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Rahul Vohra is the founder and CEO of Superhuman. Prior to Superhuman, Rahul founded Rapportive, the first Gmail plug-in to scale to millions of users, which he sold to LinkedIn in 2012. He is also a prominent angel investor, and his fund has invested $50 million in over 120 companies, including Placer, Supabase, Mercury, Zip, ClassDojo, and Writer.What you'll learn:• The unexpected insight about virality Rahul gained from LinkedIn's head of growth.• Why Rahul restructured his entire executive team to spend 60% to 70% of his time on product, design, and marketing instead of the typical CEO responsibilities.• The counterintuitive approach to finding product-market fit using a methodical system inspired by Sean Ellis, and how this algorithmically determines your roadmap.• How manually onboarding every user (Superhuman had 20 full-time people doing this at peak) created superfans and allowed engineers to focus on product rather than onboarding flows.• The “Single Decisive Reason” framework for making better decisions by avoiding collections of weak justifications.• How Superhuman's AI features have evolved to create a truly intelligent email experience that works while you sleep.—Brought to you by:• Eppo—Run reliable, impactful experiments• Fundrise Flagship Fund—Invest in $1.1 billion of real estate• OneSchema—Import CSV data 10x faster—Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/superhumans-secret-to-success-rahul-vohra—Where to find Rahul Vohra:• X: https://x.com/rahulvohra• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulvohra/• Email: Rahul@superhuman.com—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Introduction to Rahul and Superhuman(05:00) The most pivotal moment in Rahul's career(07:01) The secret to virality(11:02) Superhuman's product evolution and core values(13:32) Overcoming slowdowns at scale(18:06) Time management and meditation(27:35) The role of a president(30:56) Attention to detail(43:00) Finding your unique position(47:32) The power of manual onboarding(52:37) Mastering product-market fit(59:33) Game design in business software(01:05:35) Contrarian pricing strategies(01:09:29) Leveraging AI(01:15:40) Transitioning to enterprise solutions(01:19:08) The Single Decisive Reason framework(01:22:32) Conclusion and final thoughts—Referenced:• Superhuman: https://superhuman.com/• Rapportive: https://techcrunch.com/2012/02/22/rapportive-linkedin-acquisition/• Elliot Shmukler on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eshmu/• What Are ‘Whales' in Video Games: https://gamerant.com/video-games-whales-concept-term-explained/• Figma: https://www.figma.com/• Notion: https://www.notion.com/• Loom: https://www.loom.com/• How to use Team Comments to reimagine email collaboration: https://blog.superhuman.com/how-to-use-team-comments-to-reimagine-email-collaboration/• Rajiv Ayyangar's post on X about Superhuman: https://x.com/rajivayyangar/status/1816176308130570385• Transcendental Meditation: https://www.tm.org/• Laurent Valosek on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurent-valosek-18708b5a/• Peak Leadership Institute: https://www.peakleadershipinstitute.com/• Ed Sim's website: https://edsim.net/• Adelle Sans: https://fonts.adobe.com/fonts/adelle-sans• Comic Sans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Sans• Greenfield project: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenfield_project• Why Mailbox died: https://www.theverge.com/2015/12/8/9873268/why-dropbox-mailbox-shutdown• Bill Trenchard on X: https://x.com/btrenchard• How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product-Market Fit: https://review.firstround.com/how-superhuman-built-an-engine-to-find-product-market-fit/• Using the Sean Ellis Test for Measuring Your Product-Market Fit: https://medium.productcoalition.com/using-sean-ellis-test-for-measuring-your-product-market-fit-c8ac98053c2c• Sean Ellis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanellis/• The original growth hacker reveals his secrets | Sean Ellis (author of “Hacking Growth”): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-original-growth-hacker-sean-ellis• The Trouble with Rewards: https://www.kornferry.com/insights/briefings-magazine/issue-13/519-the-trouble-with-rewards• The art and science of pricing | Madhavan Ramanujam (Monetizing Innovation, Simon-Kucher): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-art-and-science-of-pricing-madhavan• Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Westendorp%27s_Price_Sensitivity_Meter• AI-powered email for high-performing teams: https://superhuman.com/ai• Linear's secret to building beloved B2B products | Nan Yu (Head of Product): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/linears-secret-to-building-beloved-b2b-products-nan-yu• Single Decisive Reason: decision-making for fast-scaling startups: https://blog.superhuman.com/single-decisive-reason-decision-making-for-fast-scaling-startups/• Reid Hoffman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reidhoffman/—Recommended books:• Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind: https://www.amazon.com/Positioning-Battle-Your-Al-Ries/dp/0071373586• Monetizing Innovation: How Smart Companies Design the Product Around the Price: https://www.amazon.com/Monetizing-Innovation-Companies-Design-Product/dp/1119240867—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe
Rahul Vohra sold his first company Rapportive to LinkedIn and then founded Superhuman. Superhuman is a premium email provider that is significantly faster to use than Gmail and other alternatives. Today, Superhuman has raised more than 100 million dollars and has tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of users. But how do you develop a premium product in an area where there is a lot of competition and, above all, free alternatives? In addition to Superhuman, Rahul has co-invested with Todd Goldberg in more than 100 startups and we talk about Rahul's framework for investing and building an angel fund. In addition to background info on Superhuman, in this episode you'll also get helpful tips on the most common pitfalls in product launches, a look at the pros and cons of a personal brand as a founder, and the impact of AI in product building. What you will learn: What are the pros and cons of personal branding as a founder? How does Superhuman use AI in product development? Why are product launches overrated? When should founders use feedback in product development and when should they trust their gut feeling? Rahul's Angel Fund: https://www.toddandrahulangelfund.com/ ALL ABOUT UNICORN BAKERY: https://zez.am/unicornbakery Rahul Vohra LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulvohra/ Superhuman: https://superhuman.com/ Unicorn Bakery Whatsapp Broadcast: Find out everything you need to know as a founder: https://drp.li/jrq5S Our WhatsApp Broadcast keeps you up to date with insights into the scene, news and top content. Marker: (00:00:00) How did you test the market for a premium email service? (00:07:34) Minimum Viable Product vs. Minimum Lovable Product: How long did the first version of Superhuman take? ? (00:12:25) How does the product market fit the engine of the growing company? (00:18:28) Why Superhuman has maintained a 1:1 onboarding process over the years (00:21:48) What are the most common misconceptions about THE product launch? (00:23:53) What is the difference between game design and gamification in product development? (00:31:08) When to focus on improving the product and when to focus on increasing sales in product development? (00:35:46) Superhuman's AI strategy (00:38:37) Rahul's favorite AI use cases and tools? (00:44:12) What are the positives/negatives of becoming a personal brand as a founder? (00:49:28) What are your favorite questions to find out the characteristics of a potential employee? (00:53:47) What is your framework for investing in startups?
Today's guest is Rahul Vohra, founder and CEO of Superhuman, the startup that has rebuilt the inbox from the ground up creating the fastest email experience ever made. To date, Rahul has raised over $108 million from some of the best in the business including a16z, IVP, First Round, Tiger Global Management and from celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher, Will Smith and Arianna Huffington. Rahul previously founded Rapportive, a much-loved product that added social profiles to Gmail; it became the first Gmail plugin to scale to millions of users, kickstarted a whole ecosystem of email enhancements, and was ultimately acquired by LinkedIn. In this episode, we talk about Rahul entrepreneurial journey, how he founded Superhuman. We then discuss how to measure product market fit, and why you have to figure out positioning before pricing. Resources: Rahul on finding product-market fit on First Round Review: https://firstround.com/review/how-superhuman-built-an-engine-to-find-product-market-fit/
On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Rahul Vohra, Founder and CEO at Superhuman. How do you build products that are 10X better than the competition? It almost always starts with a counterintuitive approach to the conventional. Rahul is one of the rare founders and product builders with this conviction, building the fastest email experience in the world. Rahul was previously the founder of Rapportive, acquired by LinkedIn in 2014. Rahul shares his frameworks on game design, customer onboarding, product development, positioning, and pricing to retain and delight users. Specifically, Rahul covers: 3:23 - Brief intro to Superhuman 11:48 - Questions asked in the early interviews 18:03 - The new way to launch: most product launches are inherently flawed. Rahul breaks down how to do a far superior, measured launch in four distinct phases. 33:31 - The Superhuman onboarding process 40:31 - Superhuman's 6-step onboarding plan: Rahul's clever technique for getting user feedback, catching bugs, and building customer loyalty. 46:31 - To 10x your product, study game design: the five key product design factors that built Superhuman. Connect with Rahul Vohra: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulvohra/ Superhuman's Product-Market Fit Engine: https://coda.io/@rahulvohra/superhuman-product-market-fit-engine Learn more about Superhuman at https://superhuman.com/ This episode is brought to you by: Each year the U.S. and Canadian governments provide more than $20 billion in R&D tax credits and innovation incentives to fund businesses, but the application process is cumbersome, prone to costly audits, and receiving the money can take as long as 16 months. Boast automates this process enabling companies to get more money faster without the paperwork and audit risk. We don't get paid until you do! Find out if you qualify today at https://Boast.AI. Launch Academy is one of the top global tech hubs for international entrepreneurs and a designated organization for Canada's Startup Visa. Since 2012, Launch has worked with more than 6000 entrepreneurs from over 100 countries, of which 300 have grown their startups to Seed and Series A stage and raised over $2 Billion in funding. To learn more about Launch's programs or the Canadian Startup Visa visit https://LaunchAcademy.ca Content Allies helps B2B companies build revenue-generating podcasts. We recommend them to any B2B company that is looking to launch or streamline their podcast production. Learn more at ContentAllies.com
