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The Biggest Mistake in My 25-Year Journey Building Unicorn Startup | Godard Abel, G2

EO20:08Added Aug 31, 2026

Godard Abel, cofounder and CEO of G2, built a leading SaaS marketplace through years of setbacks and hard choices. At his first company, Big Machines, the do...

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Contributed by 刘嘉琪

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  1. Intro

  2. 00:00I think the most difficult thing for me
  3. 00:01as entrepreneur is letting people go.
  4. 00:03The first year funding we scaled to 70
  5. 00:05people. [music] Then we had to cut down
  6. 00:06to 20 and that was over three rounds of
  7. 00:09layoffs. And I think those are always my
  8. 00:10worst days as an entrepreneur. Probably
  9. 00:12the thing I remember most is even just
  10. 00:13having to let one person go. [music]
  11. 00:14First time I had to fire someone. And
  12. 00:16it's probably made me more prudent as an
  13. 00:18entrepreneur. But it still felt so hard,
  14. 00:20you know, to like [music] let someone
  15. 00:21go, look them in the eye, let them know
  16. 00:23they're not going to have a job anymore.
  17. 00:25I just it felt horrible. And so that was
  18. 00:27a very painful shift. But then in
  19. 00:29hindsight, that's also when we learned
  20. 00:30the most cuz then we just said I just
  21. 00:31said, "Hey, I just got to focus on the
  22. 00:33customer, just win the next deal, make
  23. 00:34the next customer [music] happy. And if
  24. 00:36we do that fast enough and we generate
  25. 00:37enough revenue, we'll be profitable."
  26. 00:39And we actually then pulled that off
  27. 00:41where within a year we were able to get
  28. 00:42profitable. And it really took until
  29. 00:442007, [music] 7 years into the company,
  30. 00:45till we really found product market fit
  31. 00:47now. And it's still hard and
  32. 00:49challenging, but I think now I feel like
  33. 00:50I have more perspective. Like one, I'm
  34. 00:52really choosing to do it. I love
  35. 00:53building companies. I've realized that.
  36. 00:54And I love the challenge. And even when
  37. 00:55we have the lows, and we still have
  38. 00:57them, you know, you lose a customer, you
  39. 00:58lose a deal, [music]
  40. 01:00you lose an employee, it still feels
  41. 01:01really terrible. But then I also know
  42. 01:03that, [music] you know, for every low
  43. 01:05there's a high. You know, you win a new
  44. 01:07deal, you recruit somebody amazing,
  45. 01:09[music] you get to a liquidity event.
  46. 01:11And and I've kind of realized that the
  47. 01:12highs don't come without the lows.
  48. 01:14People talk about the intellectual side
  49. 01:16of startups, but I honestly think what
  50. 01:17makes a great entrepreneur is the
  51. 01:18emotional fortitude and the ability to
  52. 01:21continue to [music] persevere through
  53. 01:23the really tough moments, letting people
  54. 01:25go, losing deals, losing people, losing
  55. 01:27customers. I think when you can
  56. 01:30persevere through those moments, those
  57. 01:31are the entrepreneurs that that have
  58. 01:33success. Hi, I'm Godard Ael, co-founder
  59. 01:36[music] and CEO of G2, and we're
  60. 01:38building the trusted place. You go for
  61. 01:40software. We have about a 100 million
  62. 01:42software buyers coming to G2 every year
  63. 01:46to discover the best software for their
  64. 01:48business. We have over 3,600 customers
  65. 01:50[music] and these are software vendors
  66. 01:52around the world and we have achieved
  67. 01:54over 100 million in revenue run right
  68. 01:56now and we did become also unicorn in
  69. 01:592021. So we've raised over $250 million
  70. 02:01and now we have established ourselves as
  71. 02:03the leading [music] number one software
  72. 02:05review site in the world.

