Building StackAdapt: how three founders turned failure into a 1,600-person company | Vitaly Pecherskiy

<p>StackAdapt scaled from three co-founders in a studio apartment kitchen to a 1,600-person organization operating across 20 markets. In this episode of BUILDERS, <a href='https://www.linkedin.com/in/vitalypecherskiy/'>Vitaly Pecherskiy</a>, CEO and Co-Founder of <a href='http://www.stackadapt.com/'>StackAdapt</a>, walks through the reality of building a programmatic advertising platform over ten years—including a payroll crisis that came down to emergency collections, the four-year grind from launch to true product-market fit, and the decision to go global during COVID that grew the team from 170 to 900 people in three years.</p>

<p>Topics Discussed:</p>

<ul>

<li style="font-weight:400;">The moment credit cards maxed out two days before payroll and the emergency collection calls that followed</li>

<li style="font-weight:400;">Why product-market fit took until 2018 despite launching in 2014 and understanding the industry problem</li>

<li style="font-weight:400;">Scaling from 170 people in one Toronto office to 900 globally in three years during COVID</li>

<li style="font-weight:400;">The transition from COO to CEO after nine years and rejecting the idea of "playing the role"</li>

<li style="font-weight:400;">Hiring a full-time videographer at 50 people in 2016—years before it became standard practice</li>

<li style="font-weight:400;">The "hot buttons" framework that's driven consistent messaging since 2015</li>

<li style="font-weight:400;">Why leaders at 1,600 people still need to go "toe to toe" with individual contributors</li>

</ul>

<p>GTM Lessons For B2B Founders:</p>