In this episode of The Inspired Marketer, Daniela sits down with Tal, CEO and Co-Founder of Onfire, to talk about what it actually takes to build a B2B buyer intent data company with real revenue at its core.
Tal is honest about the journey. As he tells us, starting a company is harder than you think it will be, even when you already think it will be hard. What keeps him going is the rare feeling of building something that matters. He gets to work alongside co-founders he trusts, in a category he understands deeply.
That category is B2B buyer intent data: specifically, helping revenue teams identify and act on signals from technical buyers before the competition does. Before Onfire wrote a single line of code, Tal and his co-founders interviewed 275 revenue leaders to understand exactly where the problem lived. That discipline shows in the product, and it shows in how Tal thinks about building.
ChatGPT changed two things simultaneously: the technology and the customer. Buyers now understand AI well enough to evaluate it critically, which raises the bar for everyone building in the space. Tal sees this as an advantage and a pressure. Onfire can move faster and build smarter than well-funded incumbents could before, but the bar for what “good” looks like keeps rising.
His anchor through the noise is the original strategic question his co-founders return to constantly: why did we build this, and for whom? In a market flooded with AI point solutions, that kind of focus is rarer than it sounds.
If you’re building in the B2B buyer intent data space, or just want an unfiltered look at what early-stage AI company building actually feels like, this episode is worth your time.
