Hi everyone, my name is Patrick Gill and for today's episode we
covered Tech startups. Specifically those that operate
in the software as a service space selling to other
businesses. We go over when to stop building
your product and actually start selling the importance of sales
and marketing there. How to scale your organization
and even get funding and much more.
Joining me today, is Denise Edwards.
Who's the founder and CEO of sauce?
Launched Ohio, where she helps organizations with specifically
that and much more. I'll put all her social In the
description below. Check her out.
And with that being said, enjoy the episode.
Enjoy my personal story, I wasn't always like this.
I was always the kid that didn't want to do presentations and
they want to do anything. So with the medium that a
podcast is, I got better at kind of externalizing, my internal
thoughts and communicating in that way.
But for you, I think I mean you have it, I don't know what it is
but you definitely have it. Have you kind of honed and
practiced it on purpose? Or was that always coming there?
Oh, that was never in there. Tell you Patrick like I am like
I was like you I'm telling you honestly like if I would ask my
parents. Yes, the shy girl, I wouldn't
even talk to anybody. I think up to like 78 years old,
I was super shy. Wouldn't say anything.
Yeah. And I remember at school, like
people were very articulate and stuff and I was just kind of
like a shy girl, like analyzing a lot of stuff.
Yeah, and they think honestly, that changed when I think turned
14, then it became a little bit more social, but I was never the
person like really wanting to do presentations but this actually,
Actually developed, like, later during my like master's degree
when I was studying and we obviously had to do
presentations, like my Master's was a business in
entrepreneurship. Yeah.
And we had to do presentations like business plans and things
like that and they never wanted to do any presentations, but I
knew that in the future and it sounds super cliche in the
future. I did want to have like my own
company, right? So if I would be shy like what
do I need to work on? It's a really hone that skill in
communication. Effective communication
storytelling. So at the end when I started
doing that I started kind of like going kind of more to kind
of presentation skills classes and they think because of my
sales job because I started during my Master's Degree
working in sales part time I had to be more kind of like I like
extroverted because I'm like more of an introvert.
Yeah. But because of being in sales,
Do you know, you have to, you know, stop the clients, explain
things. And that's where it actually
started to be honest. So, I think I was 23 24 where I,
when I really started like, honing in on, going more into
kind of like, you know, presenting myself and and
reading a lot of books. I love reading books.
Yeah, but also practicing it in real life.
Well, obviously, in my, in my sales career, obviously because
you need to, you know, be extroverted at least, You don't
have to be extrovert to the sense like that.
You like our extra. Yeah, like extra extra.
I think this is based on supposedly scientific knowledge
that the the balance between introverted and extroverted
those types of sales, people are kind of like the ones that
really like move the needle forward, okay?
If you're to extrovert or to introverted, that doesn't really
work supposedly and they think I'm in the middle.
Let's call it like that sweet. The sweet sweet spot.
Well, that's what I consider, maybe it's not like that, right?
Maybe I'm biased. So so yeah, it's it's
interesting. So for me was like really a
development within my sales career but also developing
myself reading a lot of books doing like courses and things
like that. For me, that's super important
because I definitely want to always be on my game a game if
you as they call it. So yeah.
It's been just a journey judge yourself, discovering
self-development. It's practice as we were talking
about. Yeah.
And yeah just you know, moving for and always trying to do the
best that you can. I love that.
Yeah, one thing that stood out to me is you said you did a
master's in intrapreneurship or cousins and Entrepreneurship.
Yeah. And you already very distinctly
said, I envisioned myself having my own company in a way.
Yeah, I did a minor in entrepreneurship.
I also said I'm going to have my own company but I haven't made
that switch yet. I don't know when the right time
is to switch. I don't think there's going to
be a right time to switch but I still like to Envision that.
At some point, I will have my own company in that way, but you
exactly, as me said, I'm going to have my own company and you
do actually have your own company but you started out in
sales. Yeah.
Walk me through kind of the way that to the point where you
actually said okay, I'm going to start my own company now yeah
that's a good good question as well.
So I started in sales like I said during my master's degree
but that was just part time. Yeah, doing that.
And then I went into the recruitment field which is also
sales obviously because you have You need to recruit people,
obviously for the jobs that you have and then you need to sell
those jobs to them. Exactly?
Right. So started in recruitment, then
went into Consulting sales and then from Consulting sales, I
wanted to technology sales. So I work for companies like
Oracle, I work for companies like LinkedIn and different
parts of the world as well. So, I used to, for example, live
in Equatorial Guinea, which is in Africa, close to Cameroon,
which was super cool, super cool.
Very very, very cool experience. I used to work for LinkedIn
Ireland. I studied in Spain as well.
So, there's a little bit of a international type of thing.
I'm from Curacao, as well, very born and raised, proud,
Caribbean girl. Awesome.
So yeah, it's, it's been a journey from going from.
Let's say recruitment sales to Consulting skills to technology
sales, which is also consider Consulting sales in the sense.
And then from there, I saw kind of like where my forte is or
let's say where I like to basically push myself into with
regards to having my own company because I didn't know
beforehand, but I started trying certain things like I did
courses and then I try to Yeah, I guess start a company like a
pizza I think before doing my Master's Degree as well.
Okay, but that didn't like super go super well because like
obviously if you start a company with three other people, then
everybody has like their own type of like experiences and
opinions. So it's obviously was like
better to just do it on your own but that's just my personal
opinion. Yeah so I actually started in
2018 but this was during my work.
At Oracle, okay? And I started doing consulting
for smaller startups. So obviously, work Elizabeth
technology company and they saw that there were like, a lot of
startups, specifically, in the B2B space that really wanted to
have, like, some Consulting around.
Okay. How do you do sales and
marketing and things like that business development?
And that was something that I was good at.
So we started then and then that transitioned into, like what we
have today, which is kind of soft launch Yeah, I'm doing the
marketing and sales but now we're doing also the fundraising
for startups the transition from going to full time.
Let's say full-time work into like my own company.
Yeah it just it just transpired that way because the last
company that I worked for was a small start-up.
Okay. And I saw that a lot of the
things that I was doing there that I could basically do on my
own as well. So in 2020, I actually went full
time into into the company. Into obviously my own company.
It just transpired, just naturally, to be honest.
Like I also in the, in the beginning, when I used to work
at Oracle, I was also thinking, like, hmmm should I stop now?
Okay, should I just, you know, because it was kind of a side
hustle, it was side of the side, hustle.
Exactly. In 2020 was like the full to the
first full-time like year. Yeah, starting the first
full-time year so it just transpired that way.
To be honest. Like I just felt and maybe it's
kind of like an intuitive thing. Maybe some people don't believe
in intuition but for me it was really important because I just
felt like this is the time to really start and at that was
during covid. Imagine that right?
