#349 Decoding Product Success: Karthik Suresh’s Journey from Wall Street to Tech Entrepreneurship

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Mehmet: Hello and welcome back to a new episode of the CTO show with Mehmet. Today I'm very pleased joining me from the Bay Area in San Francisco, Karthik Suresh. Karthik, thank you very much for being with me here today on the show. The way I love to do it is I keep it to my guests to introduce [00:01:00] themselves, tell us a bit more about you, what you are currently up to.

Mehmet: The floor is yours, Karthik.

Karthik: Yeah, thanks a lot for having me on the show. So I'm pretty excited to be here. Um, my background so I currently am the co founder of Ignition. So Ignition is, uh, it's a AI product success platform, uh, which helps users to the entire product development life cycle from, you know, research to building your product all the way to go to market and launch plan.

Karthik: Um, and before Ignition, I was at Facebook. Um, I was a product manager there. Um, at, uh, Facebook search and then Facebook reality labs. And then before that I was a very early employee at a company called craft. Um, and now it's a series B company. So I was there for four years. Um, basically saw how, uh, to take a company all the way from zero to one.

Karthik: Um, and then before that I was in a completely different field. I was in wall street. I was in like high frequency algorithmic [00:02:00] trading. Uh, so seen a few different fields and, uh, uh, yeah, excited to chat with you today.

Mehmet: Great. Thank you very much again, Karthik for, you know, your time. And I know how busy it can be, especially when, uh, you know, this is schedule for someone like yourself.

Mehmet: Um, you know, you mentioned about you a little bit about your career. If so, And I like to, to know the stories behind, you know, jumping from, from, you know, one area to another. So what led you to be in, in the product strategy, um, at big company at the tech companies, and then, you know, being a member of the founding team.

Mehmet: So there must be kind of a pivotal moment, I would say that, you know, you said, okay, you know what, I have to be doing this. So if you can share that, uh, with us.

Karthik: Yeah. So, um, I think like there's this very big difference between like working for [00:03:00] large companies and working for startups. And, uh, I think I just want to first compare and contrast the two, um, um, the two roles, right?

Karthik: So, uh, in a startup, you kind of own everything, you don't have a ton of resources. Um, and, uh, you, the, the The success depends on how well you are willing to like hustle and, you know, uh, roll up your sleeves and do what it's required. Like, but in a large company, you, you know, you have a dedicated, like, not just a design team, but also like a data analytics team and then a user research team and then product marketing team, basically like to help.

Karthik: The help with the whole launch process, um, and then the whole development process. But, uh, in a, in a, in a large company, like, uh, I mean, in a small, in a startup, you, you basically have to do all of it yourself. Like, I even remember, like, if I want to look up some data on how users are using the app, you, before, you know, you would write your own SQL query to a database and pull [00:04:00] it.

Karthik: And of course, today, now you have chat GPT, which is your, which is your friend. Um, but, uh, you know, in a large company, it's less about that. It's more about like, it's also about like stakeholder management, aligning with other teams, unblocking with your engineering teams, being able to present the same concept at different layers.

Karthik: So people at executives, exec level can also understand. People on your peers on the other side can understand and, um, um, and then you can get buy in and execute. So it's more, it's a lot of the people skills are very important there. So I would say it's a, it's a mix. Um, uh, so for me, I felt like, um, startups are always the place to be because.

Karthik: Again, there's no there's no right or wrong answer. It depends on your own comfort zone Uh for me, it's always believe like, you know, um, you know, it's less about being a cog in the wheel But about driving the entire uh product forward, um in a [00:05:00] facebook, you know, it's almost 50 000 people There's a small part which I own but as in startups, you basically pretty much get to Uh dictate the destiny of the company and also more about more than that, you know You're very if you're very passionate about a certain idea and you want to exist in the world This is an amazing opportunity for you to like work on it.

Karthik: And I feel like it it makes my job more meaningful Brings me more purpose. Um, and at the same time, um, you know, I have less of the politics and other things which I have to worry about in a big company. So that's kind of what, uh, you know, excites me to work on a startup.

Mehmet: Absolutely. You know, and for me, like I've, I've been always, um, you know, kind of by luck and of course later on by choice, you know, working with startups for the same reasons.

Mehmet: And while some people, they see it like a little bit challenging. Wearing multiple hats, of course, like I'm not on the founder side necessarily, but you know When you start something new in [00:06:00] a new region, for example for a startup company in a new area so you have to be the sales guy the marketing guy you have to be the Even even the admin assistant that you know takes care of the office of the office manager Um, some people they don't like it.

Mehmet: But for me also like and I can 100 percent understand that Karthik now You Every time I have someone who's a co founder, I ask maybe the same question, but this is kind of first curiosity for me. And second, because I believe this is very important. So when we talk about Ignition, like where, where you are, you are a co founder today, uh, Karthik.

