Ken Evans: Toxic Certainty Is Hurting Your Startup — Product Market Fit, HPRC, and How to Actually Build for Customers | Be Yourself Podcast

Ken Evans

Fractional CPO/CMO and board advisor at Evolution Advisors — on toxic certainty in startups, what HPRCs really are, how to find product-market fit, and why technical founders struggle to listen to customers

Watch on YouTube Ken's Links
28 minutes
Startups · Product Strategy · Go-to-Market · Customer Discovery

About the Guest

Ken Evans — Fractional CPO/CMO, Board Advisor, Evolution Advisors

He has spent most of his career in product management — across product, marketing and product marketing at once — and now works as a fractional CPO, CMO and board advisor helping founders build products that solve real problems before going to market

For six years he has run an "incelerator", a hybrid incubator-accelerator, screening hundreds of startups — and he knows exactly what separates founders genuinely curious about customers from those simply making noise for capital

Who He Is
fractional CPO, CMO and board advisor at Evolution Advisors, with a career in product management across small and large companies
The Incelerator
his hybrid incubator-accelerator, run for six years, takes founders from ideation to shipping — the biggest filter: curiosity and humility, or toxic certainty
His Core Metric: HPRCs
Happy Paying Referenceable Customers — not eyeballs or downloads, but real customers who pay, are happy, and put their name on a reference
On Toxic Certainty
his term for founders who build without customer input because they're certain the tech is right — the antidote is curiosity, humility, and sitting in uncomfortable silence

Key Quotes

“

A lot of times when you've got a purely technical founder, they have this syndrome which I call toxic certainty, which is I'm going to build something even without the potential customer's input because I've got to move fast in crypto. I've got to move fast in AI and we'll tweak it around the edges and we'll make it fit their scenario. Like good luck with that.

Ken Evans
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Tell me about your zero to six customer journey. I don't care about your first million or five million of ARR. If you say that too early, I don't believe you anyway. But I want to know who are going to be your first six customers and why are they going to tolerate your imperfect product?

Ken Evans
“

Uncomfortable silence is a technical founder's worst nightmare because when they get to that point they can't shut up. They just keep talking. They keep pitching. They keep talking about the technology and how wonderful it is. And that just turns people off.

Ken Evans

Episode Chapters

0:00 Episode Intro 0:55 What Does Ken Do 2:58 What Gets a Startup Into an Accelerator 4:21 Vanity Metrics Founders Chase 5:54 What is Product Market Fit 8:00 Airbnb before Airbnb 8:42 Advice for Non-Technical Founders 10:22 Ben Horowitz Likes Geeks? 14:22 Feedback is Money 17:41 Selecting Companies to Help 19:10 How AI is Changing Startup Management 21:45 Startup Founders' Mistakes 24:55 How Ken is Being too Authentic

