Advice & growth frameworks from three comma founders, VCs, and executives (and those on their way there.)
“Something that doesn't slice the pie differently or steal someone else's breakfast, but something with a potential to grow the overall pie,” is Omri Yacubovich's description of Lama.ai, of which he is co-founder and CEO. Lama.ai provides business lending to banks, credit unions, SaaS companies, fintech and B2B brands. Through his research, Omri found that 80 percent of businesses that applied for a loan through their primary banking relationship were declined. Alternative methods included exorbitant APRs that could reach as much as 400%, as well as a very high cost of acquisition and capital. Lama. ai offers to lower these expenses to nearly zero while also offering a more specialized strategy to fit varying needs of businesses versus a cookie cutter plan. Omri offers insights into the number of entrepreneurs who have emerged from Israel. He speculates that it has something to do with having to perform mandatory service at 18, having major responsibilities and decisions to make. He and Brendan discuss the myth of the young Ivy league-educated entrepreneur success story–the vast majority of majorly successful business people had years of experience–even whole careers under their belts before founding their first big business. There is a balance between the bravery of youth where you have very little to lose and the experience and wisdom that come with being older. Omri shares his unpopular opinion on the concept of work/life balance. He talks about what he might have done differently if he had the process to do all over again. Quotes: “There are 1000s, or tens of 1000s, or hundreds of 1000s of startups that fail.. the validation was an important piece.” (15:13-15:27 | Omri) “What we've done, which I think is also important for the first time founders that are listening to this episode, is we left some room for strategic investors...including my previous CEO.” (24:32-25:26 | Omri) “The Northern Lights or where you want to go and what you want to sell is way more important than the actual technology and features that you're building and you're probably very proud and excited about. So, my recommendation is to talk about the problem and why you and your team are the right ones to solve that problem.” (27:31-27:52 | Omri) “If you're not running fast enough, if you're in the right or wrong direction, you're never going to get to the finish line. So I think it's crucial for startups to have the ability to move fast. And unfortunately, moving fast requires a lot of dedication and working hours. So, it's not popular, but that's my opinion." (35:47-36:13 | Omri) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandell TikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Omri: Omri.y@lama.ai lama.ai Check out Omri's recommended books: Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle by Dan Senor and Saul Singer https://bookshop.org/p/books/start-up-nation-the-story-of-israel-s-economic-miracle-dan-senor/16646834?ean=9780446541473 The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-hard-thing-about-hard-things-building-a-business-when-there-are-no-easy-answers-ben-horowitz/6432758?ean=9780062273208 Zero to One: Notes on Startups or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters https://bookshop.org/p/books/zero-to-one-notes-on-startups-or-how-to-build-the-future-peter-thiel/9402001?ean=9780804139298 The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-lean-startup-how-today-s-entrepreneurs-use-continuous-innovation-to-create-radically-successful-businesses-eric-ries/9422262?ean=9780307887894 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“You probably can't overemphasize the importance of your co-founder relationship,” says Noah Abelson-Gertler, founder coach and former public company CEO, explaining that 50% of startups and scaleups that fail do so due to co-founder relationships. Co-founders have an intimacy that is like marriage without the romance—you experience highs and lows, make major decisions together, you're dependent on each other, and can often spend more time together than you do with your actual spouse. That is why it is so important to be as thorough as possible in getting to know your potential co-founder, asking them every possible question, their strengths and weaknesses, references, how they would respond to every possible scenario, and if you can really see yourself working side-by-side with this person for the next ten years. It is just as important to be honest with yourself, about your motivations, shortcomings, etc. This is something that Noah wishes he had done more of with his own co-founder before entering into business with each other. But, as he mentions, the only other difference between marriage and co-founder partnerships is that co-founders aren't given the tools and resources couples are given. That's why he encourages all founders to find a coach because you really can't know what it's like until you're in it, and as you scale and succeed, your role constantly changes. Noah and Brendan also touch upon feelings of imposter syndrome, spurred in part by what Brendan calls “success porn.” Founders feel like they are the only ones who feel the increasing pressure that builds commensurate with success. No one has it all figured out, they agree. And if they think they do, they're likely a sociopath. Quotes “You probably can't overemphasize the importance of your co-founder relationship. So from the moment that you start looking into becoming a co-founder with somebody, you want to focus as much resource on it as, as you logistically can, you're not going to be able to spend 100% of your time on it, never will. But it's wildly important to the success of your business.” (27:43-28:06 | Noah) “The most similar relationship that you're going to have in your life to a co-founder relationship is a romantic relationship, bar none. It is wildly intimate, you are dependent upon each other, you spend an immense amount of time with each other, and you're making hard decisions constantly. Now, the difference between these two relationships is, and I talk about this a lot in co-founder coaching, a romantic relationship has a bunch of tools to it, the co-founder relationship does not.” (31:26-31:59 | Noah) “A common thing that comes up is founders who enter into a co-founder relationship is thinking that they don't need to both better get to know themselves, and constantly work on themselves. So that's an understanding you have to have from the jump. If we're going into this together, we both have to have the humility to look at our shortcomings and look at ways that we can improve.” (35:00-35:21 | Noah) “If you think about what really moves the needle as… it's the inner person, the soft skills that really often make the difference. Can you organize people well, and you're not going to organize and direct a team. It's like when the parents are fighting at home:..If you're not getting along, and you guys are constantly at odds, and there's tension there, the team's going to sense that in there, as you're creating a divide in your business.” (36:26-Brendan | 37:12 | Brendan) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandell TikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Noah: Foundersjourney.io Check out Noah's recommended books: Radical Candor: How to be a Kick-ass Boss without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott https://bookshop.org/p/books/radical-candor-be-a-kick-ass-boss-without-losing-your-humanity-kim-scott/8486942?ean=9781250235374 Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter by Liz Wiseman https://bookshop.org/p/books/multipliers-how-the-best-leaders-make-everyone-smarter-liz-wiseman/7213241?ean=9780062663078 The Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg and Alan Eagle https://bookshop.org/p/books/el-coach-de-sillicon-valley-lecciones-de-liderazgo-del-legendario-coach-de-negocios-bill-campbell-trillion-dollar-coach-eric-schmidt/7976170?ean=9780062839268 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“We're emotional beings that think, not thinking beings that feel,” says Scott Walker, leadership coach, former Scotland Yard detective and one of the world's most experienced kidnap for ransom negotiators. Scott joins the podcast today to share what engaging in covert counterterrorism and kidnapping operations has taught him about communicating in life and in the corporate world. The process, Scott explains, is a matter of taking your emotions—as well as your ego—out of the equation. At the same time, you must be very aware of the other person's emotions, what they want and need including what Scott calls “the bunch of fives.” Force, subjugation and domineering approaches rarely work if at all. Negotiation is very much about collaboration. It is far less about a set script of things to say and more about showing up and being curious about another person. For most people, talking about money is the most uncomfortable thing they do at work. When asking for a raise, focus on what you can do to provide value to your employer, on your long-term commitment. Negotiations should have a single clear message. Don't lose sight of the outcome. Hear Scott talk about the “three Ms” that are invaluable to his daily practice. Scott and Brendan discuss the success of Chris Voss—also a former hostage negotiator, and his ability to, in the TikTok era where most people can only stay present for a thirty second video, hold people's attention for three hours. Scott credits JP Sears for infusing discourse with humor and nuance in a world where people hardly listen to or empathize with each other. They also discuss Diego Perez and Andrew Huberman. Quotes: “I'd say that emotional self mastery, which is ultimately what having a right mindset is about, is probably one of the number one skills of an effective negotiating communicator…So you don't become swayed from pillar to post by people's challenges, really.” (20:04-20:45 | Scott) “People make decisions based on emotion…if I can uncover what your real needs are, then I'm a step closer to helping you meet them.” (28:02-28:35 | Scott) “Sometimes people ask me, ‘Are you just trying to manipulate people?...I just want you to walk away happy thinking, ‘Hey, I've got a good deal here.'” (33:41-34:19 | Scott) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandell TikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Scott Walker: scottwalkerbooks.co.uk Buy a copy of Scott Walker's book, Order Out of Chaos: https://www.scottwalkerbooks.co.uk/ Check out Scott Walker recommended books: Tools of TItans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers by Tim Ferris https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781328683786 Unlimited Power: The New Science of Personal Achievement by Tony Robbins https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780684845777 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“We started to feel like there was something bigger here, that this could be transformational,” says Jason Radisson, co-founder and CEO of Sh1ft, which brings push button technology to blue collar and middle class work, and is transforming HR in the B2B spaces by implementing gig economy-style automation and efficiency. Sh1ft promises to eliminate 80 to 90 percent of a traditional HR employee's role by resolving issues such as schedule inefficiencies and time fraud. Sh1ft is currently making great strides in the professions of engineering, construction, and nursing. Born to a young, single mother, Jason learned early on from the people around him both the value of hard work and the value of education to upskill and land better jobs. He and Brendan discuss good and bad reasons for attending school and in what instances attending top schools, like his alma mater Harvard, is a worthwhile pursuit. He explains how certain companies become like mafias and why that's a good thing. Later, he explains why the white collar job sector will be saturated in the future, the transformation of local markets into national ones, and what's in store for blockchain and crypto. Brendan describes the two classes of skills which will guarantee success in the modern economy. Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandell TikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Check out Jason's recommended books: Decision Making Under Uncertainty by David E. Bell https://www.amazon.com/Decision-Making-Under-Uncertainty-David/dp/1565272757 Decision Making Under Certainty by David E. Bell https://www.amazon.com/Decision-Making-Under-Certainty-Schleifer/dp/9812435069/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1R9IXZQZ3YZ36&keywords=David+E.+Bell+Decision+Making+Under+Certainty&qid=1678834076&s=books&sprefix=david+e.+bell+decision+making+under+certainty%2Cstripbooks%2C96&sr=1-1 Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies by McKinsey & Company, Inc., Tim Koller, Marc Goedhart, and David Wessels https://www.amazon.com/Valuation-Measuring-Managing-Companies-Finance/dp/1119610885/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1E4W4ESJYI7S5&keywords=Valuation&qid=1678834336&s=books&sprefix=valuation%2Cstripbooks%2C98&sr=1-1 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“What if we could do it better than anyone else in the ecosystem?” Nathan McCauley asked himself while co-founding Anchorage Digital, a unicorn assets platform that provides instantly settled key storage and custody—holding investments on behalf of investors—for digital assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Before starting this venture, he worked at financial services platform Square, where he performed what he called “financial security” for four years with his future Anchorage Digital co-founder Diogo Monica. There the two helped to design the digital card reader with Jack Dorsey. Wanting to learn more about the sales, marketing and development aspects of B2B business before starting their own company, he and Diogo joined Docker, a software platform that helps developers to build, run and share applications. Nathan talks about working at Square with Jack Dorsey and Keith Rabois, their unique approaches to leadership, and what the experience at Docker was versus what he thought it was going to be. Brendan explains the problem with overindexing on opportunities to make what turn out to be largely unneeded products. Early on in his career, Nathan's managers constantly evaluated him as having “irrational optimism.” He later learned about the power of being paranoid. Nathan started Anchorage because he wanted to build a culture, one in which his employees could find a purpose and enrich their lives. With this motivation still at the forefront, he spends a lot of time interviewing potential employees. He explains the key to finding the right people who align with the company's mission. Quotes: “This idea of sitting around and waiting for good opportunities and then when you find them, putting everything into them. One of the things that would've happened if I decided to start a company just after Square is I would've probably gone after a smaller opportunity that wasn't as high leverage as Anchorage. And so I'm extremely grateful for the patience aspect of it. In terms of waiting for the right opportunity, that was a good fit for mine and my co-founders' skillset. That's not to say that I didn't learn a ton from Docker. I actually did learn a ton from Docker too. But it's kind of a dual purpose of learning a lot, learning about enterprise sales, learning about marketing, but also not jumping into something that was not as big of an opportunity as it possibly could have been.” (24:29-25:18 | Nathan) “We had this idea of a very secure system without a problem that actually needed solving that way, the custody problem coming along was almost this conceptual model of an idea of a very secure system that finally had a use case that we could build towards. So the answer to that ends up being that we had a very clear product vision very early on what needed to get built, but we did not want to build an mvp. because we knew the very nature of the product was likely to hold non-trivial amounts of funds very early on. We didn't want to do anything less than good enough in the first version.” (29:44-30:27 | Nathan) “The most useful outlet for fear is to keep innovating.” (35:46-35:50 | Nathan) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandell TikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Nathan McCauley: Anchorage.com nathan@anchorage.com Check out Nathan's recommended books: Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points that Challenge Every Company by Andrew S. Grove https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780385483827 Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781400077304 A History of the World in Ten and a Half Chapters by Julian Barnes https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780679731375 Raids on the Unspeakable by Thomas Merton https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780811201018 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
