Ep 25: 2 Co-Founders, 5 Dead Ideas, Then Pylon w/ Marty Kausas, CEO @ Pylon

<p>For 40 years, the safe bet in enterprise software was Zendesk or Salesforce. Marty Kausas, founder of Pylon, thinks picking either for customer support today might now get you fired.</p><p>Before Pylon worked, Marty spent 2 years cycling through 2 co-founder breakups and 5 dead ideas. Today, Pylon has 5x&#39;d revenue two years running, raised a $31M Series B from a16z and Bain Capital, and migrated 150+ customers off legacy support platforms. We cover the &quot;happy grinder&quot; culture, why B2B support is a completely different problem than consumer, the per-seat vs outcome pricing debate, and why Marty thinks buying Zendesk is now the risky move.</p><p>This episode is brought to you by Stifel Bank — trusted banking and venture debt partner for Sierra Ventures&#39; portfolio. Learn more at stifel.com.</p><p>Chapters:(0:00) Cold open and intro(2:02) Meet Marty and Pylon(3:06) Co-founder breakups and 5 dead ideas(10:13) Salesforce → Support Force(13:29) LinkedIn as 80% of Pylon&#39;s pipeline(22:05) Why B2B support isn&#39;t ticket deflection(28:33) Not Sierra, not Decagon(32:34) The context layer(39:34) Shipping 40% faster as a compound startup(55:12) Why you might get fired for buying Zendesk</p><p>Where to find Marty Kausas:- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mkausas- Pylon: usepylon.com</p>