There is no one better than show host (and ArchiveSocial Founder) Anil Chawla to help founders look back at the beginning stages of their startups to determine how they found product-market fit, and in this episode of For Starters (sponsored by law firm Robinson Bradshaw) he does it once again.
This week, Chawla talks to Monica Wood, the Co-Founder and former CEO of Myxx, a company that allows everyday people to simplify their cooking by not only having access to recipes, but also by enabling them to pre-order the exact ingredients at their grocery store. (We first profiled Myxx in February, 2019.)
Together Chawla and Wood talked about all things spanning from how to get a startup’s first customers to eventually answering the question of how product-market fit is found.
Here are some episode highlights:
- With working in a position that required a lot of traveling, Wood said that she was motivated to find ways to incorporate healthy meals into her family’s lifestyle, which eventually gave her the idea of Myxx: “I was a single mom with three kids, so it was really tough to travel and things that you take for granted become extremely hard, like grocery shopping and meal planning became a real challenge,” she said. “For me personally, that really struck a chord because I really wanted my children to grow up with healthy habits.” (5:34)
- Wood said that she was able to secure brands as customers by showcasing to them many features of Myxx that they were not able to track themselves, resulting in many brands calling her idea genius: “What you may not understand is that the grocery industry is one of the largest industries in the United States, but at that point in time, it had the least amount of innovation,” she said. “So, brands didn’t know what products were sold in individual store locations, they didn’t know [about] their own products, they had no idea.” (27:59)
- When she noticed that customers were constantly wanting to work with them, Wood said she began to realize that Myxx was doing well and finding their product-market fit: “The second point of traction was when we started to have repeat customers that didn’t just test similar with us with one program, but came back and ran programs with us throughout the year,” she said. (31:44)
- If she could rewind the clock, Wood said that she would have made sure that before leaving her day job, that she had revenue coming in from her startup that could support her salary: “I think that there are a lot of great ideas and a lot of things you can do as an entrepreneur while you have your day job and while you have that security, that you don’t need to sacrifice and add that stress into your life.” (34:47)
Listen to this week’s episode (and subscribe!) below to hear more about Myxx and how Wood got involved with it! And of course, thanks to Robinson Bradshaw for sponsoring!