Between March and June of 2020, the Thisten team pivoted their product twice and started over.

By October, Thisten had reached 53,500 all time users on the platform.

Although things were growing, the team members all decided to focus on new projects and let the platform grow on its own.

In No Comments Yet, Thisten co-founders – Ben, Rui, and Sudeep – recount the story of building a new startup (thisten.co).

After realizing that the SaaS version of Thisten would grow slowly and organically, the founders started thinking of new ideas to pursue.

A hard pivot was in order, but identifying the right opportunity to tackle proved to be a challenging endeavour.

In No Comments Yet, Thisten co-founders – Ben, Rui, and Sudeep – recount the story of building a new startup (thisten.co).

After reflecting on the current macro conditions of the world, the Thisten team talks through the challenges of building a startup during this time.

Despite the effort put forth in pursuing new customers, none of it matters if the problem being solved isn't something that people currently face.

In No Comments Yet, Thisten co-founders – Ben, Rui, and Sudeep – recount the story of building a new startup (thisten.co).

After launching the SaaS version of Thisten in early May, there were a number of things that needed improvement on the platform from both a Product and Engineering perspective.

The team reflects on some of the immediate changes that needed to be made, in order for the product to be functional.

In No Comments Yet, Thisten co-founders – Ben, Rui, and Sudeep – recount the story of building a new startup (thisten.co).

In early May, the Thisten team launched the MVP of the SaaS platform they built over the course of a few weeks.

With the market not doing anyone any favours in 2020, the team wasn’t taking no for an answer. They were determined to keep iterating on their product until something would stick.

In No Comments Yet, Thisten co-founders – Ben, Rui, and Sudeep – recount the story of building a new startup (thisten.co)

In early April, the Thisten team was measuring the data from their micro-pivot. Their initial launch was strong, then user growth started to stagnate after two weeks of rapid growth.

The team began wondering if the Consumer platform they built was going to hit the growth metrics they had laid out before pivoting.

After week three, user growth started to increase exponentially again, but the team had already started discussing plans for another micro-pivot after their six week timeline for testing the Consumer platform was up.

In No Comments Yet, Thisten co-founders – Ben, Rui, and Sudeep – recount the story of building a new startup (thisten.co)

In early March of 2020, the world was changing drastically. Conferences were getting postponed and cancelled, and over night, the Thisten team went from having early traction to losing it all.

When SXSW – the team’s largest event – officially got cancelled, the writing was on the wall. Conferences were no longer a viable strategy for Thisten to pursue, so the team adapted quickly.

In a matter of days, not weeks, the team began rebuilding their product and started thinking about the next steps that were needed for them to grow.

In No Comments Yet, Thisten co-founders – Ben, Rui, and Sudeep – recount the story of building a new startup (thisten.co).

In the new year, things started turning upward for the Thisten team. They began monetizing their product, seeing strong revenue growth, and were growing internationally into new countries.

However, in a matter of days, many conferences started getting cancelled around the world, due to concerns about Coronavirus, and things weren’t looking good for live events.

Right when the team started seeing some early signs of product-market-fit, the world got flipped on its head.

In No Comments Yet, Thisten co-founders – Ben, Rui, and Sudeep – recount the story of building a new startup (thisten.co).

Between October and December of 2019, the Thisten team learned a lot about working with different conferences around the world. With each event, they used the feedback they received to make quick adjustments to their product and kept making it better every week.

As well, they got better at onboarding events, troubleshooting problems, and identifying red flags for things that might go wrong.

The biggest challenge they faced was finding a way to continue growing quickly over the course of December, and into the New Year, when many conferences and businesses were operating at a different pace.

In No Comments Yet, Thisten co-founders – Ben, Rui, and Sudeep – recount the story of building a new startup (thisten.co).

In the fall of 2019, Thisten started getting traction with conferences, and the startup was growing quickly.

During this time, the co-founding team decided to apply for Y Combinator’s winter 2020 class. In early October, an email came in and YC was interested in learning more about what the Thisten team was working on.

In No Comments Yet, Thisten co-founders – Ben, Rui, and Sudeep – recount the story of building a new startup (thisten.co).