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We follow the journey of Faith Forster as she creates an AI native tech startup & product.
Hey. Welcome back to Building Out Loud with me, Randy Silver and
Faith Forster:Faith Forster.
Randy Silver:And we are doing this every week. We are checking in every Monday and seeing how things are going with Faith as she is building Discoveree. And where we got to last time? Well, the last time you showed us some really cool stuff, but from a couple weeks ago, you talked about you had nearly 60 people sign up to give you feedback. And let's see.
Randy Silver:How's it going?
Faith Forster:So I've had quite a few calls with plenty of people now and sort of got really great broad feedback about not just the product itself, but all the other considerations around buying security implementation. I've actually had a few more sign up. I put a call out to another CPO group, now I've got 70 people. Of the 60 original people, about half of them have logged in. And then I've had nine now complete the feedback form.
Faith Forster:So I need to start chasing people, which I'll do this week. We released the first podcast episode last week and I had a few people reach out saying, Sorry, I'll get to it. I'll get to it. I've got a couple of calls in with those people. It's all progressing pretty quick actually.
Randy Silver:Okay. So people are using it. Some people have even filled out the feedback form. What are they saying? What are the signals you're getting so far?
Faith Forster:Of the nine that have filled a feedback form in, so it's not a huge representation yet, But 55% have said it's either extremely valuable or valuable. Nearly 20% have said they're already doing a lot of this or their current practice is fine. So about 80% have said that there is value in this. The difference is people saying that they need to share it with others. It's a kind of tool that you would if you choose to implement it, you want all your product teams using it.
Faith Forster:It's about giving you that overall picture on your product investment. And so, it's not a simple one person chooses to buy it and off they go. It's something you do need to get a lot of people inputting into that decision and really driving it.
Randy Silver:Did you have a hypothesis when you went in of a number that you were looking for to see or are you going in blind? What does that mean? 80% saying this could be of some value, 55% saying maybe. What does that actually feel like to you?
Faith Forster:I think there's still room to improve. I don't necessarily have a particular number in mind, but you really want people to look at this. In the same way, when I put the one liner out on the WhatsApp groups, I want the same reaction when they actually see the product and start using it. It needs to be one of those no brainers. This is so obviously better that we should do this.
Faith Forster:I have some clear ideas on where I can make improvements, particularly the onboarding. One of the comments I got from someone who was alpha testing was like, Oh, I tried to get the AI assistant to help create items on my roadmap or opportunities or whatever. It couldn't do it. I was like, Oh yeah, I hadn't even considered that. The assistant can now create those things.
Faith Forster:But actually, I need to take that quite a bit further. Part of the challenge you have implementing tools like this is the transition across and the actual implementation into the teams, because every team has some sort of documentation somewhere on what they're doing in the product. And so we need to make that super, super easy for that to be ingested and then the plan is set up and off they go. And so there's quite a bit further I can take that, which is really leaning into what the AI is capable of doing to make this just such a seamless transition, an obvious choice.
Randy Silver:Does it give you a better idea in your head of the job to be done describing this is the problem that I'm solving for people?
Faith Forster:I have done some more work with Chad on the messaging. We've now got the new version of the website live, and we are really leaning into that idea of it being a strategic purchase. This is about driving the understanding and decision making that your CEO and your board want. So it is clearly targeted at the CPO. In terms of the actual jobs to be done, yes and no.
Faith Forster:Yes, in the traditional product process, it's really clear that this is about planning. Actually, one of the reasons why I think there's a need for this is that's changing. With AI, that is driving a big shift because it no longer takes months to build a fixture. You can do it in days or weeks. And so the way we do product planning and make those decisions has to change so we can keep up.
Faith Forster:There's not a set playbook for that yet.
Randy Silver:So is that the how you solve the problem or ultimately the problem that the CPO has?
Faith Forster:The problem the CPO has, I think, is that commercial alignment making sure that the choices they're making and what they invest in their product is driving a commercial outcome. I think that's been critically important for the last couple of years when we've moved from this growth at all costs to a much more commercially orientated needing to drive revenue and profit in tech businesses. And so the demand is there, but the practice around it isn't. And so this does help with that. But the how is fundamentally changing because of AI, and I don't think that's set yet.
Randy Silver:Makes sense. So what does this all tell you about your ideal customer profile?
Faith Forster:The feedback's been super helpful with that, actually. My history is with B2B SaaS, which does drive revenue, is very commercial, and so that is why I'm very aware of these problems. And I think what's come out from the feedback so far is that it's a very good place to start. In UK and Europe, B2B SaaS is a good target market. There are quite a lot of them.
Faith Forster:They are revenue generating. They're willing to spend money. They are looking for better ways to manage this, particularly PE backed, hugely focused on trying to drive commercial outcomes and aren't doing it very well today. So I think that's a really clear and obvious initial target market. I have spoken to some people from B2C products.
Faith Forster:The differences are not that great. It would be a pretty simple product change to make it work for B2C. I don't think I need to do it yet. I think I'm better off focusing on getting it working really, really well for B2C and getting some good reference customers and then building those relationships into the PEs. Then I can very easily extend it to B2C and then afterwards look to move into enterprise and corporate.
Randy Silver:So your TAM is potentially almost all CPOs, but the initial SAM you're going to focus on is purely B2B and then you can go into adjacent markets because it's a relatively easy fix, but you'll have the reference customers, you'll have the proof, you'll have the experience.
