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

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 payDiscover the difference between product-user fit and product-buyer fitUnderstand why the worst outcome isn't failure—it's getting stuck in the grey zoneMaster the art of anchoring in the future instead of just filling today's gapsKeywords: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 founderChapters:(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 AdviceSend me a message to let me know what you think!