Ep49: IoT, Pivots, and Enterprise Partnerships; w/ Josh Teekell, Founder & CEO, SmartAC — Product Market Fit podcast (#startups #tech #AI #growth)
My guest today is Josh Teekell, Founder and CEO of SmartAC. The company recently raised a $22M Series B and is set on transforming the HVAC and plumbing industries. I particularly enjoyed learning how Josh figured out their B2B2C business model, which is super relevant to any founder building a complex product where the end-user isn’t necessarily the one who is going to pay for it. We also talked about hardware, pivots, IoT or the Internet of things and advisory boards. And stick around to the end for Josh’s hot-take on remote work. Chapters: (00:00) Introduction (02:21) About the company and product (04:30) Pivoting to a successful business model (13:31) The art of securing big deals: a founder's guide (20:19) Lessons learned about activation and retention (28:58) From crowdsourcing to series B: the funding journey (32:13) Advisory boards: navigating their role in startup success (34:30) In-person vs. remote work: embracing the in-office startup culture (37:12) AI-powered growth for SmartAC (38:57) Lightning round Guest Contact Info: Website josh@smartac.com Link to support Israel: giveisrael.org Sponsor: This podcast is brought to you by grwth.co. Grwth offers fractional CMOs, paired with best-in-class digital marketing execution to support early-stage startup success. With a focus on seed and series A companies, Grwth has helped a number of SaaS, digital health, and e-commerce startups build their go-to-market function and scale up. To learn more and book a free consultation, go to grwth.co. Get in touch with Mosheh: linkedin.com/in/moshehp twitter.com/MoshehP hello@pmfpod.com www.pmfpod.com Topic keywords: IoT, hardware, software, product market fit, fundraising, startups