Lenny's Podcast · Sep 18Why experts writing AI evals is creating the fastest-growing companies in history | Brendan Foody
Went from $1M to $400M run rate in 16 months, reaching $500M revenue in 17 months, with net retention over 1,600% and no churned customer. Experts earn a median $95 an hour, up to $500, and over half of members come from referrals. It bootstrapped to $1M, is lifetime profitable, and had no sales or marketing staff for a year and a half.
Tips
- Find the customer who is surprisingly easy to sell to▶ 43:26Mercor's pull came from an xAI founders meeting and a crowdsourcing player hiring over a thousand people on its platform.
- Track leading indicators in fast-moving markets and serve flagship customers▶ 39:20Mercor saw the human data market shift from crowdsourced low-skill labor to sourcing expert professionals and moved there.
- Spend resources on customer obsession before building a sales and marketing team▶ 40:30Over half of people in the marketplace come from referrals.
- Find and identify the top 10% of experts, because they drive most impact▶ 35:36
- Pay experts far above crowdsourcing rates to get frontier capabilities▶ 36:56Mercor's median marketplace pay rate is $95 an hour, flexing up to about $500 an hour.
- Set ridiculously ambitious goals and let the company form around them▶ 46:06Mercor hit $50M run rate on schedule and is tracking to $500M, the goal originally set for the year.
- Hire slowly for the first 10, then speed up once demand exceeds capacity▶ 51:00Early hires included a former head of growth at Scale and someone who scaled two consumer apps to over 100,000 users.
- Assess candidates by having them use AI tools to build something▶ 21:45
- Start a business to get reps, because you can just do things▶ 55:20He scaled by paying his mom $20 to drive him to buy 10 dozen at a time, and cut prices to $1 for two weeks to see off a competitor.
- Lean on people's strengths rather than trying to fix weaknesses▶ 1:05:25
