Inside Decagon: Finding PMF, Hiring Fast, and Scaling 10x

How do you keep up when you go from 50 to 500 employees in a year? Jesse Zhang shares how Decagon scaled that quickly, from hiring ahead of demand to keeping the company connected as the team grows. He also explains why the zero-to-one phase is so different from scaling, and how Decagon found its way out of the idea maze in just three weeks. Guest: Jesse Zhang, Co-founder and CEO, Decagon Connect with Jesse Zhang X: https://x.com/thejessezhang?lang=en LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejessezhang/ Connect with Joubin: X: https://x.com/Joubinmir LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joubin-mirzadegan-66186854/ Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kpgrit Follow on X: https://x.com/KPGrit ​Learn more about Kleiner Perkins: https://www.kleinerperkins.com/ (0:00) Trailer (0:46) Introduction (1:13) Decagon's rapid scaling (14:26) Why Jesse doesn't like being a solo founder (22:38) Finding product-market fit with six customers (31:03) Building resilience for the next downturn (35:43) Product differentiation from Sierra and Bret Taylor (44:49) The most misunderstood function: marketing (1:03:01) Building an agent that can't afford to get it wrong