Writer’s product-market fit journey: May Habib on taking on ChatGPT Enterprise

Writer’s product-market fit journey: May Habib on taking on ChatGPT Enterprise

Author: Unusual Ventures October 16, 2023 Duration: 31:05

Full episode transcript: https://www.unusual.vc/post/writers-product-market-fit-journey


Started in 2020, Writer is an enterprise-grade generative AI platform for larger, security-conscious companies. Writer has over 150 customers, including teams at UnitedHealthcare, Uber and Accenture. Last valued at over $500M, Writer makes it easy for enterprises to build internal apps that generate a variety of content from sales enablement to blog posts. 

In this episode, Sandhya Hegde joins Writer’s co-founder and CEO May Habib to discuss the company’s path to product-market fit.

Join us as we discuss:

1: 30 The origin story behind the founding of Writer

5:11 The early product vision for Writer

10:02 The transformation of the enterprise AI buyer

14:49 Security and compliance in AI models

17:27 Writer’s approach to addressing hallucinations 

21:35 Why May and the Writer team had deep conviction in Enterprise AI

24:43 The next big horizon for Gen AI and Writer

27:50 May Habib’s journey as a CEO

29:18 Building a culture of curiosity at Writer

Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and 

May Habib is the CEO and co-founder of Writer, a generative AI platform for the enterprise. Before Writer, she co-founded Qordoba. 

Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.
Further reading from Unusual Ventures:

Build conviction in an early stage startup

Understanding the enterprise buyer

LLMs in security


Behind every so-called overnight success in software, there's a long, often messy journey of finding exactly what customers need and how to deliver it. That's the central theme explored in Startup Field Guide by Unusual Ventures: The Product Market Fit Podcast. This series is built for those in the trenches of early-stage software companies, from founders just starting out to leaders tasked with building something from nothing. Each episode moves beyond theory, offering grounded conversations with people who have actually navigated these challenges. You'll hear them unpack the real work of identifying a true market need, the nuances of early hiring decisions, and the practical steps of crafting a go-to-market strategy. Fundraising, often a opaque process, gets broken down into more understandable components. The focus remains consistently on the actionable and the specific, providing a kind of audio manual for the foundational phase of a business. Tune in for a candid look at the less-glamorous, critical work that separates an idea from a viable company, all brought to you by Unusual Ventures. This podcast serves as a resource for turning those initial concepts into a sustainable operation, one hard-won lesson at a time.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 53

Startup Field Guide by Unusual Ventures: The Product Market Fit Podcast
Podcast Episodes