Like I had I was at this networking event and there was
this lady and she was asking me like Hey listen like oh you have
your own company? Yeah and then I explained to
her. Yeah.
I started like full-time in 2020 and she was like that was one
covid hit. Yeah.
Wow. That's like, you know, it's like
super awesome that you started that because a lot of People
don't want to start obviously during like a pen name.
The pandemic, or some type of economical?
Yeah, like an extra hurdle, lots of risk in security.
Exactly. Exactly.
But for some reason I just, you know, it just transpired that
way and I just went into it, obviously like you have their
ups and downs and as in any company.
But if you have, and this is what I believe in and they think
we spoke about that when you have a sales background and, you
know how the cell I think that's one of the most important
things. When you have your own business
because you have to sell yourself, you have to sell your
services or products, whatever you have.
Yeah. And if you have that background
and you've done that for, you know, other companies, then you
can certainly do it for your own company.
So I think that's one of the things that I guess, help me.
Yeah, in doing that. And yeah, it's been super
interesting to tell you that leaves.
It's very interesting. I've learned a lot and learned a
lot about myself. I can tell you that the on
Entrepreneurship World, it expands you as a human being as
in like you're definitely going to learn a lot more about
yourself. A lot of more about like maybe
your fears or insecurities that you need to work on if you
really want to move the needle forward.
Yeah, so yeah. It's just self-development route
if that makes any sense. Well, that makes a lot of sense.
I mean I like that it's gradual, right?
It started out as kind of a side thing.
Yeah. And probably you gave it more
and more attention as the years moved.
Word. Correct, to a point where you
were like, okay, I want to do this full-time, right?
I want to be in this 100% and give it the attention, that it
deserves exactly was in my mind. And also, back in the day when I
said, I, when I was still at University and I wanted my own
company, I thought it had to be like, a bam, and then you have
it or you just going to drop everything you can start but
that's not realistic, right? That's how it's How it becomes
very unsure of how your future is going to look like.
And if you're actually going to make, it doesn't have to be All
or Nothing. Exactly.
Can I have that kind of gradual approach in there?
And see if this is for you because I don't think it's for
everyone as well. It's not be honest.
Like even my partner was saying like now I see like what's the
effort you have to put in the time that you have to put in and
it's not definitely not for everybody.
I'm not saying that to scare people away or something that
you do need to have kind of like that mentality as in like, okay
even if there's like resistance, we're still going to find a
solution. We're still going to go move
forward and yeah, you definitely.
Do have to have that kind of Hardcore mentality in the sense.
Yeah, but yeah it's it's if you really want it then you're going
to find a way to do it. That's I guess what I wanted to,
you know, convey. Yeah, I like that a lot.
I mean, you mentioned you mentioned be to be specifically
business, the business and you also meant software as a service
as kind of a domain that you operate in.
Yeah. Why those two specifically like
words, they're just a hole in the market with regards to the
knowledge that you could fill. Yes.
And yes. And no.
So Looking at my background looking at like, what I sold,
was more B2B. Yeah, so that's where I saw
like, okay. Well, that's kind of like where
my Niche is innocence and SAS because obviously I was working
for technology companies. Right, so I understand this as
world and it's for me, it's fascinating because it's just a
continuation of new innovation consistently, right, and to link
it to, my Master's Degree. My Master's Degree was called
And Innovation. So it's actually linked.
Pretty cool. Yeah.
Now that I'm actually thinking about it.
So for me SAS, was it because okay, technology for me to Super
interesting, it's always developing, we're using software
as a service all the time everywhere.
I mean everywhere, so like in our company we're also using a
lot of sass Solutions, right? So I know how.
I know just the niche. Yeah, and I'm B2B was for me,
interesting, because, From the perspective of okay, I have the
experience in there, but it's also in front of prospective as
in it. In the B2B space.
There's a lot less cherne. Okay.
Regards to customers. And if you do B to C, now we do
have for example clients that, you know, are a b2c company.
We were mainly focused on B2B but we're seeing like an influx
of b2c companies also coming. Yeah, the B2B space is a little
I would say, a little bit more stable in the sense that you
don't have a lot of churn because most B2B companies have
longer term contracts and b2c companies.
Yeah. And the ticket price.
For those services or products or higher.
So if you look at for example the ticket price for b2c
companies could be like 500 500 dollars.
Let's say on the average revenue per unit, let's say, okay.
And if you look at a B2B company, it could be thousand a
thousand dollars. Yeah.
If you look at the churn rate on those like, for B2B, it's
between I think and it depends on obviously the niche and
things like that, but for B2B would be between let's say 22.
28 percent and then B to C would be a little bit higher, but
that's because the contract values are lower for b2c most of
the times and they're shorter so you can actually cancel each
month. While would be to be, you do
have like a yearly contract consistently.
So for me, looking at kind of like a pricing perspective and
more stability, I thought. Okay.
B2B is just better for me. Interesting.
So so to me, that's kind of like more stability.
Girl, let's see, contract value sizes longer lifetime customer
value sizes are not size of a lifetime value.
And those types of aspects, like really resonated with me.
So, yeah, that makes a little sense.
I guess, if I look at it from the point of view, of a
technical founder or technical co-founder.
Yeah, let's take technical founder because I don't think if
you're a technical founder, like you have all the skills or you
might have all the skills, but you really have to hold them
right when it comes to sales and marketing.
Yeah, you could probably build a really good product, but if I
look at myself, I would never know.
Okay, now is the moment to sell or now is the moment to Market
or now I can actually get customers.
I mean from experience, I know soon as possible, right?
When is as soon as possible, how stable does it need to be?
And when do I bring in a co-founder right, that can feel
kind of the gaps that I have as a technical founder when it
comes to sales and marketing and that can advise or even pull the
car in some certain aspects. Yeah.
How do people find each other when it To filling the Gap.
That's a good question. So I've spoken with a lot of
Founders and most of the founders they find.
Let's say they're co-founder through networking.
Yeah. And sometimes they go through
accelerator programs to find co-founders as well or their
co-founders as well. Yeah.
So that's also like, you know, kind of a route to do that.
Sometimes they go actually, on, even on LinkedIn.
And then they have like this job profile searching for, let's
say, they need to have a co-founder for this in this
company. So there's like different ways
and how they how they try to find it but mostly network
network, most of the times or accelerator programs.
If there's some accelerated programs, even in the
Netherlands here, that kind of like communicate that they want
you to find like a co-founder, obviously, obviously reasons is
if you want to go And fundraise, you know, investors want to have
at least two people in their companies are running the
companies because it's like, yeah, it's like, you know, the
old lower-risk, right? So if you have one person and
that person falls away. Yeah.
It's going to be a little bit tricky and I believe your
question was also like on went to find kind of like the
co-founder. Yeah.
