Feedback loops and free product offerings with PandaDoc's Mikita Mikado
This week on How To Win: Mikita Mikado, CEO of PandaDoc. PandaDoc is an all-in-one document workflow automation platform. They launched in 2013, were valued at $1B in 2021, and have a projected revenue of $55M this year. They have 390 employees across the US and Belarus. In this episode, we discuss how they used customer feedback to pivot PandaDoc successfully, their decision to make part of their product free, and how balancing external opportunities with a strong internal culture helped them win. I share my experience of pivoting Wynter in its first year, creating high-quality feedback loops, and the importance of building a company culture of high standards, care, and accountability.
Summary:
This week on How To Win: Mikita Mikado, CEO of PandaDoc. PandaDoc is an all-in-one document workflow automation platform. They launched in 2013, were valued at $1B in 2021, and have a projected revenue of $55M this year. They have 390 employees across the US and Belarus. In this episode, we discuss how they used customer feedback to pivot PandaDoc successfully, their decision to make part of their product free, and how balancing external opportunities with a strong internal culture helped them win. I share my experience of pivoting Wynter in its first year, creating high-quality feedback loops, and the importance of building a company culture of high standards, care, and accountability.
Key Points:
- Mikita on founding PandaDoc (01:03)
- The winding road to the first million (03:21)
- I share my experience of pivoting Wynter with a quote from author Steve Blank (05:28)
- Which customer acquisition channels did PandaDoc use in the beginning? (08:05)
- How did conversations with customers change PandaDoc's approach? (10:36)
- I weigh in on the benefits of creating high-quality customer feedback loops with a quote from Meta's Daniel Strazzulla (11:26)
- Mikita talks about PandaDoc's slow growth and its free product offering (14:13)
- I discuss using a free product offer as a moat with a quote from ProfitWell's Patrick Campbell (15:46)
- How does PandaDoc win against the competition? (16:36)
- Mikita lays out why external opportunities and internal company culture have been important to PandaDoc (18:22)
- I stress the importance of a strong company culture with a quote from Dock's Alex Kracov (20:04)
- Mikita gives his three pieces of advice to fellow SaaS founders (21:49)
- Wrap-up (24:33)
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