Pat Kinsel, founder and CEO of Proof, shares his journey from a notary service to a robust transaction security platform. He discusses how COVID-19 reshaped demand and pushed innovation for enterprise clients. The conversation highlights the importance of consumer engagement and strategic growth, navigating regulatory challenges, and adapting business models. Kinsel also offers quick insights on productivity, finishing tasks, and the essence of successful entrepreneurship, all while emphasizing the balance between technology and market needs.
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question_answer ANECDOTE
Notary Error Sparked The Startup
Pat Kinsel's notary error after selling his startup to Twitter inspired him to fix a broken process.
That personal pain led him to build Notarize and spend years changing state laws for online notarization.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Validate With A Landing Page First
Validate demand with the cheapest test you can run before building product.
Pat used a simple landing page and Google Ads to measure clicks and CAC before writing any code.
question_answer ANECDOTE
MVP Was Telemedicine For Notaries
The initial MVP was a mobile marketplace connecting consumers to notaries for instant video notarizations.
Pat paid notaries to be online and lost money on each transaction during early years.
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Negative 110% gross margins. Then COVID demand spiked 100x overnight - and nearly killed the company anyway. Pat Kinsel spent years chasing product-market fit while losing money on every transaction. When the pandemic brought 100x growth, most of those customers were urgency buyers who churned when COVID ended.
Pat reveals the product-market fit journey behind Proof's rise to nearly $100M ARR - how he used a $0 landing page for market validation before writing code, why 10 years of lobbying across 47 states became a moat competitors cannot replicate, and how losing PMF after COVID forced a complete rebuild around enterprise. You will learn why product-market alignment sometimes has to be found more than once.
Pat previously sold his startup to Twitter and spent time in venture capital. Proof (formerly Notarize) has raised $260M and now serves thousands of enterprise customers across identity verification and transaction security.
🔑 Key Lessons
🎯 Validate product-market fit before writing code: Pat built a $0 Unbounce landing page and ran Google Ads to prove people searched for online notary services - measuring acquisition costs and conversion rates first.
📉 Fix unit economics before scale arrives: Proof had negative 110% gross margins, losing money on every transaction. They reached 1% margins just before COVID spiked demand 100x.
🏛️ Turn regulatory complexity into a durable moat: Pat lobbied for 10 years to change laws in 47 states. This red tape became a barrier competitors cannot replicate.
⚠️ Urgency buyers do not equal product-market fit: COVID brought 100x demand, but many customers signed for business continuity, not strategy. When the pandemic ended, they churned.
🚀 Expand TAM by evolving from point solution to platform: Rebranding from Notarize to Proof opened identity verification, fraud prevention, and e-signatures - finding product-market fit again in enterprise transaction security.
Chapters
Introduction and favorite quote
What Proof does and the business of certainty
Revenue, team size, and funding ($260M raised)
Origin story: The notary error that sparked the idea
Validating demand with a landing page and Google Ads
The first MVP: A mobile app for online notary
Slow early growth: 3 years to product-market fit at $1M ARR
Negative 110% gross margins and fixing unit economics
COVID hits: 100x demand spike overnight
Post-COVID reality: Customers churned when urgency faded
The SaaS Podcast - AI, Growth & Product-Market Fit for SaaS Founders 
