How Clay Scaled from 0 to $30M ARR in 2 years with Product-Led Growth with Co-Founder & CEO Kareem Amin

00:00:00: Changing your mind in the middle without the data changing is the biggest risk for an early stage startup.

00:00:06: This was maybe a idea that I just use internally, i think companies own verbs and for us the verb is growth.

00:00:13: Are we building the biggest thing?

00:00:14: Is this aligned with what?

00:00:42: Because I've seen this before, the main thing you need to look for is does anyone like it?

00:00:47: You shouldn't focus on people who don't care about and should be aware of why they don't.

00:00:51: But that's what actually

00:01:06: matters!

00:01:08: What happened since twenty seventeen that made you stick and be honest like how often did You think about hey should we actually continue or should We quit?

00:01:16: sounds Like you want to dig into the juicy part?

00:01:19: There are many more founders out there struggling than experiencing hyper growth.

00:01:24: We're covering a little bit of the product-led growth motion that play is using.

00:01:28: we Are also talking about like the issues coming with hyper growth But to most part of the interview, we are discussing The frameworks that Karim and his team used To find this one spark that then brought all the momentum.

00:01:41: therefore without further ado You're listening to the unicorn bakery.

00:01:45: My name is Fabian Tausch and let's dive deep into the tactics on building

00:01:49: clay.

00:01:49: Karim, welcome to The Unicorn Bakery!

00:01:52: Yeah thanks for having me.

00:01:54: In general many would say clay is THE overnight success throughout our last years in... ...the last months when it comes to go-to market and revenue operations.

00:02:05: I think no tool has been named that often or discussed THAT often.

00:02:11: but what many don't know is that you're building since twenty seventeen.

00:02:16: And I found an interview in which he stated, That In early twenty-twenty years, Revenues were still close to zero and then end of twenty twenty four or like the full year of Twenty twenty four i found An article that estimates Like thirty million in ARR Which would Definitely show what happened Since twenty twenty two.

00:02:38: but I would love to also understand what happened since twenty seventeen that made you stick.

00:02:45: To building rather than saying we're giving up where were over it, We don't want anymore.

00:02:52: so take us back too the early beginnings of clay and then will uncover step-by-step a few of the stepping stones.

00:03:00: yeah off course sounds like you wanna dig into the juicy parts.

00:03:04: um Yeah.

00:03:05: So in twenty seventeen i started The company with um, my really close friend.

00:03:12: Um best friend Nikolai and we had gone to college together.

00:03:17: We also like worked on a company before together.

00:03:19: So we have been Really just working together for most of our adult lives And we had been Feeling really excited about the idea of giving The power of programming To an order of magnitude more people Just making it More accessible.

00:03:34: so It was really I think actually anticipating some Of the stuff that's happening today with LLMs And just saying, like if you can't kind of create malleable software or things that help you get your job done.

00:03:50: You can't really capture a lot of the productivity gains that were happening in the twenty-first century If you got telecomputer where?

00:03:55: Kind of what to do.

00:03:58: and we were pretty much kind exploring that space broadly and playing around with lots of different metaphors that hopefully people could understand for programming, right?

00:04:14: So there was obviously like a workflow tool where you're step one, step two steps three.

00:04:20: And then other ideas we had come up with what if you can connect to APIs have a front end for them?

00:04:33: so I think it ended a product similar to Retool.

00:04:38: But we had been exploring it around the same time and were also kind of thinking about spreadsheets, realizing that spreadsheets are the world's most popular programming environment but they're not connected all over different APIs to pull data in or push out.

00:04:57: so they were isolated.

00:04:58: It was almost like Google Sheets made it collaborative from various places on the web.

00:05:07: You couldn't just click on a cell and say, bring you know?

00:05:10: The stock price of whatever or like.

00:05:13: here's Google Like.

00:05:15: what does it do right?

00:05:16: Or give me a list Of people that work there.

00:05:19: so That was kind of the beginnings of the idea for clay.

00:05:24: So one of the things that you did early On um and tested early on stuck with division till today And were the base layer.

00:05:32: and What Did you have to kick out?

00:05:35: Well, we had a lot of.

00:05:37: I think.

00:05:38: I guess part of what you know the audience for your podcast might be earlier In their journey and thinking about kind of like different trade-offs.

00:05:47: So we were pretty systematic About What?

00:05:51: The decisions we have to make are so.

00:05:54: one of them was our rebuilding this tool for Software engineers who could be ten X better or non-engineers.

00:06:02: And that's something we kind of kept going back and forth on in two ways, one is what do you want to build?

00:06:10: Two things are the biggest opportunity right?

00:06:14: The reason why I was thinking about bigger opportunities like more chances for us.

00:06:32: So in the beginning, I would say we were not making that choice clearly.

00:06:36: We are kind of exploring and within software developers which looking at what are categories here?

00:06:50: Could we target indie hackers who're building small software products And that could be a really interesting place to like speed them up there.

00:07:02: If you have an idea, You can turn it into reality quickly.

00:07:05: generally That concept of you haven't idea and turned in into reality?

00:07:08: Quickly has been something that has stuck from the beginning till now and we were just deciding which Customer should be able to do that.

00:07:18: so with indie developers The thought process that we came too was okay.

00:07:22: even if we help people here they'll eventually want to move off More customizable platforms and so anybody that actually makes money will eventually leave Or else there'll be a small customer, and there's not enough of small customers for it to be A big enough business to sustain kind of like the ambition that we had.

00:07:44: So he ended up deciding against that.

00:07:46: And then there was what if we targeted front-end developers who want to build internal tools?

00:07:58: which is usually something that you want to put together quickly.

00:08:02: And maybe your not the most technical person, but you need like a dashboard or you needs and it's just analytics with some things actually takes action on.

00:08:13: so we're pretty excited about that because our customer success could use this.

00:08:17: there was alot of internal teams that needed build internal tools with software.

00:08:26: Well, we ended up coming to that one was a difficult choice because We thought it would be a really good business and like a really big need And I'd aligned with kind of our ambition.

00:08:35: But we ended Up also thinking That will At the time.

00:08:41: We thought there were kind Of too many points of friction in order To build It.

00:08:45: well you Need access to Like your internal data?

00:08:53: It's harder to build a PLG company if you need access to internal data as the first step.

00:08:58: and then The second thing is we were like, we can't probably make it easy enough for non-engineers.

00:09:04: So will probably just speed up engineers.

00:09:07: And that's not.

00:09:09: We ended up mostly through this exploration deciding hey, we want to help Non-engineer give people more access.

00:09:16: so That led us away from those two categories of ideas To the spreadsheet as the metaphor that makes sense.

00:09:23: And we ended up building a no-code builder app initially.

00:09:28: So it was like a spreadsheet, which is kind of database We had like a workflow view where you could do workflows and even how to place or you can write functions To manipulate the data.

