Jon O'Bryan shares his journey from studying physics to co-founding property tech startups and now running Atlas.so. He discusses his experiences in academia, finance, and running an Airbnb business before co-founding Atlas. The vision for Atlas is to be the customer system of record, handling all customer information from support to sales. In five years, they aim to be the first point of intake for customers and provide insights for product development and customer success.

In this conversation, Fynn & Jon discuss the challenges of entering the CRM market, the importance of finding a narrow wedge to gain initial traction, and the value of building a broad platform over time. They also touch on the lessons learned about monetization, including the need for simple and transparent pricing and criticality of establishing transparency with customers around billing & invoicing, especially for usage-based models.

Takeaways

- Jon O'Bryan's journey from academia to startups

- The vision for Atlas as a customer system of record

- The importance of customer support and insights for product development

- The goal of turning potential customers into actual customers

- Entering the CRM market requires finding a narrow wedge to gain initial traction.Building a broad platform over time provides more staying power but is harder to get in the door.

- Monetization should have simple and transparent pricing to avoid churn risks.Independence and confidence in oneself are crucial for entrepreneurial success.

- Lowering the bar for what is needed to be comfortable and happy in life allows for more risk-taking and pursuing big goals.

Sound Bites

"I met my co-founder Rahul and he had a lot of thoughts on what support should look like. Felt like it was too fragmented and I felt like from my experience at Pads, but had seen definitely like, this was an issue for us."

"The vision for the business is to be essentially like your customer system of record. We want to be the first point of intake whenever a customer comes to your company and we hold on to their information until they leave."

"In five years, I would like to be essentially like your customer system of record. We are the first point of intake whenever a customer comes to your company and we hold on to their information until they leave."

"So attack the CRM market, enter with support is a good way to think about it."

"The assumption in startup land for at least the last decade, decade and a half is that like more focused, more better, like the narrower, sharper, your, you know, the tip of your sword, the better."

"If you can bring these silos together, there are like interesting interactions that you can only have if you are natively integrated on the same platform."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background

10:20 The Birth of Atlas

31:31 Entering the CRM Market

38:48 The Power of a Narrow Wedge

42:08 Building a Broad Platform

46:24 Lessons Learned about Monetization

54:46 The Impact of Independence on Entrepreneurship

Keywords

Jon O'Bryan, physics, property tech, startups, academia, finance, Airbnb, Atlas, customer system of record, support, sales, product development, customer success, CRM market, customer support, narrow wedge, broad platform, monetization, pricing, packaging, independence