That's that's a balancing act to be honest.
I think, from from my experience a co-founder is when You feel
like okay you can't move forward.
So let's say you're good in the technical part, right?
You have maybe an MVP already built out but now how do you go
to market, right? How do you start selling it may
be in that sense. You're like, okay, listen like
I'm not the person that can sell.
I need to find somebody that can help me sell that way.
You can find. That's a your co-founder that's
maybe more has more of a sales background and that could be
like if you can't move forward that's always my take.
If you can't move forward currently with the resources
that you have, try to find the resources for yourself.
So, let's say again, your technical co-founder, you've
built like the MVP. Yeah.
But you don't know really how the salad or if you've tried to
sell it, it didn't go really well.
If you have the capabilities and sources to find a co-founder
then I would definitely say at that point, definitely find a
co-founder that can sell example in this case for you,
interesting, but I get it from the point of view of my Whole
network, right? Because then I know people.
I know people that I can trust. Yeah, we're going through an
accelerator program and finding someone that I don't actually
know requires a lot of trust, right?
I mean, wonder who said we started the company with three
people and three people have three different visions and it
can Clash and you're doing it a kind of on your own with regards
to your own operation. Yeah.
Which makes sense because if you want to pull the car in a
certain direction, you want to make sure it's that direction,
right? You have that Vision as a
Founder. If your co-founder, you have to
share that Vision with other people.
Exactly. How do people still kind of
managed to work as a team when they bring in someone else or a
co-founder and build up that trust in that way to make it
actually, Until the End bringing in a team?
Yeah, that's obviously, if you're like a little bit
further, along the line with regards to you've already sold,
you know, a few. Yeah, our to a few customers
bringing in the team. It's You need to understand
where the skills are that you need help with, right?
So let's say, let's go with that example.
Like you mentioned you have your the technical co-founder.
You found your co-founder, right?
Yeah. For maybe the sales and
marketing for example or they have skills that you don't
possess on the other way around. Okay.
Now next up let's sell the product right?
Okay. How do we sell it?
Are we going to, you know do first kind of like a networking
thing trying to if it's in the B2B.
A space. Most of the times what happens
is a lot of the founders have the same background as what
where they're like, let's say the technology that they've
developed developed in. Yeah, so then they go into their
Network and try to sell that product or solution into their
Network, to first, get there, like first customer.
So B2B space. You can have.
For example, if the solution would cost on a yearly basis,
maybe like 10K. Yeah, you just have to have a
few customers to reach that. You know, arrrr done, 100 KR,
etc, etc. So in that space, once you have
a few customers on board then if you have if you see that you
have a structured way of getting new customers as in the sales
process. Yeah.
And you see that you can't handle, let's say the leads that
are coming in I think at that moment in time or at least maybe
a little bit before that's where I believe.
It's best to start hiring hiring a And depending on where you are
in the process, most of the time startups higher for like a
product manager, just to understand like more of the
product and build it a little bit more out.
And then once that is done, then there's also the sales part.
So sometimes you would have maybe the VP of sales, depending
on which stage you are at, right?
So most of the startups that we work with are early stage, B2B,
right? And when you want to build out a
team, you still needs to go through those steps of The okay.
We have an MVP cool. We are we selling them.
Are we selling the MVP. Cool.
Are we getting feedback to basically understand how can we
improve on it, the early adopters, right?
And then the next step is, okay, if we're selling it and we're
seeing that there is an increase in sales consistently.
Let's try to hire maybe a VP of sales or sales team depending on
how far you are in the process. And that's where obviously the
fundraising side comes in as well because most of the
startups when they have an MVP, they have some Revenue.
Do they want to raise for at least proceed seed rounds?
They want to raise to obviously or improve on the development
but also to hire marketing and sales to really start growing if
that makes any sense. So some of those terms are kind
of unclear to me what is proceed and cdryden.
Yeah. So presidency around that's
basically a seed round. If that makes any sense and
that's most of the time and investment.
Okay, for let's say early stage, Companies to, or build further
their MVP or to kind of higher marketing and sales.
So it's kind of like a round to get you to the next step.
So, most of the times early stage startup companies, they
have an MVP, they have kind of like a product that they've
already developed. Yeah.
But now they need some money to, you know, further kind of like
sell the product. Yeah.
And in that stage, they need resources human capital, right?
People that are going to sell that.
For them, and that's where they can, you know, build or get
proceed funding or seed funding, whatever you want to call it
from investors. Mostly it's family and friends,
angels, and things like that. When it comes to, let's say,
Venture capitalists, that's probably, once you get to a
series a round be around etcetera, that's where it starts
with what the investment round. Yeah.
And series. A and B, what are those
specifically? Also, when it comes to
fundraising. Yeah, so the rounds are Sickly
to show what the progress is within your startup.
Yeah, you start with a precede round.
Maybe family and friends, you know, giving you money basically
to further invest in further developing your in your product
and then you have a seed round, which is maybe to kind of
further kind of develop the product get.
Maybe some people on board developers, sales people, Etc.
And then you have a series a round.
That's basically once you really want to skill with sales and
marketing really want to get to Traction which our product and
solution in this case and that's kind of like it's just a round
but it's basically the amount of money that's kind of like the
difference within the city to proceed seed and series a
although sometimes in the precede, it could be between 500
K and maybe 1.5 million 2 million series.
A could be from 1 to 5 million, for example.
So it's kind of like a division in the amount of money.
Yeah. Although that's not The hardcore
definition, but you could see it in that way, like how, which
round are you in to be invested in?
If so, if that makes any sense proceed, most of the time, more
development for the product seed, development and hiring a
few people to kind of like, improve on the product and get
like your first, let's say, customers and then series a is
really to kind of skill. So the marketing if that makes
any sense just to keep it a little bit simple.
Yeah. They're they're different
brackets. And I'm assuming that if you
just started you have an MVP. You're not looking to have 5
million to blow it up, right? You're going to do that
gradually as well? Exactly.
Although some some some Founders
do sure you exceptions and I got like 5 million from, you know,
from the start. But no, it's mostly like a
smaller smaller. That makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, I have two things but let's let's start with the
initial product still because yeah, from the point of view of
a technical co-founder, I've seen a lot of startups or at
least within my network. They just keep building this
product, right? Keep building this product,
especially in the B2B Market because they think it needs to
be established before business can actually adopt it.
Yeah. And they just keep building in
the never actually start selling or marketing, what they have.
Yeah. Have you seen that as well?
And kind of your inner circles. Yeah, 100%.
Like I would say like around 80 to 90 percent of the farmers
that we speak with. They always say like, hey, you
know, we've developed a product, it's amazing.