00:09:40: so for people who are familiar with clay this quite far away from Where were today?

00:09:49: Even though it actually is the same building blocks, but um It might not be recognizable to people who aren't kind of familiar with the whole story.

00:09:58: So when did you find the first insights?

00:10:02: To move from developers to salespeople

00:10:07: so that The.

00:10:08: it was actually my co-founder Nikolai Who suggested this and we kind of.

00:10:13: he kind of saw it from the beginning.

00:10:17: He was like oh.

00:10:18: We could use this where also.

00:10:20: I'll just walk you through our analysis, right?

00:10:22: We're like okay we're working with spreadsheets.

00:10:24: We're pulling an API...I built a super simple version where you can pull in data from a couple of different tools and you could even push data back.

00:10:39: so when we saw it pop up into cell we both felt this feels magic Which ended up kind of being like the feeling that came across to others, but we were analyzing it and we're like if its a spreadsheet.

00:10:53: This is all super abstract But I'm sharing because i think It's helpful for other people whose brains work this way.

00:11:01: We could go To Use financial data numbers.

00:11:06: That's what people do in spreadsheets?

00:11:07: Thats one thing you can Do And there are companies equals that end up doing that.

00:11:12: Or You Could Go To List Building which is the other thing that people do in spreadsheets.

00:11:17: and who's building lists?

00:11:18: will it salespeople its marketers as customer success, let's go to market teams.

00:11:24: And so one of things did he started doing was reaching out to people talk about our product until you start doing prospecting.

00:11:32: I'm and was like hey we should really kind of like set up to do prospecting on quickly.

00:11:39: we decided there's outbound than others in bound And there was a huge kind of conversation around where we should start.

00:11:48: But that's how it came to us pretty early, but ended up spending time not deciding if this is our customer or deciding and then walking back which I think is the common thing when you're at an early stage startup.

00:12:12: Um, you kind of like need to figure out how to build conviction in this and why.

00:12:17: So you mean your left doors open widely?

00:12:20: And didn't narrow it the product down enough.

00:12:24: Yes so we both left it widely on our marketing page.

00:12:31: um even just mentally were thinking about salespeople.

00:12:37: but if someone came with another use case Like we had a lot of like use cases on clay early.

00:12:44: On maybe it's different type of data enrichment.

00:12:49: or someone there was an e-commerce store that was sending a lot Of Data through Clay and We would enrich It with A few pieces of Information And send it back.

00:12:58: so, it Was also not both.

00:13:00: the customer wasn't clear?

00:13:02: And we were taking on too many Use Cases.

00:13:04: I'm trying to support them and we have The typical Thing Where you know.

00:13:08: this Customer for example Would Send us these Bursts of Data And so our system would struggle to handle it, and the question was should we figure out how to scale this or is not a core use case?

00:13:20: Also if you looked at our integrations.

00:13:22: We had so many different types of integration right.

00:13:25: they weren't all for data enrichment.

00:13:27: So you could pull in product usage data.

00:13:30: You can pull in data from Stripe.

00:13:33: It wasn't...and I think that's totally fine.

00:13:36: as you grow and decrease the surface area so that you don't have as many bugs at.

00:13:42: The time we struggled with having a lot of bugs in a big conversation, were having internally is do we need to up our engineering skill?

00:13:51: Or Is it because We Have A Very Large Surface Area That There Are Bugs Probably A Mixer Of Both?

00:13:58: So Your Recommendation Will Be Especially In The Early Stages.

00:14:01: You'd Start With A Very Very Very Focused Approach And Then Everything that you have in your head as a founder, how the product could evolve.

00:14:11: Once you gain traction You can still think about implementing things That are...that you would build on a broader product because you're trying to leave open doors?

00:14:23: You can then think hey is this use case we now implement?

00:14:27: once We know what our ICP go-to market and outbound sales people need?

00:14:36: Right.

00:14:37: I think that to make it super concrete, there are many different approaches and you just have to know which approach your on.

00:15:04: First, you have to have conviction on what your building and why.

00:15:09: And that doesn't need to be upfront.

00:15:13: it could be a back-and-forth process of... You're seeing what customers want.

00:15:18: What do you care about in finding the mixture?

00:15:20: So for us we are creative tool right.

00:15:24: so what creative means is super flexible.

00:15:27: its open ended.

00:15:28: We kept that part but then narrowed down four go-to market teams.

00:15:34: Right.

00:15:34: so our mission is to help The companies grow by turning any idea that they have into reality.

00:15:42: So we kept that part.

00:15:43: So clay's still a. you know, I compare it till like a guitar Versus the microwave.

00:15:50: right if you go to a microwave It has a single use case or couple of use cases.

00:15:54: You're gonna heat your food Maybe auto defrost you press a button?

00:15:58: That works with a guitar you have six strings and twelve frets And you can play anything figuring this out.

00:16:05: And there's a feeling of mastery that comes with that, so we're the same way that figmas for designers right or an IDE like cursors for developers.

00:16:16: clay is kind of the tool for expression for go to market teams and So that was really important.

00:16:24: and what?

00:16:24: That?

00:16:24: the implications of that are that We create these building blocks in clay and that's why the company called clay that you can mix and match together to implement your idea.

00:16:36: So we needed it to be super clear about what are the building blocks, right?

00:16:40: What are the primitives in the product?

00:16:43: And so that stayed open-ended like there's a table There is integrations.

00:16:46: There was ways to connect these integrations together.

00:16:50: Then after that well We did actually take our positioning and marketing and narrowed That.

00:16:59: In fact The products were removed the workflow product and function products, we kept as a table enrichment.

00:17:06: We decided our first kind of product is if you are struggling with having really great data enrichment, we aggregate every data provider and show it to in a table so that you can build a list of companies or people.

00:17:20: You mix-match how do your data enrichments then send them into an outreach tool.

00:17:29: And so that's like a very clear problem and I'm very clear proposition.

00:17:33: using the same things we built, but we just articulated the problem differently.

00:17:38: It still ended up.

00:17:40: people felt they were programming because there are playing around with different data enrichments in how to set it up.

00:17:45: But is was uh...a narrow use case.

00:17:47: then moved our positioning on our go-to market.

00:17:50: be about that.

00:17:51: So i think actually we narrowed down our GoToMarket and kept product flexible.

00:17:57: So we only simplified a few things in the product, like removed integrations that don't make sense anymore.

00:18:03: But kept it open-ended and I think that's one strategy.

00:18:06: if you want to build a creative tool

00:18:09: Before we talk about what made the product then so sticky?

00:18:14: And sort of people at some point from all differentiation into years before thought hey That is what i need.

00:18:23: Let us quickly talk about conversations with your cofounders Because what we currently walk through our years of, hey.

00:18:31: We see some signs that things are working but it's not picking up the much as we want.

00:18:38: What?