New York Times bestselling author Jonah Berger's cutting-edge research reveals how six types of words can increase your impact in every area of life: from persuading others and building stronger relationships, to boosting creativity and motivating teams. He labels them SPEACC (“speak,” phonetically), and they are crucial to understanding if one wants to be a more effective and charismatic speaker. Meanwhile, Jonah explains–using words like seems, think, should–-lessens the effectiveness of speech overall. More specifically, though, there are certain hedging phrases which yield more results than do others, and he discusses them here. He also describes “the copier experiment,” wherein one simple word will persuade people to accommodate a request, even if inconvenient. A simple two-letter word modification will convince everyone from children in the classroom to community members during election time to take the desired action. Delegating action versus assigning someone an identity based on that action is a very powerful shift, as Jonah explains. There are six categories under which persuasive language falls, a framework. There is a surprising difference between the effectiveness of abstract language and concrete language when it comes to raising money. Brendan shares an example of using hedging language versus direct language, and the difference it made to his clients. Quotes: “While we pay a lot of attention to what we want to communicate…we think a lot less about how we say those things, the particular words we use. And that's a mistake because the words we use can have a big impact on our effectiveness.” (3:52-4:15 | Jonah) “I know that some people hate Donald Trump, and I know that some people love Donald Trump. Whether you love him or hate him, you can't deny that he's been a great salesperson for his ideas. Even if you hate him and hate everything he stands for, he's had an amazing ability to get a whole bunch of people to do what he wants and follow his suggestions. So, one question is: why?” (6:57-7:18 | Jonah) “Think about it this way: If you understand the science of hitting, you get on base more in baseball. If you understand the science of shooting a basketball, more of your three free throws go in. Same is true of language. Language is something we do all the time, just like you can become a better basketball shooter, a baseball hitter, a better swimmer, whatever you do in your life. By understanding how language works, you can use it more effectively.” (17:55-18:19 | Jonah) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandell TikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Pre-Order Jonah's Book: Magic Words Hardcover & Kindled: https://amzn.to/3IwX21l Audio: https://amzn.to/3ZbRe4c Check out Jonah's recommended books: The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780316346627 Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781400064281 Diffusion of Innovations by Everett M Rodgers https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780743222099 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“What drives me is the mission,” says Tony Jamous, founder and CEO of Oyster HR, a business that, as Brendan puts it, is “stewarding the remote work revolution.” Oyster, Tony's second unicorn company, works to allow businesses to hire anyone from around the world without restriction. With their needs fulfilled, companies can then focus on their growth. This starts with everyone establishing their mission, collectively and individually. As Brendan points out, being mission driven ensures that your business is solving an actual problem. Yet, so many workers don't know why they are working in the first place. Tony regularly takes stock of how his employees feel working at Oyster and working for him specifically. What's more, he encourages all leaders to check in with how they feel about themselves, to practice self-leadership before they attempt to lead others. Another important element of leadership, he says, is demonstrating full trust in that employees can and will do their jobs, meet their goals and provide value to the company. No one likes to be questioned, and while checking in with employees about performance is necessary and reasonable, the only way to attempt to micromanage is not to attempt it at all. Micromanagement leads workers to further question what they are doing in their jobs, which not only leads to burnout, but to the kind of disengagement that up to 75 percent of knowledge workers admit to feeling. Pay attention to the red flags of avoidance and procrastination around a task,Tony advises. Another major contributor to workplace burnout is the continued adherence by many companies to arbitrary and archaic work models. Oyster has a series of breaks and flexibility built into the culture to allow for quality of life while still achieving a high level of productivity. This notably includes eliminating unnecessary meetings–and their resulting emotional drain–and using Loom instead. Quotes: “Today, it seems like we have an unlimited amount of opportunities because…we're digitalizing the whole economy through all industries. So how do you choose to focus on and that's the strategy process that you need to conduct.” ( 6:36-6:53 | Tony) “Being mission-driven increases your chances of success. You attract better people to your business, you create a better culture with the highest level of engagement, and you attract better investors and better customers.” (16:32-16:46 | Tony) “Trust, in my opinion, has to be absolute and infinite because you gain nothing by questioning people. Nobody gains anything from adding doubt into the relationship.” (27:58-28:14 | Tony) “Many people aren't clear about why they're working.” (43:00-43:05 | Tony) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandell TikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Tony Jamous: LinkedIn: @ Tony Jamous Check out Tony Jamous' recommended book: The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780735213500 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“I had one job, which was to get the data right. Why was that so freaking hard?” asked Barr Moses, co-founder and CEO of Monte Carlo, the world's first data observability platform, discussing what motivated her to create the product. Having worked with data for 15 years, she realized so many people across the industry couldn't seem to get it right, nor did they have a systematic, scalable way to make sure data was accurate. In the world we're living in, where so many people have access to data, just a few minutes of inaccurate data can lead to poor customer experience and millions of dollars in lost revenue. It's a problem Barr says will only get worse over time, as data becomes more important to infrastructure. Barr explains what it was like to create a whole new category, something from nothing, even when some people were telling her it would never work and that she was throwing her career away. She knew there was a company to be built there, and she wanted to be the one to do it and be proud of the journey along the way—which she admits is a lot of hard work. Category creation is really solving customer problems, and in so doing, the customer becomes co-creator of the category because they have the answers. Customer happiness is at the heart of the whole operation. Barr expands upon this and other codified values that make up the foundation of Monte Carlo. Barr reveals what the two main rules any business should have, from the beginning and forever. Find out why it's important that people around you pass “The Mom Test,” what the odds are that data will ever be 100% accurate, and what it's like to be married to your co-founder. Quotes: “The idea of data being wrong would get a really strong reaction. It resonated. I think that was the first ‘aha' moment. People that I didn't even know would say, ‘Hell, yes, I have that problem, please help me solve it now. So that was the very first lightbulb moment.” (9:52-10:17 | Barr) “We're not looking for someone to say, ‘Hey we have 100 percent confidence.' We're looking for someone to say, ‘Hey, this data is important enough for us to invest something in making sure that it's accurate.' It's about treating the issue with the diligence it deserves." (15:53-16:07 | Barr) “Think about application reliability: A couple of decades ago, nobody cared if your app was up or down. But then Netflix is down for 45 minutes in 2016 because of duplicate data. Netflix being down is a hell of a problem.” (16:07-16:26 | Barr) “Customers don't give a shit about you creating a new category or not. They literally don't care. They care about, ‘Are you solving a real problem for me?' Helping people and solving their problem is way more important.” (32:58-33:20 | Barr) “Our measure of success isn't years or weeks, it's literally minutes. Every minute that you're spending on something should be high-value.” (39:50-40:00 | Barr) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandell TikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Barr Moses: LinkedIn: @barrmoses barr@montecarlodata.com Check out Barr Moses recommended books: The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick https://www.indiebound.org/search/book?keys=The+Mom+Test Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brene Brown https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781592408412 The Score Takes Care of Itself by Bill Walsh, Steve Jamison and Craig Walsh https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781591843474 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“Harness builds software for teams that build software,” says Scott Sanchez, CMO of Harness. Scott and his team recognize that software developers at larger companies spend an increasing amount of time doing everything but coding. Harness provides a series of end to end products which ensure that that coding is high quality and delivered quickly and securely. He explains the importance of positioning and individuating in an industry in which an increasing number of people are selling a similar product. A large part of setting your business apart is providing thoughtful, valuable content. Scott explains what such content looks like across all aspects of the business, some of which might be surprising. He particularly focuses on organic social content, what this looks like and why many marketers get it wrong. Letting the audience see the human face of your company is a great way to connect, he explains.This is good news for those just starting out who can't afford to pay for glossy marketing productions. It is also the best way to engage with software developers who are inherently marketing averse and skeptical of anything too polished. Scott also considers the difference between sales and marketing, and how models like ChatGPT will affect his and other industries. He warns against the short-term thinking that many marketers (often inevitably) fall into. Learn why he declares Justin Welsh and Daniel Vassallo are two entrepreneurs to watch. Quotes: “Marketing's job, if done well, is to not be marketing. We are trying to help our customers get from point A to point B, whatever that is for them. And the more you can express that in terms of outcomes and value, the better job you're doing.” (3:36-3:56 | Scott) “A year from now, 18 months from now, what do you want your ideal customer to say this company, this product is the best in the world at?” (16:18-16:29 | Scott) “I think authentic, valuable content, not marketing content, the way a lot of people would think about it, but truly authentic and valuable content is worth 100x its weight.” (27:35-27:48 | Scott) “I do think too many marketers, not by choice…are forced into short term thinking…I think you get into that hamster wheel of catch up, on on goals. And you end up making poor choices as a result of not having options.” (40:40-41:29 | Scott) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandell TikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Scott Sanchez: LinkedIn: @scottsanchez Twitter:@scottsanchez Facebook:@scottsanchez Instagram:@scottsanchez TikTok: @:scottsanchez Harness.io Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“We knew we wanted to address the pain of remote work,” said Marcelo Lebre of the goal he and Job van der Voort shared when the two founded Remote.com in 2019. As it turns out, it was a worldwide pain. There were countless freelancers who were waiting to be matched with opportunities and vice versa. Remote.com scaled the problem on a global level so that the right talent could be pooled from anywhere. Currently, the majority of the site's business is inbound and via word of mouth. As Marcelo points out, this is due to the power of the brand, but also of the pain itself. A major feature of Remote.com's success and one that it shares freely with the rest of the world is its handbook. What started as a way to keep all of its asynchronous workers organized became a guide for similar businesses to follow while learning to run their businesses remotely during the pandemic. Marcelo discusses how this handbook keeps employees accountable to themselves and each other and other surprising ways it builds and maintains brand culture. Marcelo explains the benefits of anxiety and the major problem with today's entrepreneurs. Quotes: “And the more we talked about the things that moved us, the more it was clear that we're both suffering from the same issue of talent, the bridge that doesn't exist and the gap between talent and opportunity across the world.” (4:57-5:11 | Marcelo) “The solutions out there are not good. They're broken because people don't understand the problem they're solving. They're just local solutions. They just don't scale the work. They're complex. They're expensive. They serve no one. But the solution is massive. Let's go for it.” (6:35- 6:56 | Marcelo) “I believe that discipline always outweighs motivation. If you relentlessly pursue the market, the odds of you getting somewhere are much higher than if you just follow your own passion. But ultimately, they go hand in hand.” (8:57-9:16 | Marcelo) “The market is as big as the world itself. Literally any company in the world can be our customer.” (30:14-30:25 | Marcelo) “There's a massive problem with entrepreneurs. These days, they tend to follow others much more than they should follow themselves. And that's a big problem. Because you tend to copy templates. It's much more important to be inspired by the right people, than to copy the ones you deem perfect.” (57:38-58:03 | Marcelo) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Marcelo:LinkedIn: @MarceloLebreTwitter: @marcelo_lebre Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“Too many founders have solutions, and are looking for problems,” says Brendan on this solo episode of Billion Dollar Tech. Today Brendan goes over the five key takeaways from his conversation with Trisha Kotari founder and CEO of Unit 21. Trisha cold called over 300 potential buyers and spoke to 100 before getting an RFP from Ebay. The advice she returned to throughout the episode was the importance of being customer-focused. This combined with the novel take on the product, helped Unit 21 differentiate itself in a saturated area. This wasn't easy with such a risk-averse audience. Still, Trisha was able to meet with people and was able to raise the seed round and gain early customer success. Brendan gives some insight into how she managed to achieve this. Though he admits that what Trisha did isn't always possible and that he's seen it go just as easily in the opposite direction. He explains what made the difference. Quotes “A phrase that I have was said to me on a previous podcast was this idea that there's too many founders out there that have solutions that are looking for problems, they design this thing that they think is cool, but they are not sure whether there's actually a market for this thing.” (1:17-1:31 | Brendan) “That they were able to go out, have these conversations and land a few key customers, which then got them entree into a dozen other companies and ultimately, ultimately led to 12x growth in the following year.” (3:50-4:02 | Brendan) “You're going to get a lot of advice from people and a lot of conflicting advice, especially early on as an entrepreneur, and especially from investors. It's easy to try to take that advice as gospel.” (6:02-6:12 | Brendan) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“Fundraising is mostly about failing. Success is really the wartime,” says Trisha Kotari, founder and CEO of Unit 21, a risk and compliance infrastructure which helps companies and financial institutions combat fraud. In 2019, she started the business from scratch, cold calling potential investors and raising seed. She discusses the way she differentiated herself from a saturated market, and convinced a particularly risk-averse crowd to get on board, all despite having no idea how to do sales. Throughout the process and to this day, Trisha pays attention to customer reaction. The customer was her source of truth and helped her iterate. It helped her realize that there was a real need for her product and that she could provide an actual solution. Trisha discusses the challenges of the process that might