He exited for $200M— then bootstrapped his next startup to $100M in revenue. | Alex Hawkinson, Founder of BrightAI

A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders

Alex sold his last IoT startup for over $200M to Samsung. He felt the needed to build something much bigger, so he started BrightAI. The goal was to use AI and IoT to solve big problems for enterprises.
A few years later, he bootstrapped to $100M in revenue across just 7 customers. Last quarter, he raised $15M in venture funding. He shares how he closed million-dollar enterprise projects before building a product, why he refuses to go after just one vertical, and some of the biggest lessons he's learned after years building startups.
Why you should listen:

• Why impact is the biggest driver for starting startups.
• How to find champions and get enterprise design partners.
• How AI and IoT can combine to solve real-world issues.
• How to make sure you don't get stuck in a niche forever.
• How to tell if you're on to something in less than 18 months since launching.

Keywords
SmartThings, Bright, IoT, critical infrastructure, pest control, AI, technology, innovation, entrepreneurship, product development, AI, pest control, multimodal AI, revenue streams, platform scaling, product-market fit, early-stage founders, entrepreneurship, sustainability, critical infrastructure
Send me a message to let me know what you think!

Chapters

1. He exited for $200M— then bootstrapped his next startup to $100M in revenue. | Alex Hawkinson, Founder of BrightAI (00:00:00)

2. Selling his company for $200M (00:02:16)

3. The V1 of Smart Things (00:07:22)

4. Why being an outsider can help (00:09:20)

5. First time vs Repeat Founders (00:17:58)

6. First Use Cases (00:20:40)

7. How to build a horizontal platform (00:29:19)

8. Finding Product Market Fit (00:38:47)

9. One Piece of Advice (00:40:12)