00:18:38: Are we doing?

00:18:39: isn't enough to build further?

00:18:41: do we have to pivot so constantly?

00:18:44: you Have to reiterate there is a team.

00:18:46: You have to have very hard conversations.

00:18:50: So what Is your advice for teams Currently building Don't see the uptick yet on truthful and hard co-founder conversations.

00:19:05: I think you have to have really high bandwidth between the cofounders, to be able to talk about this.

00:19:12: And my advice is what's tricky in these types of conversations Is kind of going in loops or revisiting the same subjects over and over again when nothing has changed.

00:19:28: So I think what's helpful is to set a time where you're discussing, What Is It That We're Building?

00:19:36: Because i think that When You Are In A Startup Every Kind Of Couple of Days You Feel Differently.

00:19:43: so sometimes you feel...I mean people are quite familiar with this.

00:19:45: Sometimes You Feel Like Things Are Going Well Our Idea Is Gonna Work It All Makes Sense And Then Other Times It feels like this is a dead end or it's not as big of an idea you thought.

00:20:00: And interestingly, A lot the things that we thought early on ended up happening in clay and its kind.

00:20:06: funny to be like oh!

00:20:07: We thought about this four years ago now finally coming into fruition.

00:20:11: but it also just really depends on timing and amount of momentum than you have at market.

00:20:16: so there are many thing that I'll give you.

00:20:21: simple example right?

00:20:23: had to decide is the product gonna be super easy, you press one button and it builds a list.

00:20:28: And do kind of like can get on with it or are we going give maximum power?

00:20:34: Right!

00:20:35: Everybody thought that should be super-easy.

00:20:37: right?

00:20:37: if your selling for salespeople or marketers they have their busy needs to kinda few clicks then gets stuff done.

00:20:46: We actually ended up go in opposite direction Right where it's super flexible and super powerful.

00:20:52: And we give it to kind of the people who are ready To push the boundaries on how to do these tactics, and that's both a differentiation ended builds It helps them figure out how to grow in How to?

00:21:06: Do growth?

00:21:07: Um, and it ended up being Actually what's necessary because a lot of things here The last twenty percent or super finicky and if you don't do it right doesn't work.

00:21:19: So that kind of decision, when you're chatting with your let's say team about it.

00:21:26: You just have to be really clear about which one these are going try first?

00:21:31: What what do believe?

00:21:33: and then why did we end up seeing?

00:21:39: the other version could also work by the way products super simple or maybe not even the word simple but they're super targeted on one use case and it works.

00:21:51: You just need to know which one you are doing, why you believe that's the biggest one.

00:21:56: so once you decide my suggestion is commit a time frame where your going test out really give them chance.

00:22:06: do not change their mind in middle.

00:22:08: I actually think changing our minds without data changes is the biggest risk for an early stage startup.

00:22:16: And even right now when we, you know what I work with our engineering teams they might ship a feature and be really depressed that no one's using it.

00:22:23: But because i've seen this before... ...I would say the main thing you need to look for is does anyone like it?

00:22:32: Right so he might ship something.

00:22:33: maybe ten people start using it.. ..and so we need to focus on those ten people.

00:22:38: So not-you shouldn't focus on the people who don't care about it.

00:22:41: You should be aware of why they don't.

00:22:43: We should focus on.

00:22:45: if does anyone like it is zero.

00:22:47: people like you should try something else.

00:22:49: If there's a couple of people that like it, we should focus in on them and say why do I get what is actually useful here for us at the same thing?

00:22:58: did we believe this or maybe something else?

00:23:01: And then what else to want and build momentum with them very soon.

00:23:07: so we've had features that we launched.

00:23:09: looks like a flop Right, but then we hone in on the people who thought it was interesting or Who used that?

00:23:15: We improve at really quickly.

00:23:16: We only work with those People and then suddenly It becomes more useful to a broader set of people.

00:23:25: I know your answer get depends so therefore i won't ask if like one person can be enough To find The momentum That you're looking for.

00:23:36: id rather Ask how are You approaching the launch Of new features now?

00:23:41: Are you giving them out and just like unlocking them.

00:23:45: And saying, Hey let's just see who clicks on that or are you?

00:23:50: Saying hey statistically we need a subset of?

00:23:54: when you say You have north than one hundred thousand users Are your only rolling it out to a thousand?

00:23:59: then See how many of these are using them.

00:24:03: How are you approaching that today and how are you deciding That?

00:24:05: yeah I'll answer Your first question as well.

00:24:07: i think the...I would Say One person is not enough.

00:24:12: You should be talking to more than a couple of people so that you have some repeatability and I think if there was one person who is interested in it, then i've shown It To Twenty People.

00:24:23: I would Be Curious.

00:24:24: what's unique about That Person?

00:24:26: So I Would Say Anybody That'S Interested Is Gives You Something Worth While But By Interested I mean If You've Built It They're Using It not they say they like it They're Actually using it.

00:24:38: If it's just someone who says they're curious about it, you need to figure out why their curious.

00:24:44: and are there more people that are curious for the same reason.

00:24:47: I think a trick early on is how you should be very honest with yourself.

00:24:55: if they like it because of this or multiple different reasons when trying That's the hard part about building things is holding the honesty of like, wow five people liked this but for completely different reasons and still holding the optimism.

00:25:14: Of we will figure it out even though I know that This isn't actually working right now.

00:25:19: We'll figure It Out.

00:25:20: So you need to be honest with yourself that this Isn't quite it And have The Optimism that Will Figure It Out.

00:25:27: Hopefully Thats Helpful.

00:25:29: i think its balancing those two kind Ways of looking at the truth, but you definitely need to see the truth.

00:25:37: if You're lying yourself and saying oh they are saying The same thing or everybody's interested in this feature then And you didn't really hear the customers.

00:25:45: Then it's not gonna work.

00:25:47: So don't lie to yourself To have optimism.

00:25:49: look a you can look at your self failing and still be like we're going to get It.

00:25:54: and for the second question how do We launch things today?

00:25:59: I think there two types of features line internally that we call make it work, then Make It Great.

00:26:06: Right?

00:26:07: And so depends on what type of feature does So.

00:26:09: if its a make-it-work feature That means either some customer or our Slack channel has twenty thousand people We have feedback and customers using them to get information about what they need.

00:26:26: If you are just unlocking something for your customer Then we unlock and we put it out.

00:26:33: And unlike, you know if your building SpaceX You can't have a mistake otherwise the thing blows up right?

00:26:38: Whereas with go-to market experimentation creative software We can launch things If It doesn't work there's no problem Right!

00:26:45: We Can fix it quickly.

00:26:46: so we tend to launch Things That Customers Ask for Directly To Customers Then Iterate Quickly.

00:26:54: If Its A Make In Great Feature then Either that's already something we have and we're trying to streamline it or take it the next level.

