He exited for $335M—& felt "emptiness". So he quit, gave up millions in earnout, & grew to $1M ARR in 6 months. | Alon Arvatz, Founder of IntSights & PointFive

A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders

Alon was a hacker for the Israeli Defence Forces' cyber department. There he saw the most advanced methods used in cyber warfare. So when he left, he started IntSights-- a company that helped enterprises defend themselves from cyber attacks.
He was a first-time founder who didn't even know the word 'unicorn'. He made all the mistakes you could make. But he had real, undeniable pull. He grew to $1M ARR in a year and to $4M a year later. By the end of it, he was doing $30M in revenue and exited for $335M.
But when I asked him what it felt like to sell for hundreds of millions, he said it 'felt like emptiness'. Alon is a builder—that's all he wants to do. So he quit post-acqusition and left millions of dollars on the table. Money he was guaranteed to make if he just stayed in his role.
Instead, he started PointFive to help enterprises reduce wasted spend on cloud infrastructure. He know nothing about the space. One year in, he's raised $36M and grown to millions in ARR— even faster than IntSights.
Here's the story.
Why you should listen

• Why Alon felt empty after exiting for $335M.
• Why he left millions of dollars on the table to start a new startup.
• Why the mistakes he made in his first startup helped his second one grow way faster.
• Why he raised $36M in under a year.
• Why true customer pull comes from solving top of mind problems.

Keywords
LinkedIn, video content, cloud cost optimization, engineering responsibilities, startup funding, second-time founders, product market fit, customer traction, entrepreneurship
Send me a message to let me know what you think!

Chapters

1. He exited for $335M—& felt "emptiness". So he quit, gave up millions in earnout, & grew to $1M ARR in 6 months. | Alon Arvatz, Founder of IntSights & PointFive (00:00:00)

2. Starting his first startup (00:02:02)

3. What he learned as a hacker for the military (00:09:19)

4. Coming up with IntSights (00:13:11)

5. Growing to $1M ARR (00:22:19)

6. Selling for $335M & leaving millions on the table (00:25:39)

7. Coming up with PointFive (00:28:50)

8. Why Your Second Startup Can Be Too Polished (00:38:34)

9. Raising As Much As Possible (00:41:52)

10. Early Days of Insights vs PointFive (00:45:23)

11. Advice for Second Time Founders (00:47:57)

12. Finding True Product Market Fit (00:50:01)