Mehmet: So, sorry, what gap, you know, did you identify in the market that you said, you know what, We need to start this. So, so Ignition must have came up from a need in the market. So tell me a little bit about the story behind, uh, Ignition. Oh, sure.

Karthik: Yeah. So for me personally, it was, uh, uh, for example, I was, [00:07:00] uh, launching all of the features for the Facebook reality labs.

Karthik: I forgot it was like a feature for Oculus or portal. Um, and the launch plan, the go to market plan to launch that feature was a spreadsheet with a hundred tabs. It's literally a hundred tabs and each tab, um, you know, like, I mean, and then there's a tab to keep track of each tab. And nobody knew where to find the latest, you know, the messaging about the product, the positioning, all the campaigns, all the checklist.

Karthik: Uh, and the way they used to solve it is, you know, a bunch of people get in a war room. We have a few program managers there, and they're trying to call people's names out and then solving it. So I felt like there has to be a better way to do it. And at the same time, I met my co founder, Derek, who was an early employee at Rippling, the HR tech company.

Karthik: Um, and he was the head of product marketing there and he felt, he felt a similar pain where he felt like [00:08:00] there is not a lot of tools or software to help people with the launch process. So we felt like, Hey, there's so many, um, SaaS tools on the engineering and product side. And obviously the marketing tech and the sales tech is extremely crowded, but there's this whole GTM gap, the go to market gap between product and marketing and product and sales, um, product things.

Karthik: They are done as soon as a product ships to production. And then, and then the sales and marketing redo a lot of the thing. They have to figure out, you know, they still have to talk to users, understand how they have to like message the product, position the product. And there's no clear bridge between those teams.

Karthik: And that's kind of where we decided to, you know, invest in Ignition.

Mehmet: That's great to hear actually, Kortik, because, you know, I know like majority of the startup that face the same thing now being, you know, yourself coming from a product management background, like [00:09:00] how does help you? And by the way, just, you know, people by now, I think they know how much I'm biased a little bit to product managers usually, because when I was working as a sales engineer and later even as a sales rep, so they were the fit, my favorite people, To talk to in the organization because they were the bridge So tell me how this also helped in in, you know shaping how Ignition is today

Karthik: Yeah, so, um, I think wearing a product hat, uh Uh, so there's a few things about a product manager, right?

Karthik: The first thing is about, you know Making sure you talk to the user and you understand the user needs And you really it's not just about I think there's a big difference though It's like it's not just about understanding the customer needs, but it's also understanding Is it a must have is it a nice to have?

Karthik: Is it a painkiller? Is it a vitamin? Will they put their credit card down to actually pay for this feature? you know people obviously have a lot of a lot of Things which they want to improve and you know, they like to complain They [00:10:00] like to talk about all their problems, but when you actually like if you you know, if you treat everything at the same um Level and end up building a bunch of features.

Karthik: They may not actually pay for it So you got to be really careful and uh kind of assessing what's like You Um, some must have feature, which they'll pay for and other, and then, uh, no, it's just a nice to have feature. Then, uh, the second is like more about like, when, um, you know, a lot of the people you have, when you talk to your friends and family and people, you know, which you start off with when you want to build a new product, they want to be nice to you.

Karthik: And they always want to say yes to you. Oh, yeah, that's a great idea. Oh, yeah, you should go build it And you should be very careful and there's a whole book called mom's test addressing this issue So you need to be very careful that you just don't go on the don't basically start building Um on whatever they say, uh, so it and then I think as a product manager Um, you have a lot of experience um Trying to separate out the things which people [00:11:00] say as like, what is a real problem and what's something which they would actually like to use and pay for.

Karthik: What's this like, just like a problem, which, you know, you know, this is a problem, but you know, it's not, it's not the end of the world. They did, they can deal with it with a spreadsheet, for example, or some other tool. So I think we are having a product hack really like helps you think through those different, um, you know, requests as to like, which one is a must have, which is not.

Karthik: That's one. The second thing is a product sense, right? When you're actually building the product that so the customers of the customer Speaking to customers speak to potential customers Is before building the product and while building the product is about product sense and a lot of the times Let's say you do hit on a right problem and the problem has a big market and people are willing to pay for it.

Karthik: Then when you're building the product, you really need to think about how they're going to use the product. And it's almost like a art as much as science. Um, and that comes with experience that comes with like you seeing a lot of the users use various different products and [00:12:00] where they succeed, where they fail.

Karthik: And it's all about looking to the entire funnel of like, okay, how do I onboard the user? What's the first time user experience? How do I activate the user? How do I get the user to come back the next day and the next week and the next month and keep giving them value every time they come in and like, how do they use it?