00:27:04: And in that case, we take our time designing it building it... ...and roll out an experimentation system setup.

00:27:14: We'll roll it up to ten, twenty-five, fifty percent into a hundred Anything with a lot of impact on customers will be rolled out slowly or progressively.

00:27:28: That makes a lot of sense.

00:27:30: So still not over the lower, end-of-the-journey like starting point.

00:27:42: how often and be honest as you can?

00:27:46: How often did you think about hey should we actually continue or should quit do something completely new or go back to product lead?

00:27:58: But I don't think that like in the first couple of years, let's say three years did that ever occurred to me.

00:28:21: The thought is really specific.

00:28:24: I think.

00:28:29: with different configurations of people, it turns to different things.

00:28:32: Like for us It was very much like are we building the biggest thing?

00:28:36: and then is this aligned With what?

00:28:38: We care about?

00:28:39: those were kind of our questions that kept coming up.

00:28:41: Um i think we really believed That we were going to build something meaningful And something good because we believe in ourselves.

00:28:49: um and also Because we wanted too like.

00:28:51: we really felt that we had The capability and a desire to do it.

00:28:57: But it was more like Are we building a thing like is this still aligned with our vision of giving the power of programming or not?

00:29:07: Right and does that matter?

00:29:09: so that kind of came up a lot.

00:29:12: And then The other one.

00:29:14: So, you know as soon as we started thinking about go-to market We're like well, we're not sales or marketers.

00:29:18: So why should we be in this space right Like what do we know about it that other people don't?

00:29:22: so I was partially convincing ourselves That while we had here was something valuable to add.

00:29:28: And eventually we came to that because were like oh, we played around with existing tools.

00:29:31: We tried to do prospecting or like.

00:29:33: this is not how he would have designed it right.

00:29:36: so you don't have an insight here.

00:29:38: and then we eventually needed to come take care about by saying oh it's about giving this creative ability too.

00:29:45: a whole group of people who had all these ideas I've had grow the company but can't execute it right.

00:29:50: once those two things aligned became easier to build.

00:29:53: And then there's the second part is like, Is this the biggest idea that we could do?

00:29:57: Um and I think i've talked about This before but for me.

00:30:01: This was a personal journey of coming to A place where I didn't need To Do That.

00:30:08: um and so I don't I Don't Think About That A lot.

00:30:11: I think it's Actually A red Herring in Potential Trap.

00:30:17: You need to kind of keep an like eye out for what is the biggest thing if that's what you care about, but If you explicitly try to build The Biggest Thing I think you will fall into a lot Of traps along the way because it starts being About you rather than how your helping other people And A business Is really about Helping Other People.

00:30:38: So i had To Come To A Place Where I'm Like It Doesn't Really Matter For Building The Biggest Thing Or Not?

00:30:46: We're building a creative tool to help go-to market people turn their ideas into reality.

00:30:51: And that's what we care about, right?

00:30:59: One of the other things is you need to look at yourself as a team and know some people are so focused on the details they don't have big picture whereas actually had like very big picture.

00:31:08: So knew then can always grow the pie but didn't kind of like okay What do I doing next?

00:31:16: So I knew that what we needed to do was the focus some other people need to broaden right again.

00:31:20: That's why advice needs actually be specific too, What is your current?

00:31:27: Yeah where were would you need in this Pacific moment?

00:31:30: and when we need it is two not pay attention to what does the biggest market or analysis around that?

00:31:38: because i knew they could always add something that's adjacent.

00:31:40: This a huge space.

00:31:42: I wait to figure out if something is big or not instead of doing market analysis which.

00:31:49: Is possible but it's not my favorite tool as to really think about like what does something fundamental that doesn't change right?

00:31:57: If you are in capitalism, businesses have to grow and they have to figure ways to go there trying all these different ideas of how the growth our company need to be able try up this idea quickly see which ones work on which one don't and we're the tool to help them do that.

00:32:11: That's obviously going to be a huge lift, right?

00:32:16: And you will be able to capture a lot of value if we did that and provide a lot Of value.

00:32:20: so he knew it was gonna Be big.

00:32:22: So then You have To kind of drop the need for It to be Big immediately or quickly and Just focus on Building Momentum.

00:32:29: I think thats actually The main thing in A company everybody talks about.

00:32:34: But the practical reality of building momentum Which means find some customers that are similar and then figure out where, which groups they're in how to find more like them.

00:32:47: Make sure the messaging is the same And once you get these customers You should be able To get more engineers or build your team around this because we have a clear need.

00:32:59: By the way teams work much More efficiently when They can see That their serving someone.

00:33:04: If Your building a Team just pitching them on keep building and then eventually you'll get customers.

00:33:10: At some point they run out of steam, but if they can hear the customer... And that's what we did in our Slack channel.

00:33:16: ask for something?

00:33:17: Then you will find your engineers immediately delivering because they can see their impact.

00:33:21: You could use it to raise money.

00:33:23: If That is What You Want To Do Turn Keep The Loop Going!

00:33:33: Take me back to the moment when you and team for the first time had a feeling like Whoa, we now have the momentum that we were looking for years.

00:33:45: So we when we launched the product on product hunt in February twenty-twenty two We actually it was kind of fun story because we were at our office And we are preparing And I think you have to launch it as like, a twelve AM PT.

00:34:08: Should we stay up for that?

00:34:10: We'll probably go home and do it from home but ended needing so many last minute things... ...that stayed until three AM at the office and started seeing votes come in.

00:34:24: Um, and we ended up being you know.

00:34:27: We went to sleep from like three into six and then got back up and kept going.

00:34:30: um And it was uh It was fun because I remember emailing everybody that i've ever met in my life and been Like please do this?

00:34:39: Um help support it.

00:34:41: um and we end up being number one for the day In The week or month.

00:34:52: What was great is that we saw this uptick of people understanding what to do in the product, and it's starting to resonate with people super early on.

00:35:02: We did have some revenue at the time but it wasn't that much And within two months from then there were a couple of people who had left the team At that point Probably in June, that we started seeing consistent growth month over month and it stayed in double digits the whole time until now.

00:35:31: I

00:35:34: think i read you ten x two years after another so from twenty three to twenty four which definitely shows the amount of uptick and momentum what would was where the building blocks

00:35:55: for

00:35:56: The momentum to consistently Stay and not like because there are so many companies that I know they'd have liked this product hand moment or others.

00:36:05: That our Let's say creating dis bus as a one-time As a one off, And then it's flattening and then growth of flatening Or nuts not staying at all.

00:36:18: So you must've had some building blocks that are Yeah, tailored or at least helping to keep the momentum.

00:36:26: Totally yeah I mean.

00:36:27: so you know just give your sense of how like clay works.

00:36:32: there's a PLG motion Which has been primarily how we've been growing, so PLG you find the product.