It's going to take over the world, we're perfecting it and
then one that's perfect. Then we And to go to market,
right? I hate to burst of course, but
just to be very like Frank and honest to them, it's like this.
And you do have a good product if it's a good product, of
course. Yeah.
You need to start selling it as soon as possible.
It doesn't need to be perfect, right?
It doesn't need to be perfect. Like, for example, Steve Fox
Mulder's, he's the founder of expanding its like a LinkedIn
automation tool and he mentioned in his Keynote that they started
with just a few. Let's say customers like early
adopters but the solution was very buggy.
That's what he said. The solution was very buggy.
Okay? Had a lot of bugs but the thing
that that made them different from.
Let's say all these other LinkedIn automation tools is
that they focused on safety because if you're using LinkedIn
automation tools you can get banned, right?
Yeah. And that's what a lot of people
don't want because some people want to Obviously connect with
other people on LinkedIn and then sell their solution, right?
So it's basically a lead generation tool so he understood
that listen it's not perfect. We're going to focus on the
safety. That's kind of like a good
marketing you know, thing to do and he got early adopters and
those early adopters gave him feedback giving feedback and
they consistently improved improved improved and then they
bootstrap their whole company. To, I don't know how much, how
much, how many millions it was within like, a few years.
Yeah. So the thing is, when you have a
solution and it's, you know, it's not perfect.
Just go to market as quick as you can get, let's say your
early adopters, get feedback improve consistently on it, make
sure that you know, the adoption of your solution to let's say
your users is also very easy because if those users don't
adopt it, then obviously you're going Going to have a lot of
churn and obviously, if you have a lot of churn, you know what,
the next steps are going to be. So if you have an MVP go to
market, as quick as possible, test it out, get user feedback,
get it sold, and then improve consistently from there.
Yeah. Why what do you think that is?
Because if I'm looking at a physical product, right?
If I'm, I found make a puzzle, and the puzzle doesn't actually
work. It has bugs.
Yeah. Then people going to be, like,
never buy this product never again.
Yeah. Because it's all for you can
kind of update on the Fly. The thing.
That's very unique in this market.
Specifically when it comes to software that you can go to
market with kind of bugs in there and that you can fix them
as soon as soon as you have the feedback, I guess.
Yeah, I do think so. To be honest because it's If you
get feedback as soon as possible, you can fix it in.
Let's say maybe an hour, right and then you can again go to
that. Same customer say like, Hey
listen, we fixed the bug. This is how it's, you know, you
can use it now. What do you think about it?
So yeah, I do think it's Unique to to the SAS World specifically
and I think it's pretty cool as well because at the end of the
day, if you're like, if you're a founder and you're honest about
like your your tool. Yeah.
And you do know that there's some bugs.
And, and people know this, when it's a new tool, there's always
going to be some bugs. But if you have a good story
around like, who you are, what you're trying to achieve, right?
What's your mission? What's your vision?
People are going to be like, listen.
This is pretty cool. Like, I would like to buy your
product understood as understanding that this buggy so
probably you're going to have a lower price then if it's like
right Paris, ma'am. Exactly.
You have to be a reasonable person, I think I think em and
then getting feedback from them and then you're going to Create
a bond with your customers as well, right?
Because if you, if you increase or not increase, if you
consistently improve on your tools and your giving feedback
and that feedback has been implemented and you're letting
your customers use it again. And then they're seeing
consistent, let's say growth and consistent Improvement.
They're going to feel like, Hey, listen, this is pretty cool.
Like, I have a bond with let's say I have a bond with you
Patrick because you have a tool and you're consistently
improving on it. And you're listening to us as
consumers or customers, and we're seeing that it's
consistently growing. So definitely we want to be part
of your family. If that makes any sense, you
know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.
People feel heard, right? And yeah, I like that.
It's trending towards, okay. We don't, we're not just looking
at products and that's it. We also look at the people
behind it. The story behind it is, openness
and transparency, and we want to feel heard as consumers, right?
Exactly matter. If it's B2B, or b2c, what I'm
thinking is from a B2B point of view.
Do people adopt software, even though it's buggy as well or do
they wait until it's a bit more established because if I have a
business, and it's hypothetically, hopefully in the
future, but I would hopefully, only from my point of view, it
makes sense to adopt software when it's a bit establish.
When other companies are using it, when I know it works because
other people see that it works. Yeah.
But to get actually to a phase where people are using it and
seeing that others are using it and seeing that it works.
You have to be able to get your first customers.
Yeah. What's the biggest hurdle in
kind of In your first customers, when you have software, that's
an MVP. But that still you acknowledge
that has some bugs. Yeah, to be honest, like with
the B2B side it is, I would say if you're at like 70 percent or
70 to 80% of your tool or solution, being like perfect,
that's that's fine. Yeah, I wouldn't personally go.
And that's also what I'm seeing with the fountains I personally
wouldn't go with like, a 40 50 percent.
Let's say, oh, it's on. Almost kind of like, you know,
perfect, 50% I wouldn't do that when you're like 70, 80 % of
the, to, obviously there's 20% that could be, you know, yeah, a
little bit buggy. That's where I would go to
market with that. Okay?
That, but that's my personal opinion, seeing looking at,
like, say the founders that we've worked with and then also
looking at, you know, people in the industry.
Yeah. And that 50, you could do that
in the be to see Market more easily.
Would you say then? I do think so because the thing
is, it Little bit tricky, right? It's so so if you are in a be to
see Market, if you're authentic you have a good story, you have
a mission and vision that people are, you know, resonating with.
Hmm, I think if you have a tool that's like 50 percent, let's
say perfect, but there's still some bugs, I stay.
I think you can still, you know? Hmm, I think you can still move
forward because I Leave that if you're kind of like in that lot
a family kind of like group, you're still going to have
people saying like okay no worries, I'm gonna help you.
Sorry. No worries.
I had something like really. I still I'm still gonna help you
reach the goals that you have in mind.
Yeah. And then it's fine at least as
long as you give me feedback, help you move forward.
That's the thing when I do think that would be to see it's a
little bit different because it's again, it's still
consumers. You're not maybe dealing with
like companies because obviously companies are in the different
kind of level. But yeah you want to just create
That experience of like okay listen you're still some bugs
but give us feedback, we're going to improve on this, we're
going to, you know, make sure that you have this as well in
place a good customer, you know, Service as well.
So I think it's just a little bit different in that sense.
Yeah, interesting, yeah, I'm assuming that if you fail to
kind of incorporate the feedback and take care of your users and
their needs once you have a product, right?
If you just ignore the feedback side and are like I'm working on
this last 30% instead. Yeah then people are going to be
like okay this guy doesn't listen to us at this girl
doesn't Listen to us like they're just gonna lose you or
you're going to lose them. Basically exactly.
Is that one of the common pitfalls that you see when
business is actually don't make it as well.