Karthik: Like in the perspective of that product sense. And that's very important. And as a PM, you have that. Uh, And then finally the how you convey the value prop, right? And that's where even Ignition Really helps you is like when you talk about your product How do you think about messaging it so that your end target audience or persona actually gets it?

Karthik: They understand your value prop They understand how you're differentiated from your competitor and why they should try out your product The time is very limited. You're just another startup and thousands of startups like Why they should spend their time trying to use your product. So capturing that is very important So I think being a p.

Karthik: m. It's kind of like you're kind of trained to think through all of these different [00:13:00] processes So I feel like it makes it much easier to like, uh build a startup

Mehmet: absolutely like very insightful I would say and and here I want to ask you also karthik like, you know for you you have like deep roots in in both, you know, the Consumer and enterprise products.

Mehmet: So, uh, and, you know, combining these two, how do you think, you know, there's the best way to balance a user user centric design? Because you just mentioned you need to think about how they're going to use the product, right? With the business objectives. Um, in your product strategy and you can like feel free to give example even from, from Ignition also as well.

Karthik: Oh, so basically the question is, how do I, uh, how do you like think about, uh, like building products at a B2B company was a B2C company?

Mehmet: Yes. Yes.

Karthik: Yeah. So, um, yeah, B2B and B2C are very, very different. Um, um, I would say [00:14:00] markets are very, very different beasts. Um, I think, and also like there's, there's also like, it's, it's, sorry, it's a pretty loaded question.

Karthik: So I'm just trying to think how I can frame it. And there's so many ways, um, if they are different, but it's also very different as a startup versus an established company. And, uh, you know, if you're a B2B company, you're selling to enterprise. As a startup, you just need like five to ten people to use your product and validate it, right?

Karthik: You just want to make sure that, hey, you build a product, you have like your design partners or your early set of customers who are willing to use your product and you want to test your product with them. And, you know, you just need about five to ten people to test it and iterate and use it. And then finally say, okay, now I'm actually getting value.

Karthik: And you can see coming back to your product again and again. Um, and see if you have product market fit. Um, and then when you want to scale it's like, okay How do I find a hundred of these users a thousand of these users? Where do I find them? You know, where do they live? You know, [00:15:00] that's what that's a big part of the go to market process like, you know You know if they live in reddit or you know, if they live in somewhere else and then um, but much more on um, And also like the pricing model is very important.

Karthik: And I'm so like, you also need to think about if I said to that one person, how do I expand to multiple people in that company? Uh, sometimes the buyer might be different from the user. So the user might be like a PM, but the buyer might be a chief product officer or user might be an engineer. The buyer might be the CTO.

Karthik: So how do you then position the product such that it adds value to both and makes it easy for the engineer to get the budget from the CDO. So there's so many other factors which goes in building a product. For a B2C product, the B2C product is only successful if you can scale it. If you can have like, uh, hundreds of thousands of users.

Karthik: Uh, of course there's like, you know, there's a D2C a subscription base as well, but I'm just talking about like, purely B2C where it's user driven. And there, the main metrics are like your DAU, [00:16:00] your daily active users, your weekly active users, your monthly active users, how you're growing them, and you know, how much time are they spending on your apps, the session time.

Karthik: So you can optimize these metrics. Um, and then you don't think about revenue at an early stage. You're thinking about growth. So I feel like, um, there it's, it's not just about if fight and users like your product, if you have a hundred users, if you have a thousand users, you're not going to go anywhere, you need a lot more and you need to have a strategy to scale and you really think about vitality in that case.

Karthik: So are people not just using your product? Are they referring your product, you know, and then are they um Thinking about like, you know the thing you're thinking about network effects. Like how are the network effects? Um, Playing here. How do I build for the network effects? So you're it's a very different mindset and that's why typically you don't see a lot of people Crossover from b2c or b2b you see like people spend their entire career in a b2c Or entire career in a b2b.

Karthik: Um, you know [00:17:00]

Mehmet: Very insightful and, you know, thank you for, you know, I know it was a little bit loaded question, but thank you for, for, for, uh, you know, explaining that in details, Karthik, because, you know, this is something also I discussed, you know, on the podcast and outside because people come and say, Hey, like, um, You know, like, what would be the different strategies and the metrics?

Mehmet: And you just explained that, you know, like, very, very, uh, in a very clear and straightforward way. Now, I know, like, this is something also you like to talk about it. And it's a very famous, uh, term in Silicon Valley mainly, and which is building a zero to one company, right? So, so how we can go from zero to one.

Mehmet: Now, I know, like, I don't want to make it a loaded question. Let me, you know, break it down a little bit. So do you still think, uh, Karthik, that There's room to really build today a zero to one company.

