Welcome to Episode 128! Nicolas Dessaigne is the Founder & CEO of Algolia, the most reliable platform for building search into your business. Just last week they raised $53m in funding led by Accel with participation from Jason Lemkin @ SaaStr, Point Nine Capital, AppDynamic’s Jyoti Bansal, Intercom’s Des Traynor and InVision’s Clark Valberg and more incredible investors.
In today’s episode you will learn:
* How Nicolas made his way to YC and came to found Algolia.
* What are the key things that change when you cross the 10m in ARR milestone? What have been the fundamental learnings in the march to $10m in ARR?
* Jason Lemkin has said before that ‘the first 10 unaffiliated customers you get is the first sign of pre-success.’ Does Nicolas agree with him here? When are the first signs of pre-success for Nicolas?
* Does Nicolas agree with Jason that $1m-$2m in ARR is always the hardest for a scaling SaaS startup? Which element did Nicolas find most challenging? How has Nicolas seen himself change and develop as a leader with these inflection points?
* What are the fundamentals to building a successful developer community? What have Algolia done to do this so successfully? What mistakes do other startups normally make in their pursuit of this?
60 Second SaaStr:
* What hires does Nicolas wish he had made earlier?
* What does success look like for Nicolas with Algolia?
* What does Nicolas know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
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