My guest today is Adam Jackson, founder & CEO of Freelance Labs, builders of Braintrust. Braintrust is the first decentralized talent network that connects skilled, vetted knowledge workers with the world's leading companies. The community that relies on Braintrust to find work are the same people who own and build it, ensuring the network always serves the needs of its users, instead of a centrally-controlled corporation. And because the community of knowledge workers and contributors earns ownership and control of Braintrust through its native BTRST token for its contributions to the network and its growth, new talent and jobs have participated in the network at record speeds. By creating a blockchain-based alternative, Braintrust aims to remedy the extractive model of traditional freelance platforms by aligning incentives of users and clients to benefit both parties. Instead of generating value for the network operator, this value is given back to talent and companies, who enjoy no fees (talent) or much lower fees (companies) than on traditional platforms. Adam is a serial technology entrepreneur and investor that has spent his career creating and deploying capital into software systems that make complex tasks simple and intuitive. He's started 4 VC-backed companies and an asset management company over the last 16 years. Since August 2017, he has served as Managing Partner & CTO of Cambrian Asset Management, a blockchain asset management company. He is also co-founder and CEO of Freelance Labs, Inc., the company building a new tokenized talent network called Braintrust which raised a $5m seed round in 2018. He is an angel investor in 45+ companies/projects, including LTSE, Seated, Bolt, Placer, Aktana, Skale Labs, Protocol Labs, JCTurbo, Apero Health, Rapportive, MyTime, Automatic, Womply, Superhuman, and Zenefits. In our conversation, we discuss the evolution of marketplaces on the web, Braintrust, Web2.0 vs Web3.0 Networks, supply-demand dynamics, communities/ownership, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing the evolution of web marketplaces from Web1.0 to Web3.0. Adam does an excellent job at explaining the various innovations and drawbacks as marketplaces on the web evolved. We discuss the importance of Craigslist in the evolution of marketplaces. The conversation naturally flows to Braintrust and Web3's unique value proposition. Our conversation transitions to supply-demand dynamics and the tokenization of traditional assets. Adam does an excellent job at explaining the challenges of creating a valuation framework for Web3. We continue our conversation on crypto networks and tokenization by discussing the moral responsibility felt by large stakeholders of the network. The evolution of property rights and the broadening of the definition of the medium of exchange. Our conversation flows into a discussion about inflation and store-of-value. We finish our conversation by discussing Braintrust and how they are disrupting traditional talent networks. Please enjoy my conversation with Adam Jackson. -- Public: Start investing with as little as $1 and get a free slice of stock up to $50 when you join Public.com today. Visit public.com/UNTOLDSTORIES to download the app and sign up. Ledn: Ledn provides financial products to help you unlock the power of digital assets. With a secure and easy-to-use platform, it's the simplest way to earn interest, borrow, and trade your BTC and USDC. For maximum accountability, Ledn offers Proof of Reserves attestations to give you peace of mind while you make the most of your Bitcoin. Untold Stories listeners can receive $50 in free BTC when you create a new loan. More info at https://untoldstories.link/LEDN -- This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co
***JOIN AMANTHA IN A LIVE TAPING OF HOW I WORK***I'm going to be doing a live taping of How I work at the Melbourne Podcast Festival on Saturday July 31 at 2.30pm.http://melbournepodcastfestival.com/podcast/how-i-work/For this very special live taping, Amantha will be speaking to Christian O'Connell. Christian was Britain's best known and most awarded breakfast radio presenter, hosting his own top rating national breakfast shows and collecting more industry awards than any other presenter and becoming the youngest radio presenter ever inducted into the UK Radio Hall of Fame. And then he moved out to Australia where no one knew him. Australian Radio Network took a punt on bringing him to Melbourne's Gold FM – a move that has paid dividends.In this interview, we will be exploring:what goes on behind the scenes of breakfast radioChristian's strategies for overcoming mental health challenges that plagued him in the competitive world of commercial radiohow Christian finds ideas and inspiration to fill three hours of live radio every single daywhy Christian once wore a death watch, which reminded him how much longer he had to livethe biggest things he learnt from being in therapy for several yearshow he prepares for interviews with some of the world's biggest celebritieshow he picked himself up after dismal ratings when he first started on GOLD FMAnd much, much more.Book your tickets here: http://melbournepodcastfestival.com/podcast/how-i-work/In today's BEST OF episode, my guest is Rahul Vohra. Rahul is the founder and CEO of Superhuman, the fastest email experience in the world. Users get through their inbox twice as fast — and many see Inbox Zero for the first time in years! Previously, he founded Rapportive, the first Gmail plugin to scale to millions of users. Rapportive was acquired by LinkedIn.In our chat, we cover:Rahul's approach to becoming as efficient as possible with the software he usesRahul's email workflowHow Rahul divides his inbox into different sections to help him prioritise his dayWhy Rahul only checks email twice a dayWhy Rahul never checks his email on the weekendHow Rahul uses automation to reduce time in his inboxWhy learning the keyboard shortcuts in software is critical to productivityHow Rahul designed the most joyful software induction process I have ever experiencedHow Rahul batches and staggers his meetingsRahul's method for time tracking and how he uses the dataRahul's method for running effective meetings at SuperhumanHow to create a great pitchRahul's favourite software for being more productiveRahul's favourite new softwareConnect with Rahul at rahul@superhuman.com and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/rahulvohra?lang=en)Check out Superhuman at: https://superhuman.com/ and enter How I Work podcast for how you found out about Superhuman.If you're looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at
Rahul Vohra is the CEO and Co-Founder of Superhuman, the fastest email experience ever made. He previously founded Rapportive, a popular Gmail plug-in that was acquired by LinkedIn. In this episode, we discuss what Rahul was like as a kid (7:15), how he began coding at the age of 8 (8:26), how his parents instilled a love of learning in Rahul and his brother (12:11), how he showed up emotionally and mentally during his educational journey (17:05), if there was ever a time his parents, who were doctors, pressured him to become a doctor (23:28), why he was built to be an entrepreneur (25:42), what he wishes he knew when he was younger that he knows now (27:49), where his love for psychology came from and when it came in (30:30), his experience with executive coaching (33:36), how he thinks about partnership and bringing on other people to help him (36:05), why his personal values are the same as his business’s core values (37:27), how he operates Superhuman and lives his life intentionally (39:59), adapting, or not adapting, to a set schedule (44:09), when he got into bodybuilding and how he thinks about it (47:44), why Superhuman is a referral-only and waitlist product (50:22), why Superhuman has an onboarding process to show customers how to use the product (53:48), how Rahul continues to lead as his company grows in size (57:00), what he does intentionally throughout every day to make sure he’s the best version of himself (1:02:58), how he thinks about empathy as a leader (1:05:27), and where he goes for inspiration and motivation (1:07:31). You can Learn more about Rahul and Superhuman at superhuman.com. Additionally, feel free to follow Superhuman on Twitter @superhuman, on Facebook, and on Instagram @SuperhumanCo. Thanks so much to Rahul for coming on the Podcast! I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers. Thanks for listening. -Brian
My guest today is Rahul Vohra. Rahul is the founder and CEO of Superhuman, the fastest email experience in the world. Users get through their inbox twice as fast — and many see Inbox Zero for the first time in years. Previously, Rahul founded Rapportive, the first Gmail plugin to scale to millions of users. Rapportive was acquired by LinkedIn.In our chat, we cover:Rahul’s approach to becoming as efficient as possible with the software he usesRahul’s email workflowHow Rahul divides his inbox into different sections to help him prioritise his dayWhy Rahul only checks email twice a dayWhy Rahul never checks his email on the weekendHow Rahul uses automation to reduce time in his inboxWhy learning the keyboard shortcuts in software is critical to productivityHow Rahul designed the most joyful software induction process I have ever experiencedHow Rahul batches and staggers his meetingsRahul’s method for time tracking and how he uses the dataRahul’s method for running effective meetings at SuperhumanHow to create a great pitchRahul's favourite software for being more productiveRahul’s favourite new softwareConnect with Rahul at rahul@superhuman.com and on Twitter.Check out Superhuman at: https://superhuman.com/ and enter How I Work podcast for how you found out about Superhuman.Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.auIf you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Rahul Vohra is the founder and CEO of Superhuman. Rahul designs and invests in technology to improve email and software. His most successful companies to date are Superhuman and Rapportive. Superhuman helps people get through their Email Inbox twice as fast. Superhuman has raised $51 Million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, the original entrepreneur behind …
Superstar past guest and Superhuman CEO Rahul Vorha joins us for a deep dive on how Superhuman applies concepts from game design to building productivity software. We're not talking points and badges — we mean hardcore, Unreal Engine-style technical innovations and Fortnite-level understanding of fun and mastery. It's a topic where Rahul has serious cred: before Superhuman and Rapportive, he worked as a game designer on RuneScape, the pioneering browser-based MMORPG. This is a topic every founder, engineer, product and even sales person should listen to. Tune in! You can listen to Part I of our Superhuman story with Rahul here: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/superhuman If you want more more Acquired and the tools + resources to become the best founder, operator or investor you can be, join our LP Program for access to our LP Show, the LP community on Slack and Zoom, and our new live Book Club discussions with top authors. Join here at: https://acquired.fm/lp/ Sponsors: This episode is supported by Teamistry, a great new podcast from Atlassian that tells the stories of teams who work together in new and unexpected ways to achieve remarkable things. It's one of our best new podcast discoveries in 2020 and we think Acquired listeners are going to love it. Our thanks to Teamistry for their support, and you can listen here: https://link.chtbl.com/teamistry?sid=podcast.acquired Thank you as well to Lemon.io. You can learn more about Lemon at: https://lemon.io/acquired/ Playbook Themes from this Episode: Also available on our website at https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/special-superhuman-part-ii-designing-software-to-feel-like-a-game-with-rahul-vohra ) 1. Game Design not Gamification. Good games nurture intrinsic motivation in players, in part because they’re fun. “Gamification” instead uses external motivators like badges, levels, and points to goad users into interacting with the product. Game design combines goals and objectives, intentional emotional design, and the psychological phenomenon of flow. It forces the designer to consider, what is fun? To which Rahul’s answer is “pleasant surprise”. Great game design creates intrinsic motivation: “doing things because they are inherently interesting and satisfying.” Adding extrinsic motivation like points or rewards can actually erode the desire to do a task. Rahul’s Advice for product designers: “Pull back from user wants and user needs. Instead, design for fun.” 2. It's more important to consider how your product makes customers feel than what it functionally does for them. When designing any product, interaction, or experience, identifying the exact desired user emotions can be incredibly powerful. How do you do this? Find opportunities where the product naturally delights, surprises, or gives users a sense of accomplishment - and find light-touch ways to amplify it. Example: Inbox 0. Superhuman found that reaching Inbox 0 is one of the most emotionally resonant moments in someone’s interaction with their email. To amplify that moment, Superhuman uses beautiful imagery as a reward to trigger specific emotions when a user empties their inbox. 3. Democratizing powerful tools that were previously reserved for an elite class is a recipe success. Superhuman moved mountains to create that “10x better” experience before launching. Even when starved for resources, it can pay off in a big way for a startup to expend massive engineering effort to build a better foundation than the competition. The team at Superhuman faced a challenge: How can we deliver the same speed and power that developers have in code editors to ordinary people in their email inboxes? To solve it, they spent 2 years re-writing large parts of Chrome to make everything faster. Now the Superhuman browser app is faster than any standalone email app experience and provides sub-100 ms results. The result: users don’t have time to break flow state. 4. Storytelling is everything. Don Valentine used to say “Money flows as a function of the story.” Storytelling matters across all dimensions of a startup: pitching investors, recruiting talent, selling products, building a cult-like following. On the podcast, Rahul ties rich detail and visuals to his core points. When racing Lamborghinis: “you see the landscape rip by, you hear the scream of the engine, you taste burning rubber.” When pitching his co-founder on joining: “I could see as the gears turned in his mind as he’s munching this pizza, increasingly slowly until his mouth ground to a halt.” When describing engineers coding in flow state: “our fingers dance across a keyboard like we’re playing a piano.”
