He pivoted at $1M ARR—then raised $120M. | Kevin Tian, Co-Founder of Doppel
Kevin Tian's story challenges conventional startup wisdom about when and how to pivot. Despite achieving $1M ARR in the NFT space, he made the counterintuitive decision to completely shift to cybersecurity, ultimately building Doppel into a $120M company backed by Andreessen Horowitz—proving that sometimes abandoning success is the path to greater success.
Key takeaways
- •Ask 'how much would you pay?' instead of 'would you pay?' to get meaningful customer validation data that actually predicts revenue potential
- •Product expansion opportunities often emerge when customers mention using multiple solutions—ask if they'd value a unified approach
- •Pivoting from a successful business model requires treating market transitions as entirely new customer validation exercises
- •Timing fundraising around market volatility can create unexpected opportunities and risks, as Doppel experienced with their FTX investment
Listen to full episode
Best moment
The one customer validation question most founders get wrong
Yeah. We we would ask, would you pay? We we probably should have asked, how much would you pay? Right? But we certainly ask, would you pay? And I think that's a very, very important question to really be able to measure the value of what you would really be delivering for that particular customer.
Did you raise money at this point, or is just the two of you kind of bootstrapping?
That's a good question. So at this point, we were actually applying to different, incubator accelerator, you know, whatever you wanna call it, programs. Right? And so we were ending up deciding between, you know, South Park Commons, Y Combinator, you know, pair pair of interest, and there's a couple more as well. And and so, you know, I forget if it was the exact timing of when the check arrived, but at that point, we were committed to South Park Commons.
“So I never got to meet him directly, but, you know, had the fundraising happen.”
3 clips
Ordered by timestamp. Jump to the moment you care about.
Related episodes
He failed for 5 years. Then hit $20M ARR with 100% outbound. | Didi Gurfinkel, Founder of Datarails
The PMF Show · Feb 26, 2026
E702 | Lubomila Jordanova, Plan A: Climate Isn’t “Over”
EUVC · Feb 25, 2026
Making the most of the founder/investor dynamic (w/ Liz Zalman, author of 'Founder vs Investor')
The Startup Podcast · vs Investor' · Feb 23, 2026
Investor Stories 461: Feast and Famine in Crypto, When to Take the Off Ramp, and Evaluating Founder Temperament (Simpson, Chaddha, Orthlieb)
The Full Ratchet · Feb 23, 2026
From the blog
Want clips like this for your podcast?
We find your top 5-8 clips, write the hooks, and deliver ready-to-post content. First 2 episodes are free.
Get 2 Episodes Clipped Free