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I thought focusing was crazy when I had 1 billion potential users

The PMF Show · He failed for 5 years. Then hit $20M ARR with 100%...

“And every conversation that I had with, from my investors, potential investors, adviser that said, you need to focus.”

5:10 / 5:42

mindset that I need to find a huge and very wide problem. And every conversation that I had with, from my investors, potential investors, adviser that said, you need to focus. You need to find one single use case. Go vertical. Go I said, what? Are you crazy? There are 1,000,000,000 Excel users. You want me to give up of of, I don't know, millions or hundreds of million of them? I want to solve the whole problem. Okay? We tried

About this clip

Datarails founder Didi Gurfinkel explains his initial resistance to investor advice about focusing on a specific use case. Despite having access to a billion Excel users, he struggled with the counterintuitive idea of narrowing his target market instead of trying to solve everyone's problems.

Why this clip

This captures a common founder mistake of resisting focus despite clear advisor guidance, making it highly relatable for early-stage entrepreneurs.

5:10 - 5:4232spersonal lesson
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What they said next

Why finance people resist new tools even when they hate Excel

15:48 - 41s · market insight

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