grabcad story and lessons learned

Lessons learned

Hardi Meybaum@hardi_meybaum

Founder Investor

interviewing.io

2009

2014

Lesson learned #1: talk to customers (not investors)

Lesson learned #2: don’t give up after first failure

Lesson learned #3: celebrate victories - earned $25, celebration dinner $60

Quit a day job and go all-in (week before the birth of 1st child)

Lesson learned #4: have a very very understanding spouse

Raised first seed money

Lesson learned #5: raising the money from Europe is painful

today: 2M+ registered users

Community

Lesson learned #6: launch MVP quickly

Lesson learned #1: talk to customers

Lesson learned #7: everything is not like it appearsLesson learned #8: you are in or out, no middle choice

booked this room for 3 months but ended up here

Lesson learned #9: go where your customers are

Lesson learned #10: learn from great mentors

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Lesson learned #11: always be experimenting

started A/B testing

# of users

17M 20+ investors

Lesson learned #12: raise money when you can, not when you need

Lesson learned #13: raise money from people who want you to succeed and can help you

“This is crazy, I talk more on GrabCAD than in real life”

Lesson learned #14: love your customers

Lesson learned #1: talk to customers

Workbench

Momentum Machines

hammerhead.io

“we love GrabCAD so much that we never want to leave”

Lesson learned #15: customers always comes first

Lesson learned #16: Team comes second, but is incredible important

Lesson learned #17: find people you enjoy working with

Lesson learned #18: hire more experienced and smarter people

than you

Lesson learned #19: find people who inspire you at difficult times

Lesson learned #20: lead through inspiration, discipline and achievement

“have fun and enjoy the journey”

hardi.meybaum@gmail.com

@ hardi_meybaum