Karthik: Yeah, a hundred percent. [00:18:00] I think like, if you see the history of Silicon Valley, if you see what happens, it's like, I know it might seem very crowded today.

Karthik: I know it seemed like, Oh, every possible idea you can think of, there's a startup who's building on it. But if you look up, if you, if you look, if you look back into the history, there have been pivotal moments when there's a new technology which comes in and that changes everything. The last time it happened was iPhone, the mobile, right?

Karthik: Everything was a desktop app. And then iPhone came across. And then you had the, and then you could probably question, Oh, every possible desktop app was already built. And then iPhone came across. Then you got like Uber and Airbnb and DoorDash and like, Hundreds of thousands of apps and each one is like a very successful business.

Karthik: Um, and then same thing is happening right now. Um, what's happening is there is this revolutionary technology about large language models, which is basically an expert predictor. And, [00:19:00] um, the whole, uh, started with open AI releasing the GPT, uh, models. And now, you know, Google, Anthropaic, there is, you know, Meta, everybody is, uh, have their own models.

Karthik: And, and I can see that's changing, that's drastically changing how you think about software development. How do you think about product development and their new use cases? Um, it's less about project management. It's less about workflows. It's more about automation. It's more about how can I not just help you do the job or how can I help you organize a job?

Karthik: Uh, how can I help you organize your data, which is what a last set of tools did now. It's like, how can I be an AI assistant helping you do your job, like help you automate a significant portion of your job so you can focus on what's most important. You can focus on one of the creative aspects of your job.

Karthik: So I think that opens up this whole space again, and there are so many zero to one products being created. There's like an AI agent in [00:20:00] healthcare, a customer agent bar to automate customer success, AI finance bar to like negotiate. Um, you know any kind of a financial deal just like AI in every In every industry for every use case their new automation and agent use is coming across and that's going to blow up And I think for me that's where the next Um, instead of like, not just like one or two, zero to one, but like hundreds and hundreds of zero to one startups, um, are going to be born.

Karthik: And, uh, you know, the next few years are going to be very exciting.

Mehmet: Actually, you answered my second question already. Like, um, will, will AI like accelerate this? And you just mentioned, yes. Um, what's the key to, you know, because if anyone have read actually the book by Peter Thiel, like he talks about creating kind of a monopoly.

Mehmet: Or let's say what some people they call it the first mover advantage, right? Now, if we think about, I'm not asking this question, Karthik, for, you know, challenging. I [00:21:00] want to also take your opinion actually on this. Because one might think this way. Okay. If everyone is gonna use, you know, the LLM models and embedded how we can do the really differentiation, like, okay, when we, we applied for one specific domain, let's say healthcare as you mentioned.

Mehmet: Yeah, definitely. I go and apply it in, in education, absolutely. But how really we can differentiate because actually the, you know what I believe AI have done, it democratized actually the access to technology more than any time before. So what are your thoughts about this?

Karthik: Yeah, I think that's where, uh, you know, there's two ways to differentiate, right?

Karthik: One is like, you know, you pick a niche, like you just mentioned, like healthcare, uh, manufacturing, entertainment, finance, education, and you build there. Uh, and you become the largest, uh, vendor, uh, or software guru tool, uh, in that space or for that use case. But most of these use cases are using [00:22:00] Um, like a gpd api as a wrapper, right?

Karthik: You're just using a gpd and then adding your own context about your own industry or the niche you picked And and you're working the other way is to like more contextualize this and build your own custom nlm's Which is trained on their own customer data Um, and a lot of these are like, you know, for example copy generation um, and then Uh, there's enterprise search.

Karthik: There's a lot of these are using customer LLMs, which are using, taking an open source LLM and then training with training those LLMs with your customer data and also the, all the other contextual data you have, and then making it the best for a specific use case, that's kind of how you differentiate, but I agree.

Karthik: I think, uh, I think you have a very important point there in this whole journey of, um, the explosion of AI startups, there's going to be a lot of Doing the same thing or very similar things, you know, at the end of the day, there's no mode and mode is something very important to think about. And that's how you eventually end up in a monopoly.

Karthik: First you start with a mode and then you expand [00:23:00] the mode and then you become like the software, but, uh, you know, you're right. I see a lot of the companies that's like, Hey, like, For example, copy generation. I see like some hundred plus copy generation companies out there and everyone is using a GPT, which may be a different UI with a different UX.

Karthik: Uh, but at the end of the day, it's all the same. So only a couple of them are going to survive. So, yeah,

Mehmet: Absolutely. Yeah. Like, and again, um, as I said, like, I wanted to hear your opinion on this. And I agree with you on, on, on that because you know, the ones who copy just for the sake of copy, they would not survive, I believe, you know, they We reached a phase where, okay, because the others who started before, they have like better UI, better UX, and you know, we're going to see this, uh, how it will be, you know, shaping in the future.