Email productivity ranks highly on the list of desirable outcomes for business owners, and today we have Rahul Vohra on the show, the brains behind the fastest email experience available, Superhuman! Rahul explains the philosophy behind the company and why the product has created its own buzz, more than anything. We get into some of the early periods of their story and the work that Rahul did before founding Superhuman too. Rahul does a great job sharing some of the secret sauce that has gone into the success he and his company have experienced, giving a detailed rundown of their marketing funnel and the important conversations he had with customers early on. We touch on the power of word of mouth, gaining the attention of the right investors, and how a history in game design has informed the way that Rahul thinks about email. Their tool is such a great example of finding a need in the market and servicing it with almost pinpoint accuracy, and the way that Rahul and his team have gone about this is truly inspiring, you will not want to miss this! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:21] Before we jump into today’s interview, please rate, review, and subscribe to the Leveling Up Podcast! [00:46] Rahul's backstory leading up to his work on Superhuman. [01:23] How Rahul's company, Rapportive, was acquired by LinkedIn. [04:24] Some interesting financial and business metrics of Superhuman! [06:04] The marketing strategy around the launch and waitlist model of Superhuman. [07:49] The methods that Superhuman used for customer development and how they generated such intense loyalty. [11:30] The power of word of mouth marketing combined with small paid experiments. [13:04] Efficient customer meetings and injecting a company into the news cycle. [19:21] Clarifying the customer funnel at Superhuman! [21:00] Rahul's reflections on working with Marc Andreessen. [24:02] Getting the attention of big venture capital firms; different routes to explore. [27:28] The influence of game design on Rahul's philosophy towards Superhuman. [30:39] The exciting future of Superhuman that has Rahul looking forward! [31:20] Business trends that Rahul is currently excited about as an angel investor. [32:09] The music tool that keeps Rahul on track and productive! [32:32] Two great book recommendations from Rahul. [33:13] Connecting with Rahul online and on social media. Resources From The Interview: Rahul Vohra on LinkedIn Superhuman Rahul Vohra on Twitter Andreessen Horowitz Netscape Marc Andreessen Todd and Rahul's Angel Fund Brain.fm Must read books: The Art of Game Design, Gardens of the Moon Leave Some Feedback: What should I talk about next? Who should I interview? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review here Subscribe to Leveling Up on iTunes Get the non-iTunes RSS Feed Connect with Eric Siu: Growth Everywhere Single Grain Eric Siu on Twitter
Adam Jackson is the co-founder and CEO of Braintrust, the world’s first user-controlled talent platform-- one that aligns incentives, removes expensive middlemen and gives value and control back to talent and organizations. Braintrust’s unique network model allows talent to retain 100% of their market rate, while enabling organizations to pull together flexible teams of highly-skilled technical and design talent, no matter where they’re located. Organizations ensure budgets go 2-3 times further by cutting out unnecessary, expensive middle men. This new business model of minimizing fees and enabling users to control the network is uniquely enabled by a blockchain token. Adam is a serial technology entrepreneur and investor that has spent his career creating and deploying capital into software systems that make complex tasks simple and intuitive. He has founded 4 VC-backed companies and an asset management company over the last 16 years. In August, 2017 he co-founded Cambrian Asset Management, a blockchain asset management company. In 2012, he co-founded and served as CEO of Doctor On Demand, a healthcare service that provides video visits with board-certified physicians and psychologists. Doctor On Demand delivers services through employers, health systems, health plans, and directly to consumers and has raised $165M in VC. Adam's previous business, DriverSide was founded in 2007 and was acquired by Advance Auto Parts in September of 2011. His first venture-backed business, MarketSquare, founded in 2004, was the first online local shopping destinations on the Internet. It was acquired by Intuit in September of 2006. Adam is an angel investor in 45+ companies/projects, including: Bolt, Placer, Aktana, Skale Labs, Protocol Labs, JCTurbo, Apero Health, Rapportive, MyTime, Automatic, Womply, Superhuman and Zenefits. Connect with Adam Jackson Braintrust Facebook Instagram Twitter Medium LinkedIn Adam on Twitter Some of the Topics Covered by Adam Jackson in this Episode What is Braintrust and how Adam came up with the idea The problem with two-sided marketplaces How Braintrust is inverting disastrous marketplace economics and the complexities that come with building a new model Using their own marketplace to hire freelancers to build Braintrust Braintrust's business model Acquisition on the enterprise side of the business How COVID has led to incredible growth for Braintrust Adam's advice for building marketplaces The challenge of fundraising for Braintrust Adam's experience founding Doctor on Demand Adam's entrepreneurial spirit and being "unemployable" How Adam approached his exits and transitions Adam's experience as an angel investor and deciding to be an LP The big vision for Braintrust Why Braintrust is Adam's passion and how he manages his time Links from the Episode eBay Uber Airbnb Lyft Postmates DoorDash Amazon Blockchain Craigslist Nestle Porsche Deloitte 99designs Fiverr Upwork Bank of America NASA BlueCross TaskRabbit Bitcoin Ethereum Nextdoor Doctor on Demand Dr. Phil The Doctors Intuit Superhuman Zenefits Jack Dorsey
Why is it so hard to stay on top of your email? After building Rapportive, the first Gmail plugin to scale to millions of users, Rahul Vohra was ready to tackle the problem of email itself. In 2014, he started Superhuman with the goal of building the fastest email experience in the world. If his waitlist of over 300,000 people is any indication, he's done just that. Rahul shares why domain expertise matters, how he learned to choose a strategy and stick with it, and why you have to figure out positioning before pricing.
Rahul Vohra already knew there was a startup CEO + productivity love connection at his first startup, Rapportive. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have built the contact management email extension. What he didn’t know was how much that affinity would create a customer acquisition flywheel for Rapportive, and how, given the right product and target customer, it could be engineered. The good news? You can do it too.
"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Rahul Vohra is a founder a couple of times over — with his last company Rapportive getting bought by LinkedIn in 2012. His next company, the one in which I became a customer of (and a major fan of), is called Superhuman. You may have heard of this fast-growing email application that easily cuts my inbox time in half each day. You may also be a customer and a fellow fan. For something that we all spend countless hours in each day like email, very few companies have succeeded in captivating our attention in recent years. Superhuman is seizing this moment, and you'd be surprised by the foundational thinking that goes into the design of this application. From this episode, you're going to get to hear all about the underlying design principles, the moments of joy, the key insights, and truly understand and appreciate the frustrations that have made Superhuman such a fan favorite and made Raul such a well-known founder in Silicon Valley and abroad. Similar to the product and the high flying company, you'll hear about the underlying experiences that shaped Rahul and his entrepreneurial path. He shares his key insights when it comes to building and creating, and his own moments of joy and defeat. You'll also get to hear about the things he thinks a lot about but rarely gets a chance to talk about on most business podcasts. I'm really excited for you to hear this episode from such a thoughtful and insightful founder. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC.
Rahul is the founder and CEO of Superhuman, the fastest email experience in the world. Superhuman users get through their inbox twice as fast as before — and many see Inbox Zero for the first time in years! In 2019, Superhuman raised $33M in a Series B funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Previously, Rahul founded Rapportive, the first Gmail plugin to scale to millions of users, which was acquired by LinkedIn. On This Episode: Learn how Rahul entered the productivity space. Hear Rahul's process for hiring team members. Discover the biggest challenge Rahul and his team faced when scaling. Key Takeaways: Have a cohesive leadership team. Hire leaders who know how to operate at a larger scale. Set your values up front. Tweetable Quotes: “The customer should build your product for you." – Chris Vasquez Rahul Vohra superhuman.com
We've gone to some length covering Slack, Zoom, and other software companies, as the 2020 work from home environment has accelerated and amplified business's rush to the cloud. But what about email, that old standby? Where does it fit in? We got the chance to speak with Rahul Vohra, someone whose career has been built on optimizing email. He founded Rapportive, a Gmail plug-in, before selling that to LinkedIn for what was reported to be $15M. He is now the founder and CEO of Superhuman, a service that also builds on gmail and is dedicated to providing the fastest email experience ever. He filled us in on what Superhuman is seeing in the 2020 market, whether a $360/year product is consigned to a niche, what the entrant of a new competitor - Hey, from Basecamp - portends, and how gamification goes right or wrong. He also shared his thoughts on the recent Apple app store arguments that Hey prompted, and what his favorite video games were growing up. Topics Covered: 2:30 minute mark - The role of email in the modern collaboration landscape: Is Email dead? 7:30 – Initial impact of asynchronicity, work from home, COVID 10:30 – Superhuman user experience 16:30 – The onboarding process, that Verge review, and unit economics 23:30 – The niche question 29:30 – Competition, Hey's entrance into the market 42:30 – The Communications bundling/unbundling 46:30 – Demographic questions 52:30 – Among the giants 54:30 – App Store controversy 57:30 – Gamification 1:02:30 – Public SaaS valuations and what is possible for start-ups Sources worth checking out in context of this conversation: Walt Mossberg: Yes, You've Still Got Mail The Smart but Scattered Guide to Success: How to Use Your Brain's Executive Skills to Keep Up, Stay Calm, and Get Organized at Work and at Home (Book) Verge: Superhuman's email app is overhyped and overpriced Churn FM: How Superhuman avoids churn by systematically increasing product-market fit (Podcast) First Round: How Superhuman Built An Engine To Find Product/Market Fit TheInformation: The Tech Entrepreneur Who Loves To Troll Silicon Valley
Rahul is the founder and CEO of Superhuman where he and his team are building the fastest email experience in the world. Before Superhuman, Rahul founded Rapportive, which was acquired by LinkedIn in 2014. We’re bringing you an NFX Keynote podcast that gives you a deep dive into Rahul Vohra’s mind. His strategic thinking on product-market fit is verging on legendary, and in this episode, Rahul shares his biggest learnings about customer onboarding, why products should be designed like games, and the frameworks he wants every founder to know about pricing and positioning. www.superhuman.com
Rahul Vohra – CEO and Founder of Superhuman – presents his BoS 2018 talk Product-Market Fit Engine, a five step plan to revolutionise the way you think about product market fit, metrics, and understanding the needs of the people that really matter. Rahul was previously the CEO & Co-Founder of Rapportive, a gmail plug-in that displays your contacts' social media information inside your email application. After selling Rapportive to LinkedIn, Rahul worked with several startups in both investment and advisory capacities before setting up Superhuman - the world's fastest email experience. This was recorded live at Business of Software Conference USA 2018, in Boston MA. For more videos of BoS Talks, go to businessofsoftware.org/videos --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/business-of-software/message
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Rahul Vohra is the Founder & CEO @ Superhuman, the startup that has rebuilt the inbox from the ground up creating the fastest email experience ever made. To date, Rahul has raised over $56m with Superhuman from some of the best in the business including a16z, First Round, Box Group and then 2 of my favourites in Jeff Morris Jr @ Chapter One and Ed and Elliot @ Boldstart. Prior to founding Superhuman, Rahul was the Founder @ Rapportive, a company later acquired by LinkedIn in 2014. If that was not enough, Rahul is also an investor having co-founded a new firm with Todd Goldberg just last year. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Rahul made his way from making the first plugin for Gmail with Rapportive to changing how we think about email today with Superhuman? 2.) Why does Rahul believe game design is worth doing? What is the difference between game design and gamification? What does it take to create a game? What is the truth on game design? 3.) What are the core 5 factors that make up effective game design? How can products incorporate goals to make the user feel emotion when engaging? What emotions does one want the user to feel? How can they be tested? What controls should be placed around the UX? Why are controls so fundamental? 4.) What is the difference between a toy and a game? How can one effectively incorporate toys into their product? How has Superhuman done this effectively to date? Hw can designers create a system of flow in the user experience? What works? What does not work? 5.) Did Rahul intentionally create an entirely new category when it comes to onboarding? Why does Rahul pushback on people that suggest 1-1 onboarding is not scalable? What does the unit economics look like? How does this scale to $100M ARR? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Rahul’s Fave Book: The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Carta simplifies how startups and investors manage equity, track cap tables, and get valuations. Go to carta.com/20vc to get 10% off. More than 800,000 employees and shareholders use Carta to manage hundreds of billions of dollars in equity and Carta now offers Fund Administration so you can see real-time data in the Carta platform and work with Carta’s team of experienced fund accountants. Go to carta.com/20vc to get 10% off.
Hoy analizamos Contacts+, un posible sustituto (aunque no perfecto) de la extensión de Gmail Sales Navigator (antes Rapportive) que cierra las puertas la semana que viene.
For this thirty-seventh episode, I talked to Rahul Vohra, co-founder of Superhuman, the company behind the self-proclaimed fastest email client ever made. After Rahul sold his previous company Rapportive to LinkedIn and spent a while there as a product manager, he decided to take on the challenge to rethink one of the most fundamental software programs of today’s knowledge worker: email client. Rahul’s dream as a kid was to be a game developer and he taught himself how to code starting from the age of eight, which he first did alone and then later as a professional game developer at Runescape. It’s this gaming background that he leverages at Superhuman to try create the best possible email experience in the world. We talk about how Superhuman goes about prioritizing growth projects, his career detour starting a PhD in machine learning, how playing Dungeons and Dragons keeps him inspired, and why you need to aim for either growth of users or growth of revenue, but not both.