be surprising, especially those with Type A personalities, the problem with following advice, and what she wishes she had discarded after hearing it. Quotes: This is an actual pain. And it's not a vitamin, it's not the small improvement that we thought this would be. (7:31-7:38 | Trisha) “Every company is slightly different, especially in the financial services space. And the types of users they target are different, the vectors of attack are different. And that was the main thing that we learned from talking to hundreds of people is that no one is looking for exactly the same type of rule to find fraud.” (9:43-10:03 | Trisha) “These people are naturally risk averse. They will go to jail if your software fails, and so it's very difficult to get a full set of customers.” (14:48-14:57 | Trisha) “The only advice that I would have for people is when starting a business is just expect a lot of rejection. And people are going to reject you because what do they have to go off of? And I think especially for a lot of high achievement focus people, it might become really startling to see that, ‘Okay, I'm going to talk to 50 people and 49 as a no.'” (16:29-16:57 | Trisha) “Fundraising is mostly about failing. And the success is really the wartime.” (17:29-17:34 | Trisha) “I wish I did not listen to all advice because every piece of advice and some kind of it's really based on someone's past experience. But your company, what you're building, who you are, the situation, the industry or in the time that you're in even the same company 10 years ago, or 10 years from now, will this advice apply to me now?.” (28:56-29:20 | Trisha) “It's pretty hard and it's something that is continuous. It's never a one time round thing. You are continuously learning, the market is continuing to evolve and it's a continuous effort.” (42:55-43:08 | Trisha) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Trisha Kotari:LinkedIn: @trishkotariTwitter:@trishakotariwww.unit21.aiCheck out Trisha Kotari's recommended book: Shoe Dog: A Memoir By the Founder of Nike by Phil Knight https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781501135927 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“It's just like being in a relationship,” says Brendan on this solo episode of Billion Dollar Tech. Today, he discusses what happens to a lot of startups when they bring in an outside expert or salesperson to help them scale, but the outside party through laziness or even with the best intentions fails to get the business past the growth stage. He lists five things most founders skip at the beginning stages, which can cost them everything, and explains what to do instead. Some of these are basic and universal such as being clear and specific with what you plan to solve, what your ideal customer looks like, and your results. How do you differentiate yourself from the competition? More specifically, how do you create demand for your product when there is a long-established brand that people trust and don't feel like changing? How do you overcome the inherent mistrust people have in strangers, salespeople, and both in one? Once you bring people in, what do you have to say to them? Brendan uses examples such as Cassidy Shield and Clearbit, as well as Seth Godin. Quotes: “Especially as you grow, you will hire experts, but you need to be able to speak, you need to be able to read your financial statements. You need to be able to speak the language of product, you need to be able to speak the language of sales and marketing. It doesn't mean you need to be able to drive the whole function. But you need to reasonably understand enough so that you can effectively interview people and address, ‘Do they know what they're talking about? Does this make sense for us?' and so forth.” (2:51-3:14 (Brendan) “What are their jobs to be done? What are the things that they think are part of their job? Or the outcome that they're trying to drive? And how are they doing that today? What's the status quo? And what's the emotional resonance and like the priority of those jobs that they're doing? Right? Some things may be less important to people than others.” (5:25-5:44 | Brendan) “It's just like in relationship. This is the overused metaphor which is that you wouldn't go up to a man or woman on the street and ask them to marry you, day one. You're going to start with coffee, then lunch, then dinner, then you know, and so forth and so on, building that trust over time. And that's the same with B2B sale.” (9:25-9:43 | Brendan) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“I think, if you're doing business right, you're evolving every two or three years,” says Bryan Clayton Co-Founder and CEO of GreenPal, an app that works like an Uber for lawn services, which bootstrapped $30 million. And that includes growing alongside your customer. The early days of GreenPal were spent putting brochures on door handles around Nashville until they eventually grew into a nationwide business in 180 cities. Bryan still spends an hour a day on customer service as that is the heart of his business, and, ideally, everyone else's. Too many startups become enamored with innovation or bells and whistles. Meanwhile, the customer is simply concerned with the product or service, fixing the problem in a timely manner, even more than they're concerned about the best price. Many tech startups forget that their business is not just the app, but the business the app addresses and all the problems that go with it. In today's discussion Bryan shares what he learned about business and life from his 3-month faux retirement in Costa Rica and what it means to lead from stewardship versus abdication. Quotes: “It wasn't like people were throwing capital at us. And so we kind of had to self fund it. And that was a lucky thing for us, because funding the business off of its own revenues, has always course-corrected us to focus on one thing, and that's customers. Are we making people happy? Or are people coming back to us? The products we need to make, we need to grow sales by 50% next month. So that's been a nice course correcting mechanism. That's kind of gotten us where we are today. (8:07-8:32 | Bryan) “There's nothing wrong with raising capital, so long as you know what you're signing up for. And I think for most entrepreneurs getting the rocket fuel is a bad bet. It's like putting that rocket fuel in your Toyota Camry and wondering why the engine blew up.” (9:35-9:52 | Bryan) “That's why I got back in. And I'm glad I did, you know, because looking back 10 years, you know, I'm a completely different person, and know all sorts of different skills and things I didn't know, then, then the business required me to learn those things. If I had not done it, I'd be the same, you know, person I was 10 years ago, and what a tragedy that'd be, you know, you want to be growing and evolving. The business requires that of you. And that's one of the cool things about it.” (13:36-13:59 | Bryan) “There's a reason why it's broken. And when you develop an app in that space, all of those problems now become your problems. And they become your problems to solve.” (17:54-18:07 | Bryan) “We thought we were building a cheaper solution. Why? Because it's the competitive dynamics, you get multiple quotes, and you can compare and read reviews and hire the cheapest contractor if you want. But as time went on, and as customers were interacting with what we built, we became to understand that no, actually the price almost needs to be market, it doesn't need to be cheaper. What matters is reliability and speed. That's what people care about, do they get it done on the day they're supposed to, and then can they get it done quickly.” (23:07-23:42 | Bryan) “When you raise capital, it really, it changes the goalposts, you know, it moves the goalposts out further for whatever those are, a lot of times you're building a product that investors like, and not necessarily one that customers like.” (41:27-41:41 | Bryan) “And I think that's what holds up a lot of new founders. They aren't willing to do the crappy work.” (46:43-46:49 | Bryan) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Bryan Clayton:https://www.yourgreenpal.com/ Check out Bryan Clayton's recommended books: My Life in Advertising by Claude Hopkins https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781434117052 The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780307887894 The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-by-Step Guide for Building a Great Company by Steve Blank and Bob Dorf https://www.indiebound.org/search/book?keys=The+Startup+Owners+Manual The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects by Andrew Chen https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780062969743 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“Most startups don't fail outright, they fail to gain meaningful traction,” says Brendan on this solo episode of Billion Dollar Tech. He gets more specific with five reasons that contribute to the failure. The first reason is one that he has discussed many times, which is that companies go too wide at the start, and fail to specifically define their service and why it's necessary to their target audience. Companies need to know what you can do for them within the specific context of their business. Do they see your solution as crucial to their tasks? Equally important is clarity of message and Brendan offers the minimum criteria for achieving it. He defines anchoring bias and why getting ahead of it is so crucial, and why you're doing social media wrong. Quotes: “You have to build the thing, or position the thing in such a way that it solves for a core pain and that their life is more meaningfully worse without your solution in place.” (4:52-5:07 | Brendan) “So here's a super common scenario: somebody builds an MVP, a minimum viable product, or they raise a little bit of money. And then what do they do, which is natural and should happen, they go out, and they start to talk to everyone they know. Now, I'm not discouraging you from networking. I'm not discouraging you from posting on social media to people. But what you're not doing in that process is generating broad based awareness around what it is you do, how you help and why it's different than everyone else.” (7:03-7:38 | Brendan) “Are you aligning your team around just getting as many blinking lights to show up as possible?” (10:20-10:24 | Brendan) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“You have to be really agile and flexible, but also really stubborn about the problems you're going to solve,” says Alan Chiu, co-founder of Boba and its contributing company Enya.ai, about the dual attributes successful founders must possess. Blockchain technology, similarly, is a balance of traits. On one hand, it offers a number of opportunities. The open source format and permissionless entree allow people who might otherwise be hindered by their geographical location, race, gender access to a business's information. This transparency has the potential to decentralize power, and form a system of checks and balances that keep everyone more honest. However, this type of demand on the system leads to slower performance and higher costs. This is where Boba comes in, as it's the only blockchain platform that takes advantage of blockchain's features while utilizing the sustainability of Web 2 infrastructure. Alan discusses how the blockchain model makes money, how to identify the right time to execute on a plan. He talks about the most difficult aspect of scaling and how he approaches risk. First and foremost you must evaluate the founders when deciding to invest in companies, and that those founders must have a balance of strong convictions and openness to new ideas and methods. Continuing the theme of balance, Alan discusses how he manages both the longterm and shortterm goals of his team. He gives his thoughts on the most common mistakes founders make when starting a company, and the most common reason they fail to scale. Quotes: “If these cryptocurrencies increase in value, you are starting to build a pretty interesting portfolio without being subject to biases against age, gender, ethnicity, geographical location. And that's really powerful. This is the type of opportunity that used to be reserved for Silicon Valley engineers. Now anyone in the world can have access to. (9:05-9:29 | Alan) “The reason blockchains are always going to be much slower than a traditional web two infrastructure like AWS is because there's a cost to synchronizing all of these mills that the mega blockchain network with these centralized, the decentralized nature of blockchains is both a feature but also puts a limit on how many transactions you can do per unit time.” (13:26-13:47 | Alan) For any disruptive technology, in the early days, it's really hard to come up with something quantifiable and justify that with data, because everything is so new. (17:48-18:01 | Alan) “One of the most difficult aspects of being a founder is, on one hand, you've got to have strong conviction around your vision because there's going to be a lot of headwind and a lot of uncertainty, if you don't have strong conviction, it's really hard to sustain. On the other hand, you've got to be really open to advice and feedback, especially feedback from customers, whether they want what you're building or not. You're learning and adapting and changing to your customer feedback, and also to a changing competitive landscape and market dynamics and new technologies that continue to evolve.” (20:47-21:20 | Alan) “Sometimes the best path forward is actually not commercializing the innovation itself. But finding some application for the innovation in a product or service. And commercializing that instead, and using the core innovation as a creative driver of a competitive advantage.” (52:01-53:01 | Alan) Links: Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Alan Chiu:Twitter:@alanchiuhttps://www.enya.ai/Check out Alan Chiu's recommended books: Connect: Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends and Colleagues https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780593237090 The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780142001103 The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom by Henri J.M. Nouwen https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780385483483 The Brains and Brawn Company: How Leading Organizations Blend the Best of Digital and Physical by Robert Siegel https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781264257775 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“It comes back to communication,“ says Brendan on this solo episode of Billion Dollar Tech, where he unpacks the five key takeaways from his recent interview with Iggy Bassi, founder and CEO of Cervest. Iggy founded this data platform, which recently raised 37 million in total funding, first and foremost by articulating his vision specifically, and Brendan expands on the importance of this. He also talks about the balance between quality and efficiency, knowing when it's time to launch, and the importance of finding a clear focused market. One should aim to position oneself on the back of a key trend. Brendan talks about finding a concept that intersects with what you know and care about versus what other people need and will care about in the world today. He lists resources available to even those outside of the industry where you can find companies with existing initiatives in place, whom founders can then piggyback on. Brendan draws examples from successful businesses such as Oracle, Carta and Smarsh. He shares what he sees as the biggest stumbling block to success, and the most underappreciated skill in a founder. Quotes: “If you want to get people to invest money in your product, you want to get people to invest their lives and help you build a company, you have to be able to articulate the new world you're creating.” (5:11-5:20 | Brendan) “You look at Elon Musk, and the ability to market your ability to communicate, the vision is everything.” (5:44-5:50 | Brendan) “It's tempting when you're early on, and everybody comes from different places, but you should just take whatever money is available to you and offered to you. And this may sound like a luxury problem. But for anyone who has seen what it's like to work with unaligned investors, tyrannical investors, are people who just do not understand what it is you're building, the vision you're building, the time it may take to get there, what the hurdles are all of these things, it can create a horrible working relationship.” (10:24-10:55 | Brendan) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Iggy Bassi:Twitter:@IggyBassihttps://cervest.earth/ Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“I want to spend my time solving problems,” says Iggy Bassi, founder and CEO of Cervest, a platform that uses climate data, science expertise and data modeling to help companies predict their climate risk. It measures the potential damage a company's assets, like buildings, factories and property, could suffer from their surrounding weather conditions, and the potential resulting financial loss. With this data, it helps companies not mitigate