He burned $4M to hit $100K ARR—but with 1 big change, he grew to $4.5M ARR in just 12 months. | Guy Podjarny, Founder of Snyk & Tessl

A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders

Guy spent 2 years and $4M building Snyk to $100K ARR. Thousands of developers loved the product. They just wouldn't pay.

Then he figured out the problem: he had product-user fit, but not product-buyer fit. Developers loved Snyk. Security teams (the actual buyers) didn't care about it. The distance between user and buyer was killing him.

So Guy spent a year building governance features, reporting, and enterprise capabilities—all the stuff developers didn't care about but security teams needed to write checks.

Four months later, Snyk hit $650K ARR.

A year after that, $4.5M.

Then $19M.

Today it's over $300M ARR.

This episode breaks down the brutal reality of PLG when your user isn't your buyer, why Guy thinks the worst outcome for a founder is getting stuck (not failing), and how he's now raising $125M for his next company Tessl.

If you're building PLG, selling to enterprise, or wondering why your users love you but won't pay—this is required listening.

Why You Should Listen:

• Learn why thousands of users loving your product means nothing if they won't pay
• Discover the difference between product-user fit and product-buyer fit
• Understand why the worst outcome isn't failure—it's getting stuck in the grey zone
• Master the art of anchoring in the future instead of just filling today's gaps

Keywords:

startup podcast, startup podcast for founders, product market fit, PLG strategy, product-user fit vs product-buyer fit, developer tools, security startup, enterprise sales, bottoms-up GTM, Snyk founder
Chapters:

(00:00:00) Intro
(00:01:37) The first start up :Blaze.io"
(00:06:16) The Beginning & Concept of Skyk
(00:15:27) Why use Snyk
(00:23:41) The Product Led Growth for Snyk
(00:33:08) Raising for Snyk
(00:38:58) The Beginning & Concept of TESL
(00:46:39) Raising for TESL
(00:48:52) Finding PMF
(00:49:26) One Piece of Advice
Send me a message to let me know what you think!

Fejezetek

1. He burned $4M to hit $100K ARR—but with 1 big change, he grew to $4.5M ARR in just 12 months. | Guy Podjarny, Founder of Snyk & Tessl (00:00:00)

2. The first start up :Blaze.io" (00:01:37)

3. The Beginning & Concept of Skyk (00:06:16)

4. Why use Snyk (00:15:27)

5. The Product Led Growth for Snyk (00:23:41)

6. Raising for Snyk (00:33:08)

7. The Beginning & Concept of TESL (00:38:58)

8. Raising for TESL (00:46:39)

9. Finding PMF (00:48:52)

10. One Piece of Advice (00:49:26)