Full Transcript

BTW: This episode of the Be Yourself Podcast is produced by Beverly Media. Want a podcast that looks and sounds this good? Check out Beverly Production →
0:00 Episode Intro
Ken And a lot of times when you've got a purely technical founder, they have this syndrome which I call toxic certainty, which is I'm going to build something even without the potential customer's input because I've got to move fast in crypto. I've got to move fast in AI and we'll tweak it around the edges and we'll make it fit their scenario. Like good luck with that. Uh what was Airbnb before it became Airbnb? Something completely different, right? Didn't they start out as couch surfing? I mean they Yes, that's what what they they really started out with a very imperfect model and one that people were rolling their eyes at. You know, we could say the same about Uber and Lift and you know all the ride sharing you when everyone said don't get in cars with strangers. I mean or don't share your credit card information on the web. The product should be so good, so essential that people just cannot live without it.
0:55 What Does Ken Do
Serhiy Hello everyone, welcome to the Be Yourself podcast. the podcast on expressing our true selves. Today my guest is Ken Evans. He is a fractional CPO, CMO and a board advisor working for evolution advisors. He helps uh product leaders, founders with a product and go to market strategies. So Ken, welcome to the show.
Ken Oh, happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me.
Serhiy You're welcome Ken. So I think first thing come first. You work with a bunch of different startup founders, tech founders and non nontechnical founders. So can you tell me a little bit about your um I don't know like things that you help them with and the acceleration program that that that you put them in.
Ken Yeah, absolutely. So my background uh for most of my career has been in product management. some in marketing, some in product marketing, uh sometimes managing all two or three of those uh disciplines in both small small companies and in large companies. And so, um, I I like to focus, especially with early stage founders or potentially their board members or investors who are backing them or would like to back them to make sure that they've got a good solid product understanding of what needs to be built because that is time and time again, we've seen a number of studies out there uh that talk about um the lack of product market fit, the lack of building a product that actually solves a problem. And so unless we get ahead of that and really help founders understand the the must-build features, the the must-build products and what is going to validate that once it gets to market, it it doesn't make any sense to just back them with, you know, let me help with the pitch deck or let me talk about your sales strategy. And a lot of times you they'll have um you know mentors and advisors that just say just get out there and sell sell sell. You know um and that just that comes back to to to actually you know really hurt them in the in the end because they can't deliver on those promises.
2:58 What Gets a Startup Into an Accelerator
Serhiy So you're you're screening hundreds of uh startups. Uh and what are the criteria that you use to give someone a chance or not give someone a chance?
Ken Oh, yeah. Well, I you know, I don't like to put myself in the position of winners and losers, but in the program that I've been running for the last six years, which was you call it an accelerator, but really it was kind of a mix between an incubator and accelerator. call it I guess an incelerator you know is getting people from that ideation stage to the point where they actually are building and shipping a product. Um you know I I look for a level of curiosity a level of uh humility. Are they are they really out there listening to potential customers? Are they talking to people or are they just charging ahead because they believe that XYZ technology is going to be the next big thing and if they don't rush to market with something that they're going to be behind. you know, they they want to be first in market in AI, first to market in blockchain, first to market in in, you know, some new emerging technology. Uh, and you know, more often than not, you feel you get this uh this sense of is it a fake it till they make it type of scenario. Are they really are they grounded in a customer problem that needs to be solved? Or are they just trying to make a lot of noise and get attention, maybe attract investment capital that doesn't know any better because they want to back who they believe is going to be first to market.
4:21 Vanity Metrics Founders Chase
Serhiy So this is really interesting. Uh I hear this term vanity metrics a lot nowadays and it seemed that that's exactly what you're talking and the name of my show is Be Yourself. It's all about authenticity. So do you have some thoughts about benefiting metrics and metrics that startup founders chase instead of maybe focusing on something something else?
Ken Yeah. I mean a lot of it's based on visibility. You know I've been around for a long time so I was there for you know web 1.0 and you know the vanity metrics back then were how many eyeballs could you drive to your website? How many people could you uh sign up to be subscribers on your newsletter? All things that aren't necessarily bad, but they're not grounded in actual validation of you solving a problem, building a product that solves that problem, and then getting customers to use that. Ideally, paying customers to use that. Yeah. uh you know I I I don't like to talk a lot about premium models and sometimes they work sometimes they don't but uh my my metric my my success metric for these uh companies that are going through the program or really anybody that I that I come across I'm looking for happy paying referenceable customers my acronym is HPRC's happy paying and referenceable.