risk, but adapt assets over time. Though it's not just real estate firms or manufacturers that have to worry about extreme incidents like flooding or storms. As Iggy points out, all businesses across all industries are at risk from the everyday effects of climate change. Iggy considers this his driving mission—to democratize this data and get it into the hands of decision makers in order to serve the greater good. He talks about the process and necessity of marrying the mission to the method, that to achieve its noble ends, a company must still follow a capitalistic business model and make itself competitive in the market. Both are equally necessary and as Brendan points out, making money and doing good works are not mutually exclusive. It's a matter of deciding what you want to invest your time in. It also means choosing the right people to be part of your mission. Iggy emphasizes the amount of time he spent and continues to spend considering his investors and encourages listeners to do the same. Quotes: “Most of our losses actually came because of these extreme events, we just couldn't predict them. We couldn't control them. So I think in 2014 I sort of picked up a climate model. It helps to think about climate modeling. I said, `I want to know what's going to happen to my facility, for my $6 million factory and tell me what's going to happen to this.” (8:14-8:38 | Iggy) “I think there's a more fundamental question about, ‘Where do you want to spend your energy as well. I want to spend, personally, my energy on solving problems. So that's what really drives me is ‘Can we make an impact because we're all going to work hard, whether you're in for profit, or social sector, what is the purpose to the work?” (12:10-12:31 | Iggy) “We are a B Corp that allows us to marry the mission with raising capital, creating a certain type of culture, which was all driven by a central mission. Can we take the power of plant intelligence into the hands of decision makers? Can we democratize this complex data? So people like me are not stuck on the farms going forward? People can get answers when they need them, how do I protect my assets? How do I adapt my assets? So we want this intelligence to be democratized as fast as possible at the lowest possible price point, potentially, with a freemium model as well, so that people can get a certain level of climate intelligence on their most critical assets for free. And then the larger banks, insurance companies and governments will actually pay for this.” (12:51-13:31 | Iggy) “Even at the height of COVID, most global surveys, when they asked citizens the number one concern, it wasn't COVID, it was still climate. And climate is a number one concern across the world, when you ask the citizens, particularly the younger generations.” (25:21-25:37 | Iggy) “I'm always always careful about who my capital partners are. I spent a long time focusing on choosing the right investment partners, because if you don't have that alignment, it can be catastrophic later on.” (33:53-34:05 | Iggy) “I think there is a combination of mission driven people who are technically good, and people who've got method. So you have to marry mission with method. Because at the end of the day, it is a competitive business, it's a competitive market, you have to be able to sell this stuff into the marketplace, build a brilliant product. And you have to be a commercially orientated organization over time. So mission is great, method is also great. But you need a combination of the two, particularly if you're solving this type of problems.”(36:40-37:10 | Iggy) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Iggy Bassi:Twitter:@IggyBassihttps://cervest.earth/Check out Iggy's recommended books: Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant's Guide by Bill McGuire https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781785789205 Nutmeg's Curse by Amitabh Ghosh and Sam Dastor https://www.indiebound.org/book/9798212010450 Origins: How Earth's History Shaped Human History by Lewis Dartnell https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781541617902 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“In a world where there's so much overwhelming noise, you've got to be specific,” says Brendan in this solo episode of Billion Dollar Tech. This pertains to everything, from the benefit you're providing to how you're helping, to the language you're using, even the difference between your impression of what you're selling versus how other people view it. Too many people try to target multiple personas, and this, as Brendan explains, is one of the biggest mistakes a startup can make. To illustrate this point, Brendan provides examples from both sides of the issue. He relays an anecdote told to him by Steve Marsh, founder and chairman of B2B tech business Smarsh, about the biggest mistake Steve says that he made. He draws from his own experience with Sudozi and explains what they've done right. Of course, there are a couple of caveats to this rule. Find out what those are and why the companies you think are exceptions to the rule really aren't. Quotes: “The foundational element here is strategy.” (1:22-1:24 | Brendan) “This sentiment is one I hear echoed again and again and it might be the single most common reason that I see other than founder burnout or wrong timing is lack of focus, that keeps startups from winning.” (3:18-3:32 | Brendan) “These are all things that require a lot of time and expertise that you can't get if you're saying, ‘Well, I want to sell into six different personas across five different industries and so forth.” (5:29-5:42 | Brendan) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
In this solo episode of Billion Dollar Tech, Brendan breaks down the highlights from his interview with Guy Tytunovich, founder of go to market security company Cheq.ai. Guy founded a unicorn company, and part of this discussion will focus on the unique challenges and considerations of this particular scenario. Much of the advice is invaluable to all entrepreneurs including the best method of company-wide communication, recognizing a pain point and finding a solution (and not the other way around) and deciding the best time to launch. Brendan discusses what makes a great leader and why Guy embodies that. Quotes: “With Guy, I don't know him well, I only know him from this conversation. But it felt very authentic and very real. To me, it didn't feel like a guy who was pandering or just trying to sound good.” (8:29-8:40 | Brendan) “You can't rest on what is.” (11:43-11:45 | Brendan) “You'd rather have a smaller piece of a bigger pie and a team that feels engaged, and that feels appreciated and that loves what you're doing rather than somebody who is just sort of phoning it in or sees you as another one of the things that they're working on.” (14:10-14:25 | Brendan) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“Simply put, we protect the go-to-market worldwide,” says Guy Tytunovich, Founder and CEO of Cheq.ai who created the category of go to market security. During his ten years working in government cybersecurity, Guy realized that there are attack factors and vulnerabilities that most people within the company know nothing about. Cheq.ai was founded to predict all of these vulnerabilities, even the ones the client doesn't recognize. Today, the company is valued at $1 billion. Guy discusses what led to the decision to create a category, and the obstacles involved. While building his business, he was given two major opportunities that turned out to be the worst thing that ever happened to him. He discusses what they are as well as why entrepreneurs are–and should be–anxious at all times. He reveals the importance of perseverance, the uselessness of following the playbook and the most important thing to read (hint: it's not a book). Quotes: “Product market fit is a relative thing.” (12:16-12:19 | Guy) “I found that a lot of times, the perception is that the problems go away as you scale. But my experience has been that that's not the case.” (14:35-14:42 | Brendan) “What stays constant is the fact that you need to be, in my opinion, at least as an entrepreneur, as a CEO, for you to evolve with the company, you need to remain incredibly obsessed. And incredibly anxious. Always.” (17:00-17:19 | Guy) “We had this thesis or hypothesis: if you throw your fishing net out there, you're going to catch 100 fish, but one of them is going to be really big tuna.” (24:31-24:48 | Guy) “The playbook is worthless, unless you have incredible people. The playbook is worthless, unless you have incredible culture, the playbook is worthless, unless you have a certain amount of product market fit. At the very least, the playbook is worthless, if you are not a reasonable person who doesn't make decisions on a whim. Execution is more important than anything. If you don't know how to follow the playbook, you're not going to be successful.” (36:45-37:24 | Guy) “I think a lot of entrepreneurs fall for the romanticism of talent and genius, and we make that mistake. And hire people with a lot of talent and a lot of promises that have a lot of experience, which is significantly more important than talent.” (48:25-48:44 | Guy) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Guy Tytunovich:LinkedIn: @guytytunovichCheck out Guy Tytunovich's recommended books: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780345391803 Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points that Challenge Every Company by Andrew S. Grove https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780385483827 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“It's the best place to target business buyers,” says Brendan of LinkedIn Ads. In this episode he'll walk you through a set of tips to help you optimally utilize the platform, connect to your target audience, and get an optimal ROI. This starts with helping you to decide if you should be using it in the first place. This begins with knowing how to position your product. Being able to generate the right leads and get in front of the right audience at the right intersection is more important than the product itself. Brendan will walk you through the features to familiarize yourself with and tell you what is most likely to make potential buyers change their minds. Quotes: “We consistently see companies scale up using LinkedIn Ads.” (2:35-2:36 | Brendan) “If you use just the job function, and don't either build lookalike audiences, where you're getting really specific about who you're reaching, or niche down based on job title, you will get a lot of crap back, especially if you're trying to target folks like founders, or CEOs. Because every yahoo on the planet calls themselves a CEO or founder in their LinkedIn profile.” (7:04-7:34 | Brendan) “This is why positioning matters, and content strategy matters.” (11:28-11:31 | Brendan) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“I want to fund the company that's inventing the Tesla Model S of psychedelics,” says Brom Rector, founder of Empath ventures, a venture capital firm investing in the future of psychedelic medicine. A consumer of psychedelics himself for over a decade, he saw there was an opening in the newly forming for-profit psychedelics industry. Here he defines what psychedelic drugs actually are, which are considered medical or will soon be approved for medical purposes, and the answers may be surprising. Brom also addresses the benefits of psychedelics compared to the traditional treatments as well as misconceptions, and stigmas. There are some surprising potential uses for the drugs, including as treatment for alcoholism and premature ejaculation. Also discussed are the possibility of them being offered as an employee benefit, and any pitfalls of their becoming mainstream. Quotes: “One thing I discovered was that there are a lot of people that had made a lot of money in crypto that were very, very interested in psychedelics, and so I raised a lot of money very, very early on from a lot of like crypto rich guys. And then I also very interestingly raised a decent chunk of money from like, some real estate guys that you would not really think at first glance would be into psychedelics like totally different, you know, kind of just type of asset class, but they were interested.” (9:53-10:22 | Brom) “There's this growing body of evidence that suggests that psychedelics are much more effective treatments at treating things like depression, anxiety than these traditional drugs are.” (22:34-22:41 | Brom) “One of the cofounders of Alcoholics Anonymous, he was really into this idea that they should use LSD as part of the Alcoholics Anonymous process to get people off of alcohol. Not as something that you take every day instead of drinking a beer every day, but something that you do maybe once or twice, and have this visionary experience that helps you realize that alcohol is messing up your life and that you should, you know, take a break from it.” (29:07-29:29 | Brom) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Brom Rector:LinkedIn: @bromrector Twitter: bromrector Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“We like to consider ourselves the Waze of surgery,” says Todd Usen, CEO of ActivSurgical. Waze gathers and presents data from the road in real time, so that driver's can navigate their trip successfully and avoid problems before they occur. Similarly, ActivSurgical uses sensors and AI to anticipate problems that aren't visible to a surgeon's naked eye, and complements where a human is limited. This real time data is available not only to the surgeon performing surgery, but to surgeons, live throughout the world. With everyone having access to the same information, patients entering surgery can rest assured that they can receive a standardized level of care regardless of a surgeon's experience. This also has the potential to decrease time spent in hospital, and lowers the rate of readmission. Readmission not only increases risk of secondary problems and even death, but has implications on health insurance rates. Quotes: “Why does the 17 year old driver get all this amazing information that a 50 year old driver gets, whether it's a rear view camera, whether it's an orange light in their side view mirror to tell you that there's a car in your blind spot, a seat that vibrates if you switch lanes. Yet, you go to surgery and a surgeon just out of fellowship doesn't get the same information that a surgeon that's been practicing for 30 years does. It's all intuition and skills. What we're trying to do is bring that information live to the screen. So every patient around the world should have the confidence that their surgeon has the same exact information as other surgeons to get a great outcome.” (3:27-4:03 | Todd) “The world's not going to be hardware forever.” (8:34-8:36 | Todd) “If you're a football fan, and you ever watched the NFL on TV, you know, there's that first down marker that that we see on the screen, that yellow line, but the players don't see that we see it on TV, I want the players to see that yellow line, I want the doctors to see that yellow line live.” (32:38-32:52 | Todd) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Todd Usen: activsurgical.comCheck out Todd Usen's recommended books: The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780143136965 Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making by Tony Fadell https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780063046061 Rogue Warrior by Richard Marcinko https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780671795931 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“In the next five to seven minutes, I'm going to try to give you a very concise and declarative answer as to whether or not you should create your own category,” says Brendan In this solo episode of Billion Dollar Tech. This is a question he receives from many entrepreneurs and executives, and here discusses criteria to consider when deciding. He references his recent interview with Guy Tytunovich, who created a billion dollar go to market security company Cheq.ai. Some of the questions to consider are applicable to any entrepreneur at any phase such as what problem does this company solve and how to create demand in the market space. For those who shouldn't create their own category there is advice on how to differentiate yourself successfully in a saturated market. Quotes: “This question often comes from somebody who's either A, trying to bring their product to market or B, is launching some sort of a renewed version of their product or has hit some kind of a growth plateau, and they're trying to breathe some new life into their product into their category.” (0:33-0:47 | Brendan) “By definition, you have to create a new category and enter into this with eyes wide open. Knowing that it's going to require education, it's likely going to be expensive.” (4:09-4:21 | Brendan) “Are you a new paradigm where you really are modifying or improving upon an existing process? And in a meaningfully different way?” (3:20-3:28 | Brendan) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“Leadership isn't a single thing. It's a bunch of things together,” says Mark