Keith raised a $43M Series B for Tome. The product had 20 million users. But retention was terrible and nobody cared enough to complain. So he turned it off before he knew what he'd build next, went from 70 people to 7, and started over. Lightfield just closed a $45M Series A.

In this episode, Keith breaks down how he knew Tome would never grow up, why customers lighting up your Slack at 3am is the signal you actually want, and the exact playbook he used to sell an AI-native CRM to YC founders before he charged them a dollar.

Why You Should Listen

Why angry customers are a better signal than 20 million happy ones.
How to know when optimizing metrics will never re-inflect your business.
Why you have to kill the old product before you can find the new one.
How to win founders with free software and events instead of cold email.

Keywords startup podcast, startup podcast for founders, product market fit, finding pmf, Lightfield, Keith Peiris, Tome, pivoting a startup, AI native CRM, agentic system of record, cutting burn, go-to-market, selling to YC founders, launch videos, B2B SaaS

Chapters

00:00:00 Intro
00:02:27 The Customers Who Were Hopping Mad
00:07:41 20M Users, Almost No Retention
00:09:27 When Your Business Works But Won't Inflect
00:11:24 Why His Board Said Burn the Boats
00:18:29 Turning Off the Product Before Knowing What's Next
00:22:13 Reinventing the System of Record
00:30:25 How to Sell to YC Founders
00:36:04 Making a Launch Video Hit a Million Views
00:44:08 The One Piece of Advice

Send me a message to let me know what you think!

He turned off a product with 20M users and went from 70 people to 7—then raised a $45M Series A. | Keith Peiris, Co-Founder & CEO of Lightfield

A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders

He turned off a product with 20M users and went from 70 people to 7—then raised a $45M Series A. | Keith Peiris, Co-Founder & CEO of Lightfield