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Rahul Vohra is the Founder and CEO @ Superhuman, the fastest email experience in the world. Fun fact, users get through their inbox twice as fast — and many see Inbox Zero for the first time in years! To date, they have raised funds from our friends at Boldstart, First Round, John Collison, Sam Altman, Wayne Chang, Mike Ghaffery and Yes VC just to name a few. Previously, Rahul founded Rapportive, the first Gmail plugin to scale to millions of users. Rapportive was ultimately acquired by LinkedIn. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Rahul make his way into the world of startups with the founding of Rapportive and how did that transition to changing the world of email with Superhuman? 2.) What does Rahul mean when he says, “you can reverse engineer a process to get to product-market fit”? What does Rahul believe is the defining metric which determines your “product-market fit score”? What is Julie Supan’s framework? How did Dropbox and Airbnb use it to increase their product-market fit? How can founders implement it into their process? 3.) What can founders do to expand the customer base to include users that currently are “somewhat disappointed”? What are the right questions to ask? What do we do with this feedback? How do we further segment the user base? Why should we “disregard the users whereby the primary benefit of the product does not resonate”? 4.) How does Rahul approach product roadmap and prioritisation? How can founders ensure that continuous tracking and user feedback is engrained within the organisation? What tools does Rahul do to monitor and capture this? What are some of Rahul’s biggest lessons from going through this painstaking process stage by stage? 5.) Finally on fundraising, what does Rahul mean when he says, “always be raising but never be actively raising”? What are the benefits of this? How can founders transition catch up coffee into fundraising subtly? How does Rahul feel about party rounds? What are the pros? What are the downsides? How does Rahul advise founders here? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Rahul’s Fave Book: The Art of Game Design As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Rahul on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
“Silicon Valley’s buzziest start-up” - The New York Times Rahul Vohra is no novice to the startup world. He previously built and sold Rapportive to Linkedin before setting out to build “the fastest email ever made” for the power users who fell out of love with Gmail, Outlook, and others. You can’t argue with their results. Superhuman have 220k+ people on their waitlist, which costs $30/month and they’ve raised north of $50mil at a $260mil valuation from elite investors like First Round Capital & Andreessen Horowitz. But what stood out most to me while meeting Rahul was his focus on the long term. We discussed “building a company that can last for 100yrs” while convincing his co-founders to “do their life’s work” with him. At one point, Rahul described sitting in front of his computer in tears because he realized he hadn’t built what he had set out to. A Unique Approach Sometimes, their unique approach can feel counter-intuitive. For example, what if I told you they are happy to turn away paying customers if it would distract them from their “high expectation customers”. Or their mandatory human onboarding where a Superhuman employee takes a new user through a 30-60mins call to get them setup, understand how they personally use email & customize their experience vs a more scalable online experience that would save money in the short term. Superhuman have turned paying customers into their biggest fans – on average, every new user of Superhuman brings in one new user down the road. In this episode, we go deep into the engine they’ve built, how they design their product using video game dynamics and learning how to listen to the right customers. Five Things To Listen Out For: (1) Building a product-market-fit engine – we discuss several product-market-fit definitions and the approach Rahul took to understand when they had hit this point (2) High Expectation Customer – what this is and why it’s important to find (3) Turning Email Into A Video Game – how to design products to make you feel a certain way by taking principles from video game design (4) Following Your Passion – is this misguided or good advice? (5) Preparing For A Recession – is this something Rahul is thinking about and how he thinks this might impact the business world Subscribe and watch on: YouTube.com/creatorlabfm Full show notes: https://www.creatorlab.fm/rahul-vohra-superhuman-product-market-fit/ Links: https://superhuman.com/ https://twitter.com/rahulvohra https://firstround.com/review/how-superhuman-built-an-engine-to-find-product-market-fit/ Connect with Bilal on social: Instagram @bzaidi212 @creatorlabfm Twitter @bzaidi @creatorlabfm Thank you to our sponsors, who help make this show possible: SquareFoot, where growing companies find their place, check out SquareFoot.com/creatorlab to find your next office space
Please take the 2019 Acquired Survey. It takes 5-10 minutes, helps us immensely, and you may win a pair of new AirPods or a free 1-year subscription to the LP show! http://acquired.fm/survey We wrap up Season 4 with a very special (and accidental!) episode, a conversation with the CEO of Superhuman, the red hot email productivity app which just announced their $33m Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz. While originally intended as an LP episode, we felt Superhuman would provide the perfect bookend to our “modern enterprise productivity trilogy” following our Zoom and Slack episodes. We hope you enjoy the conversation with Rahul as much as we did, and we’ll see you later this summer for Season 5! Links New York Times article announcing the fundraise: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/technology/superhuman-email.html Rahul’s Medium post on acquisitions: https://medium.com/swlh/rip-mailbox-or-founders-how-to-stop-worrying-and-love-being-acquired-261da4f6d566 Rahul on finding product-market fit on First Round Review: https://firstround.com/review/how-superhuman-built-an-engine-to-find-product-market-fit/ Sponsor Thanks to Perkins Coie, Counsel to Great Companies, for sponsoring Acquired Season 4. You can get in touch with Ned Prusse, who you heard at the beginning of this podcast, at https://www.perkinscoie.com/en/professionals/ned-a-prusse.html Join the Acquired Limited Partner program! https://glow.fm/acquired/ (works best on mobile)
Derrick’s feeling “superhuman.” Fortunately, he’s a user and lover of the Superhuman product. Maybe that’s why today’s guest is Rahul Vohra, co-founder and CEO of Superhuman. Today’s Topics Include: Reason for Superhuman still being invite-only is not to increase user demand Sustainable Word-of-Mouth Growth Engine: If you don’t pick the users, you can’t responsibly work on their feedback Purpose of Product and Target Audience: Email is work, and work is email; designed to be meaningful and life changing for high-volume email senders Startup Details: Deliberately think through and consider everything deeply from scratch Don’t turn down money when bootstrapping to find perfect product market/customer fit Knack for knowing what people want, before they know they want something; and helping people realize they want something Without active or spending money on marketing, Superhuman’s waitlist keeps growing Superhuman’s Values: Create delight, be intentional, and remarkable quality Best founders, including Rahul, are unstoppable forces of nature; they leave debris and destruction in their wake Time tracking a day in the life of Rahul: 40% managery; 20% recruiting; 14% fundraising; and 11% product, community engagement, and deep thoughts Superhuman’s pricing is low, but generates high value; big fan of round numbers Business and product metrics: Activation, seat churn, net dollar churn, speed, and reliability rates Objective: Refine entire Superhuman experience to exhibit remarkable levels of quality through three key results - ARR, hiring, and product sentiment Generate roadmap and find balance to maintain lead over market and continue to grow Startup Growth: Pick weekly growth rate; you don’t have to grow faster than you want to Links and resources: Superhuman (https://superhuman.com/) Rahul Vohra on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulvohra) Rahul Vohra on Twitter (https://twitter.com/rahulvohra) Rahul Vohra’s Email (mailto:rahul@superhuman.com) Superhuman Product-Market Fit Survey (https://www.slideshare.net/marklittlewood/rahul-vohra-founderceo-superhuman-the-productmarket-fit-engine-122102118) Rahul Vohra on This Week in Startups with Jason McCabe Calacanis (https://www.facebook.com/jasoncalacanis/videos/2299819313590909/) Rapportive (http://www.rapportive.com/) TechCrunch (https://techcrunch.com/) Product Hunt (https://www.producthunt.com/) Hacker News (https://news.ycombinator.com/) Google Docs (https://www.google.com/docs/about/) GitHub (https://github.com/) Startup = Growth - Paul Graham (http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html) Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Level (https://level.app/) Level Retrospective (https://www.derrickreimer.com/essays/2019/05/17/im-walking-away-from-the-product-i-spent-a-year-building.html) Level Manifesto (https://level.app/manifesto) Tuple (https://tuple.app/)
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Rahul Vohra is the Founder and CEO @ Superhuman, the fastest email experience in the world. Fun fact, users get through their inbox twice as fast — and many see Inbox Zero for the first time in years! To date, they have raised funds from our friends at Boldstart, First Round, John Collison, Sam Altman, Wayne Chang, Mike Ghaffery and Yes VC just to name a few. Previously, Rahul founded Rapportive, the first Gmail plugin to scale to millions of users. Rapportive was ultimately acquired by LinkedIn. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Rahul make his way into the world of startups with the founding of Rapportive and how did that transition to changing the world of email with Superhuman? 2.) What does Rahul mean when he says, "you can reverse engineer a process to get to product market fit"? What does Rahul believe is the defining metric which determines your "product market fit score"? What is Julie Supan's framework? How did Dropbox and Airbnb use it to increase their product market fit? How can founders implement it into their process? 3.) What can founders do to expand the customer base to include users that currently are "somewhat disappointed"? What are the right questions to ask? What do we do with this feedback? How do we further segment the user base? Why should we "disregard the users whereby the primary benefit of the product does not resonate"? 4.) How does Rahul approach product roadmap and prioritisation? How can founders ensure that continuous tracking and user feedback is engrained within the organisation? What tools does Rahul do to monitor and capture this? What are some of Rahul's biggest lessons from going through this painstaking process stage by stage? 5.) Finally on fundraising, what does Rahul mean when he says, "always be raising but never be actively raising"? What are the benefits of this? How can founders transition catch up coffee into fundraising subtly? How does Rahul feel about party rounds? What are the pros? What are the downsides? How does Rahul advise founders here? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Rahul’s Fave Book: The Art of Game Design As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Rahul on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
On this episode of Build, host Maggie Crowley chats with Rahul Vohra, founder & CEO of Superhuman. Rahul is also the founder of beloved Gmail plugin Rapportive. Shortly after its founding, the company was acquired by LinkedIn where Rahul ran email integrations. During those years, he developed an intimate perspective of the email space – and its many problems.Enter Superhuman, Rahul's current company, built to be the fastest email experience ever made.Together they discuss how to measure product market fit, the problem with email today and much more. Be sure to tune in to hear from Maggie and Rahul.
The post E867: Superhuman CEO Rahul Vohra (prev., Rapportive) created instantaneous email to democratize productivity, demos why customers not only pay but evangelize (w/ 70k on waitlist), shares insights as 2nd-time founder on fundraising, churn, marketing & the workflow of the future appeared first on This Week In Startups.
The post E867: Superhuman CEO Rahul Vohra (prev., Rapportive) created instantaneous email to democratize productivity, demos why customers not only pay but evangelize (w/ 70k on waitlist), shares insights as 2nd-time founder on fundraising, churn, marketing & the workflow of the future appeared first on This Week In Startups.
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Emilie Choi is Head of Corporate Development @ Linkedin where she has led 40+ acquisitions, acquihires or investments. In terms of acquisitions, Emilie led the acquisitions of Lynda, Bizo, Newsle, Bright, Pulse, SlideShare, and Rapportive just to name a few. On the strategic investment side, she led Linkedin's investment in Cornerstone On Demand and G2 Crowd. Before Linkedin, Emilie enjoyed roles such as Director of Digital Business Strategy and Operations at Warner Bros, International Strategy and Ops @ MySpace and Corp Dev and Strategy @ Yahoo. Emilie has also sat on the Naspers board for the last 10 years. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Emilie made her way into the world of M&A and came to lead over 40+ game-changing acquisitions for Linkedin? 2.) In 2016, M&A made up 95% of startup exits, how does Emilie evaluate the current state of exit environments? What 2 reasons have caused the drop in startup M&A? How does Emilie view the rise of PE and strategic investors to the acquisition markets? 3.) Paul Graham said ‘startups should only talk to corp dev when they are doing really well or really badly’. What are Emilie's thoughts on when is the right time for startups to have conversations with Corp Dev teams? When does Emilie you most like to begin the relationship? How does Emilie like to work with VCs in this relationship building? 4.) Paul Graham also described the structure of M&A as "grueling". Does Emilie agree with this? How does Emilie map out the structure of a typical M&A deal, from start to finish? How much of a role does price play in her evaluation of a deal? How does Emilie measure the success of an acquisition? 5.) Matt Switzer @ Hootsuite stated the biggest M&A risk to be integration. What does smooth integrations look like for both consumer vs enterprise? Why do they differ? How can this integration work be de-risked and front loaded? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Emilie’s Fave Book: The Bonfire of the Vanities Emilie’s Most Recent Investment: Heighten As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. NatureBox Unlimited snack plans offer all you can eat snacks for one fixed price per employee. Naturebox use simple ingredients you can trust to create bold flavors you can’t find anywhere else. All NatureBox snacks are free from artificial junk and variety is endless with options from sweet or savory to vegan or gluten-free. Simply choose the plan that fits your team’s unique snacking habits and select any of NatureBox’s time-saving add-on’s. And beyond Unlimited snacks, you’ll receive perks such as free kitchen setup, no contracts, a dedicated account manager and more. Simply click here to and use the offer code VC20 to get 20% of your first Naturebox month. Leesa is the Warby Parker or TOMS shoes of the mattress industry. Leesa have done away with the terrible mattress showroom buying experience by creating a luxury premium foam mattress that is ordered completely online and ships for free to your doorstep. The 10-inch mattress comes in all sizes and is engineered with 3 unique foam layers for a universal, adaptive feel, including 2 inches of memory foam and 2 inches of a really cool latex foam called Avena, design to keep you cool. All Leesa mattresses are 100% US or UK made and for every 10 mattresses they sell, they donate one to a shelter. Go to Leesa.com to start the New Year with better nights sleep!
