Pat Kinsel went from years of painful struggle at Notarize to building Proof, a SaaS platform approaching $100M ARR with 230 employees and $260M raised.

In this episode, Pat explains how a notary error during his first startup exit sparked the idea, why he validated demand with a simple landing page before building, how he endured years of slow traction and false signals, and what changed when he expanded beyond notarization to transaction security.

🔑 Key Lessons

• 💡 Validation Strategy: How Pat validated demand with a simple landing page and Google ads before writing code.


• 💰 Surviving Negative Margins: Why losing money on every transaction nearly killed the company and how they fixed unit economics.


• 📈 The COVID Spike: What really happened when demand spiked 100x overnight and why many of those customers churned later.


• 🏛️ Regulatory Moat: How he spent years lobbying to change state laws, turning red tape into a massive competitive advantage.


• 🔄 The Pivot: Why he rebranded from "Notarize" to "Proof" to expand TAM beyond just digital notary services.

📖 Chapters

• Introduction & About Pat Kinsel


• Validating Demand: Landing Page & Google Ads


• Losing Money, Struggling for Profitability


• Lobbying to Change Notary Laws


• Origin Story: Where the Idea Came From


• Early Investment Experience & Industry Connections


• Initial Research & Testing (Unbounce Landing Page)


• Building the MVP: Mobile App for Online Notary


• Early B2C Go-to-Market Strategy


• Recruiting the First Notaries


• Educating and Acquiring Consumers


• Marketing Tactics: Google Ads, SEO, Channel Partners


• Long, Slow Early Growth and Doubts


• Breaking Even & Gross Margin Challenges


• Lobbying Strategy & Industry Support


• COVID-19 Impact: Exploding Demand


• Shift to Enterprise Customers During COVID


• Post-COVID Reality Check & Refocusing


• Expanding Beyond Notarization: The Proof Platform


• Enterprise Transaction Security & Deepfakes


• Technical/Engineering Moat & Compliance


• Lightning Round

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Resources:

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