  73. The Deep Valley: Seven Years of Pain Before the Breakthrough

  74. 02:18Well, I think it goes back to before I
  75. 02:20was at McKenzie, I studied MIT, you
  76. 02:22know, so I was an engineer and I
  77. 02:23remember even when I was at MIT, my best
  78. 02:25friend at the time, Chris Schutz, he and
  79. 02:27I [music] thought about starting a
  80. 02:28company all the way back right out of
  81. 02:29MIT and we were already working on 3D
  82. 02:32printing and we're about to start a
  83. 02:33company, but then we both kind of got
  84. 02:34scared. You know, we thought we weren't
  85. 02:36quite ready. So, I decided to get some
  86. 02:37real world experience first. You know, I
  87. 02:38went to work for McKenzie. Chris went to
  88. 02:40work as an engineer and I first got
  89. 02:41involved in startups way back in 1998
  90. 02:44and that was an exciting time. I was at
  91. 02:46Stanford Business School out in the
  92. 02:47Silicon Valley in Palo Alto. It was the
  93. 02:49first internet boom. Companies like
  94. 02:51Google were getting started and I
  95. 02:53started helping two Stanford computer
  96. 02:55science students and they were building
  97. 02:56a company called Alonza and they really
  98. 02:58just needed a business person to help
  99. 03:00them. They were both programmers and I
  100. 03:02was excited about entrepreneurship so I
  101. 03:03started helping them and we wound up
  102. 03:04selling that startup quickly to a bigger
  103. 03:06startup Niku that went public. I
  104. 03:08remember in March 2000 I think with a 10
  105. 03:10billion dollar valuation and the
  106. 03:12entrepreneur there Farzad Debbachi he
  107. 03:14also inspired me he'd worked for Larry
  108. 03:16Ellison the founder of Oracle and I
  109. 03:18watched and helped Farzad build his
  110. 03:20company I thought wow this would be a
  111. 03:21great time to start my own company and
  112. 03:23so I started big machines at the
  113. 03:25beginning of 2000 to really help [music]
  114. 03:27companies like my father's my father was
  115. 03:30in pump manufacturing and helped him the
  116. 03:33vision for big machines was he made very
  117. 03:34big pumps and the vision for big
  118. 03:36machines was to help him sell [music]
  119. 03:37his pumps online much the way Dell was
  120. 03:40selling PCs online. And so that was when
  121. 03:42we, you know, started building our first
  122. 03:44company all the way back in 2000.
  123. 03:47And my first company, Big Machines, as I
  124. 03:50mentioned, I started this in 2000.com
  125. 03:52era. I was a 27-year-old cocky kid. I
  126. 03:55remember one of my first investors was
  127. 03:56John Scully. You have to be old to
  128. 03:58remember him, but he's sort of infamous.
  129. 04:00If you've watched like the movies about
  130. 04:01Apple, he's the guy that fired Steve
  131. 04:03Jobs. He was my first investor. And then
  132. 04:05once I had him invest, everyone he and
  133. 04:06his advice to me was just like just
  134. 04:08think about how you go public in one
  135. 04:09year.
  136. 04:11I was like that sounds awesome.
  137. 04:12But we were also lucky at that time the
  138. 04:14internet was still brand new. So the
  139. 04:16first year we were able to raise $20
  140. 04:17million from investors because nobody
  141. 04:19knew the internet and nobody knew how to
  142. 04:21sell online. So investors were willing
  143. 04:22to take a chance on you know kind of
  144. 04:24young and experienced entrepreneurs. So
  145. 04:26we got going very quickly. So the first
  146. 04:27year was actually exciting. We went from
  147. 04:29like just the two of us to 70 people and
  148. 04:31you know raised a bunch of money. So
  149. 04:33that was, you know, we thought we were
  150. 04:34going to maybe go public in a year or
  151. 04:36two, but then it could change
  152. 04:37dramatically
  153. 04:39because in 2001 there was then a dot
  154. 04:42bust and all of a sudden investors that
  155. 04:44were throwing money into internet
  156. 04:46companies, they completely stopped and
  157. 04:47it was the opposite. And even Amazon was
  158. 04:50still very young at that time. And I
  159. 04:51remember Wall Street analysts were
  160. 04:52saying Amazon was going to go bankrupt
  161. 04:54and people were saying the internet was
  162. 04:55a fad. You maybe a little bit like what
  163. 04:57happened with crypto. First everyone was
  164. 04:58really excited and then all of a sudden
  165. 05:00everyone thought, "Oh wow, it's a bad
  166. 05:02idea." Yeah. And that was really hard
  167. 05:03for us because then our customers
  168. 05:04[music] also manufacturers got very
  169. 05:06skeptical. They all said, "Oh, we don't
  170. 05:07really need the internet. You know,
  171. 05:09we're fine sending cataloges to our
  172. 05:11customers, [music] CDROMs." And so it
  173. 05:13was really got really hard cuz I
  174. 05:15remember in 2001, I think our business
  175. 05:18plan [music] was to sign up 20
  176. 05:19manufacturers and then we're supposed to
  177. 05:21sign up 40 in 2002. I think we actually
  178. 05:24only signed up two that year. Same thing
  179. 05:26[music] happened in 2002 and by the time
  180. 05:28we got to 2003, we were almost bankrupt.
  181. 05:30you know, we'd burned through 19 of the
  182. 05:3220 million we'd raised. So, I think a