Quincy explores Felix Feng's journey from bootcamp grad to professional developer, and how he went from getting $60,000 job offers to $125,000 job offers through sheer practice and persistence. Article by Felix Feng: https://twitter.com/felix2feng Read by Quincy Larson: https://twitter.com/ossia Article link: https://fcc.im/2iX0LtS Learn to code for free at: https://www.freecodecamp.org Intro music by Vangough: https://fcc.im/2APOG02 Resources mentioned: https://www.interviewcake.com https://www.hiredintech.com/classrooms/system-design/lesson/60 https://www.educative.io/collection/5642554087309312/5679846214598656 https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/1jov24/heres_how_to_prepare_for_tech_interviews/ https://github.com/h5bp/Front-end-Developer-Interview-Questions https://leetcode.com The email tool Felix uses: https://rapportive.com/ Transcript: A less-talked about part of the bootcamper’s journey is what happens after you graduate — when you’re searching for that six-figure developer position. < 3% of applications became offers I completed Hack Reactor in July 2016 and took almost 3 months before accepting an offer with Radius Intelligence. I applied to 291 companies, did 32 phone screens, 16 technical screens, 13 coding challenges, 11 on-sites, and received 8 offers. The offers ranged from $60-125k in salary from companies all over the US, and for both front end and full stack roles. In total, 2.8% of applications became offers. Here are 5 things I wish I’d known before I began my job search. Insight #1: Get through to real people At first, I applied for companies using the shotgun approach. I applied through Indeed.com, AngelList, LinkedIn, StackOverflow, Hacker News, company websites, and even Craigslist. I’d submit a resume for any role that wanted React, Node, or JavaScript experience. In the first week, I applied to 15–20 companies a day. Pro-Tip: Find companies using this easy-application repo. My yield was low. Less than five percent of companies responded to me. I was throwing applications into a black hole. Everything changed when one of my cohort-mates, a former recruiter, shared a guide to the job search. He told us to send emails directly to real people with each application. It could be anybody. As long as someone read it. From then on, whenever I submitted an application, I searched for the company on LinkedIn and emailed someone on their engineering or hiring team. For most small companies or C-level executives, the email format is usually firstName@dreamCompany.com. For larger companies, it may be firstName.lastName@dreamCompany.com. To verify emails, I used Rapportive to cross-check emails with social media accounts. The results were amazing. With 150+ emails sent, my response rate was a whopping 22%. It also felt great to hear from real people. Surprisingly, CEOs and CTOs responded to me. Sometimes they even interviewed me themselves. Takeaway: If you’re applying through the front door, make sure you’re getting to human beings. Insight #2: Start small and work your way up You will face Level 1 interviews (a non-tech company that needs any dev), where interviewers ask you nothing more than JavaScript trivia. You will face Level 9 interviews (Google/Facebook level), where interviewers ask difficult data structure and algorithm questions. I strategically set up my process so that I had lower-level interviews earlier, and higher-level interviews later on. Early on, I gained experience, built confidence, and secured offers from companies that had less intensive interviews. As I got more experience, I effectively “leveled up.” I became capable of completing interviews at companies with higher hiring bars. This is illustrated below as a linear correlation between the number of weeks I was into the process and the base salary I was offered. There’s a direct correlation between time spent interviewing and offer salary. I unlocked tougher questions. I unlocked higher salaries. And eventually, I unlocked the job I took. Takeaway: Plan to tackle easier interviews early on and more difficult ones later on. Insight #3: Study like your future job depends on it (because it does) I hate to break it to you, but the most important thing you could be doing at any point is studying and preparing. Why? Because you won’t get the offer if you don’t have good answers to the questions they ask you. People won’t refer you if they don’t think you’re prepared for their interviews. Coming out of Hack Reactor, my weaknesses were data structures and algorithms. A study by Triplebyte has found that bootcamp grads are weaker in these areas than computer science grads. So I learned and practiced. Every day. I devoted entire days to learning sorting algorithms. Other days, I focused on understanding how the internet worked. If I didn’t fully understand a concept, I’d spend the day watching YouTube videos or searching StackOverflow until I did. I found the following study materials useful: InterviewCake: My favorite resource for data structures and algorithms. It breaks down solutions into step-by-step chunks — a great alternative to Cracking the Code Interview (CTCI). My only gripe is that they don’t have more problems! HiredInTech’s System Design Section: A great guide for system design interview questions. Coderust: If you’re avoiding CTCI like the plague, Coderust 2.0 may be perfect for you. For $49, you get solutions in almost any programming language, with interactive diagrams. Reddit’s How to Prepare for Tech Interviews: I constantly used this as a benchmark for how prepared I was. Front End Interview Questions: An exhaustive list of front-end questions. Leetcode: The go-to resource for algorithm and data structure questions. You can filter by company, so for example, you could get all the questions that Uber or Google typically ask. Takeaway: There’s no such thing as too much preparation. Insight #4: Put your best foot forward Breaking into the industry is hard. You have to perform well, even when you’re not fully prepared. In order to succeed, you have to be your own advocate. Sell Yourself At Hack Reactor, we’re trained to mask our inexperience. In our personal narratives, we purposely omit our bootcamp education. Why? Otherwise, companies automatically categorize us into junior developer roles or tag us as “not enough experience.” In one interview with a startup, the interview immediately went south once they realized I’d done a bootcamp. One company used it against me and made me a $60k offer, benchmarking against junior developers. Ultimately, you need to convince companies that you can do the job. At the same time, you need to convince yourself that you can do the job. You can. Focus on your love for programming. Focus on what you’ve built with React and Node. Focus on demonstrating your deep knowledge in JavaScript and any other languages you’ve learned. Only then can they justify giving you the job. It’s a Two-way Conversation Interviewing is a mutual exploration of fit between an employee and an employer. While it’s your job to convince employers to hire you, it’s also their job to win you over. Don’t be ashamed of using the interview as an opportunity to evaluate the job opportunity. I talked to any company, even if I had only the slightest interest. I did on-sites all over the country with any company that invited me out. I asked questions, and sucked up knowledge on engineering team organization, technologies and tools used, company challenges, and system architecture. Pro-Tip: During interviews, ask the following questions: What are some technical challenges you’ve recently faced? What do you enjoy about working at X company? How are teams structured and how are tasks usually divided? I treated every interaction as a learning opportunity. Each interaction helped me improve my presentation, interview, and technical skills. Each failure helped me find my blind spots. Takeaway: Don’t sell yourself short! And remember, it’s a mutual exploration. Insight #5: It’s a marathon, not a sprint The journey is by no means easy. For 3 months, I grinded 6 days a week. But I tried to take care of myself. What a typical day could look like in JavaScript Some days, I’d study with friends. Other days, I’d go find a cafe and study alone, or hang out at Hack Reactor’s alumni lounge. And every week I’d check in with our career counselor to talk about my progress. It’s easy to burn out during the process. Eat well, sleep, and exercise. It can get lonely. Spend time with friends who are going through the same experience. Takeaway: Prepare for the long game and make sure you take care of yourself. In summary, the key takeaways are: Get through to real people Start small and work your way up Study like your future job depends on it Put your best foot forward It’s a marathon, not a sprint The process may seem endless, but you’re going to make it. Keep putting in the hours. Keep sending in the applications. Keep taking caring of yourself. All of it pays off in the end.
Martin Kleppmann is a software engineer, entrepreneur, author and speaker. He co-founded Rapportive (acquired by LinkedIn in 2012) and Go Test It (acquired by Red Gate Software in 2009). An accomplished author and academic, Martin wrote a book for OReilly, called Designing Data-Intensive Applications, while working as a researcher at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory.
Marketing School - Digital Marketing and Online Marketing Tips
In Episode #351, Eric and Neil discuss 7 chrome extensions that every marketer ought to use. Tune in to learn how these chrome extensions can make your work as a marketer easier so that you're using your time in a way that maximizes productivity! Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today's topic: 7 Chrome Extensions Every Marketer Ought to Use 00:34 – First extension is Zest—it has tons of marketing articles 00:54 – Keyword Everywhere is an extension that when you search anything, it pops in data on the search volume from Google 01:15 – It is useful for marketers because they can do keyword research through the Google browser 01:26 – Ghostery shows you the technology a website has 01:53 – Fourth is Save to Pocket 02:08 – Allows you to save anything for future reference 02:20 – Fifth is Buffer for social media sharing 02:37 – Sixth is Email Hunter 02:46 – It can figure out the email address of the profile you're viewing 02:58 – Neil used Rapportive but LinkedIn discontinued it 03:14 – Last is TubeBuddy which shows you the tags that you should be using in YouTube, the tags of the video you're watching, and your tags ranking 03:50 – That's it for today's episode! 3 Key Points: Chrome extensions can help you enormously, especially if you usually work with Google browser. As a marketer, shifting through different websites or software can be time consuming making the use of extensions necessary. Leverage the online tools that you can use to streamline your marketing processes. Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu
Marketing School - Digital Marketing and Online Marketing Tips
In Episode #351, Eric and Neil discuss 7 chrome extensions that every marketer ought to use. Tune in to learn how these chrome extensions can make your work as a marketer easier so that you’re using your time in a way that maximizes productivity! Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: 7 Chrome Extensions Every Marketer Ought to Use 00:34 – First extension is Zest—it has tons of marketing articles 00:54 – Keyword Everywhere is an extension that when you search anything, it pops in data on the search volume from Google 01:15 – It is useful for marketers because they can do keyword research through the Google browser 01:26 – Ghostery shows you the technology a website has 01:53 – Fourth is Save to Pocket 02:08 – Allows you to save anything for future reference 02:20 – Fifth is Buffer for social media sharing 02:37 – Sixth is Email Hunter 02:46 – It can figure out the email address of the profile you’re viewing 02:58 – Neil used Rapportive but LinkedIn discontinued it 03:14 – Last is TubeBuddy which shows you the tags that you should be using in YouTube, the tags of the video you’re watching, and your tags ranking 03:50 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Chrome extensions can help you enormously, especially if you usually work with Google browser. As a marketer, shifting through different websites or software can be time consuming making the use of extensions necessary. Leverage the online tools that you can use to streamline your marketing processes. Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu
The Top Entrepreneurs in Money, Marketing, Business and Life
Jon Ferrara. He’s been recognized for pioneering innovation in the customer service management category for many years. Prior to founding Nimble, he was the creator and co-founder of the award-winning customer management product GoldMine. In 1999, Goldmine got acquired by FrontRange and he left to pursue other interests. During those years, he continued to watch the CRM market grow. He saw that most CRMs in the industry that were serving small businesses moved up market and became way more expensive and more complex—leaving the small business market totally underserved. It was at that point that Jon decided to create the next generation CRM product for small businesses called Nimble. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Think and Grow Rich What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff Favorite online tool? — Buffer App How many hours of sleep do you get?