In Depth

Clay’s path to product-market-fit: Building vertical, creating power users, and understanding founder psychology | Kareem Amin (Co-founder and CEO)


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Kareem Amin is the co-founder of Clay, a lead-generation software that uses AI to scrape 50+ databases and help companies scale their outbound campaigns. Before Clay, Kareem was the VP of Product at The Wall Street Journal. Kareem also co-founded Frame (useframe.com) which was acquired by Sailthru in 2012.

In today’s episode, we discuss:

  • Creating a community of power users
  • How to stay ruthlessly focused and make decisions faster
  • Clay’s principles for finding product-market-fit
  • Why a company is the reflection of its founder’s personality
  • Aligning your own psychology with the business
  • The mindset change from a first to second-time founder
  • Referenced:

    • Airtable: https://www.airtable.com/
    • Clay: https://www.clay.com/
    • Figma: https://www.figma.com/
    • Internal Family Systems: https://ifs-institute.com/
    • NetSuite: https://www.netsuite.com/
    • Notion: https://www.notion.com
    • Sailthru: https://www.sailthru.com/
    • Where to find Kareem Amin:

      • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kareemamin/
      • Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/kareemamin
      • Where to find Todd Jackson:

        • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddj0/
        • Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/tjack
        • Where to find First Round Capital:

          • Website: https://firstround.com/
          • First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
          • Twitter: https://twitter.com/firstround
          • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
          • This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast
          • Timestamps:

            (00:00) Introduction

            (02:36) Clay’s origin story

            (05:54) Building for a specific customer

            (10:42) Knowing when to build for a broader customer-base

            (12:46) The life spiral framework

            (15:52) How founders can make better decisions

            (18:57) Kareem’s principles for product-market-fit

            (25:36) Clay’s customer journey

            (30:04) Interesting tactic to find power users

            (34:00) How to know you have product-market-fit

            (37:11) The impact of founder psychology on the business

            (39:41) Mastering commitment to sprints

            (40:47) How Kareem’s own personality affected his company

            (43:31) Actionable advice to understand founder psychology

            (46:25) Why focus is misunderstood

            (47:09) The mindset shift from a first to second-time founder

            (50:28) What’s next for Clay

            (52:14) The best piece of advice Kareem has actioned

            ...more
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