  183. Biggest Early Mistake

  184. 05:35big lesson learned, one, we started
  185. 05:36spending it too fast, you know, before
  186. 05:38we had product market fit. And I tried
  187. 05:40to hire two VPs of sales before we had
  188. 05:43product market fit. And we really should
  189. 05:45have still been doing founderled
  190. 05:47selling. And so, it really led to a
  191. 05:49really difficult reset in 2003 because
  192. 05:51we were down to 1 million. We also knew
  193. 05:53we'd never be able to raise more money.
  194. 05:54We had to go to organic growth. It was
  195. 05:56really difficult, but we decided to
  196. 05:57scale the company down from 70 to 20
  197. 05:59people. So we had to let a lot of people
  198. 06:01go and we just said hey we have to get
  199. 06:03profitable cash flow deposit within a
  200. 06:05year otherwise we're going out of
  201. 06:06business. I think the most difficult
  202. 06:08thing for me as an entrepreneur is
  203. 06:09letting people go. The first year
  204. 06:11funding we scaled to 70 people then we
  205. 06:13had to cut down to 20 but it always
  206. 06:14feels really painful and it's probably
  207. 06:16made me more prudent as an entrepreneur
  208. 06:18you know since I've had to do that.
  209. 06:20Well, one, ideally, give yourself some
  210. 06:21buffer. You know, raise more capital so
  211. 06:24you can persevere longer without having
  212. 06:26to to lay people off and and secondly
  213. 06:29make sure you get productivity quickly
  214. 06:31so that everyone you hire ideally is
  215. 06:33producing ultimately producing revenue.
  216. 06:35But it still felt so hard, you know, to
  217. 06:37like let someone go, look them in the
  218. 06:39eye, let them know they're not going to
  219. 06:41have a job anymore. I just it felt
  220. 06:43[music] horrible. And so that was a very
  221. 06:44painful shift. But then in hindsight,
  222. 06:46that's also when we learned the most
  223. 06:47because then we just said I just said,
  224. 06:48"Hey, I just got to focus on the
  225. 06:50customer. Just win the next deal, make
  226. 06:51the next customer [music] happy, and if
  227. 06:53we do that fast enough and we generate
  228. 06:54enough revenue, we'll be profitable."
  229. 06:56And we actually then pulled that off
  230. 06:58where within a year we were able to get
  231. 06:59profitable. And then it really took
  232. 07:00until 2007, 7 years into the company
  233. 07:02till we really found product market fit.
  234. 07:04And finally, our success came. We
  235. 07:07partnered with Salesforce [music] as
  236. 07:09well as with Oracle for their CRM on
  237. 07:11demand and we became the leading quoting
  238. 07:14tool to complement those CRM tools and
  239. 07:16as they started growing we really
  240. 07:18started growing. So eventually the
  241. 07:19company was a big success. I think 13
  242. 07:21years in it was acquired by Oracle for
  243. 07:22$400 million but it was only after many
  244. 07:25years of struggle and near failure. And
  245. 07:28I do love the book by Ben Horowitz the
  246. 07:30hard thing about hard things. People

