Pat Kinsel went from years of painful struggle at Notarize to building Proof, a SaaS platform approaching $100M ARR with 230 employees and $260M raised. In this episode, Pat explains how a notary error during his first startup exit sparked the idea, why he validated demand with a simple landing page before building, how he endured years of slow traction and false signals, and what changed when he expanded beyond notarization to transaction security. You’ll learn: - How Pat validated demand with a landing page and Google ads - Why losing money on every transaction nearly killed the company - What really happened when COVID demand spiked 100x overnight - How he spent years pushing to make online notarization widely accepted - Why many COVID-era enterprise signups never activated and what that taught about real product-market fit Full show notes → saasclub.io/452 This episode is brought to you by: 💖 Gearheart → Book a free strategy session + get 20% off select services 📫 Mailtrap → Get 20% off with code THESAASPODCAST Get weekly SaaS lessons and new founder stories → saasclub.io/email