Jyoti Bansal is the co-founder and CEO of Harness, the software delivery platform used by thousands of engineering teams, and previously founded AppDynamics, which he led from inception to a multibillion-dollar acquisition by Cisco. In this episode, Jyoti unpacks what it really takes to move from mid-market to enterprise, why he thinks in terms of “product-market-sales fit,” and how he structures Harness as a collection of “startups within a startup” to launch multiple “best-of-breed” products.

In today’s episode, we discuss:

• Why companies get stuck in the mid-market and struggle to move up into enterprise


• Why Jyoti deliberately lost Netflix as their customer


• The difference between product-market-sales fit, and product-market-fit


• How to build a scalable, capacity-driven go-to-market machine (instead of chasing deals)


• Diagnosing whether you have a product problem or a distribution problem


• How to hire and evaluate your first head of sales and top sales leaders


• Why Jyoti sold AppDynamics three days before IPO


• The “binary differentiator” rule for launching new products into crowded markets


• Why Harness runs 16 product lines under one roof

Where to find Jyoti:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jyotibansal/
  


• Twitter/X: https://x.com/jyotibansalsf
  

Where to find Brett:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/
  


• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson
  

Where to find First Round Capital:

• Website: https://firstround.com/
  


• First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
  


• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround
  


• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
  


• This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast
  

References:

• Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/
  


• AppDynamics: https://www.appdynamics.com/
  


• Barclays: https://home.barclays/
  


• BIG Labs: https://www.biglabs.com/
  


• Carlos Delatorre: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cadelatorre/
  


• Charles Schwab: https://www.schwab.com/
  


• Cisco: https://www.cisco.com/
  


• Citi: https://www.citi.com/
  


• Cloudability: https://www.apptio.com/products/cloudability/
  


• Datadog: https://www.datadoghq.com/
  


• Dynatrace: https://www.dynatrace.com/
  


• Harness: https://www.harness.io/
  


• Jeff Bezos: https://x.com/JeffBezos
  


• Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/
  


• Nasdaq: https://www.nasdaq.com/
  


• Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/
  


• New Relic: https://newrelic.com/
  


• Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/
  


• Splunk: https://www.splunk.com/
  


• Traceable: https://www.traceable.ai/
  


• Unusual Ventures: https://www.unusual.vc/
  


• VMware: https://www.vmware.com/
  

Timestamps:

(01:48 ) Why do companies get stuck in the mid-market?

(05:09 ) Designing a product for enterprise and mid-market

(07:19 ) Why Jyoti lost Netflix as a customer – on purpose

(10:18 ) Becoming a scalable GTM organization

(12:32 ) The real signs of product-market fit

(14:04 ) Have you delivered the value?

(15:46 ) How to hire your first sales team

(19:59 ) The four signs of excellent sales leaders

(23:16 ) How to interview a sales leader

(27:51 ) Where Jyoti developed his commercial taste

(29:37 ) Why early founders need to learn sales

(32:02 ) How AppDynamics began

(36:36 ) Why Jyoti sold three days pre-IPO

(41:55 ) What does a healthy board look like?

(44:23 ) How Jyoti perceives competition

(46:18 ) Why you need a binary differentiator

(49:53 ) How to launch multiple products

(52:00 ) “We need to be best of breed”

(57:38 ) Why PMs are like mini-entrepreneurs

(1:00:20 ) The startup within a startup

(1:02:45 ) A culture of continuous improvement