  247. What matters more than the intellectual side of a startup is emotional fortitude

  248. 07:32talk about the intellectual side of
  249. 07:34startups, but I honestly think what
  250. 07:35makes a great entrepreneur is the
  251. 07:36emotional fortitude and the ability to
  252. 07:39continue to persevere through the really
  253. 07:41tough moments. Letting people go, losing
  254. 07:43deals, losing people, losing customers.
  255. 07:46I think when you can persevere through
  256. 07:47those moments, those are the
  257. 07:49entrepreneurs that that have success.

  258. Turning Point: Finding PMF Takes Longer Than You Think

  259. 07:55True product market fit, you know, where
  260. 07:56all of a sudden it felt like, wow,
  261. 07:59people really want to buy this, right?
  262. 08:00Whereas the first six years it was
  263. 08:02always just a struggle. I think the
  264. 08:03first six years we always missed our
  265. 08:04sales plan and I think for me probably
  266. 08:07the big difference is all of a sudden
  267. 08:09like 2007 we started getting inbound
  268. 08:10demand and part of this was from the
  269. 08:12Salesforce ecosystem but I remember
  270. 08:13Salesforce started moving up market. So
  271. 08:16I remember one of our first enterprise
  272. 08:17customers with Salesforce was Rico, you
  273. 08:19know, the big kind of copier printer
  274. 08:22company and I remember Salesforce was
  275. 08:24competing with Seivil, an LCRM product.
  276. 08:26But I think the customer told them,
  277. 08:27"Hey, we will only buy Salesforce if you
  278. 08:30have a CPQ, a configure price quoting
  279. 08:33app." And then Salesforce brought us
  280. 08:35into a deal cuz we already had the
  281. 08:37technology at Big Machines. And so all
  282. 08:38of a sudden, we started getting this
  283. 08:39inbound demand from big companies and
  284. 08:41they started buying. as you start
  285. 08:42getting inbound and the deals actually
  286. 08:44start converting faster than you expect.
  287. 08:47But that didn't happen for us, [music]
  288. 08:48you know, all the way until 2007.
  289. 08:52You know, my co-founder Chris and I, we
  290. 08:53didn't want to quit on each other. You
  291. 08:55know, we were best friends from MIT.
  292. 08:56We'd also recruited some of our friends.
  293. 08:58So, I think that was one motivation. And
  294. 09:00the other motivation, we did have about
  295. 09:01a dozen early customers. [music] They
  296. 09:03were having success using Big Machines
  297. 09:06online quoting software. they were able
  298. 09:08to do quotes 80% faster, [music]
  299. 09:10process orders online in real time. And
  300. 09:13so we thought eventually the broader
  301. 09:15market would see it, but we had those
  302. 09:17classic early adopters. And then if you
  303. 09:19followed the Jeffrey Moore crossing the
  304. 09:21chasm, you were just kind of stuck in
  305. 09:22the chasm. But we had enough early
  306. 09:24adopters that were having success. So we
  307. 09:26also we didn't want to let down our
  308. 09:27customers and we thought eventually, you
  309. 09:30know, the market would get to the
  310. 09:31mainstream and luckily that happened.
  311. 09:34Yeah. But it it was hard those years. A
  312. 09:35lot of days it was very frustrating and
  313. 09:37I think a lot of days I wanted to quit
  314. 09:39you cuz I felt like this tremendous
  315. 09:40burden like I felt like I was failing
  316. 09:42every day you know for almost 6 years.
  317. 09:44So it was really hard but then in
  318. 09:45hindsight I'm really glad we persevered
  319. 09:47you know because eventually the the
  320. 09:50demand for the the cloud software did
  321. 09:52come. I think number one from my [music]
  322. 09:54experience don't quit and that's my
  323. 09:55experience. Usually it takes you longer
  324. 09:57to get the product market fit than you
  325. 09:59think. But if you really believe in your
  326. 10:00vision and you have some early happy
  327. 10:02customers and I just say don't quit
  328. 10:03because eventually we've always found
  329. 10:06the market does come. [music] And I
  330. 10:07think most entrepreneurial journeys they
  331. 10:09take longer. Like I've never been like
  332. 10:10Mark Zuckerberg, you know, where he
  333. 10:11coded Facebook and apparently everyone
  334. 10:13at Harvard used it overnight. And I
  335. 10:15think that's rare. I know a lot of
  336. 10:16entrepreneurs for most entrepreneurs
  337. 10:17it's a longer it takes longer than they
  338. 10:19think. And so I think persevering to
  339. 10:21[music] me is the number one key to
  340. 10:23having a success as a SAS entrepreneur.