Mehmet: Now, I know like also Karthik, you have insights on like some other emerging technologies like crypto, NFTs, and many other technologies. So how are you seeing the impact of, you know, these things? [00:24:00] emerging technologies, let's say on the traditional business models in, in the future.

Karthik: Um, so there's other technologies, uh, crypto, crypto is a good one.

Karthik: Uh, blockchain. I know there's like, uh, unfortunately there's like, you know, the blockchain technology and also the crypto, the currencies itself. And, uh, sometimes people mix both. Um, and, uh, crypto as a currency, there's a lot of speculation there. Um, Um, and you know, there's so many coins which people use to trade and speculate.

Karthik: Um, but then there's also the blockchain, which is a technology underlying all the cryptocurrencies, which is fascinating. And, uh, I think that's, that's a, um, creating a decentralized ledger is one of the most important use cases. Because it's very hard to trust people. And that's why you have a centralized authority.

Karthik: Like, you know, even simple, like when you, when you want to settle shares, um, you have a centralized ledger, like all, all of your, you know, driving license data, all of they are, um, you know, whatever very [00:25:00] important data you want to store is centralized with an authority today. And in the future, I can clearly see like a blockchain replacing that, a centralized authority.

Karthik: Um, and then making it into a decentralized trustless ledgers where you know, you don't have to worry about You know the data breaches and compromise and security issues or bad insiders or the government's acting Um, you know not in the right intent. Um, so Blockchain is a pretty good interesting technology.

Karthik: Uh, I am, uh, you know, i'm paying a lot of attention to And, you know, the, the most exciting part is the intersection of AI and blockchain. Um, so, uh, basically decentralizing a ton and ton of data using blockchains and then using AI to help, uh, with, uh, um, creating and, uh, just pure use for, uh, generation. And that's going to be an exciting use case.

Mehmet: Yeah, exciting time. I had, I would say, I agree with you because, you know, the combination of both. And I remember last year when, uh, I was still doing, you [00:26:00] know, kind of solo episodes, uh, when I was still new on the show and people were saying, you're crazy, like how this will will get in. And, but I'm happy like more and more by the time, uh, people are seeing this, uh, let's say merge or marriage, if we, if the term is correct between these two technologies.

Mehmet: And I'm sure like, it will be very, Um, you know, having a lot of useful use cases also as well. Now I want to ask you something like a little bit more depending on, you know, growing a venture and, you know, I mean, their own company and you've been part of, you know, startups right from its early days. And you also founded your own venture.

Mehmet: What do you think is the most common misconceptions about startup growth? Uh, and you know, venture funding

Karthik: misconceptions about, uh, startup growth and venture funding. Um, I think on the, since it's talking about startup growth, [00:27:00] the, I think the, the, the biggest misconception out there about startups is like, it's glamorous to be a founder and everyone wants to start companies.

Karthik: It's not, it's very, very hard. Nine out of 10 startups fail and at a very early stage and that's a seed, a seven out of 10 fail and that's series a still 50 percent is a failure rate. So, um, um, you know, trying to step up an idea is very, very hard, but, uh, I think from outside it looks very glamorous and it just looked like something everyone should do, but in my opinion, you should only be working on it if you're very passionate about seeing an idea exist in the world.

Karthik: If you're just doing it for money or if you're just doing it because, you know, you will, um, you know, it's basically a glamorous way, uh, to put yourself out there, you know, you're going to fail. So it's very, very hard and that doesn't come across very easily, uh, because right now society glamorizes founders and even more glamorizes the VCs, um, on the, on the venture funding, venture [00:28:00] funding, it's like the, there's two sides of the coin.

Karthik: Anytime you can bootstrap your own business, you should do it. Um, we should take only venture funding only when you know that you're going to grow at a very large scale, because the VC funding or the VC fund, what the VC fund is trying to do is like, let's say they raise a hundred million. They are trying to return three to five X.

Karthik: So they are trying to return like a 200 million to their, um, LPs. So in order to do that, again, with the 70 to 80 percent failure rate, you They need to invest in a lot of startups and they need one or two startups to really hit it big to make it like a billion plus so it will return the entire fund and also hopefully return like thrice or four times the fund so they are looking for billion like they won't even invest unless they think that you're going to be like a billion dollar company one day at least you have the potential and then they have 10 of them and even if eight fail two of them hit like Billion plus, then that that's good.

Karthik: They have returned their multiple of their fund and they're happy. So it's a very different kind of, uh, [00:29:00] I would say, um, uh, attitude about when you should take venture funding. And then the second is like you lose control as, as, especially as you raise more and more money. Um, and, uh, you know, there's a lot of, um, mis there could be a lot of misaligned incentives.