It's that because obviously the churn is, you know, higher.
It's also, it's also understanding if your solution
has product Market fit, right? So product Market fit, meaning
do your consumers or let's say customers or clients really want
to buy this solution. Is it really like a pain point
in the market? Yeah, because a lot of technical
Founders, what they do is they develop a solution that they
think is, you know, useful in the market.
Yeah. Again, falling in love with your
own idea, right? Which is fine, but you also need
to have external feedback. Yeah.
Meaning. Okay.
You have built a solution. Is this really a need in the
market and then getting, let's say customer feedback and And if
there is customer feedback and there are there's a match
between your solution and what people want and people are
willing to pay for it. That's where you got
product-market fit in the sense of it needs to be consistent.
Flow of people really wanting to pay for your, for your solution,
right? Yeah.
So product Market fit if there's no product Market fit, that's
one of the things where, you know, a company can basically go
down. Yeah.
Churn is also one of the things. So, obviously, if let's say
you're, you don't have a good solution and you're not
consistently, you know, listen are listening to the feedback,
implementing it may be your customer service, or at least
like people that are helping you to get customer feedback, maybe
they're very slow. Or, you know, you're really not
like really quick on, on the money or quick on the ball.
Yeah, that's where. Also, you could lose a lot of
customers and then you've invested so much money in your
solution. Ocean right.
Yeah, without really getting something out of it, if that
makes any sense. So those are the primary two
things that I do feel that we're yeah, approximately like 80 90
percent of startups fail and that's what they say in the
first five years. Right?
So it's it's challenging. Yeah, that's a harsh one,
especially like, if I look at a I'm a guy that create software I
falling in love with your own ideas or your own products.
I guess it can be a harsh one. Yeah.
Have you ever had to have that conversation?
Like I'm a Seen your the objective party in this part,
you can just be like, listen consumers don't want this or
businesses. Don't actually see this problem
that you've solved, which means they're not going to adopt your
product, right? Which means you either need to
Pivot, or you need to, at least let go of this.
Exactly, exactly. Yeah, I've had those
conversations. The thing is with Founders, it's
you most of the times have to show them, right?
So I can have, I'm not going to put like my biased opinion in
that I first Look at what the data is saying.
So if we have a solution, if a Founder comes to me and asked
me, hey Denise, we want to market the solution, I can have
like my biased opinion, which I'm not obviously going to to
tell ya. Not at that moment, because I
first want to see how the market is, you know, adopting to the
solution, right? Yeah.
If we're seeing and depending on how you Market the solution as
well, if we're seeing that over the, over the course of a few
months, we're not really getting some good traction done.
I need to go back to the data and see like, okay listen.
How many people have like signed up depending on if it's a B2B or
b2c, how many clients have signed up, how are they using
it? How long are they using it?
Mostly in the B2B Market? What we're seeing is, it's
pretty, pretty straightforward. Like they have a year contract
yearly contract, its dissolution.
Most of the time the solution is already basically built and they
do see kind of like that. There is a gap in the market.
But when it comes to be to see, that's always kind, Of like a
little bit of a tricky, tricky one.
Yeah. So what we're trying to do then
is basically show the founders like the data, right?
Because we can say like, Hey, listen, Patrick, I don't think
like, your your solution is going to work in the market.
Yeah, obviously, that's one opinion.
It's not opinion, right? And it's, and it's not something
that they want to hear, right? So, how do we basically show
what data if it's working or not?
We go and look at, okay? You've done these campaigns, for
example. How has it been going?
How many people have you know, subscribed where how many people
are many customers? Have you gotten within this
period of time? And that's where you can show.
Like listen, maybe we need to or pivot to, you know, show the
marketing campaigns in a different way.
As in like show the angle of what your solution can do in a
different way. Yeah maybe we need to look at
what the who the customer profile is.
Maybe we need to change that. At.
So there's many different factors in there but at the end
of the day if you've tested it out let's say for I'm giving an
example for a year or whatsoever.
Yeah. And you're seeing you're still
seeing that. There's not real traction.
That's where, you know, you can show that.
Hey listen. We've done all of these things.
It's not really working out. Yeah, maybe it could be the
solution, maybe it's kind of something that's a nice to have
instead of a must-have. So for example, when I used to
work at Oracle Of obviously Oracle has different types of
solutions, right? So one of the solutions, I'm not
going to name any names but one of the solutions was a nice to
have and the other solution was a must have, right?
The must have solution, always sold a lot more than the nice to
have solution, right? Because it's a problem in the
market, it's you have a solution.
This is the problem, this is how you can solve it.
Yes, the nice to have solution is It's optional, so it's
difficult. It's more difficult to sell,
right? So that's the same thing with
product Market, fit. Find that with a solution that
you develop understanding. Is there like a real need?
Is there like a real problem? And are you the one that can
solve it? Yeah.
Interesting. Because there's a lot that goes
into there and I kind of underestimated initially because
if you talk about a product and you want to be objective about
this product, right the way you sell it to people, let's say the
product is the gift, right? Your gift, wrapping and
everything. Around is your marketing,
basically, and then who you giving it to are, your consumers
are your clients? Yeah, so you can either pivot
on. Okay.
Who are we actually targeting, right?
Who are we giving this gift to exact and then we can look at
the gift wrapping and everything around it, right?
Everything the picture needs to be picture-perfect exact, and
once you've solidified that then, if you have the right
person, they unwrapped this gift, and it's still not what
they want. Yeah.
Then we have to, we have to Pivot basically because then the
essence of what you're selling is not right.
Or it's not a problem or it's not a problem yet that could
also be the case. Yeah, but at least it's clear
then that you have to, you have a problem on your own hands and
yeah, I'd have to Pivot. Yeah.
Or you can very stubbornly say, no, no, we're going to keep
doing this but usually that's when it then Burns to the ground
on the so yeah. Yeah.
And again, like I can understand like if you're a Founder, you're
super passionate about the solution.
You have to be, you have to be. Well, that's, that's like you're
selling point if that makes any sense.
But I also think it's important to be kind of I would say
balanced in a sense to not be super in love with your.
Let's say own baby in. Let me say, all right, we're on
baby, right? And but just also understand
that maybe you do need, you know, external feedback to
really see if this is really something that can work.
Yeah. Right.
Someone with no skin in the game, with no skin in the game
and which could be in your ICP right and your customer profile
in your like Avatar. Like the person that you're,
you're targeting. If that makes any sense.
Your target audience. So, yeah, I that's what I would
like. Suggest the founders especially
technical. Founders is the in love with
your baby. That's, that's fine.
But also have this balance in understanding that maybe your
baby is not kind of like a must-have in the market.