  341. Building G2: If You Truly Believe in Your Idea, Don't Pivot

  342. 10:30Once we first got liquidity, it did feel
  343. 10:32great. Yeah. At first it kind of felt
  344. 10:34euphoric, but then we also had new
  345. 10:35investors and honestly then I realized I
  346. 10:38didn't really love working for them. So
  347. 10:40I had about a year break and during that
  348. 10:41time at first I was just tired. You
  349. 10:44know, I was burned out after 11 years of
  350. 10:46struggle. But then I remember a few
  351. 10:48months into it, my wife also Stacy, she
  352. 10:51was like, "Hey, what's wrong with you?"
  353. 10:53You know, cuz I wasn't happy. I'd made
  354. 10:54some money. Also, my friends didn't
  355. 10:55understand, but we bought like a bigger
  356. 10:57house, you know, and my friends that
  357. 10:58weren't in tech, they're like, "Oh, you
  358. 10:59should just be happy, right?" Like,
  359. 11:00"You've made money. It's a success. You
  360. 11:03could retire." And I realized actually I
  361. 11:04missed it. You once I had enough of a
  362. 11:06break to recover. And I'm like, "Wow, I
  363. 11:08really miss working with my team. I miss
  364. 11:10having that challenge every day. I miss
  365. 11:12building." And then I kind of with that
  366. 11:13realization went back, you know, we
  367. 11:15started G2. We started steel brick and
  368. 11:17you know we've been building new
  369. 11:18ventures ever since and it was really
  370. 11:20the pain we felt when we're building big
  371. 11:22machines and part of our pain was to get
  372. 11:24validation you as an entrepreneur it's
  373. 11:26always hard like why should customers
  374. 11:27buy from you why should they believe you
  375. 11:29and at that time you had to rely on
  376. 11:30analysts like Gartner and I remember it
  377. 11:32took us 9 years to get a gardener report
  378. 11:34at big machines you know not till 2009
  379. 11:36took us 12 years to become the leader
  380. 11:37and so that was very frustrating and
  381. 11:39Gartner had exclusion criteria you know
  382. 11:41if you didn't do at least 20 million in
  383. 11:43enterprise revenue they wouldn't even
  384. 11:44include you so we thought that was
  385. 11:45obviously bad for the entrepreneurs. We
  386. 11:47also thought it was bad for our
  387. 11:48customers because eventually at big
  388. 11:49machines we signed up big companies like
  389. 11:51G Energy for their big turbines,
  390. 11:53Rolls-Royce for their big turbines. And
  391. 11:55some of our customers say to us, "Wow,
  392. 11:57we wish we'd found you 2 years ago.
  393. 11:59We've been trying to develop the
  394. 12:00software in house." So we also saw our
  395. 12:02customers were suffering. They couldn't
  396. 12:04discover the latest technology, the best
  397. 12:06software. It was too hard for them to
  398. 12:08find it and it was too hard for us to
  399. 12:10sell it. And that's why we said, "Wow,
  400. 12:11if we can create G2, you know, based on
  401. 12:13real-time peer reviews, make it really
  402. 12:15easy for software buyers to discover
  403. 12:16apps, make it really easy for them to
  404. 12:18buy it." And that's why we decided,
  405. 12:19let's make it more like internet
  406. 12:20consumer shopping. And by the time we
  407. 12:22started G2, obviously we're all shopping
  408. 12:23as consumers on Amazon. Anyone in the
  409. 12:25world can go to Amazon for free,
  410. 12:27discover products, look at reviews, all
  411. 12:29of that's free. And then you can easily
  412. 12:32buy the product and make it really easy
  413. 12:33for the best the best technology to win
  414. 12:36based on happy customer reviews. That
  415. 12:37would really make our industry better.
  416. 12:38But we really built it for ourselves. It
  417. 12:40was kind of scratch our own itch. We're
  418. 12:41like after struggling to sell enterprise
  419. 12:44software for over 10 years, we just
  420. 12:45thought, well, there must be a better
  421. 12:47way. And that's what inspired us to
  422. 12:48start G2. And G2, it's a term for
