KP: 00:00

The role that I'm excited here to embody and play here is, of course, Launchpad. Winding down BIPF, the Berlin Public Fellowship, at the end of December was such a crucial decision for me and my career.

Tharshan: 00:11

The founders want an opportunity to share with each other where they are on their building story. Like, I could build in public but amongst the community.

KP: 00:17

Where is another place in the world where I could do the exact same thing and play the game of tailwinds. Every community in the world, every tech region in the world will have to hear about Launchpad and Paddle. And Earlier, I said about the way I I chose Paddle among many options was, like, sensing care and passion over the flashiness of the logo. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Building Public Podcast.

KP: 00:41

I'm your host, KP. And on this show, I interview world class entrepreneurs, ambitious startup founders, creators, and builders on the Internet who are boldly building the future in public. This podcast is my excuse to take you all on a curious journey to understand, learn, and hopefully be inspired by the world views, insights, and stories of these fabulous people changing the world. So far, I've gotten the rare privilege to sit down with incredible guests like Gary Meade, Alexis Ohanian, Pat Cole, Sutton Living GF, and many more leaders. So check out the full podcast listening at hilleypublicpodcast.com.

KP: 01:20

Now buckle up and get ready for our latest episode. Hello, everybody. Welcome to yet another episode of the Build in Public podcast. I'm your host, KP. And today, I am super, super, super excited.

KP: 01:37

I used 3 supers for this guy on the show, Karshan. Welcome to Building Public Podcast. Man, this is your first time.

Tharshan: 01:44

Yeah. Excited to be here. And, yeah, let's do this. I mean, this is weird seeing you, like, in this mode and not like, hey, Zoom, like, you're panicking. Mode.

Tharshan: 01:53

I know.

KP: 01:54

Bro bro, where's the Zoom link? That's that's the typical relationship that he and I have because he just DM me yesterday on Slack on our panel Slack saying, I need the Zoom link. Where's that? Because you said these in invitations and they don't have Zoom link. I'm like,

Tharshan: 02:06

Your voice is never this polished either. Like I know. This is like a

KP: 02:10

I put on this podcast voice. But for the folks who are listening and just joining and wondering, like, who the heck is this guy KB is talking to, and why is he why is why is Tarshan, like, ready to roast him, for about 40 minutes nonstop? You know, I'll answer your the big question you're wondering, which is Tarshan and I are working together, if it's not obvious by now, at PADO. And I just crossed 30 days. I think 31, 32 days now of being at PADO and surviving Tarshan as my colleague.

KP: 02:37

That is the true, you know, I think achievement apart from all the other stuff that I've been, you know, collecting through my career. But How long is your probation again? What's that?

Tharshan: 02:46

How long is your probation again? I'm just taking my

KP: 02:48

My probation. I don't think I'm probation. They let me in without probation, man. So but truly stoked to be at the company. I think, you know, there's a big I wouldn't say big, but there's a sense of mystery around why I joined Paddle or what kind of role am I doing here?

KP: 03:02

You know, what kind of, cause I, you know, I was a founder before joining Paddle. Right? So and that transition from being a founder to now, you know, a role, an employee with a w two, with a payroll, and, like, what do you call it? The org chart and, and all of this thing feels new to me new to me for like a day. But after that, I got used to it.

KP: 03:18

But may feel new to some of the listeners, some of my audience on Twitter and LinkedIn, whatever. So let's set the table a little bit, you know? So what are we gonna talk about today? What are you excited to share with the audience today? Like, let's set the agenda as we would typically before a meeting.

KP: 03:32

You know? So let's let's talk about it. What do you have in mind today?

Tharshan: 03:35

Yeah. I think one of the things I wanna first do is, like, understand a bit more about the decision to move from building public to Paddle. I think that journey is something that we want to hear more about. But then, obviously, the big shiny thing that I'm here for is this thing called AI Launchpad, which to most of your listeners won't mean anything. But I suppose that's what you're here to do.

Tharshan: 03:54

Right? Make a Yeah. Fun into a real thing. I think AI is a bit of a buzz. Like, is it gonna last?

Tharshan: 04:00

I don't know. But we're gonna milk it for for as long as we can. So, yeah, I think trying to understand I'd love to for me, I I know this is for your audience, but for me, I'd love to understand that your motivations of why you transitioned from building public to Paddle, but also a month's a long time. Like, congratulations. Like, what's your next month look like?

Tharshan: 04:18

What does your next year look like?

KP: 04:19

That's that's exactly what we're gonna cover. First, let's take the first question, which is why did I transition from building public fellowship and to Paddle? What's the journey been like? I've written a blog post around this. Like, winding down BIPF, the Building Public Fellowship, at the end of December was such a crucial decision for me and my career because I had such of my identity wrapped around the Building Public Fellowship.

KP: 04:41

Right? And what I got to do was run 4 cohorts in 2023. Actually, if you include the podcast special bonus cohort I ran, that's 5 cohorts in the year. And all of them were geared towards founders, early stage founders, and helping them with, you know, GTM tactics, growth tactics, billing in public, of course, is the so the ethos. But generally, like, you know, product development, cocreating with your audience, being public and open kinda like what we're doing now with with our journey here at Launchpad.

KP: 05:07

So that's been what my focus has been. So I really love that. I really loved cohorts. I really loved, you know, helping small groups of founders. And there's a sense of mentorship and a sense of, like, problem solving that you could do for them.

KP: 05:18

You you know, that really excites me. It's almost like you're being a consultant for 15, 20, 30 startups at once. So I had a lot of fun. But the challenge that I ran into multiple times when I was announcing the cohort and I was doing interviews and, you know, collecting payments and things like that was that is a I was building a b to c model, Tarshan. Right?

KP: 05:35

And b to c education, especially targeting early stage founders who are not super cash rich. They're time rich. They have more time than maybe an average employee in the company, but they're definitely not super cash rich to pay for, like, $2,000 or $1500 programs. And at that point where they are in their career, they're trying to resource allocate efficiently, and they're trying to use that money to, you know, buy some LinkedIn ads, buy some Google SEO, you know, do some stuff like that. So it was very challenging to kinda get that pricing positioning right without going underpriced and vast, like, high volume, which to me dilutes the whole experience anyway.

KP: 06:07

Was it So I was caught in that cash 22. Yeah.

Tharshan: 06:10

What's interesting is you're saying all of that, but you did get billed in public up to what was a 100 k, like, in your Yeah. 100 k. Like, how how were you able to do that then? Like, considering

KP: 06:20

I knew it was possible, but I knew that there was certain like, I knew that repeating it again next year and then again next year

Tharshan: 06:27

and then

KP: 06:27

again next year made it feel like I was running an uphill battle.

Tharshan: 06:30

Yep.

KP: 06:31

The the founder, the greedy side of me was like, don't quit. You know, we're we're this is how it is. It's supposed to be hard. But I also have a bit of a, you know, let's be honest side which my sister loves to, you know, help me with that side where she's like cut the cut the b s. You know, be it unemotional, be logical, think like Spock.

KP: 06:48

Like, what would Spock do? What's the more logical thing here? Also, you know, I have a family in America. I have a son and I'm doing the math. I was like this there's a natural ceiling here.

KP: 06:56

Now if the ceiling was expandable, if I could expand the TAM and if I had a feeling that with my big thesis point, which I think as a you know, I know you're a you love GTM, like, you love, like, invalidating thesis and stuff like that. The founder in me got really disillusioned very quickly by the end of the year because the main thesis bullet point that I had at the beginning of the year was if the 4th and the 5th cohort feel just as hard Yeah. To get off the ground and get off, you know, in terms of sales momentum, then there's something off here because compound interest should actually favor you. Right? Like, after 4 or 5 times of something, the product gets better.

KP: 07:28

So you would normally if you were serving a true unmet need, things should get easier. In fact, it felt just the same, in fact, harder. So I realized that, okay, there's a bunch of thing missing pieces here. I could spend another year racking my brain against this problem statement, figuring out all these components, or I could take a step back, take a humble pie. And I've taken maybe humble pies in my life, so at this point, it doesn't hurt me.

KP: 07:48

But then think about where is another place in the world where I could do the exact same thing and play the game of, like, you know, with tailwinds, like, when instead of trying to fight the uphill battle. Right? Right. And so I made a post which many of my followers saw reflecting on this honest reflection, which actually 20 I I got 20 DMs that day when I made the post saying that was so courageous. That was so bold of you to put this out there because I exactly said what I just said despite the fact that I had that revenue number or whatever.