Karthik: Um, as, as the company grows, because maybe as a founder, you want to, you know, uh, maybe, you know, I mean, I've seen companies where as a founder, people want to exit at CDC and make some, you know, make good life changing money and move on. But as an investor, you want to keep running it and take it to IPO because that's when you, you, you, you make, you meet your objectives.

Karthik: There could be a lot of misaligned incentives as the company grows. So these are all the things to watch out for. And, uh, and then, and then the finally, I would say like, um, a lot of the times there's a misconception about, um, uh, even on the, even on the, even on the VC funds, like, you know, you, especially if you come from a, A background in a banking or consulting or different [00:30:00] background or private equity background that Um, you know, you you can get good at picking the right startups.

Karthik: It's actually more Um, I see like the more and more vcs who are successful have some kind of an operating background Because they are the ones who can empathize and feel the pain as a founder, uh, what it really takes to step up a business. And those are some of the best partners I've worked with. Um, so yeah, there's like so many things here and I could, I could go deep and even share some stories, but, uh, uh, yeah, there's, uh, I think the fundamental misconception is like how glamorous it is and the reality is it's exactly the opposite.

Mehmet: Yeah, absolutely. And I've heard like every kind of story, uh, especially in the past year and this year about, you know, Uh, how sometimes founders think it's easy also as well, uh, to get funding. And, you know, of course the misconception not from founders, I mean, but people who look at the startup ecosystem, Oh, you know, like there's a lot of money over there.

Mehmet: Right. So, uh, this [00:31:00] founder, he gonna like now get, uh, his, uh, I don't know, 10 million check. And then they're going to be rich next day. And of course we know, we, we know, like, it's not the case, but You know, when it comes to, you mentioned something very, very true and every single guest I asked them this question, they mentioned this.

Mehmet: So they said, as long as you are fine with the way you're growing your business and you don't need to grow fast, So you can keep bootstrapping and actually, you know, reinvest from whatever the company is doing now. But sometimes, Kurt, again, I'm not sure if you know, you've experienced it yourself, but I'm sure you have the experience.

Mehmet: You know, some founders, they believe that, look, like my only way to go out to the market is to get the funding because without the funding, I will not be able, for example, to build let's say not the product, they have the product, but maybe some additional features to the product, or maybe you will not be able to build the support organization, or maybe we need like to [00:32:00] invest in the sales organization.

Mehmet: So in these situations, what do you think, you know, the founders, they should do when they go and start to talk to investors outside and, you know, they should go for VCs or they should go to angels. Like what do you think from your experience, the best approach to, to handle this. Um, so can you, can you repeat the

Karthik: first part of the question again?

Mehmet: So, yeah, so I was saying like sometimes, you know, founders, they would say, yeah, we get the bootstrapping and we know like we need to bootstrap, but actually, you know, we need to, you know, be a little bit kind of perfectionist, let's say. So I want to have the best, uh, support organization. I need, you know, to make sure that all the features are up there.

Mehmet: And this. You know, I don't have the money now, but I know that there's a need, right? So from your experience, like, is it best for them to go and, you know, seek for agile investments? They go to the VCs. What do you, what do you say about that?

Karthik: Yeah. I mean, I [00:33:00] think even if you, even if you are a VC backed, even if you want to be a VC backed company, um, the, the first thing of course is like, you know, You got to like build like an MVP, like a most viable, minimum viable product, um, for your own, uh, uh, product and then go test it with a few users, right?

Karthik: So you eventually, like almost always, everyone ends up bootstrapping for the first few months. Like, you know, find the first finding the team, like, you know, if you want to do it solo, or do you want to do it with a co founder and if you want to do it with a co founder, great, then you want to build it yourself or maybe, maybe get a help at a development agency to actually build an MVP.

Karthik: And then you've got to talk to like at least 50 to 100 users to figure out if this is valuable. So that process is still bootstrap. The point at which you raise money is like you already have some kind of MVP, even if it's a Figma design or some basic design or a working [00:34:00] prototype, and you have talked to the users and users have said, Yes, this is something I'll absolutely buy if you build it.

Karthik: And in fact, users can't wait for you to ship it. And you have a lot of conviction this idea and and that's when you probably even go looking for money Um, and then at that point of time you wanted to actually decide okay Do you want this to be a venture backed business or not? Uh, what that means is like how much do you think this product is worth?

Karthik: How much will it grow? Will it grow like three times year over year and then you know, will it be worth a billion dollars? Or will you be making a hundred million in revenue in five years? Does it have the potential or do you want to make it more of a lifestyle business where you're generating a few million a year, but you're very happy with, uh, you know, with, uh, because, you know, you can lead a pretty good lifestyle and take a pretty good salary at that point.

