Most entrepreneurs don’t fail because they lack effort—they fail because they build before they validate. They invest months (or years) developing products based on assumptions, only to discover too late that the market doesn’t care. David Hirschfeld challenges this costly cycle with a simple but powerful idea: stop guessing and start testing. His “fail fast and cheap” philosophy flips traditional product development on its head by focusing on validating demand before writing a single line of code.
Instead of betting big upfront, Hirschfeld’s approach is about making small, strategic bets—quick experiments that reveal what customers actually want and are willing to pay for. Think of it as digging for gold with a metal detector before bringing in heavy machinery. By embracing fast, low-cost failures, you gain clarity, conserve capital, and dramatically increase your odds of building something that truly works.
Episode Highlights Here:
Intro
Before we jump into this episode, I want to invite you to join our community to help youbecome a better steward scale to billions and ultimately give more or all of it away. All I want
you to do is to click the subscribe button right now. I love your support. It’s incredible to see your comments, and we’re just getting started. I can’t wait to go on this journey with you.
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Brent Silberbauer
Welcome to the build it to billions podcast where we guide successful entrepreneurs and investors on their journey from millions to billions. We believe that the key to scaling your
business and compounding your wealth start every day with a mindset and a practice of stewardship over ownership and applying biblical billionaire principles, our ultimate goal to help you scale and compound your wealth and life so that you can give more or all of it away to help MVPs, which are the most vulnerable people among us today, I’m your host, Brent Silberbauer, and I am filling in for Brett Swarts. In every episode, we feature some of the world’s top entrepreneurs, millionaires and billionaires, as they share their principles, wisdom and secrets, providing each of us with insights we need to reach the next level of success, faith and impact. And today, I am excited for our next guest. It is David Hirschfield, who is a 35-year software development veteran with a unique perspective on technological innovation and business growth. He’s a former physics students from UCLA. David’s career spans leadership roles attach giants like computer associates, Texas Instruments, Intel, Motorola, before launching his first startup, which grew to over 800 customers across 22 countries globally and was successfully sold in 2000 so welcome David to the podcast.
David Hirschfeld
Thanks for having me on. Brent, really excited to talk with you today.
Brent Silberbauer
Yeah, it’s good to have you here. So, for our listeners getting to know you for the first time, would you please share just a little bit about your story and your current focus?
David Hirschfeld
Sure, yes, as you mentioned, I was doing contract development and project management for some big companies and big projects and then started my own software company, a logistics route distribution in inventory management, and regardless of everything we did, we grew it anyway to 800 customers in 22 countries and sold it in 2000 so that was a successful exit. Ilater, a few years later, started another software company in the automotive industry. It was a brokerage trading platform, and that one failed, and it failed for it failed because I didn’t follow the same playbook that I followed when I in my first company, and I didn’t even realize what the difference was until I started techies in 2007 and I’ve worked with over 90 startups at this point, and I’ve watched many of them follow the same process I did the second time and fail, and some of them followed the first process that I did the first Time and were successful. And I started to under clearly understand what that difference was, which led me to create methodology called Launch first.
Brent Silberbauer
Wow. Okay, so it sounds like you may have kind of stumbled across the success principles with your first business that you didn’t even realize that you were doing. Is that? Is that fair to say?
David Hirschfeld
Absolutely, yeah, it just made sense in the context. But no, it was stumbled, for sure.
Brent Silberbauer
And then on the second one, you know, obviously had a failure. Great to succeed on the first one, right? That’s the important one, get right out the gate with success. So, what were some of those things that you put into practice? And obviously you said you worked with 90, you know, over 90 different companies and that kind of thing. What are what? What would you say is one of the key secrets that you kind of discovered to lend more to success, rather than failing with a business, startup.
David Hirschfeld
Founders who I see that are consistently successful, there’s a few things, and I’m talking to ones that are consistently successful, not you are successful, not the one in a million unicorns, but the ones that find a path to revenue and profit and build value in their business consistently. The first thing is that they recognize that what they believe is going to be a
successful software company are just assumptions they’ve made. They’re not based on fact. They may have some facts. They may be in an industry that where they’re struggling with a problem, and they figured out a way to solve that problem for themselves.
Outro
So, if you like this little, short clip of the interview I just did, click over here to watch the full interview, and please don’t forget to subscribe. Thanks so much, everybody.
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About David Hirschfeld
David Hirschfeld is a seasoned software entrepreneur, startup advisor, and the founder and CEO of Tekyz, a firm specializing in custom software and AI-driven solutions. With over three decades of experience in building and scaling technology companies, he has worked across enterprise systems, SaaS platforms, and startup ecosystems—bringing a rare blend of technical depth and business strategy. His background includes launching and successfully exiting his own software company, as well as guiding countless founders through the complexities of product development and market fit.
He is best known for his “Launch First™” methodology, a disciplined approach that helps entrepreneurs validate demand before investing heavily in development. By teaching founders how to test ideas, secure early customer commitments, and iterate quickly, Hirschfeld has helped reduce costly failures and accelerate successful product launches. His work sits at the intersection of innovation and execution—helping entrepreneurs turn ideas into viable, revenue-generating businesses with far less risk.
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