  423. 12:51military intelligence. So in the US
  424. 12:53military, the general's intelligence
  425. 12:55staff is called the G2. And in [music]
  426. 12:58the military, it means give me the G2,
  427. 13:00give me the quick insight, what's
  428. 13:01happening in the battlefield. So that
  429. 13:02was the idea and why we went with uh
  430. 13:04with the name G2. At first, it is really
  431. 13:07hard to get reviews. And so what we did,
  432. 13:10I remember for the first category, we
  433. 13:12only did one category of software. We
  434. 13:13did CRM software because at Big
  435. 13:14Machines, we've been partners to CRM
  436. 13:16vendors. So we knew that market. And so
  437. 13:18I remember what we did to get our first
  438. 13:19reviews, we put up a booth at
  439. 13:21Dreamforce, the big Salesforce annual
  440. 13:23CRM conference, and we were just handing
  441. 13:24out $5 Starbucks cards, you know, to get
  442. 13:26people to write a review of Salesforce
  443. 13:29or whatever CRM they were using. So it
  444. 13:31was a very manual effort at the
  445. 13:32beginning. And then but it took actually
  446. 13:34a couple years just to get that first
  447. 13:36category going which actually led us to
  448. 13:38start steel brick because you know my
  449. 13:40co-founder Tim he was our product
  450. 13:41co-founder he kept building G2 and I
  451. 13:43just said hey this is going too slowly
  452. 13:45for me. I went to go build steel brick
  453. 13:46with our CRO Matt cuz frankly we also
  454. 13:48couldn't generate any revenue at G2 cuz
  455. 13:50until we got enough reviews till we had
  456. 13:52enough software buyer traffic from
  457. 13:54Google we couldn't generate any revenue.
  458. 13:56So it was a really hard start but
  459. 13:58eventually we also learned you know how
  460. 13:59do we tap into people's intrinsic
  461. 14:01motivations that they want to share
  462. 14:02about their software and then I think
  463. 14:04it's like a network effect business once
  464. 14:06we had enough reviews in CRM and enough
  465. 14:08traffic then we started doing products
  466. 14:10related to CRM you know like email
  467. 14:12marketing marketing automation and then
  468. 14:14once we had a community of users you
  469. 14:16once they reviewed their CRM app they
  470. 14:18could also review their email marketing
  471. 14:20their marketing automation so we kind of
  472. 14:21started growing in related categories
  473. 14:23and then we found some people do love to
  474. 14:25share you know some people do want to
  475. 14:26share their expertise. They want to help
  476. 14:28other people and so eventually we got
  477. 14:30that flywheel going and now I think we
  478. 14:31have over 2.7 million software reviews
  479. 14:33and we've also brought it global. We
  480. 14:35have a partner in Japan now for example
  481. 14:37it review.jp. It's a soft bank CNS
  482. 14:40company but we've even proven now that
  483. 14:42we can do it in Japan. Now we have we
  484. 14:44have great review insights in you know
  485. 14:46hundreds of categories. It's probably
  486. 14:47took about 5 years not only to get the
  487. 14:50reviews but then to get enough traffic
  488. 14:52buyer traffic and then to really be able
  489. 14:54to start making money. But I remember to
  490. 14:55me the turning point was 2017 Excel, you
  491. 14:59know, very famous Silicon Valley VC
  492. 15:01firm. They'd also funded Facebook. But
  493. 15:03they called us all of a sudden and they
  494. 15:05said, "Wow, all our portfolio
  495. 15:07entrepreneurs, all the Excel
  496. 15:08entrepreneurs in their pitches to the
  497. 15:10Excel partners, they're starting to use
  498. 15:11their G2 [music] reviews or G2 ratings."
  499. 15:14And first, I didn't believe it. You I
  500. 15:15was like, Tim, my co-founder, he got the
  501. 15:17inbound and I'm like, "Oh, the you know,
  502. 15:19some of these VCs just call everybody."
  503. 15:20I'm like, "Oh, Tim, they're probably not
  504. 15:22serious, you You know, but then I had a
  505. 15:23friend Kevin Efy who was a partner there