Herschberg, the co-founder and one of the principal developers of MIT's famed Career Accelerator Program. The program teaches future tech leaders the soft skills like communication, networking and negotiating that they don't teach in school but are crucial to success. Here Mark discusses the origins of the program as well as the most important aspects of communication and how those aspects all build on each other. Mark discusses the importance of career planning, and dismantles the myth of the 20-something founder. A major part of Mark's 20s was spent as a champion ballroom dancer, and he gives a peak into that world here. He discusses his app Brain Bump and how it relates to the evolving way that we utilize books. He discusses what sectors on the horizon make no sense to him and which he finds terrifying. Quotes: “I recognized I was missing those skills. I had heard of them, but I was never formally taught. I didn't think I was very good at them. So I set out to train myself. And as I did so, I realized these are not just skills for entrepreneurs, for founders, for executives, these are skills for everyone down to even your summer interns.” (15:24-15:42 | Mark) “The most popular article I've written was one called ‘Leadership Is Not Atomic.” Because what does it mean to be a good leader? What you're probably going to be good at is communication skills. As a leader, you're going to have to bring together coalitions. That's negotiation skills. You probably need to be able to connect with other people, networking skills. Leadership isn't a single thing. Leadership is a bunch of things together.” (18:06-18:34 | Mark) “You can learn leadership, networking, negotiating, it's all the skills that we think some people are just born with. Well, people are also born natural athletes or natural musicians. But just because they're natural at it doesn't mean the rest of us can't learn it, if we put the time in.” (52:12-52:27 | Mark) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Mark Herschberg:Thecareertoolkitbook.com cognoscomedia.comCheck out Mark Herschberg recommended books: Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780321934116 The Charisma Myth by Olivia Fox Cabone https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781469033075 Survival of the Savvy: High Integrity Political Tactics for Career and Company Success by Rick Brandon and Marty Selman https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780743262545 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“Wouldn't you respond to someone that knows you like a friend better than someone who called like a robot that's just doing outreach?” asks Leena Joshi, Co-Founder and CEO of Closefactor, which applies machine learning, artificial intelligence and natural language processing to the go-to market process. They help go- to market teams find their exact right accounts and to generate pipeline more efficiently and at a larger scale. This creates higher closed one growth rates and results in less wasted time, as well as making for a more personalized approach. One of the most important things in getting the exact right accounts into your pipeline is getting very specific when building your ICP. Consider every factor, including the size of a company and the size of the team within it, where they are on their journey and the potential of what they might become. Even private companies have a wealth of information online. Though she does warn about over-indexing on a general search. This is one of many mistakes people make that results in wasted time, wasted energy and a poor fit for all parties involved. Leena discusses other common mistakes market teams make and what to do instead. Quotes: “Wouldn't you respond to someone that knows you like a friend better than someone called like a robot that's just doing outreach.” (6:44-6:52 | Leena) “You may have the best product in the world. If you can't bring it to market, to the right customers, if you can't find the right audience, you're going to have a tough, tough time.” (8:56-9:06 | Leena) “And once you have your ideal customer profile, it's a matter of increasingly creating the layers around that ICP. So that as you start to cross the chasm, you know who to go after.” (12:08-12:20 | Leena) “One mistake that I see very often is people tend to spray and pray. I can't emphasize enough how harmful the spray and pray motion is because you are ultimately left with no control over who comes into your pipeline.” (17:05-17:22 | Leena) “When you're able to connect a customer's pain to a high priority initiative inside the organization, it's magic, it helps with moving your deal forward. So you're really looking for the high priority initiatives inside the organization that you can attach your deal to, your project to. And typically, companies will talk about these high priority initiatives all the time. They talk about it in their earnings call transcripts, they talk about it in their hiring.” (22:44-23:15 | Leena) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Leena:LinkedIn: @closefactorTwitter:@closefactorleena@closefactor.com Check out Leena's recommended books: The Qualified Sales Leader: Proven Lessons from a Five-Time CRO by John MacMahon and Dev Ittycheria https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578895062 Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari and Derek Perkins https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780062316110 Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment by Robert Wright https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781439195468 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“Be perpetually paranoid and constantly thinking about how you're going to die," Mike Silagadze jokes about the mindset it takes to navigate the constant fluctuations and risks (and resulting stress) of founding a company, especially in the tech space. He has plenty of experience in the area. He first founded TopHat right out of university. Discusses the challenges of founding a business in the edtech space TopHat, where they worked to replace existing paper materials with digital materials, particularly the overall lack of incentive and the competing and contradicting demands of too many stakeholders. He explains the innovative bottom up method that engaged students directly, which became the standard model that many edtech companies ultimately followed. Taking risks, knowing when to pivot, recognizing where your revenue opportunities come up when they arise are all part of being an entrepreneur, which, Mike admits, most people don't have the personality for. He talks about what it felt like when it came time to sell, and it's not the cliche a lot of people think it is. If there is a true cliche, it's that you must find meaning in what you're doing, that the journey means more than a “someday” destination. Mike discusses his latest company Gadze, and helps clear up some of the common misconceptions about cryptocurrency and why they present such a benefit, such as evading regulatory systems, access to global capital by tokenizing assets, and giving people sovereignty over their wealth. Quotes: “Today and pretty much for the entire history of crypto until now, it's mostly been a mechanism for gambling, I mean, there's not a lot of real economic activity happening in the crypto world, arguably, just gambling.” (5:06-5:23 | Mike) “Most sane, healthy people are not temperamentally suited to try to found a company, especially a startup, but a tech startup, because it's just it really is, to use the cliche, it's a roller coaster, where one moment you're on top of the world. And the next moment, you you think it's all over. I mean, all I can say is, it was a lot harder. In the beginning, the first few times that we almost died after like, the 10th time, you learn to kind of ride it out and just think, "I've seen this before. We've been able to get through it before, and so we'll do it again." So, all I can say is it gets easier." (23:11-23:52 | Mike) “Part of the reason that I decided to make this pivot I guess into crypto is because I spent some time thinking, 'What is the most important problem that or a movement or change that I can help contribute to?' And the idea of a stateless decentralized money felt like that's arguably the most important thing to accomplish. Because it becomes the catalyst for so much else.” (34:38-35:04 | Mike) “You have this sort of naive and incorrect idea that once you just hit that success point, and you get enough money that you're not obligated to work anymore, then it's, ‘Okay, cool.' You've won. Now suddenly, everything's awesome and you're just gonna be great sitting there, just relaxing. But you realize, ‘Okay, well, what now? What do I do now? What's my purpose in life? What's the meaning?' And you realize, no, no, the thing that you're doing is the meaning. There is nothing else. If you're not doing something that is giving you meaning, you should probably be doing something else.” (32:23-34:00 | Mike) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Mike Silagadze:LinkedIn: @mikesilagadzeTwitter:@mikesilagadzeWebsite: https://gadze.finance/ Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“Increasing human freedom and economic freedom around the world is just a mission that I'm really passionate about,” says Peter Smith, Founder and CEO of Blockchain.com. That mission has remained at the heart of Blockchain since its inception in 2009. When still a graduate student at the London School of Economics, Peter became interested in the intersection of economy and technology, long before they were attached at the hip as they are now. Today, digital money is the greatest example of this intersection, and the Internet is the world's largest GDP. One major misunderstanding that persists is how long it takes to adopt new technology. Success requires being in it for the long haul, and Peter says that too many entrepreneurs want too much too soon. He shares examples of companies that have finally found major success, but only after years of struggle and even ridicule. Being a CEO comes with a great deal of responsibility, stress and fluctuation. Hear Peter discuss the best approach to dealing with it all, and why all entrepreneurs have something wrong with them. Quotes: “It's actually a common misconception that people don't know about the image of Bitcoin, which is that there was a 10-year plus period of attempts to create digital cash.” (7:24-7:40 | Peter) “It's really important to us that we build tools that enable people to hold their assets themselves, but their own key. And you know, this is our original slogan, be your own bank.” (12:56-13:05 | Peter) “One of the things I miss most about early crypto, was that it was not a business. It was a mission.” (16:19-16:25 | Peter) “When I got into crypto, it wasn't it wasn't to make money. It was like, wow, if we pull this off, really cool. We can build a financial system that lives on the internet that anyone can be part of, and I can honestly look back and say, I spent my early adult life doing that, no matter how it works out. It's like a regret minimization framework. I could spend the next five years reinventing some enterprise SAAS tool, which is probably more likely to be successful, especially in 2000, and exit a lot faster. It's really hard to exit crypto businesses. But when I look back on that life, I'm not going to be proud of that.” (19:45-20:40 | Peter) “You have to be very rooted in reality as a founder. And I think anytime you're not, anytime you're too optimistic, you're just waiting to get lucky. That's a very dangerous mode to be in. But you also have to realize as a founder that not everything is under your control.” (33:14-33:29 | Peter) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Peter Smith:Website: Blockchain.comTwitter: @justonemorepeterFacebook:@justonemorepeterInstagram:@justonemorepeter Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“A lot of people mistake activity for progress,” says Fineas Tatar, Co-CEO and Founder of Viva, “What matters is is working on priorities that actually move the needle forward.” Many CEOs, particularly of startups, don't know what their priorities are and therefore what tasks to focus on and in what order. As new leaders, they try to do everything themselves instead of effectively delegating. As a result, time gets wasted, less gets done, and quality suffers. Fineas discusses his approach to effective time management, including starting with a mission or objective and working backwards, matching each task to its best employer. He describes the qualities he looks for when hiring salespeople, which skills can be taught versus those that are innate, and what new hires learn in Viva's analyst training program. He explains why hiring (or not hiring) under the guise of fitting in with corporate culture is largely bogus, the most challenging parts being a company leader, and the most common mistakes CEOS make when trying to prioritize. A huge part of establishing priorities is always keeping the ideal customer profile in mind. He discusses how to establish and maintain your company's ICP as your company grows and some great ways to get customer feedback. Quotes: "First, a lot of people don't prioritize well. What's actually busywork versus what's going to move the needle? I always ask myself, 'What is the work that only you can do best within the company?' And if I'm not doing that, we're not moving the needle." (8:15-8:31 | Fineas) “I've seen leaders who work eight hours a day make significantly more progress than those crushing themselves 14 hours a day to try to move the needle. But it's all about what they choose to focus on.” (10:08-10:21 | Fineas) “A lot of people mistake activity for progress. They mistake daily inputs for progress, even though it's not moving the needle. I've fallen in this trap before as well. And sometimes you think you move fast, but it's not necessarily like moving fast. It's making decisions on things quickly, right? It's moving the needle forward on things that actually matter.”(38:38-38:59 | Fineas) “Saying no is just as important as the things you say yes to.” (43:10-43:14 | Fineas) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Fineas Tatar: Website: https://www.execviva.com/ LinkedIn: @ Viva Virtual Analysts; @fineastatar Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“You've got to be willing to swing, which means, by definition, sometimes you're going to miss,” Brendan says on this solo episode of Billion Dollar Tech, as he takes us step by step through the set of criteria he used to evaluate his first venture investment. Determining the risk versus reward ratio of a company is one important factor in any investment decision. Another major factor was that the company (which he won't name, but you might certainly recognize) had an impressive network. As Brendan often reminds us, "Your network is your net worth.” Don't be afraid to ask why you are the one being given this opportunity. Decide what's more important to you: valuation or potential. The idea is important but above all, look at the company's ability to execute. Be sure to look at the whole team when deciding if these are people you want to work with. With this advice, Brendan hopes you can find something useful for your own investments, and welcomes your feedback and reactions. Perhaps you have advice of your own to give! Quotes: “Why am I the one they want to get money from versus all of the opportunities and sources for capital out there?” (3:03-3:09 | Brendan) “The execution matters more than anything else. Yes, the idea is important, but I've seen a lot of great ideas that have just fizzled because people just can't execute.” (4:10-4:17 | Brendan) “Can another big player just come in and do this? This is something that I hear a lot in businesses.” (6:53-6:58 | Brendan) “You have to look at these things and say, ‘Am I OK with this going to zero?' (9:20-9:24 | Brendan) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“Once people form an opinion it's almost impossible to change their minds even in the face of overwhelming evidence,” Brendan explains. That's why it's so important to establish your brand's identity and make your market truly care about it. This is especially important in today's overcrowded space, and so Brendan presents the key takeaways from his interview with Matt Kerbel, marketing leader for superstar brands like MeUndies and Lyft. As cliche as it might be, it's as true as ever: speak to one specific audience. What is meant for someone will inevitably fail to meet for someone else. Even more helpful is to choose a small group of aspirational people who will then influence others. Once you choose a specific market, stick to it consistently. Brendan explains where to find real people and their true pain points. Your message is only as effective as your company's belief in it, and it must walk the walk from the top down. You must also spread your message so relentlessly that you become sick of hearing it yourself. That's when people begin to listen. Quotes: “You need to speak to someone; you can't speak to everyone. This is a marketing cliche at this point but it's becoming more and more