Karthik: Um, and what, what direction you want to grow. So that's when you decide, okay. Um, you know whether I want to make it a venture backed or more like bootstrapped even in a bootstrap business You could still like, you know go to [00:35:00] angels and take money at a very low valuation and that's still fine Um, you know and everyone does that, you know, it's a friend You you typically do a friends and family round where you you know Raise like a 200k to half a million with all your friends and family.

Karthik: Um, and you know, depending on your network And uh, and that's still fine if you still want to have a lifestyle business you could pay them out as dividends and the other ways to like Uh, payback, uh, these people, but the, the real decision comes when after this round, what you want to do, do you want to like take venture money or do you want to like, um, bootstrap it and then run this, run this based off of the revenue you're generating.

Karthik: So the other, the other reason why you have to go take venture money is like the product development itself is going to cost you a lot. This is especially true if you're building a deep tech product. If you're building a hardware product, then there's no way you can bootstrap it unless, you know, you have saved a significant amount of money yourself.

Karthik: So that's when you gotta approach, uh, figure out how can you get financing. [00:36:00] Um, but my advice is like postpone raising money as much as possible and get to, uh, a state where you have a lot of conviction on your product. That it's you know, this is it's actually solving a real need there are people who are repeatedly buying and and you and they are Retail users who's coming coming back month over month using the product and you can see the whole If you if you do a cohort analysis Which is all the people who bought in the month of January, February, March, and then you're in May and then you see all of them are growing, expanding, adding users.

Karthik: It's amazing. You know, you know that it's going to grow and then you can talk about raising money. So wait till that point, um, before you think about venture money and then also decide when you did you do want to be a venture money because there's so many other things which come, um, with venture money because you can't just like take a stroll with your own business.

Karthik: You can grow like. You know 10 20 percent or 30 percent year [00:37:00] over year and you'll be fine But the moment you start taking these seats all about like, uh, you know, are you are you doubling tripling your revenue year over year? Which means you've got to grow fast. You've got to hire more people There's going to be much more chaos and do you like that?

Karthik: Do you want that? So there's other aspects to it, which you want to think about before, uh, you go you go down that path

Mehmet: Absolutely, and you know, I i'm big fan of Because you mentioned it at the beginning when you start to answer having an end in mind, like know exactly why I'm actually doing this whole thing.

Mehmet: Like, is it because I have a dream to become, you know, uh, you know, the next unicorn and, you know, like my company will become one of the best. big known names in the market, or is it, as you mentioned, is it like just a lifestyle? And then I'm going to have like this income. So a hundred percent on this Karthik.

Mehmet: You mentioned something very crucial and, you know, it's not directly related to funding, but related to building the product. And, you know, maybe I should have asked you [00:38:00] this before, but it's good that it came with, with, with this, uh, in this time. So now. It's all about building the product, you know, and launching the product.

Mehmet: So what do you think, you know, the biggest bottlenecks that, you know, that they will might be challenges or, you know, uh, put obstacles in front of front of the, of the founders, uh, to, to, to really grow from product launch perspective. So what, what have you seen the most common bottlenecks?

Karthik: Yeah, so from a product launch perspective, there's like, there's a lot of, there's a lot of nuance here.

Karthik: The first thing is a lot of the people don't even understand the product launch process and go to market process. It's equally important. It's as important as product development. Um, there is a say, right? You build an amazing product. People will come. People don't. Today, distribution is equally important.

Karthik: Product hunt is [00:39:00] where thousands and thousands of products, they think they're going to succeed and rank well, but they actually die. So it's, it's not, there's no easy secret sauce where you just, you just order. There's no easy sauce where you can just follow a plan and you're going to succeed. So you got to really pay a lot attention, uh, and energy to your own go to market process, your distribution plan, and how you're actually going to get the product in the hands of the users.

Karthik: So initially, let's say you're building a product and, uh, let's say it's an AI product, uh, for healthcare and, and you test it with a few, few of your friends in healthcare and they all really like it and okay, you're like, okay, great. Now let me put a website out there and send a few emails i'm done and it's going to succeed No, it's not you really got to figure out the whole launch process is like who exactly is your you start with your persona Who is your persona?

Karthik: You really need to clearly define who's my persona my target icp Um, you know what size of the company? um, and then What role [00:40:00] in that company? Who is my champion? What is the sales process looks like? I'm just talking about from a B2B perspective here. Then you need to think about messaging. Like, how do I message the product?

Karthik: There's a light bulb moment. It's like, Oh, I need to buy this product. So what is that? What is the messaging? How do you message to the pain points of the users? Uh, so that they feel like, Oh, this is really something I want to try. Then the third thing is positioning. Like, how do you position the product compared to your competitors?

