His free app hit 200 locations and nobody used it, then he raised $25M. | Tushar Mishra, Co-Founder & CEO of Delightree

Show notes

Tushar gave his app away for free. It spread to 200 locations. Almost nobody used it, and nobody paid a single dollar. So he started charging from day one, with a one-month pilot that rolled into a full annual contract. In Q4 2025, his team closed more revenue than in the two years before. Delightree just raised $25M. In this episode, Tushar breaks down the three questions he used to qualify every customer, how turning a dusty ops binder into TikTok-style training became his biggest source of leads, and why his best cold email was a screenshot of the prospect's own logo. Why You Should Listen Why free pilots kill real feedback, and what to offer instead. How to qualify a customer on pain, budget, and outcome before you sell. Why you should ignore feature requests that muddy your go-to-market. How a screenshot with the prospect's logo beat every other cold email. Keywords startup podcast, startup podcast for founders, product market fit, finding pmf, Delightree, Tushar Mishra, franchise software, frontline employees, customer onboarding, customer qualification, outbound sales, cold email, net revenue retention, AI training Chapters 00:00:00 Intro 00:03:18 The Brand That Flew Him to Dallas 00:06:59 From Review Software to Delightree 00:12:10 A Free App Nobody Used 00:13:31 Ruthless Customer Qualification 00:16:56 From Ops Binder to TikTok-Style Training 00:22:50 More Revenue in One Quarter Than Two Years 00:26:52 A New Demo After Every Call 00:30:27 Which Feature Requests to Ignore 00:37:07 The Cold Email With Their Logo Send me a message to let me know what you think!