— Around 8 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Start a business earlier” Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:44 – Nathan introduces Jon to the show 01:42 – Jon was on Episode 643 of The Top 01:55 – Nimble has around 10K paying customers with a monthly RPU of $20 02:08 – 3% monthly churn 02:14 – CAC is around $5 02:24 – Team size is 25 02:43 – Nimble has recently closed a $9M round 03:07 – Acquiring SMBs is the exact same way they’ve scaled Goldmine 03:20 – The problem with most CRMs today is that only sales and marketing people use these systems when in fact, everyone in the company should use it 03:56 – Jon cold called every Novel reseller in the country when Goldmine was just starting 04:00 – “People sell what they know and know what they use” 04:15 – When Jon started Nimble, no one knew that social media would be the way to grow a business 04:30 – Jon looked around for influencers for Nimble’s launch 04:48 – Nimble is the early pioneer of influencer marketing 05:08 – Nimble was getting 100K website views with 0 marketing spend 05:25 – As a company scales up, it should also touch the customers in different ways 05:43 – Nimble doesn’t pay influencers 05:45 – To find influencers, you have to know the core influencers around your product 06:00 – You find ways on how to build a relationship with influencers 06:32 – Nimble will now try to get around with ad spend 06:41 – Jon always believed that there was another way to get access to customers 06:44 – Jon is going to replicate the strategy they used with Goldmine by partnering with people similar to Microsoft and Google and get their VARs to use Nimble and start recommending it 07:01 – Nimble just signed a deal with Microsoft where they can be a reseller of Nimble 07:12 – Microsoft can now give their VARs Nimble so their VARs can be better, smarter and faster in sales and marketing 07:33 – Nimble will work on top of Office 365 as the operating system of a business 07:57 – Microsoft is currently passing their revenue to the VARs 08:11 – The VARs are the one making the MRR which is 20% 08:30 – Nimble’s average RPU is now around $30 08:41 – If you can help a business person with their sales and marketing needs, you’re now opening yourself up to other functionalities for that customer 08:53 – Every business struggles with sales, marketing and relationship management 09:20 – Nimble just rolled out new pricing and marked on automation add-on 10:13 – March MRR is around $225K 10:25 – Nimble now has around 10.5K customers 11:31 – Without relying on the VARs, it’s going to be a long term strategy for Nimble 11:48 – Microsoft has bundled Nimble inside of Outlook mobile, Office 365 and Outlook desktop 12:07 – It is like a free acquisition 12:32 – Jon won the deal with Microsoft because of their relationship 12:42 – In every business relationship, you want to know how the other person answers and what success looks like for that person 13:21 – Nimble is now a free plug-in with Office 365 13:37 – Users can use Nimble for free without paying $30 a month 13:42 – Nimble is like Rapportive on steroids 13:48 – Nimble has a limited feature for free users 14:14 – Business people are the ones who usually convert to paid users 14:33 – The market of Nimble is a very fragmented market 14:37 – Nathan mentions the people in the same market that were on The Top: 14:39 – Hatchbuck 14:55 – Pipedrive 15:02 – Close.io 15:08 – Contactually 15:29 – In a fragmented market, you need to be top of the line with your customers, influencers and with business products that people use 15:52 – Nimble continues to be rated as No. 1 17:00 – The way Nimble wins is how it executes the distribution channels 17:13 – Team size is currently 32 and based in Santa Monica and Ukraine 17:44 – You don’t go to raise with a particular value in mind 17:53 – Let the market determine the value 18:06 – The last round raised was a series A 18:22 – Nimble has talked to a number of VCs and with this deal, they’re bringing in a seasoned CEO 19:18 – What people are vetting for Nimble is the future 19:41 – “We’re definitely going for a large exit with Nimble” 20:14 – Office 365 is now dominating the email cloud productivity space and they’re just starting 20:48 – “And Nimble, I believe, is positioned today to dominate in this space” 22:05 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: In a fragmented market, you need to be TOP of line—a product that people will always recommend. You have to know how a potential client answers a question and how they define success when making a deal. Nurture your business relationships—this is KEY to your success. Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
Welcome to episode 129, at the end of a busy week for LinkedIn having delivered their social selling conference Sales Connect in New York. I was keenly watching the Twitter feed and some updates from people I knew were there to hear reaction to some of the big announcements made. In this episode I’m going to dive into the 5 main announced changes to Sales Navigator. Don’t worry of you don’t have a Sales Navigator account, this could still be very relevant to you. But before all that I spotted these interesting things in the news this week; Reid Hoffman is so against Trump, he created a card game! LinkedIn Siri integration goes live with the launch of iOS 10 3 new LinkedIn services in India Sales Connect 2016 I wasn’t able to make it to New York but I did the next best thing and followed on Twitter. Various speakers talked about the exciting world of social selling including several case studies, Chris Anderson from TED talks appeared to be the most popular but I bet Malcolm Gladwell was pretty good too! Various statistics were quoted, many I have heard before but these did grab my attention; “Sales & Marketing are blending into one” “Personal value has to 2X the impact over business value. 71% of B2B buyers who see personal value will purchase” “92% of B2B buyers engage with sales professionals who are known industry thought leaders”. “EY have 30,000 Sales Navigator licences”!! The five really big announcements Sales Navigator is becoming an open platform (at last!). Initial CRM partners are Oracle, SAP Hybris, SugarCRM, Hubspot and Netsuite. New search filters for Lead builder. Size of department, Senior leadership, revenue, HQ zip code, department growth and content keywords. InMail 2.0. Improvements to SN inMail allowing a compose box to the side, attachments and ‘write to CRM’ Notes & Tags. This includes the ability to filter searches by tags. Gmail extension. Very similar to Rapportive.
The Top Entrepreneurs in Money, Marketing, Business and Life
Anant Kale, cofounder of AppZen. Anant had a job that paid him $200000 a year when he decided to go off on his own and start a business. Hear the success story of his artificial intelligence software which has “transformed the back office” for companies everywhere. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance What CEO do you follow? — Elon Musk Favourite online tool? — Rapportive and Calendly Do you get 8 hours of sleep?—No If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be? — Start a business earlier than you think you should. Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:25 – Nathan introduces Anant Kale 01:55 – AppZen uses artificial intelligence software in offices 02:45 – It detects information on employees and statistics automatically 03:30 – Founded in 2013 04:00 – 2015 revenue was just under $1 million 04:45 – They have 22 customers 05:00 – Average contract price is $150000 05:20 – Capital raised is $14 million 06:10 – 14 people on the team 06:40 – No churn so far 07:15 – Average customer acquisition cost is very low 08:15 – Too early for lifetime value 09:05 – Evaluation for the company 10:15 – Goal is to double revenue in 2016 13:00 – Anant is a cofounder 13:50 – The company was split according to responsibilities and contributions 14:40 – He always wanted to really build a company on his own 16:00 -- The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Don’t put off starting your own business. A large salary doesn’t mean that you will be satisfied with your job. If you have an entrepreneurial spirit, follow that desire. Resources Mentioned: Freshbooks – The online tool Nathan uses to keep track of receipts Hostgator – The program Nathan uses for his website Rapportive and Calendly – Anant’s favorite online tools Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
The Top Entrepreneurs in Money, Marketing, Business and Life
Sam Caucci, founder of Sales Huddle, a training and development team using gaming technology to help organizations better prepare their people for the workforce. With work delivered across North America, Europe, and Asia, Sales Huddle has impacted people across organizations in a wide array of sectors and clients, that include professional sports teams, politics and government, hospitality, retail, colleges, and many more. They’re applying an innovative approach to people preparing for the workforce, and Sam is over the creation of the training game platform. It is the first game-based platform that transforms the way an organization on-boards, trains, and develops team members. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Emotional Intelligence What CEO do you follow? — Someone who’s not living right now Favorite online tool? — Rapportive and Mixmax Do you get 8 hours of sleep?—No If you could let your 20-year-old self know one thing, what would it be? — Not to think I knew everything. Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:09 – Nathan’s introduction 01:55 – Training that isn’t boring 02:50 – Money is made from a license fee 03:22 – Company was founded in 2010 3:55 – It went from consulting to a product 4:15 – First year’s revenue was $250000 4:45 – They are self-funded 5:15 – Total customers is 61 5:45 – Learning-based vs. game-based competition 6:35 – The product requests annual pay 7:05 – Pay is upfront 07:30 – Average pay per year is $15000 per customer 07:55 – 100% retention and why 10:05 – Customer acquisition costs 11:00 – They have just started raising capital 11:50 – How to get more people and scale the business 13:20 – How much money they want to raise 13:40 – Team is six people 14:00 – Saleshuddlegroup.com, Twitter - @saleshuddle or @samcaucci 16:10 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Businesses and progress run off of incentives. Consider the most efficient and cost-effective way to provide your service. Learning and training systems shouldn’t be boring. Resources Mentioned: Freshbooks - The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible. Rapportive and Mixmax – Sam’s favorite online tools for organization and productivity Sales Huddle – A training program that uses gaming technology Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
As the son of hardworking immigrants, David Cancel saw his parents working seven days a week to support their family. As an adult, he realized that not all people worked the way his parents did, which sparked in him a desire to make a living without getting a “job.” Cancel always knew that he wanted to be an entrepreneur, even if he wasn’t quite sure what that meant. As a kid, he found that flipping through the pages of Inc. Magazine and other early entrepreneurial publications didn’t offer much insight. He saw ads for get-rich-quick schemes and stories of businessmen who had reached amazing heights. Although he wasn’t quite sure what it meant to be an entrepreneur, he knew he wanted in. The term “serial entrepreneur” gets thrown around a lot, but few have lived a life that defines it as well as David Cancel. Building and selling companies has become a way of life; his obsessions around ideas or problems quickly snowball into companies. He has started and exited five companies in the past 16 years and is currently an advisor, investor, and/or consultant to several more, including BigCommerce, HelpScout, Rapportive, and Yieldbot. In this interview you will learn: What it takes to create a successful product How to listen to your customer and what you can learn from it What kind of feedback you should listen to and what you should ignore The secret to iterating effectively and how you can start improving your own products Where to find the right audience and what it means to serve them & much more!
Hello and welcome to episode 105. It's great to finally be seeing signs that winter is behind us, I love the spring it's probably my favourite time of the year! There have been quite a lot of interesting articles about LinkedIn this week so the news segment is somewhat longer than normal. The articles I cover are; The LinkedIn faith debate Bikinigate and the profile of Candice Galek Virgin flights will now have Lynda This designer has come up with an interesting new design for the LinkedIn app I also mentioned about the changes to LinkedIn contacts and how the "How are you met" feature has been moved into the notes section. LinkedIn are about to release a completely new look design to their settings page, it's clearly taking its design from the mobile app. LinkedIn’s to do list This week linkedIn's most popular feature ‘who viewed my profile’ broke down and at the time of recording it hadn't been fixed. I'm sure this feature will be fixed very soon but it got me thinking about all those areas and features of LinkedIn that have been left broken. It strikes me that LinkedIn are very keen to keep introducing lots of new shiny features but perhaps they ought to draw a line in the sand and fix or completely remove there broken features before adding anything new. Here is my list of things that LinkedIn need to fix; Remove the redundant ‘subject’ box in connection messages (when sent from their profile) Followers should be listed separately to first tier connections Followers need a label to show their level of connection (2nd, 3rd, group etc) Add links to send InMail and follow to the brief ‘cards’ of followers Display the customised message in received invitations on desktop when hovering over the invitations icon. Display connection level for fellow group members. Develop an algorithm to remove quiz like status updates Allow keyword search of group members (in the group). Remove fake profiles Add a ‘select all’ function to messages Improve the ‘Jobs that might interest you’ algorithm. Add a link to the profile of the person being introduced in the introduction message Fix ‘who’s viewed your profile’. Fix the NOT command in advanced search Phrases surrounded by “ “ in advanced search should give only results of that exact phrase, Not words within that phrase. Show the chosen qualities is selected in recommendations Synchronise notifications between the mobile app and desktop versions Add a sent folder for messages. Cool thing This week's cool thing is a Gmail plug-in that is owned by LinkedIn called Rapportive. This will show you information about the person who has emailed you from their LinkedIn profile and provides a link to view their profile.
In this episode of To Be Continuous, Paul and Edith host Sam Stokes, cofounder of Rapportive, to discuss empathy in software development, the tendency for micro services to become mini services, and the act of constantly updating software in a constantly updating world.
In this episode of To Be Continuous, Paul and Edith host Sam Stokes, cofounder of Rapportive, to discuss empathy in software development, the tendency for micro services to become mini services, and the act of constantly updating software in a constantly updating world. The post Ep. #9, Empathy’s Role in Software Development appeared first on Heavybit.
By far the most different episode I have made to date. Rather than focusing on interviewing artists or on core ways to build up your career. I wanted to share some of the tools _I_ use in production or day to day that are pivotal to getting things done. There are some very useful email tools that really go above and beyond that I highly recommend, and many other tools and insights. Going with the trend of doing something not done on this podcast so far - you can also go through this episode as a VIDEO by going to the link http://www.allanmckay.com/31download/ to view the video and watch as I go through everything in the podcast on screen and demonstrate how I use these tools. Furthermore I want to know what tools YOU use. Visit http://www.allanmckay.com/31/ to share in the comments what tools you find to be useful or critical to your day to day work! I would love to hear from you on this - maybe there's some tools I don't know about that might help me be more productive! Visit http://www.allanmckay.com/31/ for more show notes and http://www.allanmckay.com/31download/ to watch the video.
