His travel startup crashed 90% overnight. Here’s how he used AI to grow past $2M/year—to $2M a month:

For a while, Andrew was crushing it. Accelerator -> $750K pre-seed -> $2M ARR -> $2.5M seed round. Then COVID hit.

He was selling to events like CES, SXSW, etc. Revenue drops from $160K/month to under $10K... overnight. Even worse—many seed investors decide not to wire the funds.

So he finds a way to get 18 months of runway. He then pivots from selling to events to using AI to sell to travel bloggers. A year later, his business takes off.

2020 - $0
2021 - $1M
2022 - $5M
2023 - $15M
Now - $24M.

Why you should listen:

- Andrew's technique to land early customers. He offered to PAY his customers to use the product.
- Learn how to deal with massive swings in revenue and unpredicted events. Early-stage founders are always one deal, one employee, one fundraise away from success... or failure.
- Learn why you "can never celebrate until the money is in the bank"

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro

(00:01:16)The Start of Stay22

(00:07:15) The Seed Round

(00:011:53) Pivoting the go to market

(0019:38) Investors Pulling out Due to Covid

(00:26:56) Finding the Opportunity in the Pandemic

(00:31:31) Tapping into the Blogger Market

(00:37:31) Growing Back from Zero

(00:38:49) Finding True Product Market Fit

(00:39:35 One Piece of Advice

COVID brought him from $2M/year to near bankruptcy. Then AI took him to $2M... a MONTH. | Andrew Lockhead, Founder of Stay22

A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders