Hiren bootstrapped Tectivity from a smart locker idea into an IT asset management SaaS that competes with VC-funded rivals — with 25 people, zero outbound, and a customer base that refers each other across job changes.

In this episode:

→ Why he pivoted from hardware to software, and the years he wishes he'd gotten back

→ How a two-week feature turnaround beats competitors who "charge for innovation"

→ The $900K his team saved one enterprise from a couple of reports on mobile phone usage

→ The security breach that hit them four years ago — and how they rebuilt trust with SOC 2 and forensics reports

→ Why founder-led support stops working, and when to actually step back

→ How 90% of growth comes from SEO and referrals — with zero cold outreach

For founders building bootstrapped B2B SaaS in crowded, well-funded categories.

----------- Episode's Chapters -----------

0:06 — Introduction & Hiren's Background

1:10 — How the Smart Locker Idea Was Born

2:05 — Pivoting from Hardware to SaaS

2:29 — Why Hiren Chose to Stay Bootstrapped

3:44 — Founder-Led Support on Slack: Sustainable?

4:41 — Customizing the Product for Each Customer

6:35 — Word of Mouth as the Primary Growth Engine

9:54 — SEO vs. AI Search: What's Actually Driving Traffic

14:03 — The Security Breach & Lessons Learned

15:47 — Building Remote Culture with a 25-Person Team

20:24 — Biggest Win, Biggest Failure & Final Hack

🎙️ Hiren Hasmukh - https://www.linkedin.com/in/hiren-teq/

Teqtivity - https://teqtivity.com/

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Karel Papik spent 20 years making video games and then discovered that gaming principles for hooking users in the first hour are more advanced than most B2B onboarding. He brought that thinking to Product Fruits, then scrapped the entire roadmap to rebuild it around AI.

We get into why his investors offered more money within 24 hours of hearing the pivot, how "forbidden mechanics" from gaming translate into SaaS adoption, why he stopped doing outbound and content entirely — and why he now tells founders to stop listening to customers about the future of their product.

For SaaS founders, product managers, and operators thinking seriously about onboarding, AI adoption, and how to grow without chasing every trend.

In this episode:

→ Why investors offered more money within 24 hours of the AI pivot

→ How gaming "forbidden mechanics" translate to SaaS adoption

→ Why they stopped doing outbound and content — and what replaced it

→ Personalizing onboarding at the user level, not the segment level

→ Why founders should stop asking customers about the future

→ The personal cost of critical thinking and going against consensus

----------- Episode's Chapters -----------

0:00 — Intro & Karel's Gaming Background

1:13 — From Video Games to SaaS: How Karel Found Product Fruits

3:17 — Gaming Principles That Apply to SaaS Onboarding

6:59 — Why Product Fruits Went All-In on AI

9:19 — AI Personalization & How Elvin Works

15:07 — The "Annotation" Method: Teaching AI About Your Product

20:33 — Data Privacy & Why Customer Data Stays Separate

21:40 — Dealing With AI Uncertainty & Pricing Changes

22:58 — Growth Strategy: PPC Over Content

26:21 — Biggest Win: The Bold Bet on AI

29:17 — Founder Hack: The Power of Critical Thinking

🎙️ Karel Papik - linkedin.com/in/karelpapik

Product Fruits - https://productfruits.com

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796

Mark Walker has been a litigator, a music industry lawyer, and a repeat SaaS founder — and he's now CEO of Nue, the revenue orchestration platform quietly running the billing stack for most of the major AI companies you've heard of.

We get into why customers come to you looking for reasons not to buy, how one Nue customer had $2M unbilled and didn't know it, when Stripe is genuinely enough and when it isn't, why seat-based pricing was never really right — and what Mark thinks are the only real moats left in SaaS.

For SaaS founders thinking about pricing, billing complexity, or what their revenue stack should look like as they scale.

In this episode:

→ Why customers come looking for reasons not to buy

→ How to find and fix revenue leakage (one customer: $2M unbilled)

→ When to invest in revenue infrastructure — and when Stripe is enough

→ Why seat-based pricing was never the right model

→ Lessons from selling his last company

→ Why distribution and data are the only real moats left

----------- Episode's Chapters -----------

0:24 — Introduction: Mark's Unconventional Path to SaaS

1:08 — First Startup Blanketware: Ahead of Its Time

3:21 — What Is Nue? Revenue Orchestration Explained

4:27 — Who's Running Nue: The AI Company Client List

5:44 — Pricing for the Fastest-Growing Companies in the World

9:13 — When to Invest in Revenue Infrastructure

16:08 — How to Price Your Product (and Stop Leaving Money on the Table)

22:40 — Usage-Based Pricing: Hype or Reality?

26:48 — Revenue Leakage: What It Is and Why It's Costing You Millions

35:36 — Lessons from Acquisitions and Exits

39:19 — Biggest Failure and Biggest Win

44:08 — The Hack: Sell by Addressing What They're Afraid Of

🎙️ Mark Walker - https://www.linkedin.com/in/markwalker/

Nue - nue.io

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Stay up to date:

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796