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How to Find Product-Market Fit:
The 100M ARR in 18 Months Blueprint

Raaz Herzberg
CMO & VP Product Strategy, Wiz
SECURITY
The Pivot

From Confusion to Clarity

NETWORKSECURITY(UNCLEAR)CLOUDSECURITY(CLARITY)6 WEEKS
"I sat on calls for two weeks and still didn't understand what we were building. If your CMO doesn't get it, nobody gets it."
  • Doing 10-15 customer calls per day revealed misalignment
  • Customers were saying "yes" out of politeness, not passion
  • The pivot happened because someone asked the hard question
  • Day one clarity: questions about pricing, POVs, next steps
Finding the Real Signal

How to Spot Product-Market Fit in Customer Calls

  • The Wrong Signal: "This sounds super interesting. Please keep me updated."
  • The Right Signal: "How much will this cost? When can we do a POV? Who do I connect you with?"
  • The Bias: You naturally listen for affirmation, not for what you don't want to hear
  • The Tell: Real passion shows as action, moving to next steps, connecting you to stakeholders
The Dummy Explanation

If you, the product manager, don't understand what you're building after 10-15 customer calls, your market doesn't either. That's permission to reset.

The Culture Requirement

To ask "I don't understand" and have founders actually listen requires a flat organization. Raaz credits Wiz's founders for creating that safety.

The Growth Playbook

How Wiz Hit 100M ARR in 18 Months

  • Clarity = Conviction: Once cloud security was the bet, everything aligned. Five-hour discussion with founders led to all-in commitment
  • The Feeling Changed: Room energy, customer enthusiasm, team alignment, all shifted after the pivot
  • Pipeline Generated Itself: Sales team started calling back saying customers who heard about Wiz wanted to talk
  • Product + PMF: Once the idea clicked, the product became easy to position and sell
The pace of change

After the pivot, momentum was instant. Not weeks to feel it, immediately, the conversations felt different. That's PMF.

Why this matters

Most companies don't get 18 months to hit 100M ARR. The founding team's ability to listen and pivot fast was the real product.

Tactics

How to Make Noise When Nobody Knows You

  • Marketing is the opposite of product: no maintenance cost, no technical debt. Try everything and kill what doesn't work
  • Be weird at industry events: Wiz of Oz booth at RSA instead of boring black-and-red security booth
  • Brand should be a competitive advantage: Optimistic, playful, different from the category
  • Understand your market deeply: As CMO, Raaz lives in security Twitter and reads security blogs. Know what your audience actually cares about
Why Raaz moved to marketingProduct had momentum. Sales couldn't keep up, the pipeline heat moved to marketing. The best people follow where the company needs them most.
Contrarian

What Leaders Get Wrong About Product, Marketing & Trust

✗CMOs need to come from marketingINSTEAD →✓ The best CMO might be someone with deep domain expertise and product understanding who learns marketing on the job.
✗Collect all positive feedback and iterateINSTEAD →✓ You have a bias toward affirmation. Listen harder to ambivalence, that's the real signal something is wrong.
✗A good PM should understand their product instantlyINSTEAD →✓ The courage to say "I don't understand" and push back on unclear vision is what separates good PMs from great ones.
✗In marketing, consistency and less risk is saferINSTEAD →✓ Early-stage marketing is about making noise. Try weird things. Maintenance cost is zero. Kill what fails and double down on what works.
Based on Raaz Herzberg's episode on Lenny's Podcast. All ideas on this page are from the episode.Watch on YouTubeFollow @raazherzberg on X
GO DEEPER IN THE EPISODE
02:54 Early challenges and Wiz’s essential pivot06:41 Finding product-market fit11:31 Lessons from early customer interactions14:54 The power in speaking up when you don’t understand something17:46 How Wiz pivoted from their initial idea23:52 Marketing and leadership insights28:05 Following the “heat” in your organization30:22 How Raaz found success as CMO34:01 Common CMO mistakes36:23 Creating noise and standing out40:28 Embracing failure and taking risks44:53 The importance of clear communication48:32 The “dummy” explanation51:00 Building trust and company culture53:45 Contrarian corner56:34 Lightning round
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