# 180 VCs rejected him—then a $60K billboard got him to $2M ARR in 4 months. | Isaiah Granet, CEO of Bland AI

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/a-product-market-fit-show/180-vcs-rejected-him-then-a-60k-billboard-got-him-to-2m-arr-in-4-months-isaiah-granet-ceo-of-bland-ai
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/a-product-market-fit-show/180-vcs-rejected-him-then-a-60k-billboard-got-him-to-2m-arr-in-4-months-isaiah-granet-ceo-of-bland-ai.md
Podcast: [A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders](https://stenobird.com/podcast/a-product-market-fit-show)
Published: 2026-04-20T09:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1889238/episodes/19026268-180-vcs-rejected-him-then-a-60k-billboard-got-him-to-2m-arr-in-4-months-isaiah-granet-ceo-of-bland-ai.mp3
Audio file: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1889238/episodes/19026268-180-vcs-rejected-him-then-a-60k-billboard-got-him-to-2m-arr-in-4-months-isaiah-granet-ceo-of-bland-ai.mp3
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Duration seconds: 3142

## Resource

Isaiah pivoted mid-YC, landed in the bottom 10% of his batch, and watched 180 investors say no—their reason: phone calls won't exist a year from now. Voice AI was not yet a thing. With almost no money left, he and his co-founder bet everything on building AI phone calls from scratch. Bland went from pre-seed to a $40M Series B in a year. In this episode, Isaiah breaks down how a $60K billboard and a strategic influencer campaign generated close to a billion impressions, why he fired 50% of hi...

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