Snapshot · The a16z Show
Andy McCall's two non-negotiables for any POC: a hard end date (30/45/60 days) and mutually agreed success criteria defined upfront — to prevent 'science projects' that drag on indefinitely.
Where this was said
At 23:09 · chapter starts 20:00
Andy describes the mechanism that made Meraki's land-grab so effective: a webinar program where attending earned you a free access point. [1] — Andy McCall "Meraki couldn't beat Cisco on reputation in 2009. So they stopped trying to pitch and started shipping. Attend a webinar, get a free access…" 19:55 The logic was elegant — no amount of pitching could communicate simplicity as effectively as experiencing it. Plug it in, configure it in minutes, and the light bulb goes off. Joe asks how this translates to AI companies, where products are configurable, deployment is complex, and capabilities are evolving daily. Andy identifies the key risk: AI POCs can become open-ended science projects where buyers keep asking 'can it do this, can it do this?' because the answer is almost always 'yes, and we'll add it next sprint.' The discipline required is to resist scope expansion and pre-negotiate two things: a hard end date (30, 45, or 60 days — period) and mutually agreed success criteria defined before the trial starts. Joe adds a nuance: when automating something that has never been automated before, there's a configuration cost and a learning curve that means the product may technically work but still require significant hands-on optimization — and founders must be clear about what they're signing up to deliver versus what depends on customer adoption.
Meraki ran a webinar program where attendees received a free access point to try; the hands-on trial converted customers because experiencing simpler cloud-managed networking was more persuasive than any pitch.
AI capabilities are advancing daily, so every POC risks becoming an endless feature-request loop. The fix is simple but requires discipline: define a hard end date upfront and agree on success criteria before the trial starts. If those two things are missing, the customer will keep expanding scope and you'll never close.
Bhanu grew SiteGPT to $13,000 monthly recurring revenue entirely through organic channels, spending nothing on paid marketing.
More than 1 million people have visited SiteGPT's website since launch in March 2023, all through organic channels.
Approximately 90% of SiteGPT's Google search traffic comes from the free tools Bhanu built, not the main product pages.
Bhanu sold his first SaaS product, Feather, for $250,000 so he could focus fully on the faster-growing SiteGPT.
SiteGPT has generated approximately $500,000 in total revenue since its launch in March 2023.
The average customer lifetime value for SiteGPT is approximately $1,700 to $1,800, which Bhanu considers unusually high.
SiteGPT receives around 50,000 visitors per month, of which about 200 convert to leads and 60 start free trials.
SiteGPT hit $10,000 MRR within its very first month of launch, driven largely by early traction in the AI chatbot space.
Despite strong download numbers, PropGPT could not push past $1,000–$2,000 MRR due to poor product retention.
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