important in a world where there's so much fragmentation and there's so much out there that's trying to go to the masses.” (1:14-1:29 | Brendan) “If you think about the brands that break through in the most compelling way, they have a strong point of view.” (2:29-2:36 | Brendan) “Something I say to folks all the time is that your biggest risk these days is not that half the people love you and half the people hate you. It's that nobody has an opinion at all. People just don't care.” (2:54-3:07 | Brendan) “Just about the time that you're sick to death of hearing yourself talk about the same thing is just about the time the audience, or your market is going to start to remember.” (5:05-5:14 | Brendan) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Matt:LinkedIn: @Matt Kerbel Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“The purpose of marketing is to find that intersection between what's important to people, what they're looking to do and solve for in their lives, and how your company can uniquely help them achieve that,” says Matt Kerbel, Director of Strategic Brand Planning at Turo. According to Matt, the three main things to avoid are what he refers to as the three Ps: perfectionism, pandering, and plagiarism. Essentially, you're marketing to people, not just businesses, and influencing a small group of passionate people who will help spread your message is more effective than trying to please everyone (and as a result, pleasing no one). Matt and Brendan discuss the importance of early discovery as well as the way that the unprecedented events of the last few years have affected the relationship between marketer and consumer. At the heart of Matt's success in marketing is a desire to do good in the world. He says that the upcoming generation is more interested in affecting change than any generation before, and that they are the most tuned in to sincere messages. Therefore, brands should go beyond storytelling and engage in what he calls story living, in which actions speak louder than words. Quotes: “Marketing is really trying to uncover those human truths, and determining whether your company is uniquely qualified to help them either solve their problems or achieve a quality of life that they may not have been able to if your company didn't exist.” (6:20-6:40 | Matt) “One thing we did well was we really wanted to ensure is we did the opposite of what I think is crappy marketing, which are the three Ps: perfectionism, pandering, and plagiarism.” (14:23-14:37 | Matt) “There's a lot to be said for progress over perfection.” (26:18-26:21 | Matt) “To avoid plagiarism, to avoid pandering, to avoid perfectionism, you need to have that upfront strategy tight and aligned. And if you do that, you can move fast, you can point and shoot, you can ship it, and you just know that you can continue to share story after story, initiative after initiative, product after product, that is going to be something that your audience absolutely loves, eats up, shares, evangelizes.” (31:23-31:55 | Matt) “If you target a small group that can have influence and be extremely passionate and evangelize, that's actually much more important than trying to be everything to everyone.” (39:33-39:46 | Matt) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Matt:LinkedIn: @Matt KerbelCheck out Matt recommended books: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't by Jim Collins https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780066620992 Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781250103505 Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781451686586 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“Patience is just so overrated,” Brendan says on this episode of the Billion Dollar Breakdown, where he comments on the key takeaways from his interview with SoftLedger co-founder Ben Taylor. Patience is a virtue that runs through much of Ben's founding story and Brendan's resulting advice, the first being to learn to solve your own problem. This is where it helps to have some time and experience in the field in which you're trying to innovate, rather than starting a business when you're very young. You must have patience when people are telling you that there is no need for your product in an already full market, as well as the conviction that eventually people will see the need for it that you see. You must be willing to hear "no" a thousand times before you receive a single yes. This is just how the process works. Still, one thing that is important to do as early as possible is to provide potential buyers with a working model of your product that they can see and derive value from. This will help you better understand what people actually want, beyond your own blind spots. Brendan also offers advice on deciding when to bootstrap and when to raise capital. Quotes: “There's been a lot of pressure for people to start businesses when they're very, very young. Most of that's changing now. Most of the founders that I speak with are folks that have had some experience in the area in which they're trying to innovate.” (2:05-2:18 | Brendan) “Ben had enough conviction, even when everyone around him was saying his product was dumb.” (2:51-2:54 | Brendan) “I still believe that the earlier you can get out there and start putting it in front of people…all of our own biases and what other people see.” (4:03-4:29 | Brendan) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Ben:Softledger.com ben@softledger.com Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“Making things quicker is the theme for what we're working on,” says Ben Taylor, founder of SoftLedger, accounting software that's disrupting the software space. After working in accounting for a number of years, Ben saw a need to eliminate the time-consuming and tedious tasks involved in keeping the financial records of his company, such as having to repeat things, go back and fix things manually. Not everyone saw this need right away, though, and were happy to continue using Excel because it was ‘good enough.' His idea for SoftLedger was rejected, thousands of times more than he expected, but he maintained his patience and conviction and he persevered. After a few years of working on the business on nights and weekends, people finally started recognizing the need for time saving and efficiency in their accounting processes. Now, Softledger is a platform that mid sized businesses will never outgrow. Quotes: “What really made this possible was I had a really deep understanding of what the problem was and how I thought I could solve it. I had input from others about how to bring it all together, but I had a pretty strong opinion on how it should all be put together.” (7:54-8:14 | Ben) “I didn't realize how much of starting a business would come down to selling.” (23:53-24:00 | Ben) “It's really hard to do, especially early on when you don't have any traction and prove points. I was expecting 100 ‘nos' before the first guest. I wasn't expecting a ten thousand. (24:54-25:08 | Ben) “It's really about solving problems for people. When you go through, make sure you ask the next question, and the next question. Really drill into what the problem is. That discovery call is so important for that.” (28:00-28:18 | Ben) “If there are three customers who are getting value, odds are there are 20 more out there that you can find the exact same way, and 100 more behind that.” (42:43-42:52 | Ben) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Ben:Softledger.com ben@softledger.com Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“We're going to have a number of paradigm shifts in the next five years, so it should be a fun time,” says Michael Shuffett, co-founder and CEO of Compose.ai. “There's going to be a new way of creating all of that.” This paradigm shift includes a major disruption across all content creation including writing, images, video and audio, and Compose.ai is poised to be a big part of that in the timesaving space with things like autocompletion, rephrasing writing, and generating full content. Basically, Michael asks you to imagine having a full time assistant who knows you inside and out at your disposal. Unlike other AI companies who take a more vertical approach, Compose.ai has a broader mission to aid humanity by making AI an extension of the human. It hopes to achieve this by placing a layer of intelligence in the gap that lies between human and computer. The conversation also covers the ethics of AI. Michael and Compose.ai hope to find a way for technology to make life easier without buying and selling users' attention. Michael and Brendan also discuss the pitfalls of becoming an entrepreneur only for financial gain. Quotes: “I was replying to an email and I think it was the tenth email I wrote in a row. It was just the same repetitive response and it hit me that we have all this crazy technology, but people are still typing every word of every sentence. It just seemed very obvious that even five years from now, that's not going to be the case.” (4:23-4:46 | Michael) “Yes, there's a ton of value that can be created by bringing AI or machine learning into businesses. That field is still early. Most large companies have huge untapped potential there. But, really this was largely about creating a bigger global impact for humanity, essentially.” (7:09-7:31 | Michael) “We are a mission-driven company and we have a pretty broad mission, and that is to make AI an extension of the human.” (14:29-14:37 | Michael) “Really what we need is more of a ubiquitous layer that sits between all interactions between a human and a computer and allows us to layer on intelligence to that surface area.” (14:55-15:12 | Michael) “If you look at the typical Big Tech companies, they're all essentially buying and selling your attention. They more or less want to addict you to the technology. I'm not judging it, but they want to addict you to the technology, sell your attention for ads, and really we need the opposite of that at this point. That's where Compose.ai comes in. We're trying to get you to an outcome in technology with as little effort as possible, ideally zero effort. I see it as being on the other side of this attention economy.” (27:13-27:57 | Michael) “Think about what it would be like to have a really trusted assistant that knew everything about you.” (28:29-28:36 | Michael) “We're poised for all types of content creation to be majorly disrupted across writing, images, video, audio. There's going to be a new way of creating all of that.” (33:54-34:07 | Michael) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Michael Shuffett:Twitter: @mshuffett; c_omposeaiCheck out Michael's recommended books: The Feeling Good Handbook: The Groundbreaking Program with Powerful New Techniques and Step-By-Step Exercises to Overcome Depression, Conquer Anxiety, and Enjoy Greater Intimacy by David D. Burns https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780593189788 The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780198788607 Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depends On It by Chris Voss; Tahl Raz https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780062407801 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“You almost can't be too narrow at the beginning,” Brendan says to succinctly summarize one of the many important lessons extracted from his interview with Adam Honig, CEO of Spiro. Narrowing your focus is the main theme that ran through Adam's most useful advice, which Brendan expands upon in this episode of Billion Dollar Breakdown. As Brendan says, a lack of focus is a major mistake that new entrepreneurs make time and again. Though it's easy to be overwhelmed by opportunities, and to be tempted not to limit yourself, it's crucial to select your focus, and just as crucial to shut everything else down once you decide. Here Brendan explains how to choose your focus and what to base that choice on. It's also important to identify the empty space and go there rather than where the market is full, and Brendan takes an example from Arnold Shwartzeneger's autobiography to make this point. Every position, whether you're a CEO or a new hire, has its own narrow set of rules that you must understand, and play by, in order to avoid major losses. Every successful company identifies their “villain,” a problem that needs to be gotten rid of, that stands in the way of their buyers. Identifying this and focusing on how your company works to eliminate it is another crucial element of Adam's advice, and Brendan provides more explanation here. Quotes: “Most of the companies that we see go broad, were narrow at the beginning.” (3:40-3:45 | Brendan) “There's this broader theme, in entrepreneurship and as an employee, of understanding the agreements you're making and the game you're playing. The game an early stage employee is playing is a very different game than an executive at a large company is playing. A venture back CEO is playing a very different game than a bootstrap CEO. A consultant, or an advisor, or an investor is playing a different game altogether. It can cost you if you do not understand those rules.” (6:56-7:44 | Brendan) “Adam chose a villain, and you should, too.” (10:20-10:21 | Brendan) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Master Class: https://www.brendandell.com/masterclass Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Adam Honig and Spiro:LinkedIn: @ Adam HonigTwitter: @adamhonig www.spiro.ai Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“We're going to build Scarlett Johansonn for Salesforce!” Adam Honig declared to his business partner after watching the Spike Jonez movie Her, starring the actress. Frustrated with Salesforce and other CRM services, he thought, why not have a virtual assistant, like the one voiced by Johansonn, to replace all of that extra work employees are tasked with. This led to founding Spiro, which, among other things, listens to phone calls and reads emails, to deal with those tasks not only faster but more efficiently. Ultimately, Spiro hopes to “kill CRM” and replace it with a new application theory it calls “proactive relationship management.” This technology upgrade only works because it recognizes a pain point and offers a better solution to those currently available. In fact, a major problem with sales across the board, Adam insists, is that people constantly want a technological solution that is neither innovative nor efficient. More focus needs to be returned to good old-fashioned problem solving, and segmenting, to make sure the right message, and the right solution, are getting to the right person. Serving your customer in need, not the one your ego is drawn to, should always be paramount. Hear who Adam's biggest competitor is, why he compares the art of sales to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and which feature of LinkedIn might be making you look like a real ass. Quotes: “A lot of the new technology gets in the way. The emails, the subject, the body content, the calls to action, gloss over the most important thing that salespeople can be doing, which is really striving to understand the needs and desires of their prospects, to help them.”(4:13-4:33 | Adam) “So you need to really understand the pain, and you need to be able to help people articulate that pain in a way that's going to get the organization to take action.” (9:43-9:53 | Adam) “I love LinkedIn, it's a great platform, but it kills me. The number of terrible pitches I get every day, I cannot believe. Everybody talks about, ‘Me, me me. Here's my thing, in your face.' And if I don't respond, ‘Let me send you fifteen automated followups to that thing.” (14:53-15:16 | Adam) “My big competitor is Bill Gates with Microsoft Excel.” (25:01-25:05 | Adam) “You've got to know your segment. That's the whole thing.” (40:00-40:02 | Adam) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Adam Honig and Spiro:LinkedIn: @ Adam HonigTwitter: @adamhonig www.spiro.ai Check out Adam Honig's recommended reads: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780671027032 Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781936661831 The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkein https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780544273443 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“Block chains are basically an attempt to do a more efficient transaction by replacing trust with proof,” explains Sam Bizri, founder and CEO of Zeconomy. Until recently, transactions were committed via a trust-based bureaucratic system where watchdogs like banks and accountants acted as witnesses, providing a system of checks and balances in case anything fails. A blockchain, instead, is a ledger. It works on proof, using data that is 99.99% incapable of being corrupted, and giving millions of witnesses copies of the transaction, making it easier, cleaner, and able to better solve potential disputes. The problem, explains Sam, is that people are using the blockchain to make off-chain real-world transactions while still using the trust model, devaluing blockchain's efficiency of proof. Cryptocurrency answers this problem by doing on-chain business, but it has its own set of problems most notably stability, universally accepted legality, and intrinsic value. It seems blockchain value will increase when everyday people learn to value it, and when the trust system begins to trust blockchains to work the way they're meant to. Sam discusses the many solutions being developed to allow blockchains and cryptocurrency, including blockchain natives, and commercial paper, and what this all looks like in the real world at the consumer level. Quotes: “The idea is that if we can replace a lot of the trust mechanisms that we use in everyday commerce with proof mechanisms giving absolute proof of the data of transactions as much as we can obtain them, we can make things a lot easier to handle, a lot easier to process. (7:08-7:28 | Sam) “So now, I don't need five or six steps to do something. I can do it in one step. That's the promise of blockchains.” (8:21-8:29 | Sam) “Block chains are basically an attempt to do a more efficient transaction by replacing trust with proof.” (13:12-13:22 | Sam) “Depending on what your investment is, I think adding speed and efficiency on small transactions makes perfect sense. Adding more proof and immutability and focusing on that on large transactions is a must.” (43:52-44:09 | Sam) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Sam Bizri and Zeconomy:www.zeconomy.com Check out Sam's recommended learning: Sam very much recommends people read more in the genres of economics, statistics, and current events in geopolitics and the global economy. Start with watching videos by trusted experts on Youtube as a preparation before diving in. Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“If you cannot clearly articulate the vision of the future that you are trying to create to your people and the market in a way that they care, you have a problem,” Brendan says. Hersh Tapadia, co-founder of Allstacks and recent guest on the Billion Dollar Tech podcast, is an example of someone who has done this successfully. On the campus of IBM where Hersh began his career, he went around asking the fundamental question of what the engineers in the company were doing and why it mattered. When no one could answer, he quit. This ultimately led to his co-founding Allstacks, which recognizes the contributions of engineers to their company via deliverable metrics, which then helps the engineers affect change in their company and yield their power. Key components of Hersh's success have included, again, asking as many people as possible what was and wasn't working at the moment and then taking that feedback data, and not only providing solutions but one that hadn't been done before, thus differentiating his company in the process. Hear Brendan expand on highlights from his conversation with Hersh, including how many people you should really talk to and how to avoid getting tossed in the wrong bucket. Quotes: “Hersh went around IBM trying to understand what the fuck they were doing. What are we actually doing here, and how does what we're doing contribute to the broader goals of the company?”(1:58-2:06 | Brendan) “I have almost never seen someone build in private and then say, ‘I'm glad we took so long to wait to get feedback because it would have gotten stolen from us. I have very frequently seen people build things that no one ended up caring about.”(4:06-4:21 | Brendan) The companies that really go big fast are the ones that have some kind of lightbulb that is a dramatic improvement over what other people are doing in this space.” (4:56-5:02 | Brendan) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Master Class: brendandell.com/masterclassBuy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Hersh Tapadia and Allstacks:LinkedIn: @hershtapadiaTwitter: @hershtapadiaFacebook: @hershtapadiaInstagram: @hershtapadiaTikTok: @:hershtpadiaWebsite: www.allstacks.com Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“Think about it like you have two train tracks,” explains Hersh Tapadia, co-founder and CEO of Allstacks, “with the engineering train and the business train. Occasionally they stop at the same station, and everyone gets excited, but for the most part they're running on these parallel tracks.” In other words, within many companies, engineers and high-level managers aren't communicating properly. The business side doesn't know what engineering does and therefore engineering doesn't know what value it's contributing to the company or the client they're meant to serve. Allstacks, which calls itself “a platform for the voice of engineering,” provides software organizations a clear view into project status, team performance and trends, making it obvious to all in a company just what value engineers deliver to their company's end goal. Understanding their value has far-reaching implications beyond job satisfaction, sense of meaning and purpose. It allows engineers to better name their price points and salaries, and have a say in the boardroom. Overall, clear communication in any employment ecosystem is vital, where even wanting to be too helpful has its drawbacks. It's more difficult than one might think to hire engineers now, and Hersh discusses the non-negotiables that potential hires are looking for. They extend beyond salary and the individual to benefits for the spouse and family, like parental leave and work culture. Join the discussion to hear more, including what happens when everyone in a company is willing to fall on their sword. Quotes: “You can build things all day long, but if it's not creating value, are you really efficient?” (2:14-2:21 | Hersh) “What we're doing wrong as engineering contributors, engineering leaders, engineering teams is we're allowing ourselves to be disconnected from the value. We're not fighting for the value we're creating.” (9:31-9:49 | Hersh) “From the business side there's often ignorance and from the engineering side there's often malaise. So how do we reconcile the two? We have to find ways to connect the activities that engineering is doing to the outcomes that it's influencing, so you can draw a line to the value that's being created.” (10:22-10:41 | Hersh) “Humans are generally not as good at communicating as they think they are.” (18:03-18:06 | Hersh) “People are so much less productive than they think they are.” (28:59-29:02 | Brendan) “On the outcome side, and we've talked about this a lot, it's fairly simple. Make it so that people find meaning in what they do, so they understand the impact, they understand the intent. And if they can draw that line between the work that they're doing and the goals of the organization that they're a part of, then they're going to make more holistic, product minded decisions every day they work, and you're going to get better outcomes as a result of it.” (39:26-39:56 | Hersh) “Where the extra comp becomes really important is, if I can't find real meaning in the work that I do, I might as well make as much money as I can. And if I can't solve for as much money as I can, I'm damn well going to solve for making a really impactful, really positive, really strong culture, together, that everyone has a voice in, so that they can find purpose day to day.” (43:51-44:17 | Hersh) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Hersh Tapadia and Allstacks:LinkedIn: @hershtapadiaTwitter: @hershtapadiaFacebook: @hershtapadiaInstagram: @hershtapadiaTikTok: @:hershtpadiaWebsite: www.allstacks.com Check out Hersh Tapadia's recommended read: Predictably Irrational by Dr. Dan Ariely https://www.indiebound.org/search/book?keys=Predictably+Irrational+ Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“He's going to do a lot better not only in this business but in future businesses because he knows what it is to build a business and not just a product,” says Brendan on this latest Billion Dollar Breakdown. He's speaking of Pedro Goes, founder and CEO of InEvent which creates software for in-person events and video productions, and a recent guest on Brendan's podcast. Starting his company from scratch may have taken a little longer at the outset, but will put him farther ahead in the long run. Pedro was accepted into the prestigious Y Combinator program, an invaluable experience for its networking opportunities alone. Every successful entrepreneur, Brendan reiterates, is surrounded by an ever-expanding and reliable network. Value, ultimately, can't be measured in money, but in the value that you provide your buyers. Pedro's exceptionally calm demeanor is an exemplary asset in the often chaotic world of growing a business, and from his example we can learn how to follow our own unique paths to lasting success. Quotes: “Don't let a lack of capital stand in your way.” (1:42-1:45 | Brendan) “I look at most of the people I chat with who are successful, the people around them are an absolute common denominator. They have people that they can call, tap in (2:44-2:53 | Brendan) “The money is just there to deploy your vision.” (3:55-3:59 | Brendan) “Charge what allows you to develop the value that your buyer actually needs, and help them to realize that value and help them to realize that value, and position it effectively.” (5:12-5:22 | Brendan) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Master Class: brendandell.com/masterclassBuy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Pedro Goes and InEvent:LinkedIn: Pedro Goeshttps://inevent.com/en/home.php Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“We need to manage a 35,000 person meeting in real time where decisions will be made that will end up on the 7:00 PM news,” says Pedro Goes, founder and CEO of InEvent. This software platform provides streamlined features such as video transitions, Q&A, polling, live music and the ability to engage with multiple sites at once to create a more multifaceted, interactive and engaging experience for attendees of remote meetings, events and conferences. It's been used by drawn government organizations, the United Nations, and large private organizations to conduct mass virtual events where they conduct crucial business like brokering deals, launching new products and driving sales. Pedro talks about raising money for the company, which he started from scratch while also receiving backing from the prestigious Y Combinator program. Of course, money, both receiving and making, is just there to deploy your vision. What gets him out of bed in the morning is seeing the myriad ways people are using his InEvent software—like broadcasting from the International Space Station. He's committed to diversity not out of some sense of timely obligation but because he recognizes that everyone brings a different perspective and fills in each others' blindspots. Embracing new ideas and new ways not only produces revenue, but creates new possibilities. Tune in to hear what can be learned from both Elvis and Kanye about committing to your passion and giving it your all. Quotes: “Nobody can take Zoom or Microsoft Teams anymore because it's all the same thing– that black background and someone speaking for 2.5 hours. It's challenging.” (4:50-5:01 | Pedro) “When we started as a company, we wanted to do everything. We were what customers wanted us to be. That's good in the beginning but that's challenging for you to grow. If you're just following what the customer wants and not being a product, just being a service, and every time you launch a new event, everything's built from scratch, anyone can do that.” (11:02-11:25 | Pedro) “That's how you win the market: by mapping the requirements and deploying a product that's out of the box that you can use today, and you're going to be successful with it.” (13:18-13:26 | Pedro) “At a certain point you have to make a decision about what's going to be good for you because there are so many good ideas out there that you can actually commit to.” (14:23-14:31 | Pedro) “America is one of the very few countries where you can actually build a huge business by doing one thing really well. In other countries, it's hard for you to do that because there is no ecosystem. So, if you work too long on one piece, then the other nine pieces for the whole solution are not there. In America, you actually have the opportunity to build one piece really well, because there is an ecosystem that supports you because it's all integrated. So, that's really good.” (14:57-15:26 | Pedro) “Once you are with a company of a 150 people or more, you have to have a process, your power as one single person doesn't scale without processes (26:45-26:58 | Pedro) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Pedro Goes and InEvent:LinkedIn: Pedro Goeshttps://inevent.com/en/home.php Check out Pedro's recommended reads: How to Be Rich by J. Paul Getty https://www.indiebound.org/search/book?keys=J+Paul+Getty An Incredible Dream: Ralph Roberts and the Story of Comcast by William Novak https://www.amazon.com/Incredible-Dream-Ralph-Roberts-Comcast Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“A lot of people, when they think of entrepreneurship, picture a CEO commanding an army, or a developer doing something very innovative, or a product genius,” says Brendan on this latest Billion Dollar Breakdown. Actually, as he explains, the most important aspect of starting—and maintaining a successful business—is gathering a group of people who are all doing what they're best at, adding resources and combining both around an ability to make a new thing in the world. He considers this a fourth piece of advice to the three recently provided by Daniel Liebeskind, founder and CEO of metaverse project Topia. Being mindful of the problem you intend to solve should always be at the forefront of a company's mind, mission, and messaging. Still, even the brightest people in the most successful companies can lose sight of this. Entrepreneurs should be going out and talking to their target audiences as often as possible, even if they don't know who they're talking to initially. Knowing the uniqueness of your promise will differentiate your company from others. Brendan also addresses a few pitfalls to look out for, most importantly going too broad too quickly when first starting out. Tune in to hear his advice about gaining traction, reaching your target audience and the downside of thinking big. Quotes: “This fourth skill is what you might call entrepreneurship or leadership, but really it's the fundamental skill of building businesses, this is the critical skill, and your ability to do this supersedes everything.” (2:16-2:30 | Brendan) “You need to build in public and be speaking constantly to people about what kind of pain you're solving. And this flows back into how you message. You need to message to pain.” (4:43-4:55 | Brendan) “Almost every business problem can be solved by going out and talking to people in your target audience.”