Hey folks - Firas here.
This week’s PMF Playbook comes from my episode of Inside the Silicon Mind with Hassan Khajeh-Hosseini, Co-Founder of Infracost. Hassan has spent over 15 years deep in cloud cost management, and what stands out is his willingness to stay with a problem long enough to truly understand it. That persistence led him to a simple but powerful realization: some of the biggest opportunities in tech come from fixing problems that everyone else has learned to accept. In this case, that problem is cloud cost.
The uncomfortable truth is that engineers are effectively “shopping” for infrastructure without ever seeing the price. Cloud started simple, with predictable pricing and manageable decisions. But over time, it evolved into millions of price points across providers, layered services, and deeply complex configurations. Combine that with modern engineering workflows where thousands of engineers deploy rapidly and independently and you end up with a system where decisions that can cost millions are made inside code, without visibility at the moment those decisions are made. It’s like filling a shopping cart without prices and only finding out the total a month later. That’s not just inefficient - it’s a fundamental gap.
Most companies tried to solve this by focusing on visibility. They analyzed cloud bills, built dashboards, and showed teams where money was being spent. But by the time you’re looking at a bill, the cost has already been incurred. The code is shipped, the infrastructure is live, and changing it becomes expensive and painful. Hassan’s key insight was that the problem wasn’t visibility - it was timing. Instead of showing cost after the fact, you need to show it before deployment.
That’s what Infracost does. It sits directly inside the developer workflow, analyzing infrastructure changes before they go live and showing engineers the cost impact of their decisions. Hassan describes it as a “checkout screen for cloud.” That shift - from reactive to proactive - completely changes the dynamic. It moves cost awareness from finance into engineering, and from reporting into decision-making.
One example from the conversation makes this tangible. An engineer made what looked like a normal change - new feature, new database, additional infrastructure. Infracost flagged the impact: over $500,000 per month. The team paused, rethought the approach, and reduced the cost dramatically before anything went into production. No rework, no rollback, no firefighting. This is where the real value lies. It’s not just about saving money - it’s about preventing unnecessary costs from ever happening.
And that’s where the deeper PMF shift sits. Infracost isn’t just a tool for visibility - it’s a system that changes behavior. Traditionally, cost sat with finance while engineers focused on shipping. That created tension after the fact. But when cost becomes part of the developer workflow, engineers start making better decisions upfront. Senior engineers reinforce best practices, and over time, cost awareness becomes part of the culture. This is what makes the product sticky. It’s not just solving a problem - it’s embedding itself into how work gets done.
The market itself is crowded, with over a hundred companies offering variations of “we save you money.” That simplicity attracts competition, but it also hides how difficult the problem really is. Most players sit on top of billing data and compete on dashboards or features. Infracost took a harder path by moving upstream into code, solving a more complex technical problem. And that’s often where defensibility comes from - doing the less obvious, more difficult thing.
Distribution played a major role in reinforcing that. The product was built for engineers, with free usage and open-source elements, which allowed it to spread organically. Engineers adopted it, brought it into new companies, and over time it became part of their workflow - and even something they referenced on their CVs. That’s when you know a product has moved beyond usage into real adoption. PMF isn’t just about building something valuable; it’s about how that value spreads.
Pricing followed the same philosophy. Instead of charging a percentage of cloud spend, which can feel like a tax at scale; Infracost charges per engineer. This aligns the product with its actual users and makes adoption frictionless. It’s a reminder that pricing isn’t just a monetization decision; it’s part of the product experience itself.
Another interesting dynamic is who actually cares about the problem. There’s a common assumption that engineers don’t care about cost. In reality, senior engineers care deeply because they’ve seen inefficiency, waste, and the consequences of poor decisions. They become the internal champions, driving adoption and influencing the rest of the team. Often, the real buyer isn’t the person holding the budget - it’s the operator who feels the pain.
We also touched on the tension around AI. While there’s clear potential to layer AI into the product - automating optimizations and generating improvements - many enterprises still restrict its use due to concerns around data and reliability. Hassan’s approach is pragmatic: deliver value without AI first, then introduce it gradually as customers become comfortable. PMF isn’t just about what’s possible; it’s about what the market is ready to adopt.
One of the most valuable lessons came from a failed company Hassan built. The idea was strong - simulating real outages to test DevOps candidates in realistic scenarios. But the market didn’t support it. The best candidates are scarce and expect a high-touch experience, not rigorous testing environments. Even with a great product and a real problem, there was no product-market fit. It’s a reminder that the market itself has to cooperate.
Hassan’s definition of PMF is one I agree with deeply. It’s not a moment you reach and then keep. It’s something you constantly earn. You feel it when demand surges, when inbound grows, when systems start to strain. But markets evolve, competitors catch up, and customer expectations shift. If you stop adapting, you lose it. PMF is an ongoing process across both the product and the market.
If I compress this entire episode into one sentence, it’s this:
The best PMF opportunities aren’t about building better dashboards - they’re about moving the moment of decision closer to where the problem actually happens.
Infracost didn’t win by showing companies what they spent. It’s winning by showing engineers what they’re about to spend - before it’s too late. That shift, from reactive to proactive, is where the next generation of category leaders will be built.
Until next time,
Firas Sozan
Your Cloud, Data & AI Search & Venture Partner
Find me on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/firassozan/
Personal website: https://firassozan.com/
Company website: https://www.harrisonclarke.com/
Venture capital fund: https://harrisonclarkeventures.com/
‘Inside the Silicon Mind’ podcast: https://insidethesiliconmind.com/