00:36:38: You sign up and start using it then pay us And we just layered on what we call a sales assist motion which is some of the PLG customers.

00:36:47: We upgrade them to annual if they're using the product in particular ways that make sense for That?

00:36:52: Then we have a sales led motion which we introduced recently On the longer term, we were adding these different motions together and where... We just have a partner motion now.

00:37:02: Where we have A lot of the Collagencies And other kind of partners that help That we co-sell with.

00:37:09: So you know I think for longterm growth You need to layer on multiple go-to market motions.

00:37:16: Initially though The so at the time that That we did the product hunt launch Um, we had my co-founder Varun was just joining us.

00:37:31: And at the time he was kind of joining in ahead of ops role and He played a very big part In setting up our go to market motion while he was responsible for the go to marketing motion but he Played a really big part in kicking that into gear.

00:37:45: um, and what he did?

00:37:46: it's pretty amazing.

00:37:47: so he would sit almost like a PM.

00:37:52: you'd sit with our customers to do an onboarding call.

00:37:59: And we had one dedicated engineer working with him, who was a customer engineer.

00:38:04: and basically Varun would sit in these back-to-back calls all day every day for thirty minutes on boarding customers.

00:38:11: so they'd come up.

00:38:11: the problem initially took us three calls to get them set upon clay.

00:38:17: Our metric is like let's drive this down So let's make product improvements.

00:38:23: He would get on these calls, send me all the feedback... Me and the engineer work on prioritizing them right or figuring out what is actual solution?

00:38:33: And we do that immediately!

00:38:35: Sometimes while a person was on-the-call it fixed an issue.

00:38:40: We got down to one call when decided to do something called reverse demo.

00:38:46: When you come don't demo products but just walk through how to set it up in clay.

00:38:52: And what that did was we both got feedback from you, because we could watch what you're doing and at the same time We were teaching You How To Use The Product So You Could use It Yourself!

00:39:03: Um...and then we eventually said okay let's drive it down to zero calls.

00:39:08: um so In order to do That we had to build documentation fix all the issues with the product that we know about make sure that we only take calls if it's something new or unique than what you haven't seen before.

00:39:27: That was the initial path, at the same time this is interesting because a lot of agencies help with growth and they are very sophisticated actually.

00:39:43: So they're more sophisticated often than some of the bigger companies because their experimenting with the latest techniques for growth and We had a bunch of them using clay or experimenting with clay, but initially we weren't focused on them Because we thought is this the right market?

00:39:59: For us?

00:39:59: are they to write customer You know.

00:40:02: We They're not in companies that are super well known so people won't Know kind of like that.

00:40:09: we have this traction.

00:40:11: But as we started talking to them, we realized they actually have the most need.

00:40:15: They're working with multiple companies that we would love to work with.

00:40:18: so there are great channel partner for us and at the same time their feedback was extremely effective and helpful And so We found out that they often Have these WhatsApp groups where they're sharing ideas?

00:40:36: Um, became really friendly.

00:40:39: Uh, Varun kind of got to know a couple them personally.

00:40:41: that became personal friends and we basically just joined their WhatsApp groups and would help them figure out what they need to do And also fix any of the issues as quickly as possible.

00:40:53: and That became our initial distribution channel and The initial kind of like feedback loop.

00:40:59: So once that happened We realized that they need customers And so they would post on LinkedIn saying, Hey here's this cool play that we have for good market and were using clay to do it.

00:41:12: Right?

00:41:13: That became an engine of telling other people about clay.

00:41:18: when I summed us up you have by now You have twenty thousand people in the select channel early on used For example The so-called clagencies that you build up and or helped work together with building a product.

00:41:34: So when I summarized this or put us together, it's definitely a community play because we're working close with people that then also share it on for example LinkedIn.

00:41:46: That they are working with Clay and use that as the word of mouth motion.

00:41:53: And so what would you say?

00:41:56: Because i know A lot of B to be founders who will Say It is not possible To build a btb Community at The moment Not For My Product.

00:42:04: How and why did it work to build a community motion?

00:42:10: And what was making it successful.

00:42:13: Yeah, I think that's again why you need to align your go-to market motion with the type of product that you're building um and where you're trying achieve.

00:42:20: so in our case It's a creative tool right.

00:42:24: So creative means you have a bunch of primitives high flexibility and you're trying to turn any idea that you have for growing your company into reality.

00:42:32: And so the community here makes sense because when we set up our Slack group, We initially set it up as a customer support public forum um...and That was a risky idea cause everybody could see people's complaints right?

00:42:47: But It ended being super helpful Because People would post about something someone else might respond to it or we would respond to.

00:42:54: And people could see the speed at which we are responding, was built momenta but We were already tapping into The fact that People Were building Communities about this the communities where these WhatsApp groups Where they were sharing These tips and tricks?

00:43:09: so we just kind of went Into these communities and Aggregated them in To the same place.

00:43:16: So we realized okay you're Already doing This stuff In whatsapp Groups and we were doing it publicly in our Slack channel so you could see all the different tactics.

00:43:26: And because our product was super open-ended, It actually made sense to... And ended up always there's like a latest tactic.

00:43:33: or there is way too do something that little bit more complex.

00:43:37: You can get help from others.

00:43:39: Then other would get credit and cash for helping you whether its personal or broadly.

00:43:46: people start getting known to be like, oh this is the person you ask about things.

00:43:50: And then they would get hired right?

00:43:52: So um one of the early people that we worked with was Eric Noslowski and part of what he was doing was... He was sharing his tactics and techniques because then he wanted to help people but two-he would get well known as the person who knows the most about this and then people would hire his agency.

00:44:13: I think that's super interesting.

00:44:15: When I think and spin this further, like everyone coming to me saying hey it's not possible for me.

00:44:44: probably create content around that of course it feels more obvious in quotation marks to do let for go-to market.

00:44:51: but there are so many.

00:44:54: Different needs out.

00:44:55: they're dead.

00:44:56: if you know very specifically and thats what we discussed the first half off this podcast is like saying no too.

00:45:03: a lot of things to find the thing.

00:45:04: did he want to commit two?

00:45:06: If you know what to commit too, it's easier.

00:45:08: also think hey these are the people that we want and need to bring together.

00:45:12: To then spark a conversation become more of household brand in this space.

00:45:17: instead something starts from one day another definitely not.

00:45:21: yeah any wanna know like for us we our kind of like um... This is maybe an idea.

00:45:28: uh.. I just use internally.

00:45:30: i think companies own verbs Right.

00:45:33: so maybe google own search or organize right over owns to move.

00:45:39: And if you use that kind of concept, he could say okay uber.

00:45:44: You know there's a person moves another person to another place but then you can instead have moved the person with package right and set up a person moving into.

00:45:51: it would be autonomous.

00:45:52: so we can come up all these different ideas around the verb and for us the verb is grow right.