(5:15-5:20 | Brendan) “We're in an environment right now where people aren't going to buy vitamins they're going to buy pain relievers.” (8:42-8:47 | Brendan) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Daniel Liebeskind:LinkedIn: dliebeskindTwitter: @dliebeskindInstagram: @exploremagichttps://topia.io/ Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“For us, the Metaverse is a way to increase accessibility to communities,” says Daniel Liebeskind, CEO of the platform Topia, part of the Metaverse that's taking the internet from asynchronous, static forms like email and forums, to synchronous, real-time interactions, sharing content with other people versus by oneself. This creator and user focused content means that people will form communities and gain access to worlds based on shared context, much like we do in the real world. Users will be able to customize their experience, own their own data, and by disimmediating any one centralized ecosystem, be able to take that data from one platform to another. There is no replacement for in-person events, but the metaverse provides a viable alternative that narrows the socio-economic divide that might otherwise prohibit some participants. This decentralization of power is one of the most promising and enduring aspects about the future of cryptocurrency. Other current popular speculations about the value of cryptocurrency, like NFTs make Daniel roll his eyes, and he goes into more depth about those here. What is worthy of concern is the dystopian future ushered in by AI, which several major corporations seem determined to make inevitable. The key to avoiding this is providing alternative outlets for the experience, for entrepreneurs to work together to be mindful and he discusses companies who are doing just that. Quotes: “I realized that I don't need to figure a whole bunch of things out. Entrepreneurs are just people who are super deeply passionate about something, and are going to do whatever it takes to manifest that in the world.” (5:17-5:30 | Daniel) “If you're in a 1,000 person Zoom experience, one person is talking to everyone else and all those other people aren't really able to interact with each other. That's not how it works in real life. That's not how communities form. (12:25-12:37 | Daniel) “The thing that I find really fascinating is the idea of shared backends, public databases, being able to be more creator and user-oriented, own your own data, be able to bring it with you from platform to platform and disimmediate any one centralized ecosystem.” (26:30-26:49 | Daniel) “The speculative valuation frenzy around any one of these bubbles doesn't really matter. What matters is the underlying technology and the ideas they represent. (27:18-27:27 | Daniel) “In the case of NFTs, owning a token represents is a ticket to a community.” (32:38-32:47 | Daniel) “One use case that exists now that I think will exist in the future, kind of like how sharks existed during the dinosaur age and they still exist, is decentralized finance. The ability to disimmediate banks. (35:02-35:19 | Daniel) “The term ‘metaverse' was actually coined by Neil Stevenson in a book called Snowcrash about 30 years ago and that was a very dystopian concept. The end of humanity as we knew it. Even Ready Player One, which is more modern is very dystopian. Everybody works and lives in a digital space and they don't know each other in real life, they never interact. It's incredibly dystopian. That's not what we should be hoping for, but it is what may happen if we're not careful.” (41:06-41:40 | Daniel) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Daniel Liebeskind:LinkedIn: dliebeskindTwitter: @dliebeskindInstagram: @exploremagicCheck out Daniel Liebeskind's recommended reads: Zero to One: Notes on Startups or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters https://www.indiebound.org/search/book?keys=Zero+to+One Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman https://www.indiebound.org/search/book?keys=Traction Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts https://www.indiebound.org/search/book?keys=Shantaram Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“There is no more complex strategy game in the world that I know of than building companies,” says Michael Zuerchner, CEO and Co-Founder of Prismatic. He would know. At age 19, he started a software company whose product integrated 600 tasks to be used in all aspects of law enforcement, such as jail door systems to alarm systems for putting dots on maps when 911 calls were made. It started as a summer job getting his hometown's law office records software up to date, and then he and a friend bootstrapped that software into a fully-fledged business. It became unsustainable once they scaled. After leaving the company, the two started Prismatic to solve the problems they encountered in the first place. Michael explains that integration platforms have been historically focused on integrating the things the company uses together, taking all the things that are in their ecosystem and making the data flow well among them. Prismatic offers a complete iPaaS, or integration Platform as a Service, solution for your whole organization to make everything run more smoothly and at optimum potential. In this episode, Michael discusses the unique challenges of running a sophomore company and the problem with overestimating your experience and underestimating the variables of starting a company. Quotes: “At the end of the day you're going to have to do what is going to serve your target market the best. (4:32-4:37 | Michael) “We're all obviously end users of B2B software in some form or fashion, and wouldn't we all like it if there was just one end-all answer that was the magic solution and we didn't have to deal with all of this? If that could exist that would be amazing. I think the hard thing, of course, is building that one true thing that meets the demand of enough of the market.” (9:21-9:40 | Michael) “I don't know very many people who were successful who didn't love the game so much that they wanted to go right back into it.” (16:30-16:39 | Michael) “For all the people that are out there grinding right now, the beach is not all it's cracked up to be, just sitting around doing nothing. It's nice to have freedom, one hundred percent. However, go do nothing for a month; it gets tiring really quickly.” (17:14-17:34 | Brendan) “There is a fundamentally different problem if you are a sophomore company. I don't need to integrate together the things that I use—or maybe I do, but that's a separate thing. I need to connect the product I sell to the other products my costumers use.” (19:52-20:07 | Michael) One of the challenges in our market, and something that I think we do well, is doing a good job for both of those personals. I think we have a solution that speaks very well to product folks and the problems they have, and a product that's very friendly to developers without turning off the rest of the organization. And I think that's a fine line to walk.” (32:28-32:50 | Michael) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Michael Zuercher:Website: http://prismatic.io/ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-zuercher/ Check out Michael Zuercher's recommended books:• No Man's Land: Where Growing Companies Fail by Doug Tatum: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781591842491 Startup CEO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Business by Matt Blumbert: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781119723660 • The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing: A Guide to Growing More Profitably by Thomas Nagle and Reed Holden: https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-strategy-and-tactics-of-pricing-a-guide-to-growing-more-profitably_thomas-t-nagle/272437/?resultid=b8ecc8a1-c660-4d32-8904-d6ccb162d545#edition=19123891&idiq=53411030 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“Gig work is upscaling and becoming more professional,” says Michelle Tinsley, COO of Yellowbird. Yellowbird matches qualified professional Risk and Environmental Health and Safety workers with companies in demand of their skill sets. Environmental Health and Safety is a 5 billion-dollar industry worldwide, and after the Great Resignation during the Covid 19 pandemic, countless workers found themselves in need of work. So Yellowbird quickly went from serving the Arizona area to gaining interest across the nation through word of mouth. This collaborative spirit presents itself throughout the company's mission with employee referral incentives, and a focus on setting up a referral system for their best potential scaling partners. Gig work is rapidly evolving from dog walking and driving for ride shares. People are becoming more and more selective about the jobs they want and how the jobs will fit into their lifestyle. Another aspect of community building Michelle participates in is angel investing, serving on boards and consulting, and here she discusses the rewards and drawbacks of each. Join the discussion as Michelle explains that the first few rounds of investing come from friends and family, and why she's found herself drawn to SaaS (software as a service) and IoT (internet of things) investments. Quotes: “A lot of people in the workforce want a higher degree of freedom. They want to pick and choose what type of jobs they do, when they do them, where they do them, and we're a mechanism to expose their skillset when they do that.” (5:46-5:57 | Michelle) “One of our first growth hacks was to walk around with a dozen donuts and drop it off with a flier at local construction sites and warehouses. And that was working wonderfully until March of 2020, when everyone thought we were dropping off poisoned donuts on their doorstep.” (19:11-19:26 | Michelle) “A lot of this enables workers to become independent. You can live wherever you want as long as you've built up that domain experience. You can hang your shingle on these platforms just by being where you want to be and taking the jobs you feel like taking.” (20:26-20:41 | Michelle) “Someday become an investing angel because you're both going to learn from these companies as they grow, and see how they develop, it's like a mini-MBA. Beyond that, yes, you'll probably make money on your portfolio, but beyond that you'll get a chance to mentor others and be involved.” (24:31-24:45 | Michelle) “I think what I found is that consulting isn't terribly rewarding. I love to build something permanent.” (26:39-26:45 | Michelle) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Michelle Tinsley:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-tinsley/ Website: https://www.goyellowbird.com/about Check out Michelle's recommended books: The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership Powered Company by Ram Charan https://www.indiebound.org/search/book?keys=The+Leadership+Pipeline Rocket Fuel: The One Essential Combination That Will Get You More of What You Want From Your Business by Gino Wickman and Marc C. Winters https://www.indiebound.org/search/book?keys=Rocket+Fuel Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
Sam Strasser founded Treasure Financial, a cash management platform that helps businesses transform idle cash into revenue. Many companies, even famous, large companies, make up to 80% of their revenue not from selling products or services but from taking money out of their treasury and investing it. Still other companies, though, don't have enough money for a month's worth of runway. Sam explains how small companies can use what cash they have the way big businesses do. Risk, Sam explains, is part of any monetary transaction, and the key is embracing it, or at least mitigating the risks. Here Sam discusses what those myriad risks are. Join Brendan and Sam to hear the greatest lesson Sam says he learned thus far, the most fun thing about building any company, and why he wishes he'd opened his business in the UK. Quotes: “The treasury department itself is really responsible for managing risk, and managing the broad scale for the financial resources for the company.” (2:37-2:44 | Sam) “GE was notorious for a lot of the things they've done.” (6:23-6:26 | Sam) “Every company should be able to maintain at least three months of their runway in a cash reserve of some kind. During the pandemic close to 600,000 companies went out of business and the majority of those had one month of runway.”(9:36-9:56 | Sam) “You really want to understand how much risk you can accrue before it starts affecting certain possibilities.” (15:35-15:42 | Sam) “You're never really spending money when you're swiping cards. You're swiping for debt. It's just a series of obligations and risks in a giant chain.” (17:43-17:53 | Sam) “I have no idea why anybody glorifies becoming a founder, it's one of the most difficult and painstaking things you can do.” (39:48-39:56 | Sam) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Sam Strasser:Treasure Website: https://treasure.tech/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/treasure-ai/ Check out Sam Strasser's recommended books: Keeping At It: The Quest for Sound Money and Good Government by Paul A. Volcker https://www.indiebound.org/search/book?keys=Keeping+at+it No Rules Rule: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer https://www.indiebound.org/search/book?keys=The+No+Rules+Rule Nudge by Richard A. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein https://www.indiebound.org/search/book?keys=Nudge Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“We make it so that TV commercials are as effective as a Facebook ad,” is how Noah Palanksy describes the mission of his AI company Taiv. Having a drink at a bar one night, he watched as the TV played an ad for another bar down the street, and realized the potential for an establishment to promote itself on its own screen. Later, this idea evolved so that companies can now place their ads on the screens in bars, or anywhere where people congregate, to promote their business. From there, Taiv tracks where attending patrons then click, visit, or make purchases, after they leave the establishment. About a year and a half into bootstrapping their company, Noah and his co-founders were accepted into the prestigious Y Combinator program, which helps startups companies to successfully launch. All of the priceless information they learned there would soon be put to the test as they worked through the challenge of selling a socially driven concept, right as the world went into lockdown. On this episode, learn why it's so important to have hobbies, the difference between being cheap and treating every dollar like it's your last. Quotes: “To get enough funding to hire a few developers without giving up too much of the company is very challenging.”(8:50-8:59 | Noah) “Build something that people want, and actually figure out if you're providing value to people and don't just build a thing because it's cool.” (14:16-14:21 | Noah) “There's a million things you could spend money on and most of them are stupid.” (16:27-16:30 | Noah) “The hardest part of my job right now is balancing between trying to build new products and iterate, trying to make the thing we have better, and how to get users using the thing we already have.” (41:32-41:45 | Noah) “I think we're going through a transitionary period with advertising…so it's a good time to be doing something in this space.”(21:42-22:28 | Noah) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Noah Palansky :Website: taiv.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/taivbox/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noahpalansky/ Check out Noah's top 3 recommended books:The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780062273208 Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780062407801 Blitzscaling by Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781524761417 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“What is the first thing I should prioritize when I'm trying to grow my business?” This is one of the most common questions Brendan gets from business founders. Here, in this mini-episode, he attempts to answer this and other frequently asked questions about growing a business. The very first step, he says, is having a clear Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), and figuring out who benefits from your technology. Clarity of focus, he says, is the number one determiner of success, and going too broad is a sure way to lose growth trajectory. Tune in to this episode of Billion Dollar Tech to find out the variety of purposes that organic content serves, and what an initial growth strategy should look like. Quotes: “There is no shortcut to this. You have to hustle. The most successful founders I see are hustlers.” (2:23-2:29 | Brendan) “You need to be out there talking to customers. It's one of the single biggest things I see out there separating success from failure.” (2:40-2:45 | Brendan) “You should be building thought leadership that is unique to you and harnesses your unique point of view and tells your story.” (2:51-2:59 Brendan) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
“‘Why you?' is the multi-million dollar question,” Sean Paulseth, SVP Partnerships at WedgeHR, says about getting your company noticed in a sea of other, often bigger, competitors. Incentive programs can pay off big time and this is an area where you can get creative with offers, including schwag, referral rewards, contests, and paid-for trips. Of course, deciding this depends on several factors like, knowing the market segment you're targeting, and the size of the enterprise. Larger companies love their own “ecosystems” Sean explains, and will prioritize their established partner programs and keep the promotion on-brand. A huge component of this, and of getting a business off the ground in general, is facetime. Sean emphasizes the importance of in-person events, networking with both investors and customers. Even in the tech space, the business world is still very relationship driven. When there are several similar products, often the one who gets chosen is the one with the most memorable person attached to it. On this episode of Billion Dollar Tech, how to be strategic networking, why storytelling is crucial particularly in small business sales, and why reading is an underrated pastime for sales people. Quotes: “Within the tech landscape, and in SaaS generally, partnerships seem to be crucial, particularly from a customer-centric capability, you're going to have to do the best of the breed. (3:42-3:56 | Sean) “It's the smaller markets where you have to get a lot more creative on how to budge them.” (15:07-15:13 | Sean) “Starting with the most relevant channel partners and/or your integrated partners that you may need just to get your feet on the ground is going to be super important.”(24:06-24:20 | Sean) “Having a general sense of curiosity is crucial in sales.”(37:47-37:51 | Sean) “A top-down approach is always going to be important, particularly if you're smaller. But if they're not budging…what's going to be the best incentives for their teams at the end of the day.”(13:03-13:33 | Sean) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Sean Paulseth:Website: WedgeHR: https://www.wedgehr.com/LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/sean-paulseth Check out Sean's top recommended books:Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780316478526 The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781101912379 Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780679728757 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
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