Serhiy Yeah becoming your advocates and I think we all starting businesses u strive to get those people who will be sort of like ambassadors for your business.
Ken Yes, absolutely.
5:54 What is Product Market Fit
Serhiy How how can a company understand that they're on the verge of getting to this market product market fit uncovering it or discovering it. What is product market fit in in simple terms? Because I hear it a lot. Cam, maybe you can simplify it and let us know what it is.
Ken Well, I mean, it's not one thing. It's kind of a rolling um acceptance and validation of your product. But in the beginning, it's people use it even it's in its ugliest state, which is why we always say don't wait till you perfected your product. Get it out there and get some feedback on it. And you know, have people say, "Yes, it addressed the problem that you said it was, but it's got some areas for improvement." You know, again, those first six customers, I always say, "Tell me about your zero to six customer journey." Yes. I don't care about your first million or five million of ARR. If you say that too early, I don't believe you anyway. But I want to know who are going to be your first six customers and why are they going to tolerate your imperfect product? Why are they going to use the product that isn't polished? It doesn't have all the reports. It doesn't have all the dashboards, but it just does the job. How are you going to measure your success? what are you what are you going to do that lets you know at the end of the day or the end of the week like we made progress we were successful and you know sometimes that's measured in revenue sometimes it's measured in you know people coming to webinars I mean there's lots of different levels of validation that you're going to go through uh to get to that point where you get that what I'll call light product market fit and then better product market fit and then sustainable product market fit uh but it's it's not one thing but You want feedback that people do value your product.
Serhiy So I I really like this phrase, be as good they can't ignore it. And I think what you're talking about is that the product should be so good, so essential that people just cannot live without it even in its really basic elementary form.
8:00 Airbnb before Airbnb
Serhiy Uh what was Airbnb before it became Airbnb? Something completely different, right?
Ken Well, when didn't they start out as couch surfing? I mean, they Yes, exactly. That's what what they They really started out with a very imperfect model and one that people were rolling their eyes at, you know, but you know, we could say the same about Uber and Lift and, you know, all the ride sharing and when everyone said, "Don't get in cars with strangers." I mean, or don't share your credit card information on the web. I mean all sorts of things that we got over because the value provided on the other end of that transaction was greater than our fears.
8:42 Advice for Non-Technical Founders
Serhiy It solved a problem. That's talking of great engineering and great idea and great product. What if you're a non-technical founder? Because actually this speaks to me Ken. uh in my late late 20s I acquired investments from private investors and I wasn't I wasn't technical at all and my co-founder wasn't technical you know usually you have hustler and hucker so we struggled a lot man so what are the advice that you give for nontechnical founders.
Ken um well I mean this is this is kind of a pet peeve of mine because so many founders have the idea idea, but they limit themselves. They limit their own limiting beliefs, which is kind of weird because I've got a post that I' I've been writing in the background to do a video. Was going to do it yesterday, was going to do it this morning, I'll do it this afternoon. And that talks about that. And so many founders that I've seen that have drained their bank accounts chasing product market fit or chasing that first product because they said, "Well, I'm not technical, so I'm just going to leave this to, you know, whoever I hire to to code the app." What are the processes that what are the what are the behaviors that they're currently following that get them from point A to point B? You fill that in on that butcher block paper and then you go, okay, how can I make these processes better? How can I automate some of these things? How can I build shortcuts into these things? How can I build more confidence into these models which then you can take to a software developer or a systems architect and software developer and just say follow this recipe.
10:22 Ben Horowitz Likes Geeks?
Serhiy Can I think if if I'm not mistaken, Ben Haritz wrote in his book that it's easier to make a successful founder from like a geek, a technical geek than to make like more of a um opposite uh the reality. So like it it seems like he likes technical founders more than nontechnical founders. But but let's let's be honest. I mean nontechnical founders we have our strength. We were better communicators. Um have you learned something about how to establish authentic relationships, authentic bonds with people? Because you know connecting with people is everything and in startup world you have to connect with investors, partners, customers, employees, whatever.