00:45:57: um i'm gonna think about as not just grow Like help grow companies but helped grow people.

00:46:05: so sometimes the thing that's blocking.

00:46:07: The company is growth is first personal growth and So, that's what we focus on in our community were trying to help people grow Authentically right?

00:46:16: So both growing their job or just grows human beings.

00:46:19: And so if you're setting up kind of an event then it's about personal growth And people then care About your company and your product because they know A lot of people that use clay are getting promoted because the impact they're having and thats what actually matters.

00:46:42: There's so many ways to continue but one question I have in mind for a while already is, What is the major shift we currently experiencing?

00:46:52: The whole world of go-to market?

00:46:55: That clay is definitely on the one hand driving Um, riding the wave at a same time.

00:47:03: Yeah there's.

00:47:05: uh I'll just steal your comment right now.

00:47:07: There are many ways to answer this.

00:47:09: um i think We are writing a wave of.

00:47:13: you can Think of it as like malleable software or just in-time software with llms Right?

00:47:18: You can build software faster Now and custom made software And that's something That we believed In early on but now is Made even more Realizable and so I think what clay does is it allows you to express like an idea really quickly into software.

00:47:40: And, It's much more customizable and its easier to customize this in the go-to market space.

00:47:50: And the way to do that is to target the right people at the right time and say, The Right Thing.

00:47:55: That's always been the case but techniques are becoming increasingly more complex because you have a lot of data available and play allows you work with it quickly easily.

00:48:07: So another way we can look into this market.

00:48:11: There're co-pilots and things help sellers or marketers or front line people Do their job efficiently.

00:48:21: So there's tools doing that.

00:48:23: Then, the opposite end of all these tools call themselves digital workers and are trying to replace a person fully... ...and just say AI will do it whole thing.

00:48:33: And then I think we're riding away from saying There is third way which you move jobs done more technical like a GTM engineer or RevOps person.

00:48:43: They can enable front-line people by trying out creative ideas really quickly using AI And I think we're riding the wave of this emergence, or it's almost like a reformulation of more technical person being very central because they can use tools like Clay and AI to enable whole team.

00:49:06: Both decrease number people that are needed do something.

00:49:14: You can either spend all of your time talking to customers or you can upskill yourself and become one of these GTM engineers.

00:49:21: How will this change the setup off GTM teams?

00:49:26: I think that, uh...you'll find it-that you consolidate more tasks into one person.

00:49:36: so instead having maybe an SDR And the sales engineer, we've kind of combined all those roles into GTME.

00:49:46: So I think you upskill people and then they're able to do a couple different tasks which is both more interesting and powerful right?

00:49:55: The way teams are structured would be.

00:49:58: there's always going.

00:50:00: you can look across all of go to market so it's less siloed sales marketing customer success.

00:50:05: You should be looking at all your efforts across these as GTM and then I think there is a GTM ops team almost like a systems team that are looking, hey do we have the data from different places third party data and first party data?

00:50:18: To make the best go-to-market kind of campaigns to implement their ideas.

00:50:28: And the go-to market team is passing ideas back to the ops team, who then implements them and tells them if it worked or not?

00:50:35: So I think you really need this GTM Ops & Systems Team.

00:50:40: How are you building your own Go To Market team done?

00:50:44: It's very much exactly how i describe This.

00:50:47: so we have GoToMarket engineers Who Are Playing The Role Of Sales Person And Sales Engineer And then we have a go-to market ops team that is basically taking the best tactics and implementing them really quickly in clay.

00:51:08: The cool thing, what's allowed us to do... We almost don't have anybody entering any information into CRMs manually everything automated but also the team able be way more creative because they're being supported by all of the ops kind of roles in automating a lot like, how do you prepare for meeting?

00:51:31: Who have we reached out to?

00:51:33: getting information from our own internal systems about who this customer is really quickly as well as outreach.

00:51:41: We are sending more outreach through Clay and having it be very accurate.

00:51:51: So knowing that clay is definitely a substantial part of your own go-to market, but probably not the only one because clay's not delivering every solution to every problem.

00:52:02: What are the tools you're most excited about?

00:52:06: when we look at the GoToMarket stack?

00:52:07: We don't have talk.

00:52:08: like all tools I think there was no time for it and could deliver value to founders listening.

00:52:20: So I think, you know.

00:52:20: just to add your first comment we do use clay internally for most things and then there are a bunch of features that we haven't released.

00:52:28: That we build internally first.

00:52:30: so we built some of the things to power ourselves in.

00:52:34: once they work We ship them And so we tend to kind of build versus buy.

00:52:39: obviously For go-to market tools The things that i'm excited about Are well one Of our customers.

00:52:46: intercom their tool fin has been very, very helpful on the customer success side.

00:52:53: On helping us basically answer a lot of questions that our support team would know how to answer quickly but it'd be repetitive so they can focus more complex questions than are interesting.

00:53:11: and then second thing is really good place for product teams problems, right?

00:53:18: Like what are the constant questions and things that keep coming up.

00:53:22: And for me as a CEO to be able to kind of quickly dig into categories and then see the actual things people are saying has been super helpful

00:53:30: Super interesting.

00:53:31: I'll link to Finn in the show notes As well as to Clay obviously but still just adding that too.

00:53:40: when we We quickly have to talk about hyper growth like To be honest it's definitely one things that everyone would describe play as a company and organization with.

00:53:52: What do you say even when some founders, kind of in the situation where for five years could describe it more like luxury problem to have hyper growth problems?

00:54:08: What is the hardest part about hyper-growth on scaling?

00:54:14: I think... The hardest thing Design and kind of figuring out how to like revisit that.

00:54:25: What is the optimum?

00:54:27: Kind of times where you change The structure of the org versus keep it as-is even if some things are not Quite alive, right because as a team grows its internal comms becomes super important Right?

00:54:43: so How do you communicate?

00:54:46: division in the strategy why the team is organized in this particular way for the moment.

00:54:53: And because things are changing so quickly, you have to... The way to do that I think it's just make sure people who're super flexible and emotionally mature right?

00:55:06: So we went from twenty-five hundred people one year then like a hundred to probably a hundred thirty five from beginning.

00:55:15: of trick.

00:55:19: to doing that is make sure people talk about culture a lot, but how do you make it more concrete?

00:55:29: We've built an operating principles document like many other companies.

00:55:33: Just being super clear what your operating principles are.

00:55:37: so the company needs whiplash.

00:55:47: so if you're a super flexible company don't suddenly turn into A. You know, Super disciplined company or very rule abiding Company If you do that kind of thing.

00:56:01: That's the kinda thing that confuses people as your growing?

00:56:04: You need to have some consistency because there is already So much change.

00:56:07: you need to decide what are things that stay The same in which things are flexible and changed.

00:56:13: maybe thats too vague for People To understand but You know, I'll give a quick example.

