We decided to present this MVP at the main event in our industry, test the concept in front of a live audience and see if it resonated. The feedback was fantastic. Everyone loved the platform and was eager to use it to better understand their end customers. It was hard not to get carried away by all the positive feedback and goodwill. We celebrated briefly, then went back home to keep evolving the product and turn those conversations into our first customers.

What followed, as many startups experience, was the classic gap between early excitement and real traction. After the initial wave of enthusiastic feedback from the market we kept progressing but customer agreements came much slower than we had hoped. By the end of 2024 we had a handful of one-off projects and a few non-paying pilots. These early signals showed there was some interest in what we were building but it was taking forever to accomplish tangible results. From there came months of almost delusional belief in the value we thought we could unlock for our customers.

In the Product Management academy they teach you to build quickly and go to market fast to validate a business idea. Turns out building a data platform and selling into the enterprise segment is a bit more complicated than that.

Sheer patience, mixed with more than a few moments of frustration, kept us pushing forward as we continued building the platform and working to turn those opportunities into real deals.

Where we are today

Fast forward to today: those initial one-off projects and non-paying pilots have gradually started turning into recurring customers. The pilots began to deliver real results and we closed a few high-ticket deals along the way.

Critical to this progress was transforming our go-to-market approach, moving from founder-led selling to building a senior Sales and Marketing team. The shift from isolated transactions to committed subscriptions has been our strongest validation so far. It showed that the product was not only solving real problems but also earning long-term trust.

Now we have recurring high-ticket customers using our data across different use cases. Domain Intelligence has become a new data business unit along with its existing MRR while we’ve been closing additional deals and hope to steadily grow that base.

At this point we’re seeing stable recurring revenue in the tens of thousands per month with growth levers ahead in the final quarter of the year. We believe we’re onto something with real potential, a business that could scale into millions in annual revenue.

Are we there yet?

Having said that, can we tell ourselves that we’re there yet? That we’ve achieved product–market fit, stability or reached the end of our validation journey for this business unit?

Definitely not. Validation is still very much in progress.

What we want to see next is customers adopting the product independently, without relying so heavily on our sales efforts. We want use cases that have fast adoption and are easy to explain, moving from pilots to fully activated customers where growth happens beyond the initial champions. The key question remains: are these champions exceptional cases or do they represent a scalable segment of the TAM we’ve envisioned?

From a revenue and financial perspective success will mean predictable recurring revenue over defined time frames. It will mean transitioning from short-term pilots or low-commitment deals to 12- or 24-month agreements. Also seeing clear upsell and cross-sell opportunities within our existing customer base, while capturing new ones.

For now, the most important takeaway is that somehow we have managed to progress consistently in the business validation journey.

The next phase is all about consistency, repeatability and scale. It’s about expanding our customer base across different verticals, identifying which use cases deliver the most value and building the right product layers on top of what today is still a blend of data and service.

Still there’s no guarantee we’ll succeed. The market is less predictable than ever and AI is reshaping the landscape fast. The odds are not in our favor but I guess sometimes you’ve got to be a bit delusional.

A habit that helps me

In these complex company stages, I try to add small rituals to my routine that help me stay focused on strategy. It also forces me to pause and reflect on whether I’m performing at the standard I set for myself.

This is the list I check at the end of each workday to optimize for the next one:

• I know our company’s current bottleneck to scale.

• I committed the necessary resources to remove that bottleneck.

• I spent my time like a true CEO, not a doer.

• I created or improved an internal asset.

• I reviewed our scorecard and key metrics today.

• I led through clarity, vision and accountability.

• I said no to something that was urgent but non-essential.

• I checked in on cash flow and capital reserves.

• My calendar tomorrow reflects my highest priorities.

• I acted like an owner, not just an employee.

A suggestion

I have recently read Get Scalable by Ryan Deiss.

This is the kind of book many would find redundant or easy to skip, but for me, it was worth it just for the 15–20% of nuggets I could plug into our ever-evolving operating systems. If you’re as obsessed with operations as I am, I definitely recommend it.

Life lately

Wences came to Palma and we spent hours talking about work, life and the future. I have a feeling we’ll remember it for years to come. It was all about getting closer to the crazy pizzeria goal but with some updates on boring businesses.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately that, although remote work is deeply embedded in our core values, it’s during these in-person moments, long conversations with light agenda over good food, where we really move the needle.

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What you’ll find in this post

• My new perspective on the newsletter

• Lessons I’ve learnt about leadership focus in recent months

• Why shifting from task‑doing to asset‑building matters

• A book suggestion

• A brief life update

A new perspective for Producto y negronis

In 2024 I stepped into a new career chapter, moving from my role as Head of Product at marketgoo to become the COO.

