101: Srikrishnan Ganesan - “MVPs Are Dead” & Other SaaS Heresies

Listen to this episode from PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership on Spotify. Why building opinionated products is the future, why skipping MVPs in established markets works, and how AI will reshape customer onboarding. When I met Srikrishnan Ganesan for the first time, he impressed me with his original framing of what it means to find (and refind) product-market fit constantly.Timestamps02:23 – From SMB to Enterprise: Scaling Without Losing VisionRocketlane’s year-long stealth build focused on unifying project management, docs, and customer portals. The secret? Start with SMBs to validate core workflows before adding enterprise bells and whistles.07:58 – Pricing for Outcomes, Not SeatsWhy Rocketlane charges a premium over Asana: their customer portal drives faster time-to-value. But with AI automating workflows, Sri hints at consumption-based pricing coming soon.22:32 – AI’s Role: Doing the Work, Not Just Organizing ItCharge for work done, not headcount, as teams shrink.31:52 – The Compliance Trap“Get SOC 2 early, even for SMBs.” Sri shares why skipping compliance torpedoes enterprise deals later. Pain now, payoff later.37:37 – Roadmaps in the AI EraTheir moat? Owning the system of record for onboarding to build AI agents that competitors can’t replicate.42:31 – Enterprise Demands vs. VisionWhen some clients demanded features, Rocketlane delivered… 18 months later. Sri’s playbook: bake enterprise asks into broader platform goals to avoid becoming a custom dev shop.🔥 Hot Takes“MVPs are dead for established markets.”Sri’s radical bet: Launch full-featured products from day one in mature categories. Partial solutions get pigeonholed as “just another X”.“SOC 2 isn’t optional—even for startups.”Compliance isn’t just for enterprises. Rocketlane prioritized SOC 2 early to avoid losing deals to legacy players. Painful upfront, critical long-term.Send us a textLeah on Linkedin / Twitter / Youtube