KP: 08:12

But to me, it felt so cathartic because truth is so cathartic. Right? You know, if you're BS ing on the Internet and it it feels like you're carrying some weight, and I was like, you know what? Just say the truth. And in my head, I also had the feeling, the confidence that once you're a founder, you're a founder forever.

KP: 08:26

Right? No one's gonna take that away from you. There will be 7, 8, 9 opportunities for me in the decade to create something. So I was not worried about that. And when I made the post, fun fact, Tripp, which was a silent follower of mine, which I did not know.

KP: 08:37

Tripp is our vice global VP of sales, right, for for Paddle. I made a post and reflected on this on a in a public, I mean, on on a blog post and turned that into a Twitter thread, the building public style, and then put it out there and said, I'm looking for a company that has the culture that's like this and serves founders and where I could run some version of community or cohorts and education. Right? 8 hours later, I get a DM from Andrew, who's our fearless leader and the boss for both of us, our chief marketing officer, saying that, hey, man. You know, we have this thing called Launchpad.

KP: 09:07

I don't know if you've heard of it. There's this crazy freak who started this called Tarshen. I think he might want a, you know, a helping hand. He might want a partner in crime for this. And, like, 8 hours later, I got the DM from him.

KP: 09:16

And, of course, within, like, 24 hours, I got on a call because he moves quick. And this is, like, late December where the rest of the world is snoozing down and, like, you know, in the, holiday Christmas mood. Andrew and I have been, like, DM ing each other, like like this. And so within 3 days, I had a first call with him and the next day, he made a call he set up a call with you. Right.

KP: 09:35

And then with Tripp and Tripp is the one he he clarified that, by the way, KPE, I was the I was the one who assisted. Like, I I did the assistant, you know, Andrew did the shot. Yeah. Well, like, 2:3:2:3 weeks later, fast forward, I was at I'm at Pato. So the the role that I'm excited here to embody and and play here is, of course, Launchpad.

KP: 09:53

Right? And folks who don't know Launchpad, I'll let you introduce that from your words, but basically, excited to recreate everything that I've been doing in my in my career so far except for Paddle Founders and Paddle's startup ecosystem, you know, which is amazing. So that's my right role is called founder relations. I know that's a made up role by Andrew. He's just like Oh, you're the leader.

KP: 10:14

Yeah. He's like he just put some words together to make KP feel happy. And I was happy because I saw the name founder in it. Found relations.

Tharshan: 10:21

I was like, alright.

KP: 10:22

That's good. But yeah. So this is sort of my version of the story. I'm curious to hear about Wait. Wait.

KP: 10:26

Wait. Wait.

Tharshan: 10:27

Be before before we get onto the panel stuff, just Yeah. Again, I'm con conscious of who's gonna be listening to this. And there's gonna be founders who probably, like, relate to a lot of what you've just said. Like, it wasn't just Paddle that you were talking to. Like, Paddle didn't just magically appear.

Tharshan: 10:41

Like, what talk me through the thought process of, like, when you made that bot signal. I remember I remember seeing that LinkedIn post through to, like, the conversations that you had, whatever. How did you, like, refine that thought process to then land yourself a Huddl?

KP: 10:54

I had a very clear criteria on what I wanted to do next, you know, because, again, this is not my first rodeo working at a scale up. I was at OnDeck before. I was at day 1, which is Gary VC incubator before. And so I I realized that, okay, I needed to be clear on what the fuck do I exactly want. Because I had the confidence, which as you can tell, like, I'm I'm extremely confident that I could get a job in America.

KP: 11:16

Right? Like, this is not a rocket science. But the question becomes, what do I really want? And how much do I have to morph myself to fit into the role? And that is the big worry that I had that I have to change myself, you know, know?

KP: 11:27

Like, I have all these things that are entangled into who I am. Right? Like, I have the community side of me, the Twitter side of me, the podcast, and all these things. I'm like, man, I don't wanna shrink myself to fit into a role like a product manager or a data analyst or whatever. Instead, I want the role to kinda rise up to who I am, you know, and how let me be me.

KP: 11:44

You know? And so the clarity I wanted to seek was, alright. I spent, like, I think 2 or 3 days reflecting on my blood point criteria of what do I want exactly. This is very, very hard because I never just, yeah. What were these points again?

Tharshan: 11:56

Because our

KP: 11:57

You remember, I I think I I mentioned this to you in in in our Yeah. One of them

Tharshan: 12:00

was like your wife said it, not you. Right? Like

KP: 12:03

Yeah. I think it was, so the first one was join a don't care about the logo, care about the boss. First bullet point was basically join a high trust leader who gets me. Right? This is, again, a very counterintuitive thing.

KP: 12:16

Right? Like, a lot of people will be you know, a lot of my friends too. Like, they're still, like, logo chasing. They wanna join Google, join, you know, whatever, Facebook, Meta, Instagram. And the challenge there is, yes, you may have on paper on your resume.

KP: 12:28

You may have, like, Spotify. But if your boss is a psycho, like, I mean, I'm not saying that there are people like that, but I know there are people like that. I've had one boss like that, you know, 8 years ago, and it was horrible. The logo was great, but my day to day was a literal mess. So I over indexed on finding a great leader that I admired, and I felt like I could be myself under him.

KP: 12:46

And that within seconds with Andrew was like, this is, you know, this is the guy. Second thing was join a company that serves founders because so much of what I do is entangled around serving founders. So I want I wanted to make sure that the role energized me and had a component of serving founders. Hence, all the companies that came into my funnel in the bat signal, all the leads were all founder based companies. That was intentional.

KP: 13:10

Right? But I got fewer leads, but high quality leads. And you know what the, you know, I got a bunch of other panel companies too. Right? Which is so funny.

KP: 13:16

I was like, that's I didn't expect it, but, like, they're all panel.

Tharshan: 13:19

And what no one When you mentioned the when you mentioned them, I was trying to be fresh. I was like,

KP: 13:26

So that's 2. The third one was a more mature late stage company as opposed to an early super early stage 3 person, 4 person startup partly because I didn't wanna have another financial, like, anxiety 6 months down the line about the next month round or the next, you know, that. And, also, I think my wife was like she was like, join a company where there's more adults in the room and like, a little bit more mature. You know? Because, again, we didn't have any processes in some of the companies I worked at, and everything was just complete chaos.

KP: 13:54

We still have chaos at our at at paddle 2, but it's managed chaos. You know? So I think that's one of the things. But, yeah, I think these three were my factors, and I I forgot there was maybe one more bullet point. I forgot.

KP: 14:05

It's been a month. But it was very intense. That's what I thought. Yes. I know.

KP: 14:08

But I was definitely one thing I remember from experience was that I was very, very intentional. I've never been that focused and intentional in my whole career.

Tharshan: 14:16

Yep. Yeah. And I

KP: 14:16

feel like Uber just delivered delivered what I wanted on a silver pattern at the end of it.

Tharshan: 14:20

When I think about, like, the intro conversation I'm gonna be very frank here. Do you know this, Amontae? For someone whose role is, like, partnerships and, like, market related, I am so not in with, like, the software SaaS community in terms of I don't know. Like, I don't wake up and be like, oh, yeah. Like, I wonder what the SaaS thing does.

Tharshan: 14:39

Yeah. But then when I was on on the call with you, one thing I quickly gained was, like, you're passionate about this, and you can't really fake that passion. And I think that's one of the things when I was telling Andrew. It was, like, yeah. Like, maybe this guy I don't know what your competence is when it comes to, like, doing a task or something like that.

Tharshan: 14:54

Like, it's not that kind of a role. But in terms of, like, giving your all for the sake of, like, the founder who's and also the team, I had to have zero hesitation that you're gonna be able to deliver that. And this is where I'm like listening to you saying all this stuff. I'm like, what do I care about that much? And I'm like, probably football.

Tharshan: 15:10

Yeah. That's probably why I'm so upset all the time.

KP: 15:13

Sheffield. Sheffield is Which which if there's any one lone fan here in the audience who's from the UK and cares about Sheffield, that is a that is the team that Tarshen is on. And, apparently, they're like, they won how many times have they won?

Tharshan: 15:27

Anyway, what was the podcast topic that was going on? Alright.

