He killed a viral app with 50k users. 2 years later, he hit $10M ARR and raised $30M from Sequoia. | David Paffenholz (Juicebox)

David had a consumer app with 50,000 users and viral traction—and he shut it down. The retention metrics weren't as good as what he'd seen at Snapchat.

That difficult decision cleared the path for Juicebox, AI for recruiting that grew to $10M ARR in 2 years. 

In this episode, David reveals how he pivoted to AI recruiting, generated millions of views with a simple LinkedIn demo, and ground through months of brutal churn to unlock 10x growth. If you want to know how to execute a flawless PLG strategy, run a hyper-lean team, and secure a $30M Series A from Sequoia, this is the blueprint.

Why You Should Listen

• Why you should kill some products even if they're going viral.
• How to launch a B2B product with zero budget.
• The "manual" playbook for fixing high churn.
• Why you should keep your team under 25 people even after raising millions.
• How to land an inbound term sheet from Sequoia.

Keywords

startup podcast, startup podcast for founders, product market fit, finding pmf, PLG strategy, viral marketing, pivoting, AI recruiting, Series A fundraising, Sequoia Capital

00:00:00 Intro
00:03:15 Learning Growth at Snap
00:13:01 Killing a Viral App with 50k Users
00:20:34 The 90 Second LinkedIn Video That Launched Juicebox
00:26:21 Fixing High Churn with Manual Work
00:33:04 Why B2B Products Only Need to be Marginally Better
00:42:27 Scaling to $10M ARR with Founder Led Sales
00:47:40 Raising a $30M Series A from Sequoia
00:50:12 The Moment of True Product Market Fit

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