Chris FloresofNamelyjoined us in the studio this week to record another episode of theBowery Capital Startup Sales Podcast: “Building Your Sales Automation Stack.” Every startup sales team faces this question early on: what tools or infrastructure do I need to empower my salespeople and make sure we’re ready to scale quickly? Our team here atBowery Capitalstays close to the world of startup sales tools both on the investment side and from the perspective of our portfolio companies, and we know well that there is a diverse range of options out there for the modern seller. From CRMs to power dialers to sales analytics platforms, it can be hard to keep track of and there are few true real-world guides out there. That’s exactly what we were able to do in today’s podcast: Chris walks us through the startup “Sales Stack” he built overseeing the growth of Namely’s inside sales team from the ground up, and highlighting the top 10 solutions that have really made a difference.Crafting a stack of startup sales tools may seem easy at the outset: just let your salespeople use what works for them to help hit quota and have them hit the ground running. But when you’re aiming to build a lasting business, it’s important to have a consistent set of tools that your entire team can use. Building a data-driven culture of sales tool compliance is near impossible without this sort of top-down guidance. As a sales manager, however, your work is still cut out for you. Last year, the team here at Bowery Capital pulled together aGuide to Startup Sales Toolsto try to put some structured thoughts around the massive ecosystem of solutions in the space. There are certainly no shortage of options. In our podcast today, Chris takes the analysis one step deeper by walking through his top 10 and why they work for Namely. In no particular order, here’s the list:Rivalry,LinkedIn Sales Navigato,Salesloft,ZoomInfo,Rapportive,Salesforce,InsideSales PowerDiealer,ToutApp,DocSend, andJoinme.We’ll discuss the pain point each of the above solves, how each is used effectively, and the impact that each has had at Namely. Hopefully you’ll find Chris’ insights as useful as we did. If you haven’t checked out the full podcast yet, we hope you’ll do so by heading over to theBowery Capital blog. Until next time!EndFragment
Chris FloresofNamelyjoined us in the studio this week to record another episode of theBowery Capital Startup Sales Podcast: “Building Your Sales Automation Stack.” Every startup sales team faces this question early on: what tools or infrastructure do I need to empower my salespeople and make sure we’re ready to scale quickly? Our team here atBowery Capitalstays close to the world of startup sales tools both on the investment side and from the perspective of our portfolio companies, and we know well that there is a diverse range of options out there for the modern seller. From CRMs to power dialers to sales analytics platforms, it can be hard to keep track of and there are few true real-world guides out there. That’s exactly what we were able to do in today’s podcast: Chris walks us through the startup “Sales Stack” he built overseeing the growth of Namely’s inside sales team from the ground up, and highlighting the top 10 solutions that have really made a difference.Crafting a stack of startup sales tools may seem easy at the outset: just let your salespeople use what works for them to help hit quota and have them hit the ground running. But when you’re aiming to build a lasting business, it’s important to have a consistent set of tools that your entire team can use. Building a data-driven culture of sales tool compliance is near impossible without this sort of top-down guidance. As a sales manager, however, your work is still cut out for you. Last year, the team here at Bowery Capital pulled together aGuide to Startup Sales Toolsto try to put some structured thoughts around the massive ecosystem of solutions in the space. There are certainly no shortage of options. In our podcast today, Chris takes the analysis one step deeper by walking through his top 10 and why they work for Namely. In no particular order, here’s the list:Rivalry,LinkedIn Sales Navigato,Salesloft,ZoomInfo,Rapportive,Salesforce,InsideSales PowerDiealer,ToutApp,DocSend, andJoinme.We’ll discuss the pain point each of the above solves, how each is used effectively, and the impact that each has had at Namely. Hopefully you’ll find Chris’ insights as useful as we did. If you haven’t checked out the full podcast yet, we hope you’ll do so by heading over to theBowery Capital blog. Until next time!EndFragment
AskPat 2.0: A Weekly Coaching Call on Online Business, Blogging, Marketing, and Lifestyle Design
Today’s question comes from Kris, who doesn’t get a response when he reaches out to audience members individually. How can he get his audience to realize that these emails are individual and not bulk? Kris’s site is http://successfulperformercast.com/. I recommend the tool Rapportive (https://rapportive.com/) for integrating social media with your email account. Do you have a question about engaging your customers? Record it at http://www.askpat.com/. Thanks to today's sponsor, AWeber. Your email list is your most valuable asset—get started today. Go to http://www.aweber.com/askpat
AskPat 2.0: A Weekly Coaching Call on Online Business, Blogging, Marketing, and Lifestyle Design
Jeff is using an older email provider and needs advice for switching to a more professional solution. Jeff’s site is http://customstix.com/. Check out the Smart Passive Income Podcast 115 on email management: http://smartpassiveincome.com/session115 I also love Boomerang for Gmail, which allows you to schedule email: http://www.boomeranggmail.com/. I also mention Rapportive: https://rapportive.com/. Do you have a question about improving your business systems? Record it at http://www.askpat.com/. Thanks to today's sponsor, AWeber. Your email list is your most valuable asset—get started today. Go to http://www.aweber.com/askpat.
Rapportive, una herramienta extraordinaria que sirve para saber un poco más sobre aquellos con los que nos escribimos emails.
Cool Tools Show hosts Craig Fisher and Lars Schmidt discuss the latest changes on Linkedin affecting apps like Rapportive, Nimble, Card Munch, and more. They also discuss the new Linkedin premium features like the banner background.Also on this show are tips about how to track your links out of Instagram, ways to measure your influence on Google+ with CircleCount, productivity app Mynd, and ideas on recruiting with traffic app WAZE.Learn more about Craig and Lars and the Cool Tools Show atwww.Evolverco.com.This episode is brought to you by www.Candarine.com and the Recruiting Daily Network: www.RecruitingBlogs.com, www.RecruitingDaily.com, andwww.RecruitingTools.com
Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning - Entrepreneurs & Experts Podcast Series
Rahul Vohra, CEO & Co-Founder of Rapportive and Dr Shamus Husheer, CEO of Cambridge Temperature Concepts, speaking on the topic 'Serendipity or Hard Work' at the Enterprise Tuesday lecture series on 27th Nov 2012. Successful entrepreneurs are often dismissed as having had a bit of good luck. Entrepreneurs too, are sometimes tempted to ascribe their progress to luck or serendipity – 'Things happen!' What is the reality of entrepreneurial success or indeed failure? How much can we rely on our own endeavours? How much do we have to wait for external conditions to change and go in our favour? Is it about the luck of being in the right place at the right time? Markets, technologies, social trends, access to funding finding the first customer but perhaps not where you were looking are all cases that challenge the rational model for enterprise development. This session is delivered by two young, charismatic entrepreneurs both of whom are experiencing success but in different ways. Dr Shamus Husheer completed his PhD at Cambridge, while Rahul Vohra took leave from his PhD and went to Silicon Valley with his co-founders to pursue his entrepreneurial dream. Shamus is building a business from Cambridge and Rahul has already made an exit by selling his venture to LinkedIn.
Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning - Entrepreneurs & Experts Podcast Series
Rahul Vohra, CEO & Co-Founder of Rapportive and Dr Shamus Husheer, CEO of Cambridge Temperature Concepts, speaking on the topic 'Serendipity or Hard Work' at the Enterprise Tuesday lecture series on 27th Nov 2012. Successful entrepreneurs are often dismissed as having had a bit of good luck. Entrepreneurs too, are sometimes tempted to ascribe their progress to luck or serendipity – 'Things happen!' What is the reality of entrepreneurial success or indeed failure? How much can we rely on our own endeavours? How much do we have to wait for external conditions to change and go in our favour? Is it about the luck of being in the right place at the right time? Markets, technologies, social trends, access to funding finding the first customer but perhaps not where you were looking are all cases that challenge the rational model for enterprise development. This session is delivered by two young, charismatic entrepreneurs both of whom are experiencing success but in different ways. Dr Shamus Husheer completed his PhD at Cambridge, while Rahul Vohra took leave from his PhD and went to Silicon Valley with his co-founders to pursue his entrepreneurial dream. Shamus is building a business from Cambridge and Rahul has already made an exit by selling his venture to LinkedIn.
AWeber is one of the most popular email marketing services around. My five reasons for using AWeber to build an email list are WordPress integration, Ad tracking, list segmentation, Facebook and the Rapportive extension for Google Chrome inside of Gmail. Take AWeber for a test drivehttp://ileane.aweber.com Subscribe in iTuneshttp://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ms.-ileane-speaks-podcast/id497327231 Get free tips and resources to help you build a better blog and expand your audience!http://BasicBlogTips.com/email Follow me on Twitterhttp://Twitter.com/BasicBlogTips Like the Facebook Pagehttp://Facebook.com/BasicBlogTips Add me to circles on Google+https://plus.google.com/112829233906811093453
Connaissez-vous Rapportive Le plugin Social de Gmail by davanac --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/davanac/message
In this episode of Podcast Answer Man, I share the following: Check out http://BusinessTechWeekly.com Use http://Repportive.com to connect with your audience Free Podcasting 101 Webinar – http://PodcastAnswerMan.com/pod101 Webinar Bridge Plugin – http://WebinarBridge.com Thoughts on Katie's clipping audio issue. iTunes Ratings – http://PodcastAnswerMan.com/itunesratings PowerPress 2.0.4 Display Settings http://share.gspn.tv/9ZA1 & http://share.gspn.tv/9ZLE The Blog Post that convinced me […] The post 224 Podcast Answer Man – Rapportive – Webinar Bridge – And More appeared first on The Cliff Ravenscraft Show.
В 10-й выпуск мы пригласили единственную девушку авторского коллектива блога LH Ирину под псевдонимом Ginger. Обсуждаем ее статьи, а также возможность быть одновременно и бизнес-леди, и заботливой мамой. Из лайфхаков последней недели — переезд Gmail, креативные способы борьбы со смогом, новый плагин к Mozilla Thunderbird, загадочные QR-коды и другое. Подробнее о темах: — Фриланс с ребенком. А вам слабо? Ответы и лайфхаки от автора статей на блоге lifehacker.ru Ginger. — Взрослеете? Советы о том, как переехать с darkside@gmail.com на ваша_фамилия.имя@gmail.com со ВСЕМ почтовым добром, нажитым непосильным трудом. — Лайфхак от слушателя: еще один способ слушать подкасты правильно и удобно. — Дышите полной грудью! Как избавится от удушающего смога и дыма? Инфографика к советам: вспомним уроки ОБЖ :) — Способ слушателя Андрея (пылесос, коробка, тряпка). — Узнай о своих друзьях больше! Новый плагин для Mozilla Thunderbird. Аддон Rapportive для Gmail. — Команда 42 в подкасте "Вечерний кефир". С нами еще и смешно! — Загадочные QR-коды: читаем и генерируем собственные! — IM-клиент Trillian социализировался в новой версии, а его интерфейс которого стал еще проще. Команда 42 в твиттере: Леонид Свидерский @svidersky_leo Настя Радужная @NastyaRadugnaya Макс Филимонов @Max_Filimonov Подкаст 42 в Facebook. Поддержи нас на iTunes. Еще один наш несерьезный подкаст "Вечерний кефир".