00:56:19: Right?

00:56:20: Like we are okay for example having a reporting structure that doesn't reflect kind of the priorities right now as long as everybody on the team understands what they're doing.

00:56:35: That doesn't bother us just because moving to one manager or another Creates even if in the most kind of flexible people a little bit of.

00:56:47: Slow down you have to get, know this new manager.

00:56:50: what do they need?

00:56:51: Howard?

00:56:51: often are they meeting so things are working.

00:56:54: keep them working right.

00:56:56: only change things once you get to stage where there's either like a pause or does it big reason to change the team?

00:57:05: So sometimes we've had people.

00:57:07: common advice is you should You know, five to eight people reporting too.

00:57:13: Right?

00:57:13: Whereas until now the whole engineering team still reports to me.

00:57:18: we have a few engineering managers.

00:57:20: so you're four engineering managers and there's forty people in The Engineering org And We Don't Have A Head of Edge.

00:57:27: I'm The Head Of Edge right!

00:57:29: The product team...we've got Four People.

00:57:30: They All Report To Me.

00:57:32: We Have You Know The Finance Team Is Reporting To Me.

00:57:34: The People In Brand Team Are Reporting.

00:57:37: So that's a huge number of people reporting to me.

00:57:40: And in actual reality, I'm obviously not doing and i don't do any one-on-ones right?

00:57:45: It's just if you have an issue message me and we'll deal with it immediately.

00:57:49: Right!

00:57:49: If You need some time Just book it on my calendar Now.

00:57:54: Obviously That will change as We continue To grow but We haven't Needed to Change that when we Haven't needed to add A layer Of management The unit to work through because that Does make things more complicated.

00:58:07: So I would say keep things going with as direct an impact, as you direct connections to the individual contributors.

00:58:16: As You can for as long as you can because then you have a pulse on what's happening and Then you add The layer of management when you need too And even then you don't need To make it super formal unless that's kind Of how you want to run the company.

00:58:31: but That's one way in which we've been able to scale without losing touch with kind of like what's happening or dealing with problems immediately.

00:58:41: Super interesting that I'd love to double click on your calendar and time management because when you say, hey i'm...I have so many direct reports?

00:58:50: I don't do one-on-ones.

00:58:53: Of course sometimes there are things like podcast recordings but besides that it only says message me and will deal with it immediately, meaning as soon you see the message.

00:59:06: This sounds like we have a very flexible calendar to try to minimize meetings.

00:59:15: when we look at Paul Graham's Makers vs Manager schedule I suggest that you have a Maker Schedule trying to block as much time freely.

00:59:28: so In my opinion, most founders quickly in scaling companies tend towards the manager schedule.

00:59:37: Yeah well I think that so it like you know one of the harder parts for me was kind of letting go.

00:59:44: if i'm You know?

01:00:01: You should figure out the management style that works for you, very specifically.

01:00:07: And I think the thing that's underlying that is a unique to stay in touch with The company pulse and the best way i think To do That Is To Stay In Touch With The ICs.

01:00:19: What Is Actually Happening?

01:00:21: So...I have like A Couple of Tactics To Do That Instead Of One-on-ones.

01:00:26: Right!

01:00:27: I Keep My Calendar Reasonably Open And so you could either slack me if there's an issue, right?

01:00:33: Or just book fifteen minutes and we can deal with it then.

01:00:38: Um...and sometimes you might be like sending me a so-we call it FYI culture.

01:00:42: So that you're just like FYI.

01:00:43: this is happening.

01:00:44: I'll read it.

01:00:46: Keep everything kind of in the open and slack channels.

01:00:50: That way even If i don't do it during The day I might Read It at another point.

01:00:54: Right uh..if its not urgent I will still get to knowing whats Happening.

01:01:00: So I think, let's say that this is a more reactive structure.

01:01:05: Right?

01:01:05: But it works really well if you have people who are... If your setup is like distributed decision-making which is what we have trying to empower the people working on things and then they can FYI me if their blocked or something not clear.

01:01:24: so if i see some thing is not clear across many to bring everybody together and figure out, okay is the vision not clear as a strategy?

01:01:33: Not clear.

01:01:34: So that's the internal comms part.

01:01:36: often it's just a people thing right.

01:01:39: so like this person doesn't want to do this thing or this person disagrees with this path Or This Person Is You Know It Could Be An Interpersonal Conflict right like i don't like the way this person's talking to me about x thing and so you're constantly kind of, um smoothing out these issues.

01:02:04: Or or coaching them managers to do it for next time.

01:02:08: but I think its really important have your space as a founder free to make sure that you're aware of all these issues and actually intervening in coaching where we needed and bring or realizing hey, we need more principles.

01:02:22: Or some things are not clear when it the other thing is.

01:02:25: so we haven't.

01:02:26: weekly alhans were we kind like bring up one can have like department talks about what they working on as well.

01:02:36: i usually give actually almost like a fancy way calling but like a dharma talk Like at the beginning of every all hands, it's like how do we operate?

01:02:46: At play and why.

01:02:48: And How does this really matter?

01:02:51: I think probably fifty percent Of people liked that.

01:02:53: fifty percent of People don't care but i think It is a helpful way of helping them at least know what.

01:02:59: on my mind then Every week We have an open Q&A session So anyone in The company can come ask A question.

01:03:09: Well, attended because you know we discussed various things that are happening in the company very transparently.

01:03:16: I think that's very interesting.

01:03:19: one thing That i want to cover before We need To end up this podcast is The people and i want?

01:03:27: To understand what were You looking for In the earliest team members that you hired?

01:03:32: Versus What Are you Looking For And Approaching Hiring Today?

01:03:36: Whatever Commonalities What Changed due to the growth that you're having, just for other founders.

01:03:43: To get an understanding what you value in people who work for Clay?

01:03:48: Yeah I think top things we value is did learn something from us during our interaction and it couldn't be anything.

01:03:58: Did i learn if your engineer or something about how would approach a particular problem Um, if you're a product person that did You give me?

01:04:08: A new way of looking at this.

01:04:09: If your go to market person Did you come up in our interview for clay?

01:04:14: uh For go-to-market engineers is do something interesting with play right.

01:04:18: so it's almost set Up to learn something from here.

01:04:20: um So I think that's our top thing That we learned something From you.

01:04:24: and then number two We call her the quiet ego right.

01:04:27: so are you able To Navigate a conversation in the way where we feel like you're both teaching us something and maybe receiving some feedback or changing your mind about something.

01:04:40: You know, high bandwidth communication I think requires a low ego when we really value that.

01:04:47: so if were having to watch every word that was saying make sure things are okay then just slowing down our communication throughput And i think for early.

01:05:03: So, you know these two things imply a number of things right.

01:05:05: they imply.

01:05:06: You're smart.

01:05:07: They imply that your have like humility to imply that you're flexible Right?