KP: 15:31

Just stop. Always supporting the underdogs, man. Always support but anyway, I said we set the stage around me joining Paddle and

Tharshan: 15:37

then Right.

KP: 15:38

The role being focused on, of course, founders and ecosystem, but also kind of being a partner in crime for you for Launchpad. So Right. There might be a few folks here now wondering what the hell is Launchpad? What the hell is an AI AI Launchpad? I it's hard that you you invented it.

KP: 15:53

You kinda created it, ran with it for the 1st cohort last year. Give us a sense of what is it first? Give it like a formal what is it pitch and then tell us, like, why you started it.

Tharshan: 16:01

Right. Yeah. So Palu AI Launchpad is a 6 week accelerated program for software founders. And the 3 the 3 core, like, themes that we cover, so product strategy, so helping find your product market fit, go to market strategy, so what's your target market? How do you quantify that?

Tharshan: 16:16

How do you make it something that's worth going after? The TAM that you mentioned for your one, like, that's that topic we help with. Well, SAM, not TAM, but if you trust all of them. And the finance and operations. Like, one of the things that I think has been interesting to watch is a lot of software companies really suffered from valuations that don't really make sense based off what they were going after.

Tharshan: 16:36

And if I, through this proxy of Launchpad, I'm able to have the next generation of founder build in a sustainable, scalable way. Like, I feel like I I can sleep better at night. We initially started this off with 30 places as

KP: 16:51

Spot. Right.

Tharshan: 16:52

Yeah. 30 spots. Yeah. 30 spots. And that was just came down.

Tharshan: 16:55

Honestly, I made that number up. I looked around at other programs that exist, some in SaaS, some in software, whatever, and I was like, 30 seats manageable. And then, yeah, the first few days, the applications exploded. Like, I think we got a couple hundred in the end. And I remember telling Andrew, yeah, I'm gonna turn down x amount.

Tharshan: 17:12

And he just looked at me and went, you're gonna turn them down. Why? And I was like, because it's a lot of work. And he was like, that's rethink that answer. So we accepted 59 people, and, yeah, we were able to incubate the

KP: 17:24

And they were still global too. Right? They're the many of them were, like I I know there's, like, what, 15 to 20 countries there.

Tharshan: 17:30

21. 21 countries, which was like again, when you're planning this with a whiteboard as I was doing in our office, like, at no point did I think we're gonna get x amount of countries or whatever. Like, the people, some were like b to b, some were b to c, some were like launching their first products, like building their MVP during the 6 weeks. Some were, like, multimillion dollars in revenue annual revenue, and they were, like they used Launchpad as almost like a a sprint to launch a new product. And so, like, that variety in such a, like, extreme cohort size of 59, yeah, it was amazing.

Tharshan: 18:05

And I think we knew we wanted to do Launchpad again. I was a natural, like, yes, but, like, this is only me. Like, come on. Chill. And then I think we saw the bat signal, and I spoke to you.

Tharshan: 18:18

And I was thinking of when we're thinking about taking Launchpad to the next level, like scaling it, thinking about how do we get more regions involved, how do we get different calibers of founder involved, whatever. We need someone who truly cares, and I think that's where you step in center stage.

KP: 18:34

Thank you. And, you know, what I loved about the foundation story of Launchpad is you mentioned this just almost in passing. Like, the fact that you're surrounded by founders, like minded founders, you know, in the cohort, some of them who are 2 steps ahead of you, some of them who are 10 steps ahead of you. I think that's insanely inspiring and energizing to be in because I've been, you know, because I you know, you you know, my I was sharing earlier that I've ran a bunch of these, cohorts. One of the recurring themes that comes out to me when I do testimonial videos or ask feedback in NPS surveys is that it's always surprising to me.

KP: 19:05

They always say things like, I think. I over index and I think, oh, the curriculum is great or the speakers were amazing.

Tharshan: 19:10

Oh, I

KP: 19:10

did my best, right, from the from the organizer point of view. But the experiential point of view, what they tell me is that, oh my god. I had this great one on one breakout room or a Zoom chat with this founder who was 4 steps out of me, who went through the same pain of launching into European market and, for example, in this case. And, like, that was worth it. I'm like, what?

KP: 19:28

And they're like, it's so almost frustrating. I'm like, what? Because you can't plan for those things. It's serendipity.

Tharshan: 19:33

It is interesting. And and again, this is we're giving 2 shout outs to Tripp here already. But, like, when I was designing this, so I was going around my friends asking, like, what should I think about whatever? I think Tripp did on deck or a program like on deck. I don't remember.

KP: 19:46

He did. He did. He told me. Yeah.

Tharshan: 19:48

And one of the things that still sticks with me now, he said, is, like, the program was great. The content was great. The speakers were great. The collateral he gave us was great. But some of my, like, industry best friends are people that were in my original working group, and that was years ago.

Tharshan: 20:03

And he still talks to them now. He still meets them up up for dinners and stuff. And for me, again, this is what this is we're in a post COVID world. Right? I was just like, wow.

Tharshan: 20:11

Like, imagine if, for example, in exit like, a couple of years' time, like, there's a meetup, and that the one thing they had in common when they meet each other is, oh, we met through Launchpad. That for me is I don't know, man. That that gives me, like, energy. That's exciting.

KP: 20:26

That is that is true brand love. Right? And that is true, like, you know, it's just creating impact. You know? And that's something that I know, like, what what I love about working under Andrew and with him and, you know, all of you is is I I can almost make a case for something that is unquantifiable in the beginning, and I'll get a head nod.

KP: 20:43

I'll get a, you know, thumbs up to go do that and let the numbers roll in later, which is a great culture. Right? Because usually you're always fighting the other side where you're always like, oh, let me make a solid case and it's like designed by committee. Right? The death by 1,000 cuts.

KP: 20:57

It's Right.

Tharshan: 20:58

With with I think I think

KP: 21:00

he's like cuts. He's much more, like yeah. No. I was gonna say, like, he's much more likely to say, go go do an MVP of this. Like, the way he kinda green lit the launch pad for you.

KP: 21:08

Right? Like, you had no resources. You was just one person. You were. And you had no ROI proof ahead of time.

KP: 21:15

Right? Now we do

Tharshan: 21:16

it. But Yeah. Yeah. Now we do because you're here. But, like yeah.

Tharshan: 21:19

Like, and it's in in that moment, and this you you talked about the founder experience, whatever. For me, building Launchpad was like a because I I started stuff when I was in uni and exited to uni and stuff like this. But, like, this was the first time in a while where it was just it felt like me getting on with stuff. And it's not that people didn't help. People did help.

Tharshan: 21:38

But the group of people that helped me me aren't the people that I would have thought when I'm building a program I was launching at. They were just curious friends who were like Yeah.

KP: 21:46

At Like Ralph?

Tharshan: 21:46

Who are like yeah. Ralph.

KP: 21:48

He looked at him yesterday. Yeah.

Tharshan: 21:50

Yeah. I told I told Ralph as soon as he joined us that you you guys have to talk.

KP: 21:53

We spoke for like an hour and a half. Like, he and I always went on.

Tharshan: 21:57

Yeah. He will be a SaaS founder one day. Like, sometime soon, he it will happen. It's just I wanna make sure that we're the right side of history with him when he does it because, yeah, yeah, I just I just back it. But, like, with one of the things that this is gonna be an ego trip for you, which is why I'm hesitating to even say it.

Tharshan: 22:14

One of the things I was validating when I met you was you obviously had done your research on Launchpad because, again, we were making up as we went to look whatever. The content, the partners that we had, the speakers, the structure, I remember you almost doing a tape, like, side by side comparison with the intent that you had with Build In public. Yeah. Like, tell me more about, like, that. And then because then that will feed into why we're doing another one and why we're doing it to this size that we're thinking about.

KP: 22:43

Wait. So you are you referring to, like, the the rough sketch notes I had about doing an AI based cohort?

Tharshan: 22:49

Correct.

KP: 22:49

Yeah. That was so serendipitous. I was so surprised.

Tharshan: 22:51

Yeah.

KP: 22:51

Because when Andrew mentioned Launchpad, I of of course, until then, I never heard about it, which by the way, we need to fix it, which I will make sure that by end of this year, we'll fix that shit. Every community in

Tharshan: 23:01

the world problems.