Gastheer Maarten Hendrikx, @maartenhendrikx op Twitter. Panel Stefaan Lesage, @stefaanlesage op Twitter, of via de Devia website. Marco Frissen, @marcofrissen op Twitter, of via zijn website Cindy De Smet, @drsmetty op Twitter, of via haar website. Jan Seurinck, @janseurinck op Twitter, of via zijn website. Gast Luc Van Braekel, @lvb op Twitter, of via zijn website. Onderwerpen Facebook neemt het internet over? De start 'het Facebook-tijdperk'? Zullen we dit 'liken'? (The Age Of Facebook, Today Facebook, Tomorrow The World, Facebook: What They Announced At F8) De kogel is door de kerk: HP neemt Palm over. (HP to Acquire Palm voor $1.2 Billion) Nog HP-nieuws: Hewlett-Packard stopt met het Windows 7 tablet project. (Hewlett-Packard To Kill Windows 7 Tablet Project) Microsoft annuleert verdere ontwikkeling Courier tablet. (Microsoft Cancels Innovative Courier Tablet Project) Twitter neemt Cloudhopper over. Uitbreiding van de Twitter SMS-dienst ook naar België en Nederland? (Twitter buys Cloudhopper to help SMS tweets go around the world) Steve Jobs - CEO van Apple - reageert persoonlijk op de hele heisa rond geen Flash op de iPhone en iPad. (Toughts on Flash, Decoding Steve Jobss Dressing Down Of Flash, Adobe CEO Responds to Steve Jobs' 'Thoughts on Flash') Tweets citeren en embedden op je blog kan vanaf 4 mei zonder dat je daarvoor schermafdrukken moeten maken. Gewoon een stukje HTML kopiëren en plakken. (Blackbird Pie, Fresh-baked tweets for your posts) Tips Onze gast Luc kiest als eerste tip een CRM-plugin voor Gmail: Rapportive. Deze plugin vervangt de reclame aan de rechterkant in je Gmail door allerhande informatie over de persoon met wie je emailt (Twitterprofiel, Facebookprofiel, beroep, …). Zijn tweede tip is HTML5 for web designers, een boek van de mensen achter A List Apart. Cindy heeft eindelijk een nieuwe GSM: een HTC Desire. Marco heeft 2 tips: Apple Benelux zit nu ook Twitter (@Apple_Webcare). Tip nummer 2 van Marco is een verzameling van alle emails die Steve Jobs de laatste tijd naar 'gewone stervelingen' heeft gestuurd. Stefaan stelt ons inklet voor. Een stylus gecombineerd met een stukje software waarmee je van je MacBook- trackpad een tekenoppervlak maakt. Jan is net zoals velen erg onder de indruk van Shazam, nu ook beschikbaar voor Android en iPad. Je iPhone of je Android-telefoon even bij een luidspreker houden en Shazam vertelt je welk nummer er speelt. Maarten heeft het eerst over Feest.je, een Nederlandstalige Gowalla / Foursquare-kloon. Zijn tweede tip is Syphir een flinke uitbreiding voor de standaard filters van Gmail. Feedback Het Tech45-team apprecieert alle feedback die ingestuurd wordt. Heb je dus opmerkingen, reacties of suggesties, dan zijn deze altijd welkom op reactie@tech45.eu. Ook audio-reacties in .mp3-formaat zijn altijd welkom. Items voor de volgende aflevering kunnen gemarkeerd worden in Delicious met de tag 'tech45-017'. Vergeet ook niet dat je 'live' kan komen meepraten via live.tech45.eu op dinsdag 18 mei vanaf 20u30. Deze aflevering van de podcast kan je downloaden via deze link, rechtstreeks beluisteren via de onderstaande player, of gewoon gratis abonneren via iTunes.
Gastheer Maarten Hendrikx, @maartenhendrikx op Twitter. Panel Stefaan Lesage, @stefaanlesage op Twitter, of via de Devia website. Marco Frissen, @marcofrissen op Twitter, of via zijn website. Jan Seurinck, @janseurinck op Twitter, of via zijn website. Gast Davy Buntinx, @DirtyJos op Twitter, of via zijn website. Onderwerpen Vorige week kondigde Twitter op zijn blog aan dat ze erin geslaagd zijn om het aantal SPAM-tweets te reduceren tot zo'n 1% van het totaal aantal tweets. (Twitter Reduces Spam to 1% of Tweets) De US Geological Survey gebruikt meldingen van aardbevingen op Twitter in combinatie met de standaard systemen zoals seismografen. De USGS gebruikt de tweets vooral om - in real time - een idee te krijgen wat mensen precies voelden of ervaarden tijdens een aardbeving. (Twitter 101 — Case Study: The United States Geological Survey) iPhone-geruchten (WSJ: Apple 'developing new iPhone,' plus another for Verizon (update: iPhone HD, front-facing camera?) de Apple iPad is sinds 3 april verkrijgbaar in de VS. (Apple iPad Review, iPad vs. a 5-Year-Old, Walt Mossberg Gushes Over The iPad, Calls It 'Beautiful', 'Striking', And A 'Pleasure') Tips Marco bijt de spits af met CloudApp, een file-storage app vergelijkbaar met Dropbox maar met meer mogelijkheden om foto's e.d. te delen. Jan haalt nog even een 'gouwe ouwe' aan en wil iedereen op Posterous krijgen, volgens hem de makkelijkste manier om een blog te beginnen. (http://janseurinck.posterous.com/, http://post.marcof.net/) Stefaan hoorde Bart Busschots en Allison Sheridan tijdens een aflevering van de Nosillacast praten over HDRTist en besloot het ook even uit te proberen. HDRTist is het meest eenvoudige HDR-programma voor de Mac en het is helemaal gratis! Davy ('de Jos') heeft het over Rainmeter, een erg mooi systeem om je Windows PC een ander jasje te geven. Tot slot heeft Maarten een iPhone-app waarmee je Polaroid-achtige foto's kan maken: ShakeItPhoto en als tweede tip een CRM-plugin voor Gmail: Rapportive. Deze plugin vervangt de reclame aan de rechterkant in je Gmail door allerhande informatie over de persoon met wie je emailt (Twitterprofiel, Facebookprofiel, beroep, ...) Feedback Het Tech45-team apprecieert alle feedback die ingestuurd wordt. Heb je dus opmerkingen, reacties of suggesties, dan zijn deze altijd welkom op reactie@tech45.eu. Ook audio-reacties in .mp3-formaat zijn altijd welkom! Items voor de volgende aflevering kunnen gemarkeerd worden in Delicious met de tag 'tech45-015'. Vergeet ook niet dat je 'live' kan komen meepraten in onze Ustream-chatroom op dinsdag 20 april vanaf 20u30. Deze aflevering van de podcast kan je downloaden via deze link, rechtstreeks beluisteren via de onderstaande player, of gewoon gratis abonneren via iTunes.
On this episode of Build, host Maggie Crowley chats with Rahul Vohra, founder & CEO of Superhuman. Rahul is also the founder of beloved Gmail plugin Rapportive. Shortly after its founding, the company was acquired by LinkedIn where Rahul ran email integrations. During those years, he developed an intimate perspective of the email space – and its many problems. Enter Superhuman, Rahul's current company, built to be the fastest email experience ever made. Together they discuss how to measure product market fit, the problem with email today and much more. Be sure to tune in to hear from Maggie and Rahul.
Jill Konrath is a world-renowned speaker, trainer, consultant and author of "SNAP Selling" and "Selling To Big Companies." She says "Professional Sales Training is What Separates The Big Fish From The Little Fish In Business Success." Today's buyers are so savvy about what's out there and know they have many options and go online to find the answers they need. By the time they get to a sales person they are well-educated and may have an opinion about what they need. Sellers are still stuck in the mode of thinking they must sell and convince and that they are best but the prospect is looking to have a conversation with an intelligent person that can help them. Salespeople must educate themselves about their prospects and get in alignment with them. Drop the sales mentality and seek to serve and help them achieve the goals they are trying to reach. “Take off the stupid sales hat!” Product knowledge without sales skills is worthless. People are overwhelmed and don't want to make a change. If people are meeting with you there is a high likelihood they'll Google you. What will they see? Do you have a “job-hunter” resume on LinkedIn? It may be impressive to a VP of Sales but not to most clients. LinkedIn is a place for anyone to establish a professional appearance and show that you are a real human being to your prospect. This immediately set you apart from every Tom, Dick, and Harry out there. Rapportive ( https://rapportive.com/ ) is a great tool for looking up people online through your browser. LinkedIn is a great tool to help you find information on prospects. Jill uses a saved search for VPs of Sales in technology companies within 50 miles of Minneapolis. (Learn more about Saved Searches.) It also alerts her when there are changes at companies, which tells her when to contact them with new ideas. Don't try to connect with a hot lead at first. See if you have a contact that is connected with them and maybe even call that friend to help you connect with the hot lead. Jill has an eBook, “ Cracking The LinkedIn Sales Code ( http://www.jillkonrath.com/linkedin-sales-code/ ).” Fascinating survey on the difference between top sellers and everyone else. They: * Have really good profiles. * They research far more and far deeper. * They find multiple connections within an account. * Many are active in groups and active in groups that their targeted customers belong to. (There are groups for just about anything.) Join groups but never, ever pitch! Comment. Post interesting information. Be seen as a giver, a helper, as opposed to a taker or shark. (Check out “ Sales Wisdom From The Wild ( http://www.jillkonrath.com/sales-wisdom/ ).”) “ The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation ( http://amzn.to/179ONin ).” Turn yourself into a resourceful person, not just a salesperson. Be a consultant leading with ideas and insight that's valuable. Cold calling still works if you do your homework. People are too busy to listen to someone that hasn't been willing to invest time learning about them prior to meeting. They are very discriminating. Cold Calling will work if you've paid your dues and done your research and crafted a message that speaks directly to the person. But it's not cold then because you've figured out what's important and how to talk to that person as an equal. It's stupid to go to straight to the top of a big company unless you're selling an enterprise solution. You need some ground-changing products or services with insight from the middle to go to the top. But how many of us sell game-changing ideas. Having a script is important and read it out loud a gazillion times but don't memorize it. Make it your own and personalized so it sounds like you're just talking. Most script writing is disgusting. They lead with themselves and their companies and are just boring. Most people have lousy scripts. In the first sentence, you need to sound like a credible resource and the second sentence has to pique curiosity then suggest a logical next step. Knowing how a product is used is more important than knowing all about the product. That helps you ask great questions. Most people haven't had sales training. They've only had product training. The game has changed and so have the customers and their expectations so it's okay to bring in outside help. Your customers are sitting with their fingers on the Delete button. The same with the phone. To set better appointments, have a better premise for setting a meeting in the first place. Just showing up to talk about your stuff makes you easy to blow off. You need to be relevant and high priority. Maybe offer to set a short initial meeting over the phone. People are hesitant to give up an hour or half an hour of their time to a stranger. So start small. So make sure your time is done well. Treat receptionists and executive assistants the same way you treat the decision maker. Focus on business issues. Leave a voicemail and a good message that follows the same pattern if you got them on the phone. Establish credibility and pique curiosity and suggest a time to get together and reference that you're going to send an email. Be creative with leaving a series of emails if the prospect is a big enough opportunity. Don't cram all of your information into one voicemail. If you have three bullet points leave three messages. I don't use war analogies in sales but if you see an opportunity you need to plan on 8-10-12 touches. People are so busy they may just arbitrarily delete even a wonderful message. Send links to articles, a link to a PDF…just keep going until the campaign has run out. And call on multiple people. Learn more about Jill Konrath and her services at her website, JillKonrath.com ( http://www.jillkonrath.com/ ). Show some love for this episode. Give me a shout out on Twitter. ( https://twitter.com/saleswhisperer ) Grow your sales with this book ( https://info.thesaleswhisperer.com/way-book ). Thank you for checking out this session of The Sales Podcast with host, Wes Schaeffer, The Sales Whisperer®. Please leave a quick rating and review of the podcast on iTunes ( https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/sales-whisperer-sales-marketing/id655310847?mt=2 ) by clicking on the link below! It would be extremely helpful for the show! Get the professional help you need to grow your sales via these resources: * Sell More This Month ( https://www.thesaleswhisperer.com/30-day-sales-growth ) * Hire Better Salespeople ( https://talentgenius.simplybook.me/v2/ ) * Hire The Best Keynote Speaker ( https://www.wesschaeffer.com/ ) * Find Your Best CRM ( https://info.thesaleswhisperer.com/best-crm-quiz ) * Join the Free Facebook Group ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/theimplementors/ ) Check out episodes 11 to 20 of The Sales Podcast here ( https://www.thesaleswhisperer.com/blog/the-sales-podcast-episodes-11-20 ). Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-sales-podcast/exclusive-content Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy