He tested his pitch on Uber drivers - then built a cybersecurity platform to $180M raised.
This October 13, 2025 podcast episode from A Product Market Fit Show, a startup podcast for founders, is a 49-minute interview with Bugcrowd founder Casey Ellis. He describes building Bugcrowd's hacker marketplace, refining his pitch on Uber drivers until it clicked, and using 500 t-shirts to drive growth more than paid marketing.
Source description, as published
Casey turned hackers into a marketplace and built Bugcrowd to $180M+ raised. But the real story isn't about cybersecurity - it's about how he validated a two-sided marketplace with almost no product, refined his pitch by literally testing it on Uber drivers until it clicked, and cracked the code on category creation when everyone thought hackers were the enemy. You'll learn about the exact moment he knew he had product-market fit, why he blew every pitch to top VCs until he reframed his vision, and how giving away 500 t-shirts did more for growth than any paid marketing. If you're building a marketplace, creating a category, or just trying to figure out how to explain what you do - this is