01:05:11: A lot of things that we care about at clay.

01:05:15: But I think those two things kind of stand out and are maybe unique.

01:05:19: And then the other thing is in an early Like team building I Think say you do want T-shaped people, I find that like everybody talks about... Everybody has an A team and the best people in the world etc.

01:05:34: But if you want actually helpful advice right?

01:05:36: Like why are the best People In The World joining You?

01:05:39: they probably aren't Right.

01:05:40: unless your a second time founder or you've done something before Or you already have some kind of network where you're connected to the Best People In Your Field.

01:05:50: Why Would Someone Join You?

01:05:51: Initially?

01:05:52: They Probably Aren't.

01:05:53: Um, so I think you're kidding yourself.

01:05:56: If you think you have the best person in X or Y You want to actually hire people who are unique?

01:06:02: um i find that like our early team is The Best at Like.

01:06:10: One Or Two Things There Are.

01:06:12: Occasionally You Meet Someone Who Is Actually Truly The Best In The World For A Number Of Things And Is Well-Rounded and They'll Probably Join You Because of The Mission and The Culture.

01:06:23: Right.

01:06:24: But in most other cases, you're finding someone who spikes in one area and maybe doesn't spike in another area.

01:06:31: And that's why they don't fit into traditional like larger companies.

01:06:35: those are the unique people that you want on your team right?

01:06:38: Like Someone Who You know One of our early engineers was Really really fast Incredibly fast so he would sometimes have more bugs than we would like today but he was incredibly fast at shipping features, and that speed was a huge competitive advantage.

01:06:59: Probably the fastest engineer I've ever worked with right?

01:07:03: But definitely not The most comprehensive engineer.

01:07:06: And then we had another engineer who doesn't ship any bugs like very-very careful Um...but requires A LOT of more detail.

01:07:15: So there's kind of Like.

01:07:17: everything has like uh Two sided edge to it And so it's almost like a sports team.

01:07:23: You're kind of balancing the team out and you don't want everybody to have the same role, um... So we kind of have someone who is super fast and then some one doesn't ship bugs?

01:07:34: If manage that correctly end up having The best in both worlds.

01:07:41: Then One thing I can not let go without back to topic briefly only sadly, but too many things to talk about.

01:07:54: What would you say is the hardest part?

01:07:55: About building a product that growth slash?

01:07:58: PLG motion.

01:08:00: so that quick explanation again for everyone who probably hears just the first time this means I can go to the clay website start an account myself and do everything And then buy the product if i want to use it further talking to the team and then having a sales process before I can use it.

01:08:23: Who are or like?

01:08:44: where we started?

01:08:45: it was agencies who wanted to find business for themselves and found clay, To be super helpful.

01:08:50: For them And they were talking about it and posting about It in telling their friends and then more people hearing About that and trying clay right?

01:08:59: So you needed to be You need it to experiment quite a bit and to have A thesis That makes sense around that and Then you need to Be very Very fast at fixing all of the little paper cuts because You know, there are so many.

01:09:14: It was kind of interesting because in the beginning every time we remove that little roadblock from you know?

01:09:20: The path of like getting started on clay or paying We would see huge jumps and a number of people that were using it.

01:09:27: So even seemingly small things they will be like.

01:09:29: well if someone really wants to deal get over this.

01:09:31: They don't they just drop off.

01:09:34: And so you have to Be very careful that you make the path of success Clear and at the same time you have to balance that out with not lying yourself That you actually have like true product market fit and a PLG mode movement And then you don't keep doing things to smooth out.

01:09:57: The path when there really is no pull.

01:09:59: so Really being it isn't art to know how this is the pole Right.

01:10:04: people are coming to the product and they really want to use it despite The hurdles, and then you start to remove the hurdles And then you see as your move a hurdle.

01:10:12: You see a big jump right?

01:10:14: So having the patience for that and Then having the ability to hold on to the belief that it will work even though It's taking time And then at the same time being super honest with yourself about what isn't working in why you need to fix it.

01:10:31: So holding all of these things that are conflicting together is very challenging.

01:10:36: Right?

01:10:38: And I think what's helpful there, if you have clarity around why you believe it's going to work and then managing your emotions.

01:10:50: so Don't change your mind too often while you're running an experiment, right?

01:11:02: You need to like have the patience to wait.

01:11:04: To see does it pan out or not and if It doesn't pan out make the change Wait again.

01:11:10: So I do think is actually a big part of it as a form of patience And being able to handle Failing especially failing like publicly in that having like shame about.

01:11:26: I would love to ask follow-up questions, but i need to hope myself short.

01:11:30: For everyone who hasn't tested clay yet a quick opportunity for you what will be the easiest use case?

01:11:37: that can give me a wow moment when i now click on a link in the show notes and say i'll test clay

01:11:48: for integration to ask any question about the company.

01:11:56: So you can say something like, does it have sock two compliance?

01:12:00: Which is a type of security compliance?

01:12:02: You Can Ask What Technologies Does It Use and How Much Do They Spend on Some Of These Technologies?

01:12:11: And We'll Go Out and Figure out how To Get You That Info.

01:12:15: Cool Kareem Lots Of Things that we Covered Today.

01:12:19: Thank You so much for sharing all these thoughts, experiences learnings.

01:12:24: It's been such a pleasure I can imagine.

01:12:27: uh i'll write you at some point with the different idea on a different topic to double click on but for now for today we will call it a day and i'll link to your LinkedIn but also to clay in the show notes.

01:12:39: thank you so much.

01:12:40: that's been sort of pleasure.

01:12:42: yeah really appreciate the time and hopefully this was helpful

01:12:46: definitely was.

01:12:48: Thank You

01:12:49: I hope you enjoyed this episode with Karim from clay and giving insights into the journey of The struggling part in a struggling phase.

01:12:56: Of five years before There is the uptick, Before there's the momentum.

01:13:01: so as i can imagine that it's Way more people listening right now That are struggling too than having like everything working perfectly fine?

01:13:16: But also if you found this episode helpful, please share it with a friend.

01:13:20: I can imagine that somebody needs to hear the clay story To say hey i'm sticking to this project and I want to continue.

01:13:29: so Please share it With friends or shared on socials.

01:13:32: If you really enjoyed we can Also share You And send you some video snippets in high-Edit quality.

01:13:38: uh...You Can just email us at fabianatunicornbakery.de subscribe to the podcast on YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcast so that you don't miss any upcoming episodes.

01:13:53: with like the former CRO of Cloudflare who built cloudflare into a one billion dollar ARR engine.

01:14:01: SteliFD from Close.com.

01:14:03: another episode was marked by Strava and many more!

01:14:06: So... You would miss alot if u dont follow to the Unicron BigQuery now.

01:14:11: Thanks for listening.

01:14:12: it's been such pleasure Next week.