  506. 15:25and I called him. I'm like, "Hey, are
  507. 15:27you guys really interested?" And they
  508. 15:28said, "Yes." And that's kind of when I
  509. 15:29felt like, "Okay, if the VCs, leading
  510. 15:31Silicon Valley VCs are starting to see
  511. 15:33this and obviously they want to put in
  512. 15:35money and we had enough revenue
  513. 15:36traction, but at that point all of a
  514. 15:37sudden it felt like, okay, we have
  515. 15:39product market fit, this flywheel
  516. 15:40starting to spin." But it it took us 5
  517. 15:42years, I think, to get there. When Excel
  518. 15:44invested, we were maybe at 5 million
  519. 15:46ARR. But then all of a sudden we started
  520. 15:48doubling every year and I think we grew
  521. 15:49to you know very quickly then grew to 50
  522. 15:51million ARR you know by 2021 and that's
  523. 15:53when we became a unicorn but then I
  524. 15:55think like 0 to 5 took a really long
  525. 15:57time and then [music] 5 to 50 it started
  526. 15:59to happen really quickly cuz we had that
  527. 16:00product market fit plus SAS was booming
  528. 16:03you know there were also so many new SAS
  529. 16:05products I remember we were creating
  530. 16:06categories like conversational
  531. 16:07intelligence and we helped create
  532. 16:08unicorns like gong chorus you know so we
  533. 16:12started seeing the model really work
  534. 16:14where we could help you know define
  535. 16:15whole new categories stories like
  536. 16:17conversational intelligence help buyers
  537. 16:18discover those new apps and help the
  538. 16:20vendors win quicker and so then all of a
  539. 16:23sudden it you became really exciting and
  540. 16:25fun I think the challenge of every
  541. 16:27entrepreneur is at the beginning no
  542. 16:28one's heard of you and nobody's heard of
  543. 16:29your company nobody knows your brand and
  544. 16:31so it's really hard just to get a chance
  545. 16:33to win customers and so I think that's
  546. 16:36probably number one reason cuz once you
  547. 16:37have good reviews on G2 then buyers will
  548. 16:39discover you on G2.com so it can be a
  549. 16:41very efficient way to generate leads and
  550. 16:44I think the second big reason is every
  551. 16:45entrepreneur needs valid ation and that
  552. 16:47was like my inspiration cuz [music] you
  553. 16:48know nobody wants to wait 9 years to get
  554. 16:50in the gardener report. Now I think we
  555. 16:51have created this trust badge you know
  556. 16:53that entrepreneurs are proud of. So it's
  557. 16:55also a quick way to validate that their
  558. 16:57customers love them that they have a
  559. 16:58great product and what's interesting now
  560. 16:59we also have VC customers you know we
  561. 17:01have about 60 investors that use G2 data
  562. 17:04to also figure out which companies
  563. 17:05they're going to invest in. And so for
  564. 17:06entrepreneur now it's doubly valuable
  565. 17:08because once you get those badges once
  566. 17:09you're doing well in G21 you get more
  567. 17:11buyers more customers. That's the most
  568. 17:12important thing. But frankly also
  569. 17:14investors notice they look at the trends
  570. 17:15in our data and all of a sudden they
  571. 17:16also start getting calls from VCs and so
  572. 17:18I think for that reason and I've always
  573. 17:20been that software entrepreneur you know
  574. 17:22we built big machines we built super
  575. 17:23kind of we kind of built it for
  576. 17:24ourselves we know what they needed and
  577. 17:26it's wonderful now to see it working and
  578. 17:28really an entrepreneur anyone in the
  579. 17:30world can start and and once they get
  580. 17:32that validation on G2 it helps them you
  581. 17:35know prove that they have a great
  582. 17:36product and it helps them grow faster
  583. 17:37and that makes me really happy you I
  584. 17:39consider software entrepreneurs kind of
  585. 17:41my my brothers around the world and uh
  586. 17:43we love helping them, you know, validate
  587. 17:45their success and then grow faster.