Ken Yeah. Yeah. I mean I don't disagree with Ben's analysis there because they've made a lot of technical people very successful. But on the flip side of that, and this is A16Z and a whole bunch of other people, they're looking for people with deep domain expertise because they have lived the problem. and I can attach technical people to those people to come up with a good product. So um you know back back to your your question about authenticity if if I have 101 15 years in a particular industry and I go out and talk to potential customers and industry partners, I have more authenticity. I have more trust because I've been in their shoes. I have walked the walk. Whereas if you take someone who is purely technical and put them in a domain that they have no experience and they say it's kind of like saying I'm from the government and I'm here to help. It's like I'm here from the future with technology and I'm here to help. And the people with domain expertise go you don't know anything about my industry. How is how are you going to help? I'm going to have to teach you all of this stuff for you to then potentially understand a solution to my problem. The two don't go together very well. So I would in most cases rather have someone with deep domain expertise that knows what they know but they also know what they don't know. And a lot of times when you've got a purely technical founder they have this syndrome which I call toxic certainty which is I'm going to build something even without the c the potential customers input because I've got to move fast in crypto. I've got to move fast in AI and we'll tweak it around the edges and we'll make it fit their scenario. Like good luck with that. I hope you've got a really big check from A16Z to do version one, version two, version three and chasing product market fit. And and technical founders, you know, you know, as an introvert myself or a self-proclaimed ambbervert, technical founders aren't necessarily talking with people and asking good open-ended questions. Yeah. they're out there to validate the technology and just kind of, you know, you know, pound that square peg into the round hole come hell or high water. And so you know it's difficult sometimes for technical founders and I work with a lot of them that don't understand the concept of silence that don't understand open and and open a asking open-ended questions and then shutting up long enough for the customer potential customer to think to reflect and to respond. I mean uncomfortable silence is a technical founders's worst nightmare because when they get to that point they can't shut up. They just keep talking. They keep pitching. They keep talking about the technology and how wonderful it is. And that just that just turns people off. That's just going to make people very defensive and go, I I want out of this conversation as quickly as possible.
14:22 Feedback is Money
Serhiy Yeah. And you're saying something that I resonate with deeply and I think that showing our vulnerability you know engaging with people asking questions that even might sound stupid you know uh are is very efficient and powerful uh tool because then it sparks uh creative thinking or or just deep thinking. But anyways, get uh turning back to the authenticity and and creating real connections. How do we do that? Like when you for example in the shoes of a founder and you want this sincere genuine feedback or you want to find investors like what do you do? Is is that just asking asking questions about your product or maybe got some some good questions that you can recommend or something of this kind?
Ken Well, it's different. I mean, you you lump together investors with potential customers and those are two very different discussions, but we can go every every batch. Yeah. I mean, if you if you've done good connection with potential customers, have good domain expertise and understand the problem that needs to be solved, um, then investors will say, "Okay, I'm willing to take a bet on this because it sounds like you really understand the domain you're about to uh uh enter." Um, but you know, when you're talking to customers, it's not about the product, and it's not even about the technology. It's it's really about the problem, about the industry, about their job. uh and really understanding, you know, how they approach their job today. What pressures are they under in their current environment? Are they being pressured to solve a problem? And this has had this been a chronic problem in that industry or in that company for a long time. And what are they doing today to solve that problem? Change is hard. Apathy is always your number one competitor. And if they're apathetic about solving that problem, even if it's painful, they're not going to buy your product. You have you need to go to someone right now who is duct taping and you know using popsicle sticks to solve a problem today. What are they doing that is very inefficient, not an optimized process? You know, all sorts of workarounds to solve the problem because it's painful. And if you come up with something better that's better than duct tape and and popsicle sticks, they're going to go, "Thank God you're here with a better solution to this. I will go find the budget to pay for your product. But if that past behavior does not indicate that they're trying to solve the problem, they are not one of your first six customers. So if you're, you know, you know, I always say pay for the coffee, thank for thank them for their time, sign them up for the newsletter, but move on. No amount of white papers or education is going to convince them this is a problem that they need to spend time figuring out how to solve. If it is a big enough problem, they're already trying to figure out how to solve that. They're listening to podcasts. They're going to conferences. They're talking to experts. Maybe they're paying for Gartner reports. They're already trying to solve the problem. They're just not getting there with the current products on the marketplace today. You've got to find that type of person because they are anxious to give you money in exchange for that solution.
