This Founder pivoted four times before it worked, and says every pivot only made his conviction stronger.
Purya Sarmadi, co-founder and CEO of MedMe Health, the Y Combinator startup now powering over 4,500 pharmacies across North America.
In this conversation, Purya breaks down the distinction most first-time founders miss: being on the wrong wedge is not the same as being in the wrong market. He walks through the four pivots that got MedMe to its wedge, the one-line test he used to know he’d found it, and how COVID took the company from roughly 100 pharmacies to nearly 1,200 in about ten weeks. He also gets honest about the co-founder relationship, the message that nearly broke his, and the principle he now uses to keep both founders in the fight.
What you’ll learn:
– The difference between being on the wrong wedge and being in the wrong market, and how to tell which one you’re in
– The one-line test he used to know he’d found the right wedge
– Why AI changes the class of problems you can solve, but not your customer’s job to be done
– The exact co-founder message he regrets, and the “candle” principle he uses instead
– How one 72-hour build won MedMe its first enterprise customer and unlocked the rest
00:00 Intro
01:27 You Can Be Right But Still Fail – Don’t Give Up
04:11 Why couldn’t a pharmacy do this?
04:53 The Pivots
05:42 Wrong wedge vs. wrong market
07:04 From 100 to nearly 1,200 pharmacies in ten weeks
08:04 Build on What Tech Can’t Replace
10:06 What AI changes for founders, and what it doesn’t
10:32 Comfort Quietly Kills Your Best Partnership
11:16 The message that nearly broke his co-founder
12:23 The candle principle
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