He worked out of a police department for free for a year—then built a $6.8B company. | Ben Rudolph, Co-Founder of Peregrine
Summary
Peregrine CEO Ben discusses finding product-market fit by embedding engineers in police departments for 18 months to solve complex cases manually. He emphasizes that their success stems from over-investing in customer success and deep vertical understanding rather than quick scalability. This methodical approach, starting with a $1–2M seed round, eventually led to a $6.8B valuation through word-of-mouth growth and a refined go-to-market strategy.
Topics discussed
Introduction and show context
Ben's background and Peregrine's origin
The breakthrough cold case moment
How the Peregrine platform works
Solving complex geospatial data problems
Ben's path from UN to entrepreneurship
Co-founding and the initial product concept
Early customer discovery and outreach
Embedding with the San Pablo police
Working as crime analysts to build trust
Why the first customer said yes
Early growth and the gunshots anecdote
Seed funding and the pace of growth
Forward deployed engineers and services
Scaling the deployment motion
Go-to-market challenges in government
Simplifying the value proposition
Scaling sales and expanding verticals
Managing demand and operational bottlenecks
Fundraising dynamics and leverage
Winning the first major RFP
Building credibility in enterprise sales
Final advice and show outro
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