17:41 Selecting Companies to Help
Serhiy So on the other end you work as a CPO, board advisor, CMO and how do you how do you select the companies to work with?
Ken Well, I mean, I I I make sure that they don't have that trait of toxic certainty, that they actually want to go solve customer problems, that they have um gone outside their comfort zone and talked to people and and asked authentic questions and asked open-ended questions and and really brought the feedback um from those coffee meetings, from those discussions, from those Zoom meetings and really tried to uh massage that information into something saying this is a problem the industry needs solved. I mean, it's it's easier than ever because we have all these generative AI tools, but you don't have to use them. But if you've recorded all those conversations, if you've taken good notes, if you've done, you know, at least a dozen or maybe two dozen interviews with people who are potential customers and not tried to sell them, just talked about their their problems during customer discovery, then you can synthesize that data into something that looks like a a product roadmap and a product strategy. Uh I if if I see people that have put in that effort and are willing to talk to customers and willing to get outside their comfort zone, those are those are the people that I want in the program. Those are the people that I want to work with. If it's just someone who's hellbent on building the next thing in web three, you know, I can't help you. Yeah, I can help you, but you're not going to like the outcome.
19:10 How AI is Changing Startup Management
Serhiy I don't want to dive too deep into AI discussion because I mean it's it's just uh penetrating in every single corner of our life right now. But if you were to point out let's let's make a listical three or five main things uh that AI is uh changing as far as let's say startup world um what would they be.
Ken it's having an advisor that you can talk to and I don't mean that in the in the you know verbal sense but you know if you're going out and you're doing market research it's someone that you can bounce information about and they're going to bring back uh interesting things that maybe you didn't think of. Maybe you know who your competition is, maybe you don't. Maybe you know how people are solving problems today, maybe you don't. So that just gives you good fodder to then go out and further validate with face-to-face coffee meetings. So it doesn't replace those. And I always say even before generative AI became a very well-known uh option for people, you don't do surveys. A lot of startup founders would go to a marketing firm and say, "Oh, we're going to do a survey for you. We're going to put this out on Facebook and on LinkedIn, and then we're going to take all that survey data, and that's going to help you with their strategy." No, because in the beginning, you don't know what questions to ask. And unless you're having those one-on-one conversations, which initially you can have those one-on-one conversations with chat GPT or Claude or or or do it through perplexity. Um, but that should just give you more confidence. Okay, these are the questions I'm going to go ask. Then you go ask those questions of live people and then you figure out okay what did they say and then synthesize that data into okay what are the things that are were what are their top three problems how are they solving it today what are they doing so we can use that as that second set of eyes that second set of ears to be our our interview buddy um and then we can you know basically you know uh use that information to say okay if based on these problems how would I create a product roadmap or a PRD, a product requirements document that captures what these customers said would be a useful product to do a job for them. Doesn't mean you have to absolutely abide by that, but it just becomes a second pair of eyes to say, "Hey, here's an interesting this is what I heard and this is what I would uh suggest as the next level of validation for your product."
21:45 Startup Founders' Mistakes
Serhiy And on my survey um that I sent you prior to the interview, you said that uh the lesson that you learned is that you can't protect people from making mistakes. You can only help them to learn from experiences. But we all strive to minimize mistakes or there's a myth that you can learn using other people mistakes. So in the world of uh you know successful startup stories is that even possible or do you think that this is the path that we should all go through uh without any exceptions to succeed?
