YC founder raises $3.5M, keeps team to 3 people—then grows 10x to $2M ARR in 1 year. | Benjamin Encz, Founder of Ashby

A Product Market Fit Show | Startups, Founders, & Entrepreneurship

Last month, Ashby raised a $30M Series C. Ashby is used by customers like Notion, Ramp and Sequoia. Benji built Ashby as an end-to-end Applicant Tracking System (ATS) that would replace several point solutions. He had to build heads down for 18 months and couldn't launch a simple MVP.
Surprisingly, even though he raised $3.5M at seed, he didn't grow his team. He built the product with just 3 people. "We could spend time recruiting or we could spend time building"-- he decided to build.
When they launched, they grew to $200K in ARR within a year and then 10x'd a year after that. Here's the story of how they found product-market fit.

Why you should listen

• Why keeping your team small helps you go faster.
• How to displace point solutions with an end-to-end platform
• How to validate pain points.
• How to move up market from startups to enterprise companies.

Keywords
Ashby, all-in-one platform, recruiting, reporting, pain points, product market fit, Series A
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:01:29) No Website, No Problem
(00:03:08) A Viral Loop
(00:04:40) Origin Story of Ashby
(00:05:39) The Biggest Pain Point
(00:07:50) De-Risking
(00:09:26) A Sticky Product and Market Evolution
(00:10:50) A Hundred Conversations
(00:13:09) The Main Feedback and Key Learnings
(00:16:16) The Pitch
(00:17:20) Bundling and Unbundling
(00:20:50) Building a Great Engineering Organization
(00:22:26) Letter of Intent Stage
(00:24:45) Validation and Feeling Ready
(00:28:18) A Little Bit of Luck
(00:31:51) Finding True PMF
(00:32:44) One Piece of Advice

Send me a message to let me know what you think!

Capitole

1. YC founder raises $3.5M, keeps team to 3 people—then grows 10x to $2M ARR in 1 year. | Benjamin Encz, Founder of Ashby (00:00:00)

2. No Website, No Problem (00:01:29)

3. A Viral Loop (00:03:08)

4. Origin Story of Ashby (00:04:40)

5. The Biggest Pain Point (00:05:39)

6. De-Risking (00:07:50)

7. A Sticky Product and Market Evolution (00:09:26)

8. A Hundred Conversations (00:10:50)

9. The Main Feedback and Key Learnings (00:13:09)

10. The Pitch (00:16:16)

11. Bundling and Unbundling (00:17:20)

12. Building a Great Engineering Organization (00:20:50)

13. Letter of Intent Stage (00:22:26)

14. Validation and Feeling Ready (00:24:45)

15. A Little Bit of Luck (00:28:18)

16. Finding True PMF (00:31:51)

17. One Piece of Advice (00:32:44)