A year and a half in, I can honestly say I’m extremely happy with the transition and can see myself in a similar role for the rest of my career. At the same time, I still feel early in the role with plenty to learn.

Shifting away from a dedicated Product role, my day-to-day now revolves around strategy, finance, people management and vision execution. I’m excited to share some of the lessons and insights I’m gaining along the way.

From now on, this newsletter will dive into these topics and I hope you’ll find enough value to stick around. I’m also switching to English to reach a broader audience while still keeping the name Producto y Negronis (if that makes any sense). For now, I’m embracing a doing-over-perfection mindset and excited to see where it goes.

What I Have Learnt About Leadership Focus and Asset Building

2024 was a transformative year at marketgoo. We navigated the impact of AI on SEO, the consolidation of the hosting industry and the launch of a completely new business vertical around domain intelligence.

The hardest part was balancing two very different realities: on one side, managing our SEO business alongside the uncertainty about how AI will reshape online search; on the other, building a new vertical that required significant capital investment but was fueled by a bold vision and early customer demand. By the end of the year, that new line of business showed encouraging signs of validation, with a few high-ticket customers already on board.

In conversations with friends and colleagues, we eventually came to the same conclusion: the skills and mindsets that helped us succeed in the early days were not the same ones we needed to reach the next stage of growth for the company. For years, we excelled at building products and technology, supported by strong distribution deals, most of them driven by a founder-led sales approach.

But when that was no longer enough and the new business unit demanded a more professionalized go-to-market approach, the leadership team found ourselves wearing too many hats especially in Marketing, Sales and Partnerships. This shift was not obvious in the moment, at least for us. It turned out a slow process where we ended up doing a lot without truly moving the needle… until we hit a wall and risked burning out or even putting both our health and the company’s trajectory at stake.

Our problem was not effort, but focus.

When days are filled with urgent tasks, there’s little time left to pause, think and work on the non-urgent but important things that actually drive the company forward.

By the end of last year, we realized this was our biggest bottleneck and started making changes.

From Tasks to Assets

The first shift was moving from carrying the weight ourselves to building assets.

By asset I mean something you create once that continues to deliver value without your constant involvement: a process playbook, a key hire, an automation. We try to encourage ourselves every time we catch ourselves repeating a task, to ask: What can I build today so I never have to do this again?

As the saying goes, “at scale, all companies become hiring companies.” The more we have covered strategic roles that were missing, delegated and equipped people, the more our impact has started to multiply.

This is where leverage comes in: the difference between what you put in and what you get out. A concrete example: we have built a senior GTM team with leaders in Marketing, Sales and Account Management. That decision forced us to stop the wishful thinking that we, the founders and early execs, could keep doing it all ourselves.

Extreme Focus

The second shift was learning to do less.

We keep a “don’t do list” and I’m willing to pause or even kill projects to focus on just one to three true priorities. This is easier said than done, but we are definitely doing a better work today than 12 months ago.

Another example: every Monday I block 90 minutes for strategic thinking and ask myself: What’s the one big thing that, if solved, would have the most significant impact on the business?

Likewise I also secure weekly slots for:

• Deep focus work

• People management and recruiting

• Professional development

Key to this is freeing ourserselves into lighter calendars, one of the ultimate and aspiring lifestyle symbols.

The Founder’s Leverage

Another example is Wences, our founder and visionary and obviously one of our main assets. Last summer, we realized he was constantly being pulled into countless field projects across the company, even while on family holidays.

Today, we’ve managed to reposition his role so he spends his energy where he creates the most value:

• Just having time to think

• Working with me on the high-level strategy

• Owning the product vision

It’s still early, but we’ve found what feels like the sweet spot for him: operating at a high level in vision and zooming in on critical details when necessary, while avoiding the middle ground of endless project management and operational calls that drained his time.

In conclusion

We’re still facing many challenges, and our Domain Intelligence suite has yet to fully prove product–market fit. But for the first time in a long time, it feels like we’re truly doing what we need to do.

Time will tell if these shifts take us to the next level. In the meantime, I’ll keep sharing the journey here.

A suggestion

‘Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It’, by Chris Voss.

I’ve read it in the past few days and it’s definitely a game changer.

Life lately

Beyond marketgoo, a lot has changed over the past two years.

I fulfilled a long‑time dream of living in Mallorca, moving here with my girlfriend at the end of last year. In June this year, we got happily married in her hometown of Santander.

Now, we’re enjoying a calmer life in Mallorca although staying closely connected to Madrid, traveling regularly for work, and keeping an eye on Indonesia, where our investments in Bali are growing.

It’s a very sweet moment in life, and I feel deeply grateful. This newsletter will be also a way of sharing that journey over the coming years.

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