A drug dealer threatened to kill him—then he grew 50x in 3 Years to $50M ARR. | Brett Carlson, Found of ServiceUp
Description
Brett had a drug dealer's car for 13 days. By day 11, the death threats started coming. This is the reality of building ServiceUp, the "DoorDash for auto repair."
Brett literally stole DoorDash's entire playbook—city launches, three-sided marketplace, everything—but discovered even if he got 90% right, 10% of B2C customers can end you.
He raised from Tiger just as the firm exploded. The DoorDash partnership that seemed like salvation turned into their worst nightmare. But then they pivoted to B2B and saw their average order value grow 5x overnight.
"Work-life balance is BS. If you can work seven days a week, you'll fail faster, fix faster, and find product-market fit faster."
Why You Should Listen:
- Why just 10% of your customers can destroy your business
- How to close funding in the middle of a macro crisis
- Why work-life balance is BS if you want to build something big
- How stealing another startup's playbook can lead to 5000% growth
- Why your worst customers might actually show you your best pivot
Keywords:
startup podcast, startup podcast for founders, ServiceUp, Brett Carlson, marketplace startup, B2B pivot, Tiger Global, auto repair tech, fleet management, startup growth
00:00:00 Intro
00:01:40 Failed auto shop becomes ServiceUp idea
00:03:27 Pulling co-founder out of retirement
00:09:30 Raising $2M seed from angels
00:13:23 Building the MVP in Puerto Rico
00:15:01 Early Bay Area operations and getting shops
00:17:50 The drug dealer death threat incident
00:21:17 Tiger Global loses $8B during Series A
00:26:57 DoorDash partnership disaster
00:28:36 Pivoting from B2C to B2B fleets
00:30:00 Finding product-market fit
United States