Faith Forster:The other dimension that's come out quite clearly from the feedback is also the maturity of the business. Some of the feedback I've had is really love having the agents there collecting all the feedback, analysing it, looking at the opportunities and creating the roadmap. That would be really helpful. But actually the goals and the alignment to revenue, that's just scary. So I think that really reflects the maturity of the business and where they're at.
Faith Forster:Whereas others I've spoken to are like, that's exactly what we need because we know we're good at product process, but we need to move the conversation to be more outcome driven. And this is exactly what we need to do that. So, it's been quite a polarised response in that respect. I've built it into the pricing model now. So, the way I've split up the pricing is there's an entry point, which is more tactical stuff around pulling your feedback together, understanding what that means, creating opportunities, making sure that's embedded into your roadmap.
Faith Forster:And then the second part is understanding a competitor landscape, understanding the alignment to goals and really driving those outcomes. I've done it that way because I think that reflects a two step adoption process. I think we'll find in a lot of organizations. They'll start with the tactical and then move on to that alignment with commercial outcomes.
Randy Silver:Does that have to do with the people who were finding it scary? They'll start with the tactical then move into the alignment?
Faith Forster:I think so.
Randy Silver:Who was it that was finding it scary? Was it the less mature organizations or is it people who they're comfortable with product but not necessarily their management team isn't quite there yet? Or what what made it scary for them?
Faith Forster:I think it partly reflects on what they think they can manage within their organization, where they're at in terms of getting the teams to adopt product processes. In one case, they'd come from very large tech business and were very aware of the politics that you can have around some of these numbers. And so didn't want it just in a tool, wanted to manage it. I think it varies a little bit, but it it comes back to maturity for how they think about product as a commercial driver.
Randy Silver:Okay. So as you said, you've got, what, nine ish feedback forms filled out. You've had some calls. What's the next step? What are you looking to get out of the next week?
Faith Forster:I need to chase the people who haven't either tested the tool or completed the feedback form yet. And I think I'll offer to do a call instead. So I've got so far four signed up for beta. They'll use it within their organization with their team and use it in earnest rather than just playing with it. To get it to that point, I need it to work properly.
Faith Forster:I'm having news with the agents. But there's also, before I would be comfortable putting other organisations onto that, I need confidence myself around the security that this has, particularly data security. I would like it to be ready to ingest internal sources of feedback as well, which is not quite there yet. I need to set up those integrations. There's a little bit of a maturity leap I need to take the product through now.
Faith Forster:I had a chat with Ed Biden last week and he's given me some suggestions. One of those is I'm sort of at the end of what I can do with Replet and then I need to move on to a better, more robust stack, including a proper Evals tool. And so that's going to be a big part of this week is setting up that stack using an IDE, which is a developer's vibe coding platform. So that'll be really, really interesting for me to experience that and get that confidence.
Randy Silver:Yeah. There definitely is from my limited experience. It is definitely a step change, but with what you've built, with what you've been doing, it's just gonna take a few days to get comfortable, get used to it, and deal with it. But you've already made such an amazing leap going from nontechnical founder to building all this. What's your level of confidence?
Faith Forster:It's a lot higher. Interestingly, we've just released the podcast, and so I was listening back over the original episodes we recorded. And what really struck me was the difference in my level of confidence in the way I talked about what I was doing. The progress I think I've made mentally, emotionally, as well as practically has been huge over just weeks, a number of weeks. I'm far more confident using AI tooling now, and I think I am ready to make this leap, but it's still a leap.
Faith Forster:It still feels like a big step.
Randy Silver:You're talking about the types of things that you need to do next around data security, working with the internal tools, things like that. Where are you thinking in terms of, is this something you're happy to keep doing as a solo project, or at some point do you think you might want to bring in someone to work with you on a more technical side?
Faith Forster:I'm starting to question that, whether I do need someone who's more technical who can provide that assurance that it's working as it should be. It's something I really need to think about. Ideally, I'd get to the point where I've got revenue before I do that. But also just from my own personal perspective, I would not be comfortable putting an organization on this platform until I had that assurance. So it's a little bit of a catch 22.
Faith Forster:I only need to work out the right way to go around it.
Randy Silver:And I'm just speaking from my own personal experience and my own viewpoint on this. At the point that you're at where people are gonna be going into beta, I'd be terrified of doing this with the level of skill that I have and the confidence I have in these things. I know there's plenty I can do around strategy and experience and things like that, but just the fear I'd have about what's under the hood and whether I've dotted all the i's, crossed all the t's, done everything properly, that's the part that would scare me. And I just look at you. I'm so impressed and amazed.
Randy Silver:It's so much fun to watch you do this and be nervous on your behalf rather than actually have the fear myself.
Faith Forster:Thank you, Randy. I appreciate that.
Randy Silver:Okay. So when I ask you these questions, it's not because I have any lack of confidence in you. I'm dealing with my own anxiety about it.
Faith Forster:As you know, I've done a startup before and it literally took us years to get to this point where we had people using the product or ready to use the product within their own organization. To have done this within two or three months is such a different scenario. And I think the reaction that we've had from people wanting to be part of AlphaTester is really, really compelling. It certainly motivated me to put a little more into this.
Randy Silver:Fantastic. So what should we look forward to next episode? I think we might have a guest lined up.
Faith Forster:Yeah. So Ed, Biden has agreed to come on and have a chat about evals because I think it is a really hot topic. It's not easy to get your head around. So we're going to catch up with him next time and also talk about the tooling architecture and how you sort of get to the point where it's production ready.
Randy Silver:Fantastic. Well, we'll check back in next week for that. Ed's a great guest, and this is a wonderful topic, we'll see how things are going.