Yeah, maybe it's a nice to have, but first gets data to really
show if that's You know, if it's a really must have or a nice to
have and if you can really, you know, sell it and things like
that. So yeah, yeah.
That makes a lot of sense. I mean, there's going to be a
lot of sunken cost within that baby, right?
But the fact that you already got this far right?
You already created a product and you figured out you were
solving a problem and it turned out you were not solving the
right problem. Yeah, either you're going to
take your learnings with you and you're going to create a new
babies. I guess I'm sticking with the
same same metaphor there, but it does allow you to grow from
their rights, not a failure necessarily.
Because you can pivot, you can move on, you can do something
else. You can get just as far in if
that is, then a hit then you move on to the scaling part and
see how this thing can grow. Exactly now, exactly what people
do, find the right model product Market fit and they want to
scale their organization, right? If it's are in co-founders.
If it's higher again, team or if it's actually selling in
marketing, their product, as big as they can, blow it up, what
are than the the things that you've seen that make it succeed
and the pitfalls there that make it fill in at the end as well.
Yeah. So once you have a good
solution, people are you know, excited or at least they're
buying the solution, right? Yeah once you're seeing that
let's say you have a small team and you can't handle.
Let's say the leads that are coming into really close them.
I think the next phase is to, you know, scale up with a team.
So most of the times startups done wants to hire sales and
marketing also the time seals because they they Leave that.
Okay, they have leads. They now need to close them.
Now, some startups. They only have the sales part
and they don't really have the marketing part or they hired a
marketing afterwards. I think that the marketing is
very important. Because if you do right
marketing, it's going to be easier for your sales team to
close those deals because you've already kind of warmed the the
leads up. Yeah, you set them up for
Success. Exactly.
And then, and then just the salespeople needs to close them.
Most of the times when you hire salespeople, Need to do the
marketing as well. So you have obviously your be
DRS and then you have your AA. He's like I was in a e for
example, what does that mean eight account executive?
That that basically means like you are the one that closes the
deals the DDR like the business development or rap.
That's the person that you know creates the lead.
So they would do cold calling or cold Outreach on email and
whatsoever basically to set up the meeting and then go through
let's say the first conversation with the with the Prospect.
And if that Prospect is warm and, you know, considering maybe
potentially wanting to have a solution like what you're
selling, then it would come to the next step, which was me, the
AE that would go through, let's say the demos and and the things
like that to close the deals. Now, the demos could be done by
a technical person as well and sometimes you can do the demos
yourself depending on what type of solution you have and what
type of company you're working at.
Yeah, so to answer your question.
So most of the time The skill with a sales team.
Sometimes they would have Marketing in place as well, but
then after the sales team, I think you need to have some type
of marketing done for you, really hire a sales team,
because again, if you do the marketing, well prospects are
more warm to come onto the calls and then you can close them
better. And obviously, you're going to
have like the VP of sales, you're probably going to have a
VP of Lucian engineer. So solution, Engineers, or
depending on how tech tech tech e Your solution is you have
solution Engineers that are going to do the demos.
So the demos are going to be more focused on the technical
aspect. And then, for example, the aesa
sales people would just do the storytelling around like what's,
you know, the solution can do understand how to sell it.
And that's basically how you work together with your
Solutions engineer and you and myself as an AE.
Yeah. So those are like the First,
let's see people that you would hire.
So, VP of sales, VP Mayor's Office Solution, engineering
marketing. I think most of now, more
startups are trying to hire like, more in the marketing
because they're seeing that sales and marketing or working
together. Yeah.
Before like startups would think like oh yeah, but we only need
skills and we don't need marketing.
You just need to have them both and they need to be both working
together. It shouldn't be siloed
exceptionally, and I've seen that a quiet In a lot of
companies that it's quite siloed.
So marketing is doing their things.
So, this is doing their thing instead of like really working
together. Yeah, so yeah, those are kind of
like the first people that I've seen that are hired.
Interesting. Can you can also scale too fast
in a way. Yeah, you can also scale too
fast. Most of the, most of the
company, I wanted to name, certain names, but I'm not, but
I've seen companies that Most of the times they hire a lot of
salespeople in the beginning, obviously, because if they got,
let's say funded VC funded. For example, they've gotten so
many millions. They can obviously higher like
sales teams and things like that.
Sometimes you can scale to fasten a sense of you've hired,
a lot of salespeople. And maybe it, maybe it's not the
scaling too fast. Maybe it's more of like you've
hired a lot of salespeople, but you're seeing that the
progression that you're making with regards to selling the
solution is not up to par with what you predicted.
So then you have like a whole lot of salespeople and that
happens a lot in startups. A lot of startups that they've
hired a lot of salespeople, but the progress, the the projection
of like, you know, getting to the seals Matrix.
Yeah. It's not there.
So then what happens is, you're going to want to lay off.
A lot of salespeople, that's what happened with.
I'm not going to name the name, but it's an online Supermarket.
Okay. So hiring a lot of people in
there because they believe in the, in the vision they have,
you know, they got funded. Now, they can hire so many
people, but then they hired a lot of people.
And then, again, the projections are not there, where they wanted
to be, so then they have the skill down.
Yeah, and that's what a lot of startups to do.
With as well after like their series 8 or series being things
like that. So just think.
Yeah, I like that. You mentioned that the reason
why you should scale up is when you can't handle the load
anymore, right? If you're selling things and
you're seeing, okay, we actually have a lot of customers or a lot
of potential customers, but we only have one person and they
can't do Outreach to this amount of customers.
Then it makes sense to add another person.
Yeah. But adding people just because
you think adding a person is going to add 100 of customers,
that's not how it works, right? That's not how it works in the
real world. If there's not actually actually
a hundred customers or if there's only a multitude of
customers then adding people is not going to speed up the thing.
Exactly. And that's for me, I mean
logically speaking and logically thinking about it.
I if you would hire, then hired just right before you think that
it's going to really kind of blow up, which is difficult to
assess, right? Still a hard thing, still a hard
thing but if you're really seeing that that one salesperson
can't handle it anymore like you mentioned definitely you know
start hiring and it's consistent.
Isn't be hiring. I know that.
Like a lot of Founders want to consistently higher or at least
have people in their Network that they can hire whenever they
need the person in charge, which is fine.
But I don't believe in hiring just to hire.
Because you think you're going to be at a certain, let's say
ARR range, annual recurring Revenue range and you need these
amount of people to you know, get to that Revenue.
There's so many factors that can you know it.
So many factors which is going to be hard for Founder's to
understand to really close deals.
Because first, if you're going to hire a sales person, do they
have the experience? They like, how many years of
experience have they had in closing deals?
Right? Can they what's the, the
learning progression for them? Right?
What's the ramp-up period for them?
Within sales? Specifically B2B?
It's kind of like six months, okay, as an AE to really ramp
up, sometimes it could be shorter.