KP: 23:02

I know. Every community in the world, every tech region in the world will have to hear about Launchpad and Paddle, and I will make sure that that is something I'll I'll take up. But anyway, so I was I was of course, I didn't hear about Launchpad. So when he mentioned it, I was thinking that, oh, it's it's some kind of a cohort program and, like, I was curious. And then he mentioned AI based founders.

KP: 23:19

I mean, basically, people folks building in AI and wanted to do a 6 week exact number 6 week program. And I was like, is Anshulik secretly reading my notes? Because on Apple Notes, 4 weeks ahead of that moment, I just documented what would I do as a cohort for if if I had to pivot BIPF into a more lucrative proposition would have to be AI based. And so I was like, how about I did a special bonus cohort on AI based, companies and attract I mean, and it's a 6 week program, and I had an outline of it. What would what would be the content topics?

KP: 23:49

What would be the speakers? And, like, generally, the what would be the demo day? And I was, like, so stoked about the demo day because, you know, I've I've hosted the on deck demo. Some of the listeners probably know this because they probably were on the demo day that day as participants, and that was a big hit. And I feel like, you know, in in the startup world right now, the only demo days that have that kind of cult status are YC demo day, which has been going on for 15 years.

KP: 24:10

But, again, that's YC, like the the pinnacle of Silicon Valley. And then Techstars, regional demo days that are also, again, very, investor heavy. The questions are all about it's almost like Shark Tank, which is good, but, like right? You know what I mean?

Tharshan: 24:22

Purpose, different purpose.

KP: 24:23

Purpose and, like, you know, they're trying to close the deal, get the term sheet. My joy came from when I was at OnDeck when I ran those demo days. My joy came from giving these folks who worked so hard for 6 weeks in polishing whatever they were polish whatever startup they're working on, a podium where they could present their work and the world would watch. Now the world is a big word to say there, but I mean, like, as much as possible eyeballs. Because in my head, I'm like, even if 8 new leads come into their pipeline and 4 of them convert Huge.

KP: 24:51

That they had a happy day. They had a great day, and that's because of us. Right? So I was and that was the design I was trying to come up with for even the AI cohort. And, of course, Andrew talks about Launchpad AI, and I was like, damn.

KP: 25:04

You know? So I showed him and you too, I think, side by side, the comparison of what I had. So there's so much like this is serendipitous. Like, the universe needed wanted me to be here and blow this year. So

Tharshan: 25:13

Yeah. And which is why, like, again, crazy for me to think that you've been here for a month already. But, yeah, I'm excited. And and, KP, you've obviously helped me design this new launch pad, which is I don't know if the podcast is launched beforehand. Like, it

KP: 25:28

will be It will come later. March Okay.

Tharshan: 25:30

Later. It could

KP: 25:31

definitely be the March 12th to 15th week or maybe a bit later. But yeah.

Tharshan: 25:35

Sometimes this

KP: 25:36

is like

Tharshan: 25:36

launch launchpad. There's a new version. Like, talk us through what some of the changes that you've helped us to help evolve Launchpad moving forward.

KP: 25:44

First of all, I wanna shout out that we're gonna be live by the time this comes out. So everybody should go check out parallel.comforward/ai dash launchpad. I'll include the link in show notes. Shameless plug because I'm like, I'm worried that if if you lose, like, 20% of the audience after that moment, I wanna make sure that they hear that. Anyway, so Good.

KP: 26:03

Good. That's that's the official, you know, website and stuff. But the second cohort, I think what I'm super stoked about in terms of some of the changes is I've, of course, you know, thanks for all the references and help that you've given me in terms of, the programming we did for the 1st con 1st cohort Right. In terms of the curriculum, the speakers we had. I love diving into our previous curriculum and looking for opportunities to level up a little bit more.

KP: 26:28

You know?

Tharshan: 26:28

Yeah.

KP: 26:29

And, again, this is my first time taking a look at this. So my goal was not to, like, dramatically change it up exponentially because it worked. Right? Like, don't screw up what worked. But I was looking for opportunities to incrementally boost it up to the next level.

KP: 26:42

But selfishly, between you and I, like, 5 years from now, if we're still running that same curriculum, then we're screwed. We need to level up every cohort. I love that reaction. Damn. That was that was a dagger to to my point.

KP: 26:55

But anyway but regardless of what, how you feel, because I know that was your baby for the first cohort, what I'm saying is there's always opportunity to level up the curriculum and switch up the speakers and and, you know, kinda make it better and better. Right? And so that was the angle at which I was looking at, and I I feel like we're we've found a few opportunities where we said, okay. What who else can we bring in here, you know, or what are new new topics we can add? And everything was stemming from the fact that we wanted to make sure the curriculum and the content in the program answered the questions and challenges our AI SaaS founders typically seem to have.

KP: 27:32

Right? Yeah. So that is the, I think, the key difference, I think.

Tharshan: 27:36

Yeah. And I think, like, building on that, to help inform some of the changes that we've done, like, we spoke with the actual launch padlers who completed the program themselves. And, like, I

KP: 27:46

How many calls did you have? I feel like you had, like, a 10 or 9 or how many you have?

Tharshan: 27:50

So, yeah, I think I did I actually did so we had 59 people who did the program, of which 30, I think, submitted and qualified for the competition with their pitch deck and they demo all this stuff. I I think I was able to get on a call with, I think, 20 of them, of which I think, like, I naturally made, like, 8 or 9 of them. Like, hey, guys. Can can I record you saying that? I'll put it online so that more people like you apply.

Tharshan: 28:14

So, like, the engagement of the program was, like, nuts. And I think the feedback that from the content side that I got, and I'm, like, so excited that you're here with your experiences. Like, they want more opportunities for founders to talk with each other. So for example, we used to do, like, weekly master classes. So we would have a partner or 2 come in and speak on an expert topic.

Tharshan: 28:34

Like, who's better to talk about partnerships than PartnerStack? So we would have Nagar come in from PartnerStack, and she is brilliant. Like, she has done sessions I know.

KP: 28:42

Same with same with, like, Patrick Campbell. Right?

Tharshan: 28:45

But come in and talk about pricing. Like, who else?

KP: 28:47

That's crazy. Right? You're learning from the legend in pricing domain. Yeah.

Tharshan: 28:52

And it and it's not like a lecture. Right? It's not like them reading out a slide. Like, Patrick's one and this is the feedback talking here. It's like I was able to change my pricing strategy in front of Patrick with him just talking me through it.

Tharshan: 29:05

And I think so we're still gonna keep the master classes, but now we're like, The founders want an opportunity to share with each other where they are on their builder's story. And I could build it public but amongst the community. So then we're thinking about, okay.

KP: 29:16

How about the workshops? Like Yeah.

Tharshan: 29:18

KP, have you had experience facilitating that? How would that look?

KP: 29:22

And That's the thing that I'm excited about too. Like, I missed it in the first take, but the interactive piece, the interactive workshop, which are going to be an occurring thing, which I'm super excited about because they'll they'll be breakout rooms. They'll be basically applying some of the insights that we discuss. You know? So it's no longer just a talking at them.

KP: 29:40

It's like talking with them and letting them talking amongst themselves. Right? I think that's super exciting. That that kinda shit energizes me a lot, man. Like, I've, you know, there's so many times that I would, like, back, you know, either either at BIPF or OnDeck, innovate on the fly around the event format in ways that they've never they've never been any other events like this before.

KP: 30:00

And I I I'm I'm not trying to innovate just for the sake of it. Innovate because I know, like, just like how you got the sense of, like, what are they looking for. You once you get that from intel from them, you can't go to bed thinking like, alright. This is this is it. Right?

KP: 30:13

You have to find a way to, like, create something new. So

Tharshan: 30:16

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think even, like, another example of this is the the partners that we had last time and again, big shout out to everyone who helped in collaboration with that Launchpad. But, like, I remember I I made the conscious decision not to put in any VCs or PEs as partners.

Tharshan: 30:33

Usually, when you do a program like this, you want to have something like this to the thought process being hopefully one day where you can push it. Considering where the world was in terms of valuations, in terms of, like, markets, like, consolidating and all this stuff, I just I wanted to show those other opportunities of fundraising that isn't so obvious. So for example, non equity financing. So we had companies like FounderPath and Gilead who worked with ARC Capital back then. Like, those kind of companies coming in speaking specifically on those topics, and that got great feedback.

