Clay’s path to product-market-fit: Building vertical, creating power users, and understanding founder psychology | Kareem Amin (Co-founder and CEO)

In Depth

Kareem Amin is the co-founder of Clay, a lead-generation software that uses AI to scrape 50+ databases and help companies scale their outbound campaigns. Before Clay, Kareem was the VP of Product at The Wall Street Journal. Kareem also co-founded Frame (useframe.com) which was acquired by Sailthru in 2012.

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In today’s episode, we discuss:

• Creating a community of power users
• How to stay ruthlessly focused and make decisions faster
• Clay’s principles for finding product-market-fit
• Why a company is the reflection of its founder’s personality
• Aligning your own psychology with the business
• The mindset change from a first to second-time founder

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Referenced:

• Airtable: https://www.airtable.com/
• Clay: https://www.clay.com/
• Figma: https://www.figma.com/
• Internal Family Systems: https://ifs-institute.com/
• NetSuite: https://www.netsuite.com/
• Notion: https://www.notion.com
• Sailthru: https://www.sailthru.com/

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Where to find Kareem Amin:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kareemamin/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/kareemamin

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Where to find Todd Jackson:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddj0/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/tjack

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Where to find First Round Capital:

• Website: https://firstround.com/
• First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/firstround
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
• This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast

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Timestamps:

(00:00) Introduction

(02:36) Clay’s origin story

(05:54) Building for a specific customer

(10:42) Knowing when to build for a broader customer-base

(12:46) The life spiral framework

(15:52) How founders can make better decisions

(18:57) Kareem’s principles for product-market-fit

(25:36) Clay’s customer journey

(30:04) Interesting tactic to find power users

(34:00) How to know you have product-market-fit

(37:11) The impact of founder psychology on the business

(39:41) Mastering commitment to sprints

(40:47) How Kareem’s own personality affected his company

(43:31) Actionable advice to understand founder psychology

(46:25) Why focus is misunderstood

(47:09) The mindset shift from a first to second-time founder

(50:28) What’s next for Clay

(52:14) The best piece of advice Kareem has actioned