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#320February 16, 202233:07

Asking The Founder Of Grammarly How He Built A $13 Billion Compa…

About This Episode

Sam Parr interviews Max Lytvyn, the co-founder of Grammarly, to discuss the company's journey from a bootstrapped plagiarism detector to a $13 billion AI writing assistant. They explore the strategic decision to hire an external CEO at only 20 employees and how the company leveraged paid marketing as a feedback loop for product-market fit.

Episode Description

Sam Parr (@theSamParr) sits down with Max Lytvyn (@Max_lytvyn), co-founder and head of revenue at Grammarly, to talk about the founding story of the company, how he grew it from 0 to $13B in revenue, why he decided to hire an outside CEO, and much more. -----

Show Notes

  • 00:00- Max's background
  • 05:15- Why people underestimate Grammarly
  • 12:00- Grammarly's breakthrough moment
  • 24:40- Business ideas that go with Grammarly
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Links

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  • * Grammarly.com
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  • Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more.
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Key Takeaways

1

Founders should identify their 'zone of genius' and hire professional management early if their strengths do not align with scaling organizational operations.

2

Utilize paid marketing as a rapid feedback loop to validate product messaging and market resonance within hours rather than weeks.

3

Target high-stakes, low-frequency niches first (like academic researchers) to build a product before expanding into high-frequency, real-time markets where the margin for error is lower.

Business Ideas Mentioned

On-Device AI Model Processing

AI & Automation

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Quick Stats

Duration33:07
Guests1
Ideas Discussed1
Topics4