GV’s Frederique Dame on product-market fit: ‘You have one chance at a good experience’

The most important step on a founder's journey is placing the cart before the horse.

Asking investors for money888-607-ally is a largely egotistical exercise until a company builds a growing base of customers who are deeply engaged with its products. savvy investors might compete for a chance to participate after a startup reaches product-market fit

Frederique Dame, an investing partner with GV who previously led product and engineering teams at companies like Yahoo, said that achieving product-market fit is not a linear process. She offers a range of services to her portfolio companies, which include advising on recruiting, marketing and comms, and product development.

We talked about her experience in creating user-centered work cultures, gathering actionable customer data, and handling some of the unique challenges that come with scaling teams from a few dozen people to several thousand employees.

Dame led strategic programs that helped the company grow from 80 employees to 7,000, which included transitioning from spreadsheets to systems that created transparency and accountability. I asked how she approached the work from a cultural perspective, because early-stage employees are accustomed to using ad hoc processes to get their work done.

Set aside your ego and listen closely to customers

Trust me with what you don’t know or what’s not working, because once we invest, we’re going to have to work on this stuff anyway. Frederique Dame

She said that the first thing you need to do is hire people with low egos. Surge pricing was a problem for early customers because the platform wasn't fast enough. Dame directed members of the company's separate rider and driver teams to focus on a single problem.

Dame said that there were multiple products that were conflicting between drivers, internal systems, and the app.

Most drivers used flip phones with rudimentary web browsing capabilities in 2011. Many visited internet cafes that did not have the latest versions of browsers.

They were failing when they looked at an error page. Dame said that understanding the user journey of your customers is important.

Test as many ideas as you can (without asking engineering for help)

There is an inexorable tension between the need to test new ideas and the desire to make sure that road maps remain aligned with actual product lines.