Tharshan: 31:02

But then I also got then the feedback that I didn't wanna hear, which was like, yeah, but we still wanna talk to VCs, though. Like, it would be still cool to have that opportunity. So, like, this time around, I've reviewed, like, that partner list with you, and we've got, okay, which VC do we want to work with that speaks solely to this audience. And it's not like a mini fund within a monster fund that looks at this audience. Who will speak and invest into companies that KP was once serving last year and is still able to serve this year through Launchpad.

Tharshan: 31:29

And I think it's those kind of, like, iterations, and that's why I made that face when you said about the content being so different in 5 years' time. You're probably right, but, like, I think 5 years is is too difficult for me to think that far ahead because I'm so excited about the iterations that we're making for now.

KP: 31:43

Right now already.

Tharshan: 31:45

Yeah.

KP: 31:45

Yeah. I love that. Okay. So give me a sense of you talked to a bunch of these founders at the end. Yep.

KP: 31:51

Yes. I mean, you've been so how do I say it? You've been so communicative through through the cohort and program itself because I've heard from Haley and others from the team that you've like, we really were immersed and talking to them every week. But that aside, you had a end of the program reflection with many of them, the the ones you did is testimonials. If you have to reflect here in public and summarize maybe 3 learnings, what were they?

KP: 32:13

I think you covered maybe 1 or 2 in the previous points, but, like, just to kind of formally summarize them.

Tharshan: 32:18

Yes. 3 for the whole, like, program as a whole, like, build and Yes. So real.

KP: 32:21

What were your three learnings that maybe positively surprised you? Or

Tharshan: 32:26

Yeah. I think taking time to, like, trust my intuition or my gut, I suppose, with, like, who we should partner with and why. So I think with Paddle, we're in a and you've probably, like, noticed this. We're in a fortunate position where our branding, like, especially in the world that we're serving, is so loud. Like, it it has a personality.

Tharshan: 32:45

It's understood. It's, you know, helping to find this merchant cast a merchant record as like a proposition. So it would have been quite easy for us to go and pull the 12 freshest logos possible and, like, get them involved. Because again, like, this is a new new thing for us. One of my immediate fears was like, are we gonna have enough sign ups?

Tharshan: 33:03

Are we gonna have enough people, like, applying all this stuff? But how we how I structured the partnership side from this was, if I was a founder, what are the first, like, 6 or 7 tools that I need? And then from that, I then went and spoke to AWS or banana.dev or customer or something like this, and we got that list. And some of the partners well, so for example, Denise from SaaS Launch. Like, she does some amazing work helping and coaching founders to go and get investments from VCs and that kind of stuff.

Tharshan: 33:33

But, like, I remember it was such a lucky opportunity where I think she happened to, like, subscribe or there was some world where we happened to meet each other whilst I was planning Launchpad. And I was thinking, the work that Denise does and the depth of quality that she will be willing to put in because this is a great opportunity for her and her growing customer base and this stuff. Like, I remember feeling like I had to justify that to a lot of people at the start because, again, we could have gone and got a VC to take partners. But then you see the feedback from the founders of we loved partner x or y because of how detailed and how passionate they were on Launchpad, on our journey, on that kind of stuff. So that was a very rapid way of saying, number 1, I'm glad for the partner side.

Tharshan: 34:13

Like, I I I took time to, a, think about it through the lens of what does a founder need to build their product, but also, like, who could grow with Launchpad? So this is just a one off thing. We want to do Launchpad again and again. Who are our repeat founders? You know what?

Tharshan: 34:27

What my

KP: 34:28

before you go to the number 2, I wanna kinda relay a piece of the the thing that came to mind when you said that first bullet point is something that's great to mind for us as we continue to build the brand of Launchpad because we will always have more partners than we can honor. Right?

Tharshan: 34:41

Of course.

KP: 34:42

What I love the way you've got directed you, which is what earlier I said about the way I I chose Paddle among many options was, like, sensing care and passion over the flashiness of the logo. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And optimizing for the former.

KP: 34:57

Right? Optimizing for a a sense of care and passion versus just the logo itself. Right? Yeah. I think that is a again, being intentional, it's a hard thing, you know, in the moment because sometimes you're like, oh, maybe the easier route is just to take the logo.

Tharshan: 35:11

I was just saying you can argue both sides very easily. Like, easily, you can do that.

KP: 35:16

But but the upside of having someone who's truly engages and then truly wants to give for give first and wants to come back Right. You know, you can you know that they're not phoning it in. They're not just, like, calling it in, like, you know. So I think that is so key and something I will remember and I have to as we go work towards a better launch pad. Anyway, so what's your second one?

Tharshan: 35:34

Yeah. So number 1 was that. Number 2 yeah. There's gonna be an interesting one. Say what okay.

Tharshan: 35:39

So once we actually started the launch pad so I reviewed every single application. I did every personal communication of accepting people onto it or explaining to people why this time around, like, the application didn't work out, whatever. But, like, my personality, I I hope this is true. It's easy to say this, but I feel like my personality didn't budge or change whilst I was on the program. So, like, it's a community.

Tharshan: 36:01

Right? That there are gonna be moments where you need to, like, take control of the room and, like, really get the vibe going and that kind of stuff. Fortunately, the way Haley built the community for Launchpad on Slack, we had people like from Bobi or, like, the team GPT team, like, all engaging on the channel anyway. But I think that was one of the things is when I was doing my session, when I was running the final or hosting the final, I was running the going through the applications, like, I stayed consistent to my personality, which is what I think I thought would be harder to find in someone to partner with Launchpad's going forward. But I feel like with you, you've presented yourself, and, again, it's been true so far so far.

Tharshan: 36:41

That's super fun. It's been true so far. It's like, your personality is this. This is what I really believe in, and this is how I'm gonna go and do it. And you're gonna things aren't gonna work out, but own it.

Tharshan: 36:52

And I think so that that summary of that second point is, like, I'm glad I kept treating myself during that with whether it was the partners, whether it was with the actual founders themselves, or the team helping.

KP: 37:01

Yeah. I think that sort of the second thing reminds me of being authentic to yourself. And and it's it's tricky because when you kind of do something new or you're put into a new environment, there's a tendency that you you you kinda second guess yourself a little bit. I felt that in my 1st month at paddle wear. Because, you know, outside paddle, like, I'm me.

KP: 37:20

Right? I can Yeah. I know me and I'm very self aware. I'm like, if I wanna give a particular shout out to a particular founder for whatever x y z reason on Twitter, I'll just do it because I'm like, hey. Yeah.

KP: 37:29

You know, our product and launch. I'm like, yeah. Why not? Or talk about a particular benchmark within SaaS. Like, you know, churn still stucks, but let's say churn is, you know, the if if the ongoing narrative is that churn has been dramatically bad the last few months, KP's version would be like, so what?

KP: 37:47

Because that's KP. Right? So I'm like, so what? I can walk on water. Like, it's just this unbelievable feeling that I'm

Tharshan: 37:54

Let's get over that. Let's go.

KP: 37:55

And so what? And so what was interesting was I kinda had I felt that maybe I had to reel it in a little bit and, like, you know, be a little bit more moderated in the initial days of being on pat inside the panel, team and all. But when I when I did the SaaS market report with Ben

Tharshan: 38:09

Yeah.

KP: 38:09

It just naturally came up where he asked me, take 1 was me recording to the screen with no Ben or anyone involved and give my commentary on a piece of, what do you call it? A report. And it felt so moderated and, like, tempered down. And he said, KP, it just doesn't feel like you because he sees me, knows me from my content. And then take 2 was him and I like this and him, like, him reach pointing out, like, hey.

KP: 38:31

B to b churn has has declined. I'm like, so what? We got this. You know, that kind of and he was, like, laughing so much saying, oh my god. I've never seen anyone get so hyped about a b to b chart.

KP: 38:40

I don't know. Like, that that's me. Right? So I finally embraced it, and I got a DM from Jess Jessica that day, that it was such a great, you know, segment. Andrew also said, like, thanks for doing this, whatever.

KP: 38:51

So it's not so much the validation, but it felt so cathartic for me Yeah. To still be me on the report and do a different kind of job there. Right? So Ben's immediate response was, let's do this in March again for the new month report. And I want you to carry your optimistics, you know.

KP: 39:06

He tells that I'll be I'll be like, hey, be cautious. You know? So I'm like, okay. That's good.

