He worked out of a police department for free for a year—then built a $6.8B company. | Ben Rudolph, Co-Founder of Peregrine
Episode Description
Ben and his co-founder had no product, no law enforcement background, and no pitch—just an offer to help detectives solve cases. One commander took a chance, handed them background checks, and said "let's see what you can do." They worked out of that police department every day for 18 months. Peregrine just raised $250M at a $6.8B valuation.
In this episode, Ben breaks down how researching every police captain in the Bay Area landed their first design partner, why working as free crime analysts for 18 months was "the purest form of method acting," how forward-deployed engineers drove them from $1M to $3M to $10M ARR, and the 120% RFP prep that won a contract written for a billion-dollar competitor.
Why You Should Listen
- Why doing your customer's job is the fastest path to product market fit.
- How two founders with no product convinced a police department to let them in.
- Why over-investing in deployment became a growth engine, not a margin problem.
- How obsessive research wins enterprise deals when you have zero credibility.
Keywords startup podcast, startup podcast for founders, product market fit, finding pmf, Peregrine, govtech, public safety technology, forward deployed engineers, selling to government, enterprise sales, data integration, design partners, Ben Rudolph
Chapters
- 00:00:00 Intro
- 00:01:07 The Moment of True Product Market Fit
- 00:11:51 Getting a Police Department to Say Yes
- 00:16:45 Slow Growth and Word of Mouth
- 00:19:49 Forward-Deployed Engineers Before They Were Cool
- 00:27:34 Cracking Government Go-To-Market
- 00:34:08 Winning an RFP Written for Someone Else