entirely. Right up until this landed in my inbox, with all the subtlety of a punch to the throat.
We were in the running. Holy shit. I called my co-founder, Tom. What the hell are they going to ask us in 15 minutes? Should we have a strategy? Matching outfits? Tom is awesome. I wouldn’t want to do this with anyone else. He’s an incredible developer and really doesn’t give a shit about all this startup stuff. He just wants to build cool things. He’s the Wozniak to my Jobs. Except I hope to be less of an asshole.
We talked for about an hour, and he leveled me out. We were going to build Metafy either way. While getting in would be cool, we both agreed it was unrealistic. We decided to go into the “quickfire” interview without preparation, instead of devoting our time to fixing bugs over the weekend.
The interview came and went, 15 minutes felt like an eternity. I genuinely don’t even remember what questions Jeff asked us, my brain went to auto-pilot. I thought that we bombed, Tom assured me it went as well as it could have.
Tom was right.
Week 1
The inaugural class was announced, of which we were included. Spline and AgendaZap are brilliant ideas. The kind of ideas that make you think, “Oh, this will be big.” If that wasn’t enough, their teams are killer. I’d be lying if I said imposter syndrome wasn’t rearing its ugly head.
Seriously, both of those companies rock. Go give them some love.
We spent that first week focusing on releasing what we had been lovingly referring to as our “Duct-tape MVP” — It wasn’t good, but it allowed us to get something in front of the coaches eagerly anticipating our launch.
There were bugs, a lot of bugs.
I also took some time to write a bit about why we started Metafy. If you haven’t read that yet, you should. Not because it’s particularly well-written, but instead because I spent a lot of time writing it and desperately need the validation.
We closed the week out with Josh Elman — one of two Josh’s on the planet smarter than me. He took time out of his schedule to dive deeply on product vision and the importance of clarity of that vision. Going into that meeting, I was thinking about Metafy as I saw it in 5 years. Feature-rich, monolithic. Josh helped us focus our lens. He challenged us, pushed us to dig deeper, and find the core of our product. This enables us to focus obsessively on solving that problem better than anyone else on the planet.
Josh is operating an another level. If Product Club had only consisted of this meeting, it’d have been worth it.
Week 2
We’ve made money. Not swimming-pool-filled-with-hundreds kind of money, but oh-damn-it-actually-works money. We’ve successfully hit and exceeded, feature parity with our biggest competitor for 1:1 coaching. Everything we’re now building is upon a path that has yet been walked in this industry.
People have quit their stable, well-paying jobs to join us on this journey. It’s bigger than we are now. It’s a shared dream. That responsibility is exciting, but also terrifying.
I’ve spent the entire week fundraising. Things are going well, we’re in the enviable position of choosing what investors make the most sense for us. It’s a position that few founders ever find themselves in. Again, this wouldn’t have been possible were it not for Product Club.
That’s not to say we didn’t hear “No” here and there. We did. This experience has taught me a valuable lesson. There’s much to learn about a person based on how they say “No.” The investors the most deserving of respect, in my opinion, are those who don’t waste your time. They tell you quickly that they’re not interested, but also why they’re not. Even if it’s a simple sentence. The genuinely exceptional among them going as far as giving you advice and providing warm intros. Most I’ve talked to are deserving of that respect, but there are a few I can’t imagine sharing a foxhole with. I think this is true for most things in life.
Don’t work with people who aren’t genuinely excited about what you’re doing. If they don’t want to live in a world in which your product exists — move on. A great team is worth more than what you’re trying to raise, no matter the number.
If you’re interested in raising, please look at this incredible resource from Sahil Lavingia, every investor on this list is worth having a discussion with, they’ll challenge you and you’ll walk away from the conversation better for it, if nothing else.
I’m looking forward to tattooing our investors on my back, that’s how we’re announcing the round. The entire press release, starting with “We’re excited to announce…” and going into excruciating detail, inked from shoulders to cheeks. If this doesn’t make silicon valley embrace me, I don’t know what will.
Don’t worry, Jeff Morris Jr. gets the front, a full chest piece.
Jokes aside, the investors taking a chance on us are incredible. Working with people that I have such deep respect for is a dream come true. A less vague and more cliche blog post announcing all of this is coming soon.
We closed this week out with a session with Manik Gupta, the former CPO at Uber. We learned an incredible amount about positioning our product and focusing on OKRs that matter. Being data-driven matters, and having someone with Manik’s experience to review your early assumptions is invaluable.
Key Takeaways
- Common mistake: waiting for scale to start instrumenting funnel
- Guide users to move up the complexity curve
- People don’t like to own metrics, they like to own goals
- Always helpful to have technical metrics in OKRs — latency. Ensures a highly performant product.
- Make sure to include “voice of the customer” metrics (user interviews, surveys)
I’ll be doing these weekly moving forward. I’m mostly writing this to look back on after we’ve conquered the world and moved into our secluded villain hideout. That doesn’t mean I’m not interested in learning what you would like to read more about. If you’ve made it this far, please send me a tweet and tell me your thoughts. Even if you hated it.
Also, I wouldn’t be doing any of this if it wasn’t for Gaby Goldberg encouraging us all to build in public. When these get annoying, you know who to take it up with ;)
See you next week!
