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
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