  588. Advice for Founders Going Through Their Hardest Moment

  589. 17:48I think the first one's the hardest and
  590. 17:50maybe it's also like parenting, you
  591. 17:51know, if you have kids, I think the
  592. 17:52first kid's always the hardest cuz you
  593. 17:54don't know what to expect and it's still
  594. 17:55hard and challenging, but I think we
  595. 17:57have now now I feel like I have more
  596. 17:58perspective. Like one, I'm really
  597. 18:00choosing to do it. I love building
  598. 18:01companies. I realize that and I love the
  599. 18:03challenge and even when we have the
  600. 18:04lows, and we still have them, you know,
  601. 18:05you lose a customer, you lose a deal,
  602. 18:08you lose an employee, it still feels
  603. 18:09really terrible. But then I also know
  604. 18:11that for every low there's a high. You
  605. 18:13[music] win a new deal, you recruit
  606. 18:14somebody amazing, you get to a liquidity
  607. 18:17event and and I've kind of realized that
  608. 18:19the highs don't come without the lows.
  609. 18:21When I'm not doing it, I miss it. So I
  610. 18:22think that's why we're, you know, we're
  611. 18:24still building companies now, you know,
  612. 18:2525 years into it. You really have to
  613. 18:27believe in your own vision and really
  614. 18:29believe that what you're building is
  615. 18:30going to make the world better. And I do
  616. 18:31think also in B2B SAS, it really has to
  617. 18:33be an idea that where you have founder
  618. 18:36market fit, where you really believe and
  619. 18:37it's a pain you felt. And I was like
  620. 18:39with G2, right? We felt the pain so
  621. 18:40severely because it took us so long to
  622. 18:42build big machines, so long to create
  623. 18:44product market fit where we wanted a
  624. 18:45solution like G2 to make it easy for
  625. 18:47[music] our customers to discover us,
  626. 18:49make it easier to grow our business. And
  627. 18:51so I think really believing in your
  628. 18:52idea, really believing in your vision. I
  629. 18:54think is what allows you not to pivot
  630. 18:55too quickly. I think most SAS
  631. 18:58entrepreneurs, you know, probably at a
  632. 18:59minimum typically is 2 to 3 years to get
  633. 19:01to real product market fit. So you also
  634. 19:03just have to have that mindset like,
  635. 19:04hey, it's going [music] to take a long
  636. 19:05time and your pivots are probably
  637. 19:06smaller. you I mean you're optimizing
  638. 19:08within the product within your vision
  639. 19:10versus completely scrapping your vision
  640. 19:12[music] say the right time to pivot and
  641. 19:14honestly most of my companies we've
  642. 19:16stuck to the founding vision and most of
  643. 19:18the optimization there's a thousand
  644. 19:21details [music]
  645. 19:22to bring that vision to life like at G2
  646. 19:24we did thousands of optimization to
  647. 19:26improve review conversion but we never
  648. 19:28shied away from the idea that reviews
  649. 19:30were going to be critical to help
  650. 19:32software buyers and sellers connect
  651. 19:34better yeah I guess to me it's if you
  652. 19:36really believe in your vision And I
  653. 19:37would never [music] pivot.