Tharshan: 39:12

Yeah. I remember texting you, calling you a nerd when I came out, but I'm, I'm I'm glad that you that didn't make the cut compared to the Jess and Andrew nice comments. But yeah. Like but this is what I mean. Like, it's so like, I know this is our job.

Tharshan: 39:24

I know we get paid from this. Like, let's not hide that. Like, that's very clear. But, like, I still wanna enjoy myself. Like, I still want to not have to think about how do I present myself and then Yeah.

Tharshan: 39:33

And I think with when you're around a group of founders, like, they will sniff you out if you're not fraudulent is not the right word, but they'll sniff you out if you're not being yourself. Like, they'll roll your eyes as quick as I do. Yeah. And and Yeah. That's that's a as we scale and grow launchpad, like, that's that's the thing I'm curious about.

Tharshan: 39:51

It's like, how true to ourselves could we keep it?

KP: 39:53

Yeah. So third one. Do you have a third one?

Tharshan: 39:56

Yeah. The third one takeaways? Yeah. 3rd one is, like, obviously, I will write my own history of, like, I founded AI Launchpad against all got up against the walls. There'll be, like, dramatic music in the background, like rain, and just me just, like, looking mysteriously and all that stuff.

Tharshan: 40:11

But the reality is I was a because I was excited of what I was doing, but also, I'm not gonna lie, I was quite nervous and, like, really concerned of failure and, like, what happens how quickly do I have to kill this if it doesn't work? What happens with this stuff? I was over communicating with people that I trust. So people like Haley, people like Ralph, people like Mars, who their day to day roles doesn't necessarily overlap with Launchpad. But then that, I think, then got them excited, and, like, they wanted to share the journey.

Tharshan: 40:39

So Launchpad stopped feeling like a job quite quickly because I would be sat in so in the London office, I'd be sat on the 1st floor on my end with a whiteboard, and Miles would just come down because he's got a 15 minute break, and we'll just have a quick quick chat. I'll tell him about Launchpad, and we have a back and forth. And then I've got 2 or 3 amazing ideas out of that.

KP: 40:57

Yeah.

Tharshan: 40:57

For him, that wasn't like, he didn't have to do that. But for me, it was just like taking the team on that journey. And it wasn't an intentional team. It wasn't an intentional journey. But now when I thought about, okay, how do I make sure that KP is onboarded onto Paddle, understand the dynamics of the team, of the direction, the market that we're going to, one of the first things on my onboarding is, like, here's my group of, like, core friends that helped with Launchpad.

Tharshan: 41:22

Go befriend them. Like, go talk to them. Be yourself. You'll be fine. You'll get there.

Tharshan: 41:26

Because the reality is they're the ones who who who made it happen. Like, if I didn't have Haley doing what she did for the community, sharing sharing about all the founders on LinkedIn, on Twitter, all this stuff, Launchpad would have flopped, like

KP: 41:39

Yeah.

Tharshan: 41:39

Undoubtedly. So Yeah. All three answers were very long winded. But in conclusion, number 1 was, that really taking time to invest in the founder journey to make the partners and prioritize the right ones. Number 2 was I forgot, and number 3 was I also forgot.

Tharshan: 41:57

So I hope the listeners had a better experience than me.

KP: 42:00

Than me at the receiving end of of having this. Well, we'll we'll, this is the true human side, you know, of of both of us. That's fine. We will, go to one more question that I have at the end, which is, we we we talked about well, you kind of highlighted the iterations and improvements, you know, we have in store for from cohort 1 to cohort 2. Right?

KP: 42:23

Give us a sense of, like, any specific startups or founders that you talked to the last time that you would love to see more of this time. You know? Like, who'd be a great fit, right, for this cohort?

Tharshan: 42:33

Yeah. So this is the thing. Right? There's such a range. So I'll give you 2 or 3, like, profiles or situations.

Tharshan: 42:38

So virtual staging was the winner of the inaugural

KP: 42:42

Virtual staging AI, whether it was the winner of the cash prize. Yeah. Yeah.

Tharshan: 42:46

And long story short, if you want to sell your your house and your house is a bit of a mess like mine is, you can use AI to get rid of the furniture or add new furniture to help you sell the product, right, sell your house. Sorry. That's that's that's what And

KP: 43:01

they were do do you remember where they're based out of London? Or

Tharshan: 43:04

No. No. No. They're based in the US. So they actually so the founding team is interesting.

Tharshan: 43:09

So they actually finished Harvard Innovation Labs, and they were working on this as a, like, a product project for credits as part of their original degree that they were doing. And, yeah, then they then they launched on on Paddle. And during the program, what was interesting is they had already got to, I think, like I think it was 20 k MRR by the start of the program. So they found a little niche that they're working on. They implemented a few changes to the product experience.

Tharshan: 43:34

They targeted new markets. They got a better checkout experience. They also, like, changed their pricing structure, so they actually monetized annually. They gave that option. And within that 6 week program, they went from 20 k MRR to 200 k MRR.

Tharshan: 43:49

So, like, in terms of, like, revenue growth, all of this stuff, none of that was in my, like, predictions of what Launchpad

KP: 43:55

did it already. On your Bingo card. Right? Yeah.

Tharshan: 43:57

Yeah. Yeah.

KP: 43:57

But that was a poster child. That was such a great you know? I knew their rough I knew the rough story around it with them winning the cash prize, but I just did did not know the the crazy trajectory of MRR.

Tharshan: 44:08

Yeah. It's a crazy so that's one where it's like you're beginning to see you found a bit of your market, and it's like, how do I get to the next level or the next level?

KP: 44:16

Expiration. Yeah.

Tharshan: 44:17

Yeah. The the other one would be so one of my favorite founders yeah. I'm not gonna share too much about the, like, the background, but long story short, they are a product manager at a big software company. And so they were doing they were building their side hustle, I suppose, through Launchpad. So they would take, like, lunch breaks or meeting breaks out to do the actual sessions and take part.

Tharshan: 44:39

And on the weekends and evenings, they were building this. And I think their intention is to leave their current role because they've got their first recurring customers through the launchpad. So they built the MVP. They got cut initial customer feedback, and now they're gonna make it into a real, like, business that they're gonna commit more and more to.

KP: 44:56

I feel like we'll have I can't wait to see more of those in our cohort. Yeah.

Tharshan: 44:59

I feel

KP: 45:00

like we'll have a lot of those people, you know, because so many of them are especially big tech, you know, if you work at Instagram, if you work at Spotify, if you work at any of these, like, you know, bigger companies or even, like, startup let's say startups, you this is a great window of opportunity to build something in AI. Right? Like, this is incredible. This is like the 1997 or 6 or the Rakam era.

Tharshan: 45:21

The barriers to entry are solo. Like, even people like me, I'm not technical. I'm lazy. But, like, GPTs are a thing that enable me, like, to to just do stuff. Like like Yeah.

Tharshan: 45:32

Like, the other

KP: 45:32

day you were playing with that GPT, the the custom GPTs. Right? You were trying to create some stuff in there. Yeah. It's just like Yeah.

Tharshan: 45:38

It they've simplified it so much. And I think, again, when you have more technical minded people who always had that, like, that itch to scratch, I think that's a real, like Launchpad is a good opportunity because it it it's not committal. If you think about what the program actually is, it's 6 weeks. You do your master class a week. You come to your workshop a week.

Tharshan: 45:56

One of them is where you're learning. The other one is where you actually talk to founders about your story and stuff. The competition at the end is you submitting an updated pitch deck and updated demo and show us, like, some sort of, like, real traction, quantifiable traction, not reviews this, or how have you monetize or something like this. Like, for a 6 week period, that's not that deep, like, to do that

KP: 46:17

no equity.

Tharshan: 46:18

Like, if you have a leading company,

KP: 46:20

it could be a c corp. It could be LLC in America or it could be any any other private limited in the world. We're not taking any equity, and it's it's, of course, free to attend, which is remember my VIP of money. Yeah. Like, I was, like, so relieved.

KP: 46:32

And I was like, ah, it's powered by Paddle, paid by Paddle? Thank you. Now I can go sell a 100 of these spots. Because it was so hard to sell them, you know, with the early stage founders. Right?

KP: 46:41

So

Tharshan: 46:41

Yeah. And let's not hide it. Like, obviously, if they if they are trying to monetize and they have a use case that Paddle can serve, obviously, I want them to use Paddle. But, like, there's there's no salesperson.