Ken You know it's it's ine it's inevitable that people are going to make mistakes. You you know if they if they were you know in the accelerator program or I was coaching them or they went to the boot camp or something like that. Hopefully I I outline some things that they should avoid, but there's always going to be things on the edge or there's always going to be, "Well, how bad can that be?" Okay, put your hand on that burner and then tell me how that felt. Yeah. And then that's one of the charts I put up early on in the boot camp is like, "Okay, here's your idea." There's two paths that you can talk about. The supply side and the demand side. And the supply side is you just talking endlessly and not leaving any breathing room talking about whatever technology you're building. So, you know, AI is going to be great. It's going to be solve all your problems. We're just going to talk about technology until you're blew in the face. And most customers will just want to shut you off and go away. But the other side, the man side is someone, again, you use the term vulnerability that admits they have vulnerability and want to solve a problem. And that's where you can develop empathy around solving that problem. I always say that someone who's not admitting they have a vulnerability is not one of your potential customers because they don't care about the problem enough to solve it. So if you don't meet with someone who's willing to be honest enough to say we have a problem that needs to be fixed they're definitely not going to be a customer early on. They're not going to be one of those early adopters and they probably aren't going to turn into that HPRC that happy paying referenceable customer because it just wasn't painful enough for them to admit their fault. They may be a customer down the road when they see when they see, you know, 20% of their colleagues have already adopted your product and are doing better in their industry than they are, then they're going to go, "Okay, you know, I probably should have done that. You know, send me the invoice." But, uh, they're not, you know, early adopters are a unique breed. There are people that will use your product even when it's not perfect. They will use your product when it's not from a bigname company because they understand it they have to be uh taking on certain risks to solve certain problems.
Serhiy I think there's a law is there a law of diffusion. I think there there is a law of diffusion right that there's first the early adopters then we have the early majority. Uh so there's like a how the market kind of reacts to your product and we need the early adopters though those are innovators people the most enthusiastic people about trying out new stuff.
Ken That's the adoption curve.
24:55 How Ken is Being too Authentic
Serhiy Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so, uh, what I wanted to say as we were wrapping up, I wanted to say that making mistakes is really up, um, my alley, you know, and, uh, this alley where you you you're not trying to have all the answers, you know, and you you you kind of show that you're a human being and you want to walk with someone who understand that you're going to fuck up, but you're going to raise raise up again and fix it, Right. We we all I think uh investors hope that the founders mistakes won't cost them too much. Right. But they kind of understand that it will cost them anyway. You you answered uh to my question if you feel like you uh express yourself authentically in this world. You said maybe a little too much. Can can you uh unravel what what do you mean as we end our conversation?
Ken Well, I mean, you know, sometimes, you know, I can be brutally pragmatic and and and blunt about certain things. Um, but again, you know, you have to balance that with letting people make their own mistakes. So, you know, um, you know, a lot of times like don't do that. I mean, it just it's not going to turn out well for you and and people are like, well, you know, it'll be different for me, right? They think that you come from bad place, but you just want to save them money and everything. Yeah. I'm just trying to I'm just trying to shorten the cycle. But, you know, a lot of times, you know, when you're dealing with founders, you want people that don't stew over decisions for too long. You got to make a decision and move on. Which means, you know, if that decision is wrong, at least you made the decision and then you hopefully learn from it and move on to the next decision. If you've got someone who's basically what you used to say, boil the ocean, like think overthink the problem and wait too long, those are not going to be good startup founders. uh they're they're not going to be people who just, you know, say, "Okay, these are the things we need to accomplish. These are the assumptions we need to test. We need to get out there. We need to figure out these things, and we can't overthink a lot of these um these uh these points because if if we overthink everything, we're not executing. And in uh in the startup world, it's all about that execution. It's all about moving the ball forward every single day. Getting better at what you do, getting better, getting more confident that you're building the right product, that you're solving the right problems, that you're talking to the right potential customers, and really focused on that early adopter. I like what I always like to call the Goldilocks customer that, you know, they're they are just right for the stage of your company. Uh not too big, not too small. They are just going to be the type of person that takes the risks, that wants to improve their job. I call them overachievers as well. If you're if you're not dealing with someone who's an overachiever in their role, they're probably not going to take a risk on your startup product.
Serhiy All right, I think that that is it. Thank you so much, Ken.
Ken All right, happy to do this. I hope this was a good episode for you. I look forward to seeing more in your feed.
Serhiy Absolutely. Thank you.