Karthik: I'm sure, like, probably there's going to be so many competitors, or they're even using spreadsheets or some other tools. So how can you clearly say, like, clearly articulate why your product is different? And what makes it unique compared to all the other competitors out there? You need to think about that and once you've nailed your persona messaging positioning and then there's pricing Of course where you need to think about like is it a seed based model?

Karthik: Is it like, uh, you know a product led like Um, you know growth like product led growth kind of model or [00:41:00] it's more like sales led where you have a sales team going and selling What is the business model? So you got to figure that out And all of this takes a lot of time and energy. And once you talk to all of that, then you need to figure out, okay, what channels I'm going to use to then market the product.

Karthik: Where do my users live? Do I go to, is it an email campaign? Is it conference and events? Is it like Facebook ads? Like what are, what are the channels I got to invest in? And then you've got to develop collateral and assets for those channels and then go do a launch. So there's all of these steps involved.

Karthik: A lot of the times as a founder, it's so easy to like skip a lot of these and just like, Hey, I'm just going to do a launch and then the company is going to grow. And then, you know, more likely than not, the launch is going to fail. So my single biggest advice is like treat the whole go to market or the launch process as its own, um, like own, uh, strategy or like a big, uh, item in your, um, you know, in a company equally as equally as important as your road mapping process where you're listing all the features and figuring out what to [00:42:00] build, but once you build, you got to figure out what's your product launch process.

Karthik: And you've got to invest in it and get the distribution and only then you can succeed, especially in today's crowded market.

Mehmet: Absolutely. And you know, I, you know, sometimes people come to me and they say, Hey, we have, we, we, we, sometimes they built actually an MVP or sometime I see them, they built, um, even almost the product.

Mehmet: And they come to me, they say, okay, what should we do? And they say, you know, like, think about it. If someone tells you today, I have built a website, wow. Yeah, but there are like billions of websites out there. So how someone gonna find about the website? I mean, you know, like even take it on something simple and take this to a product or whether it's like a SaaS, whether it's like a productized service, whatever it can be.

Mehmet: And exactly to your point, Karthik, it's a very crowded market. And this is where, you know, you need to have the playbook that you just mentioned to understand exactly, you know, [00:43:00] My ICP, is it SLG or is it PLG? All these things and thank you very much for sharing this. I think this is very, very important.

Mehmet: Now, as we are almost, you know, coming to an end, Karthik, and really I'm enjoying the conversation here today. But, you know, I want to take from you like kind of like final, uh, maybe advice, you know, Uh, for anyone who's are beginning their career in, in, in our domain, uh, whether it's from product management or whether like starting a company, if you want to leave us with something, uh, to think about today and also at the end, feel free to tell us where we can find more about, uh, you and about Ignition.

Karthik: Yeah. I mean, I would say from, from my, my own personal perspective and, uh, my experience, uh, there's one attribute, which is risk taking, uh, which has defined my whole career and it's, it's, it's, it's a, it's a one which has brought me the most success. [00:44:00] So, um, typically generally humans tend to be risk averse.

Karthik: And, you know, obviously with risk is where you, you know, you, you get reward. So don't be afraid to take risks. Don't be afraid to follow your dream and start your next company. Don't be afraid to change your job and, you know, start, you know, some completely new industry because, uh, you know, life is short and risk taking is very important and that's where you get the best, uh, results and also leads to a successful and a fulfilling life.

Karthik: So I want to leave you all with that. Um, and I love if you can all, uh, try out Ignition and give me feedback. Uh, Ignition, the website is HTTPS colon slash slash have Ignition. com. And my name is Karthik Suresh. You can find me on Twitter. It's just Karthik Suresh. Um, and then on Suresh LBS. Um, yeah, connect with me.

Karthik: Uh, let me know if you have any questions. Um, but yeah, thank you.

Mehmet: Thank you very much, Karthik, [00:45:00] for all these, you know, valuable insights you shared with us today. For, uh, the audience, don't worry about the links. They are available in the show notes, so you can find them there and connect directly with Karthik.

Mehmet: And please go and try Ignition also as well. Um, thank you again, Karthik, You know, being with me here today, I really enjoyed it. And this is how I usually end my podcast episodes. So this is for the audience. If you just discovered this podcast by luck, thank you for passing by. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did so please subscribe and share it with your friends and colleagues.

Mehmet: We are available on all podcasting platforms and we are available on YouTube also as well. And if you are one of the loyal people who comes. Always back to us. Thank you very much for your support and for your feedback comments that you sent privately to me. Thank you very much for this and thank you for tuning in.

Mehmet: We'll meet again very soon. Thank you. Bye bye.