His AI Voice Startup grew to $10M ARR in 1 Year—after 3 Years Stuck at $500K | Jordan Dearsley, Founder of Vapi
Jordan Dearsley spent 3 years building a startup stuck at $500K in revenue—then he burned it all down and moved to San Francisco. A year later, he was at $10M ARR. This episode walks through Jordan’s decision to abandon a profitable business, why solving a painful customer problem was the key to explosive growth, and how finding product-market fit is as simple—and as brutally difficult—as discovering a 10/10 burning pain.
If you’re a founder struggling to find breakout growth, this episode is your blueprint.
Why You Should Listen
How to pivot from a dead-end idea to $10M ARR in one year.The power of solving a 10/10 burning pain.When customer anger becomes your biggest growth signal.Why chasing local maxima can trap your startup.How true conviction unlocks explosive growth.Keywords
product-market fit, startup pivot, explosive growth, voice AI, founder stories, SaaS startups, early-stage startups, customer pain points, San Francisco startups, developer tools
00:00:00 Intro
00:02:35 Stuck at $500K ARR & Burning the Boats
00:07:15 Knowing When It’s Time to Quit
00:08:49 The Side Project that Became Vapi
00:16:28 Early Growth and Finding First Customers
00:23:32 The Product Hunt Launch that 3X’d Growth
00:27:57 Surviving Explosive Growth
00:35:17 Competing Against OpenAI and Big Tech
00:41:26 How to Identify a True 10/10 Pain
00:48:53 The Moment of Real Product-Market Fit
A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
Every founder has 1 goal: find product-market fit. We interview the world's most successful startup founders on the 0 to 1 part of their journeys. We've had the founders of Reddit, Gusto, Rappi, Glean, Cohere, Huntress, ID.me and many more.
We go deep with entrepreneurs & VCs to provide detailed examples you can steal. Our goal is to understand product-market fit better than anyone on the planet.
Rated one of the world's top startup podcasts.
- No. of episodes: 208
- Latest episode: 2025-07-31
- Business Entrepreneurship Technology
Where can you listen?