The shorter, the better because that, that means that you can
basically understand the solution and you can sell it
right. If it's a very technical
solution, maybe it's going to take a little bit longer, they
usually say six to nine months, okay?
But again, in my my experience less than six months, you can
definitely make it worth to really sell.
B2B make sense if it's not too technical.
So there's a lot of aspects when hiring as well, like, what's
the, you know, type of sales person or the here?
You're going to hire. What has their experience be has
their experience bin before Reich.
Have these Souls similar type of Technologies before or have they
sold something different? Yeah.
And how have they sold it? Have they gotten inbound leads
or are they really the one that goes out into, you know, the
field and really gets, you know, New Opportunities?
And there's so many factors to take into account when it comes
to hiring a sales team as well. So yeah, it's a difficult thing,
so difficult and there's a lot of of moving parts.
And it's a lot of hats to wear as well, and of course, like you
don't have to wear all the hats, when you have, you know, people
in the team. But I do think that you need to
take into account that Even the people that you hire, they don't
know everything. Right.
So maybe there's still some gaps there that, you know, you can
maybe help to fill. Exactly.
I like to have right, not in-depth knowledge of a lot of
things, but enough knowledge to challenge people that are
responsible for those things, right?
Whether it's your VP of sales and we're hiring something new
or someone new and they do a lot of sales, but marketing has
already set them up or they actually go out to customers and
get them that way or that can be a big difference.
Yeah and challenging those decisions on weathering hiring.
This person versus that person's the right deal.
I like to be able to be the person that challenges, the
people that are actually responsible for doing so.
Yeah. But you need to have enough
background knowledge, to actually make sense and be able
to challenge you the way as well.
Yeah, but it comes to the when it comes to funding.
So this is gonna be funny because my only funding
knowledge I've gained through Shark Tank.
Yeah. Well people come in and they
pitch and they do whatever. Yeah.
Is that actually how it works in the real world as well?
Like is your pitch to a customer kind of the same how it is too.
The people that you want funding from or how much does it differ?
It's different because when it comes to investors, they want to
see. They want to get their return on
investment back. Yeah, it's so Financial links or
20x after like five to ten years they really want to see if you
for example when it comes to a solution that you're selling and
what type of Market are you selling what's your total
addressable Market your time right in the investor World they
look at Tom samsom to Lord rested bull market serviceable
addressable Market. Stand there and serviceable
attainable market and all of these three aspects need to be
in line with, you know the the how huge is the market like how
you just the market opportunity if that makes any sense, right?
And depending if you're in like a precede or a seed, or a series
a that's kind of like my forte. I am not about to series B and
and things like that but if you want to sell to an investor you
need to sell obviously the opportunity.
Yeah you need to solve. It's kind of selling the dream
but obviously with your feet on the ground, right?
That's not kind of like blowing it wishy-washy.
Yeah, exactly. Be realistic.
But do sell their dream and do see, like, do sell like what the
opportunity would be for them with regards to?
How are they going to get, you know, their their investment 10x
20x back after X amount of years, right?
And it's really understanding if you have a good team, right?
They all like a lot of investors actually, almost all Investors,
look at the team. Like what experience do you have
in the team? Who are the people that are in
your team? Have they done other let's say,
have they already started other startup successfully and maybe
exited successfully those types of, let's say Founders are the
ones that are easier to, you know, invest in because they
have a track record. If you don't have a track
record, then obviously it's going to be a little bit more
challenging but you can still, you know, get investment.
So when it So that the team is important.
What's, you know, the I would say the construct of the team
who was in the team, what's their background, have they done
anything similar to to what they're, you know doing now?
How big is the opportunity? Like in if it's a worldwide
let's say solution or a solution that's obviously sad.
That could be worldwide. How big is the temps?
I'm some. Those are like the two, the two
parts. And that are really important
for for investors to to understand, and obviously
they're going to do their due diligence, right?
Like how many customers obviously traction is one of the
things as well. So traction, meaning okay.
How many customers do you have on board or our clients,
whatever you want to call it? How many customers do you have
on board? How quick are you growing where?
For example, working together with a PE firms listed as a
private Equity Firm? Yeah.
And they are interested. In and startups with obviously a
technical technology technology as the center of their their
company. Yeah, for them.
It's important for to look at the team.
The the who the team is, how many people are in the team?
What their background is at cetera.
Yeah. But they also want to see that,
you know, they have traction, which is around like 40 50 km
are are so monthly, recurring Revenue?
Yeah, obviously need to be based in Europe.
And this case because we have firms in the u.s. that obviously
are focused on the US. And for them, it's also
interesting or interesting. It's important to see like how
quick are they growing and how are they with their finances?
Like are they a company that's really spending just for
spending sake because you do have startups and I've seen
quite a few of them that are spending the obviously the money
that they got from your investment in things that are
maybe not necessary. Okay?
So Clean are you with your finances if that makes any
sense? And that's one of the things
that you know they look at as well.
Like how are you spending it? Are you very like diligent with
your finances? Yeah.
Or are you spending it on? I don't know random stuff.
That's that are not necessary. Obviously it's on the case to
case basis but those are kind of like the prerequisites for them
to want to invest. What's a, what's an example of
that of people spending things, which they shouldn't spend money
on clothes that I don't really have an idea with that.
Yeah. So Some startups, what they
would spend it on is, for example, once you get funding,
depending on where you are. But let's say it's a seed or a
series, a most of that money is to, you know, hire people etc,
etc. Maybe have an office things like
that, but sometimes you do have startups that start spending on.
Oh, let's go on a, I want to say like a holiday but it would be
kind of like a retreat for, let's say all the employees
which Fine. Yeah, which is fine but is it
really necessary? Right?
Is that necessary? Or you have maybe you go out on
to dinner with. Let's say all of your employees
is that really necessary? Maybe once in a quarter that
could be but it's kind of spending on things that are
maybe not completely necessary at that moment in time and those
are the types of things that, you know, you could spend your
money on instead of spending it on.
Okay, we need to hire people. We need to, you know, develop
the technology more, we need to maybe have customer customer
service representative customer service people on board as well.
Yeah, our customer success for example, like like really
spending it on the necessary things instead of spending it
on. Okay.
We're going to, you know, do a retreat there or we're gonna
like have dinner there, or things like that.
If that makes any sense. Yeah, it needs to be needs to be
justifiable, I guess. Yeah, right, your dinner can be
for team bonding, but if it's every week, then it's kind of
exactly entering exactly exactly.
That makes a lot of sense. I mean, I get it.
Now from an investment point of view, they want to see how they
get their money back, right? And how you spend your money
from a business side, right? You can have huge amounts of
Revenue, but if you spend a lot on marketing and advertising and
stuff like that, then you're burning your money.