KP: 46:53

But it's actually also, I think to clarify, this is not only open to our Paddle current customers. That's important to put it out there. I'll try to include it in our show notes. I'm sure it's on the website for Launchpad too.

Tharshan: 47:03

It's Anyone? Anyone?

KP: 47:04

Open to anyone building, any ambitious founder, building in the AI and and and software, tools space whether or not you have the intention to use Paddle as your billing, you know, tool. Right? So or or any of our tool, like ProfitML or anything. Yeah.

Tharshan: 47:19

Yeah. And and it's it's just not that committed. And I just think that's the profile that I would I I enjoyed it because they they not only took part in the program, but they because they were a product manager, they would then give me product feedback on Paddle. And I I personally can't do anything with that. All that I did was turn around to our product marketing team.

Tharshan: 47:38

Danielle was amazing. And I turned around to our product leadership team and was like, hey, guys. This is some immediate feedback that we've got from someone who's really engaged with Paddle and the Launchpad. Here you go. And they took a call with them and all this stuff, and I yeah.

Tharshan: 47:51

That that that was just such a relationship building opportunity where to the point where when they launched their thing, I'm gonna be like, hey, Haley. Can you do a LinkedIn post sharing that thing? Because we want them to grow. So that that's 1. And then the third one, I I and this is like I'm gonna put this as like a joke, bonus category.

Tharshan: 48:08

Have you ever heard of wet Venture Studios? Is that a thing that you've come across?

KP: 48:11

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've been Yeah. I've been tracking them a little bit.

KP: 48:14

Yeah. Yeah.

Tharshan: 48:15

I cannot emphasize enough how disconnected I am from the world clearly. That's what you've exposed to me in the past month. I've never heard of a Wrench shooter before. So 2 of our what? I know.

Tharshan: 48:24

I know. 2 of our partner not partner. Sorry. 2 of our launch padlers were from the same venture studio, but they split their teams up for 2 different products. And what was, for me, super exciting was I was watching 2 teams.

Tharshan: 48:38

They're not competing or anything like this, but I could see t 2 teams, like, working as like, independently, working on their own, like, on their own branding, on social media, on LinkedIn. They came in. They hadn't had a LinkedIn presence before, and then they started posting. They started posting about this journey. They started and, obviously, people like me are, like, interacting and engaging with their LinkedIn post or their tweets or anything like this.

Tharshan: 49:02

But then they see, okay. This is resonating with the market. Let me do more of that. So even at the end of the program and and, fortunately, both products are gonna become their own businesses, and they're gonna do it. But even if worst case scenario, the project didn't work out, which can happen, it happens every day.

Tharshan: 49:18

Right? Any business. Right. They've built their audience. They've built their immediate network of founders who are building in the same space going through the same challenges, but also externally, they've built a brand for their venture studios.

Tharshan: 49:30

Specifically, I'm talking about Camplight. The work that these guys did was awesome. But for me, like, again, I don't know what the new thing that is gonna apply to Launchpad that I've never heard of, like the new type of founder or the new type of, like, relationship across businesses. But for people like me, like, that's how the you know, we are talking about, like, me being myself. Like, I had to ask questions.

Tharshan: 49:49

I was like, yeah, but how are you not helping each other? Like, how does this how do you monetize? Like, what happens to your other product? All of this stuff. And Right.

Tharshan: 49:57

Yeah. Those are the 3 role profiles that

KP: 49:59

They were educational for you. Right?

Tharshan: 50:01

Yeah. I learned. I enjoyed that. It's all about me. Can you tell?

KP: 50:06

I'm so glad that you were able to, you know, level up a little bit and educate yourself, which you should have known a long time ago. Just kidding. But you know that that is a no. But that is a true untapped I feel like, could be a true untapped niche that we can explore a bit further through the year, you know, for our pipeline. I'm just thinking out loud with you here because at least in America, there's so many venture studios.

KP: 50:29

Actually, one of my close friends, his name's Whit Anderson. Great guy. Love it. Love it. Love it.

KP: 50:33

He's in Atlanta, and he's working at a venture studio here called Neighborhood Studios. And it's founded by Dave Payne who's kinda like a mentor of mine. He's a great guy. But they have this a bunch of EIRs, entrepreneurs in residence, and they're all working on independent ideas on their own. But they are like a team.

KP: 50:49

It's kinda like how you and I are on a team, but, like Right. You might be doing something else a week from now for partnerships and I might be continuing a launch pad or whatever. But so there's they have a shared resource around dev team, but they're testing and validating so many other unique ideas. That's typically the model of Ninja Studio, and there's so many of them in Denver, many of them in in New York. So I feel like, if you're doing at some point, if you're doing targeted outreach to say, hey.

KP: 51:16

Would you be interested in sending your EIRs to the program? That could be a big untapped market.

Tharshan: 51:22

That's the thing that, like again, let's go back to your 5 years. The content will be different, whatever. Like Yeah. Again, we we could debate that for days, but I think that I don't disagree that the delivery of the content will be different. It would be evolved.

Tharshan: 51:35

The the types of people who are partnering with us, the way that we're actually so for example, one of the things I was I told you about straight away is I love the global aspect of Launchpad, but also something that plays in my mind is, like, how about those markets that so for example, I'm currently in Dubai, and I was able to attend step conference. So I was able to see a lot of the Middle Eastern start ups seen here, and it was super exciting. But it's like a rural market, like a rural market that needs, like, a little guidance of, okay. This is how people ex internationalize to the US or to the rest of Asia or to Europe or something like this, and maybe a regional component. There's gonna be so many ways that we, I think, can slice and dice Launchpad in the future as long as we are true to ourselves, the partners we choose actually care about the audience that we're serving.

Tharshan: 52:21

And also, founders are talking about Launchpad long beyond the program. So the the reason I'm quite confident that we're gonna be able to get the 50 people, a good quality 50 people onto the program, is because the people that I will from the the Launchpad is of this current cohort, they've already been forwarding me their friends or somewhat a project to someone else that they know and being, like, hey. Let me know when next Launchpad is on. I want them to apply. And I'm just there, like, yes.

Tharshan: 52:48

You you Yeah. Because I haven't pitched them to Launchpad. They did.

KP: 52:51

They pitched

Tharshan: 52:51

it to them.

KP: 52:52

Yeah. They did. You know what's funny? When I talked about, remember when I first joined, I made a post around, like, I'm joining, Peddle for you know, to run, Launchpad sometime down the later this year. I have a call coming up with 2 folks, 2 of my favorite founders who are part of BIPF cohort cohorts like, last year.

KP: 53:10

And one of the guys said, KP, would love to be part of because this is building an AI tool. It's like, would love to be part of, you know, organic, simmering demand that's coming up to the surface, I feel like. And, you know, I'm so stoked, man. This is gonna be a big year for us And in many ways, we're gonna learn so much. I would love to do a round 2 of this exact episode later in the year, maybe in December or, you know, like, when we reflect on, hey.

KP: 53:41

What's 2024 been like? What do we learn from, you know, from March of this year and stuff like that? But, yeah, I'm excited. Wanna leave on one thought, which is actually I'm I'm personally curious about this and since we're already on the topic anyway. What is going to be your big focus for this year, you know, apart from Launchpad?

KP: 53:57

Like, what are things that you're excited about personally?

Tharshan: 53:59

Yeah. So so just for context, like, my background and experience both with Paddle but also beforehand has been on go to market strategy, like sales development, all of this, the commercial side, but the go to market side. And with Paddle, one of the things over the last 2 years we've done really well is we so we acquired a business called ProfitWell of $200,000,000, big explosion to the market that we could serve. Like, so many companies suddenly opened up in free choice.

KP: 54:23

I found out that they have 34,000 products connected to profitable metrics dashboard. 34,000 is insane.

Tharshan: 54:31

No. And and and it's active. Active.

KP: 54:33

Active. Yes.

Tharshan: 54:34

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the nuts thing. And so that market was so big, and part of my focus there over the past 18 months has been how do we refine the markets that we go after?

Tharshan: 54:44

What value propositions do we speak to? La la la, which is where, like, programs like Launchpad, it's like, okay. Let's not sell Paddle, but let's go and serve the actual founder persona that we know we can serve you well. And okay. Great if they are able to use Paddle at the end of it, but if not, cool.

Tharshan: 54:59

Like, this is still good for us from our brand awareness, all that stuff. So using that mindset, now that we've defined our market and feel like we understand, and now it's like, who do we need to befriend around that audience? So this is where partnerships comes in. So stuff like investor partnership program, customer referral program, and actual tech integration, like, all of this stuff, those things that Paddle have flirted with in the past, but we haven't doubled down. Like Ralph, who we mentioned earlier Yeah.

Tharshan: 55:27

He did the initial foundational work for partnerships maybe 2 years ago on his own, just like going out there, doing it just because he was passionate about it, and he loves it and whatever. And he gave me a whole load of knowledge of what worked well, what didn't work so well, and some, like, hypotheses that he said. And that's really helped, and it was he did that in coordination with Alan, who's awesome and in going as far as I can say. And that has now fed into what I my focus for this year is is, like, what's our partnership function look like? How are we building that and that kind of thing?

Tharshan: 55:57

And it's lucky that Launchpad obviously has been an opportunity where we need to partner with people.

KP: 56:03

And this multi channel or for speakers or for, you know, demo day appearances for many reasons. Yeah.

Tharshan: 56:09

Yeah. Like, both from the actual thought leadership side, but also content distribution. Like, that's the two arms that I think about the partner partnerships and how to prioritize them. So, yeah, like, it so, actually, this will be live whilst this podcast will go live. Our page, www.pydore.com/partners, will have been updated, And we'll be calling out the types of partnership that we are proactively trying to build out to the investors, like, going to all this stuff.

Tharshan: 56:35

But, also, like, we're new to this. Give us your ideas. Like, tell us where we should go. Like, Denise from Launchpad, she came inbound to us and was like, hey. I work for SaaS Launch.

Tharshan: 56:48

We serve similar audiences. Let's partner on something. 3 weeks later, she was one of the first partners on Launchpad. Like, those are the kinds of the ideas I wanna hear about because it could spark something in the right time. So, yeah, I'm just wondering

KP: 57:00

if you could Which is amazing because that is also could be another takeaway for us or, bat signal for us in this episode where because that particular page will be live and I'll put that in show notes. But if there's any partners looking, hearing, this episode or listening or watching this to the episode and wondering, oh, you know what? Paddle serves the ICP that we talked about. Maybe there's a way in which we synergistically can serve the same. Please reach out to us.

KP: 57:26

Reach out to Tarshan. Hit us up. And we're like the foundation level of building a partnerships program. Right? So all ideas are welcome.

Tharshan: 57:32

Super excited. My final question to you, I know you're the actual host, but, session will be asking you questions. But, like, you're a month in. Like, how has, like, how has it been? Not just, like, don't just wax lyrical about Paddle, but, like, mentally, you've gone from being a soul fan to now having a team around you, all this stuff.

KP: 57:51

I think first of all, I wanna say one thing. I've been saying this to the last 2, 3 one on ones I had with, like, Ralph and and Carly, which is 1 month doesn't feel like 1 month to me. Mentally, I feel like it's been like 4 days, literally. And it's so crazy because it's moving we're moving so fast. There's so many things that are moving pieces because it just like your role, my role is also cross functional.

KP: 58:09

There's all these I got these 4 or 5 priorities that kind of float a little bit. Of course, p 1 is Launchpad, but and so because of that and because of some of my own pet projects, like going and talking to customers and some of the stuff that I've been doing, which has been really educational, I feel like the 30 days feel like 4 days, personally. And so I asked Ralph, like, dude, you've been here for 3 years.

Tharshan: 58:29

Yeah.

KP: 58:29

How what is your equivalent of my, you know, my feeling? And he said, it feels like, like, 8 months, KP. The same thing. And I was like, oh, shit. So this doesn't go away.

KP: 58:38

Like Yeah. It feels like but also he said, when I look back, I'm, like, amazed at how many pivots and changes of my because he went from the the BDR, the EAA, and all that stuff. And he's like, it just feels unreal, but so much happened so quickly at Paddle. I'm like, wow. You know?

KP: 58:53

So that's so that is the true reaction. Like, woah. It feels so fast.

Tharshan: 58:57

So Bianca who leads our brand marketing function, and she's been at Puddl for, I think, over 5 years. So a lot of the, like, the rebrand, all of that stuff, like, she was wearing the captions on, but it really run into the market, like, working on that. When I joined Paddle, like because she'd been there, I think, 4 years or up to 4 coming up to 4 years when I joined. I was I asked her, like, how is Paddle actually to work? You've been here long enough.

Tharshan: 59:18

You you should know where skeletons are are buried and all this stuff. And she she said, it still feels like the honeymoon phase for me. You know when you join a new state and it's like a

KP: 59:27

honeymoon Yeah. You feel that honeymoon. Yeah.

Tharshan: 59:29

I asked that same question. So I just done my 2 years recently, and I asked her the same question because we were catching up in the office. She said the same line. Like, she's like and and, like, it it like, I understand what she means. Like, Huddl, has evolved.

Tharshan: 59:41

Right? There's no two ways about it. Like, the company that I I joined versus what we are now, the things that we're working

KP: 59:47

on is completely different.

Tharshan: 59:49

But I wake up and, yeah, I'm enjoying what I do. And as long as I have people like you to really carry the energy as far as I'm concerned, like, yeah, bring it

KP: 59:58

on to the was coming. No. No. I I've been the same. I love it so much here so far that there was a one of my founders is I don't know if I briefed you on this.

KP: 01:00:08

One of my founder friends who 3 years ago, I invested in this company as an Indian investor, like, way back, you know, 4 3, 4 years ago, Was winding down a start up. He raised a bunch of money, but, like, didn't hit BMF, but a hyper talented product guy, kinda like Ralph.

Tharshan: 01:00:25

Right.

KP: 01:00:25

Pings me after I talk about Pat on my Twitter, like, a week after I joined saying, KP, here's, like, my wind down story. You sharing the way you wind it down, that'll help me believe that it's okay. Because there's less a lot a lot of bullshit shame around this. Right? And I'm like, why?

KP: 01:00:39

I've never felt more happy in the last month than

Tharshan: 01:00:42

being a

KP: 01:00:42

b f. And how is it any different? Like, it's what we believe in our head that's fucking you up. Right? I'm sorry.

KP: 01:00:46

That's, like, screwing you up. So, he was he felt he's he felt that, you know, it was really cathartic to read my stuff and he also felt the same way, etcetera. And he goes, I just saw I I thought where is this going? Right? And he goes, I just saw that there's a product marketing position.

KP: 01:01:01

Open a paddle. He's in Canada. Okay? And I shot my shot and I applied just because, you know, you the way you describe it and all that. I was like, awesome.

KP: 01:01:10

You know? So happy because I knew this guy is a great founder like Ralph. I had this this. So it's also the culture that we talk about is a self fulfilling prophecy. Right?

KP: 01:01:20

What we believe internally is true sometimes leaks out to the world and the world catches a glimpse of it. They're like, oh, maybe I wanna be in a culture like that. You know? Yep. We're not saying this is perfect, but I'm saying, like, we're saying what we feel.

KP: 01:01:31

Right? And so I was so happy that he was in the pipeline. I don't know, you know, what happened later. But, like, Jessica pinged me the other day and said, like, I'm talking to him on a call because that's product marketing. Right?

KP: 01:01:42

But it's so crazy. Right? All of this coming together makes me feel like, you know, it's it's always the team, and it's always the culture to me. Great companies are people. They're not products.

KP: 01:01:54

And people make products, obviously, but I believe that and, you know, so that's that's where I'm right now. Maybe my answer will change in 6 months or 1 year and mostly because of you, Tarshin. But

Tharshan: 01:02:05

I'll full responsibility and credit for that downfall. Absolutely.

KP: 01:02:08

But I am having the time of my life and enjoying and feeling great and then excited for this new cohort.

Tharshan: 01:02:14

Yeah. Dude, thank you.

KP: 01:02:15

Awesome. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for being here. Thanks for, stealing the mic and the spotlight from me and being the host default, you know, in this sorry.

KP: 01:02:24

Just kidding. Super excited that you were here. We're gonna put everything out there with the show notes and the links, all the good stuff, and it'll come out maybe in, you know, 7 days from today. We'll make sure that it goes live during our promotion weekend. Hey.

KP: 01:02:37

Thanks for being here once again, man, and we'll see you on a future episode again. Thanks, buddy. It's a it's a wrap.