And obviously, your revenue is going to be bigger, but your
profit share that this going to be still marginal, right?
You have an increased that based on.
Yeah, spend basically. Yeah.
And I think, from an investment point of view, they're going to
look at all of that and At some point they're going to make a
decision, right? And I think both the financial
thing is one thing, but you and your team, I love that.
You laid that out you and your team and also going to make the
difference. Yeah.
How important is that pitch? And the story behind it like
that moment that you speak to the investors?
Yeah and then also do the founders, usually do that the
co-founders or do they leave it to someone in their team?
That's best at know. The founders do that.
Yeah. Right percent Founders, the
storytelling around. That is very important because
at the end of the day, if you see Sell yourself or you sell
your solution or you sell your company, there needs to be a
logical story around it, right? Like how did you start and
what's kind of like your vision, So that obviously is very
important and it resonates with even if I would tell you a
story, it resonates more than if I would tell you factual stuff,
right? Okay.
Like I don't know, 20% of something is you know, it's kind
of like you need to have that story around it because that's
also what sells right? So that's important.
To understand the lot of Founders, find it challenging to
to, they can't tell the story around it.
But how do you pitch it in a sense that it's also interesting
for the investor, right? That's how that's what we teach
as well. What do you need to say?
And how can you basically tell your story but then also pull in
like the factual numbers, what? You're, you know, currently at?
Yeah. And how do you follow up with
the investors as well? Right, because it's nice to have
like your first conversation but How do you follow up?
That's where a lot of Founders also are like, okay, what do I
do? What's the next step?
What's the next step, right? Are you closing that investor in
having a follow-up meeting? Maybe with the team and things
like that? Again, that's what we teach as
well. But yeah, it's it's, it's very
important to understand what goes on in the mind of an
investor. What are they looking at?
And what do they find important? And if, you know, those aspects.
So Mentioned, if it's important to show some traction, depending
on where you are in your, in your, let's say, process or
where you are in your growth phase, do you have some
traction, okay, what's the traction?
What's the solution? What's the time?
Some some who's the team? Those are kind of like the most
important aspects and there's obviously more more stuff around
that, but those types of things and do they see potential value
in that? Do they see the value of your
solution? Because you have investors that
Not have the background in, let's say, if you would come to
me and I'm an investor, right? And you're telling me, hey
Denise, I have a solution, is a solution that does a low code.
There's a local no codes type of solution, right?
And you come to me and you basically tell me the story
around it and you show me the time.
Some, but I don't have any experience with low code, no
codes. Yeah, right.
So you're coming to an investor that doesn't have that
experience. Then the Have that background so
they're not going to completely maybe understand the I guess the
problem in the market right? So you have you have a Founders
that go to kind of like the wrong investors.
I would say like maybe that are not in their in their field and
then they're obviously not gonna you know get to the next step as
in like maybe get in a meeting with like the team and seeing if
they can you know, really invest in that company because they
don't see the value of that. But if I would be an Faster.
That understands local because I have invested in that before.
Yeah. Then obviously once you sell it
to me I can see like Hey listen. Is this something that I really
want to go in go in to do I have other companies similar to yours
because sometimes investors can't invest in similar types of
companies as well. Yeah, so yeah, there's a lot of
factors in that that makes any sense so but that's where we
come in and help the founders to get to the next level.
So yeah, it's very I mean, it hits home with shark tank for me
because that's kind of how I've seen.
Net, where people say, okay, this is already in my domain, I
can invest in you, like I wish you the best, but through that
non-compete, I can't do that. Yeah, another people that just
don't resonate with either the product to the idea that they
don't see the problem. You're solving exact even though
you have customers. And even though you have
traction, right? If from an Investor's point of
view, they still have their gut feeling and their own kind of
Vision on how the world works. Yeah.
And if they don't align with that, if you haven't
communicated it, or told your story in a way that they believe
you, they can still be like white.
I don't see like, I'm sorry, right?
It's not gonna it's not going to be a fit, but if you do have a
person that understands your domain sees the problem that you
see and can see how they get their money back, right?
With with an ex multiplier exact.
Then I think you have your match and then you can move move
forward with that. Exactly.
And that's, that's the thing having a right match with
investors because it's as a Founder, you obviously want to
have as many opportunities as you can with regards, to getting
like investors interested in your let's say solution or
interested in investing that, but it's also important for you
as The farmer to understand what type of investor do you want to
have right to do, you want to have an investor that gives
smart money? That's what they call it.
So, not only the money but they have maybe the network that's in
that same field, right? Or they have the background.
That's in that same field and they can really help grow the
company to the next level. If that makes any sense.
So, not only, you know, investing the money, and that's
it. And that's, it ain't exactly
sense. It should be a win-win, right?
If I put my money in there, I have skin in the game.
So the better. You do the better, I II.
Also get a return for it. Exactly, exactly, man.
There's a lot that goes into it. Like, I always kind of knew, but
I never actually have had a conversation with this, like all
the information of how was always superficial.
So I really appreciate you coming on and sharing.
Just okay. How do you get your team
together? How do you find that product
Market fit? And when it comes to investing,
how do you find the right match, their right.
How big is your Market size and do people see a return on their
money? Yeah.
And when you have that match should be win-win in the end as
well. Under percent is there.
Thing in there that you still would like to add, I would like
to add that just be smart with regards to when it comes to,
let's say finding your investor or it could be a, you have one
lead as an investor and then you have different other companies
that are also investing in that same solution try to find the
investor that obviously resonates with you and
understands your business as well.
Yeah, but understand also Before you go into that, that there's a
lot of things that you need to have in place, to make sure that
even the first meeting. And then the second meeting and
Etc is done very well. So understand those, those
moving parts and get help if you need like, you know, that's
that's what we do. Like, with regards to having a
fundraiser partner. That's what we help with, with
regards to doing, you know, going to a seed or series a
understanding. Like, what does it really take?
For you to get to, to the Nexus of and get get funding.
So yeah, yeah, I think I would need help or at least I would
have to have a lot of conversations to get that.
Understanding I can find the right help in there as well.
Yeah. But I love that.
You've kind of found your niche in in helping those companies.
I think is really cool. Thank you like I'm super happy
and doing it. Right.
So for me it's kind of like I never thought that technology
would be my thing like 10 years ago.
I would have thought about this. Yeah but yeah, it's again like I
said in the beginning, it just trends.
Fashioned into it into your me, having a company in, you know,
the SAS face in technology. So, yeah, it's pretty cool.
Yeah. Yeah.
I love hearing that. We're going to round it off
here. The knees Edwards.
Everyone, I'm gonna put all her socials in the description
below. Check her out.
Let her know you came from our show.
And with that being said, thanks for listening.
We'll see you on the next one.