A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
00:16:18 · Pablo Srugo
[00:16:18] S2: I guess, I ask it from the perspective, like, I'll give you the anecdote and curious if you have something similar to this. Maybe in a different role, like, founder I work with closely. Solo founder, non-technical, hired, you know, there were maybe fifteen people, twenty people, and they hired a VP. And some of the people I reached out to, to say, hey, do you have a good VP, blah, blah, blah. They're like, dude, it's so early. Why are you hiring a VP when you have fifteen people? And I'm like, the answer is you're looking at it from your perspective of me and my co founder, right? We split the roles and effectively they were operating as a VP. And so we didn't have a VP until we were fifty. Yeah, okay but this person is a solo founder. Therefore they hired these heads up earlier. I'm curious if you had anything like that. Maybe not on the VP side, but whether on the sales or marketing, or not really. If you think like compared to somebody who had two or three co-founders, it was actually, you build the org in a similar way, sort of thing.
00:17:03 · Damien Lewke
[00:17:03] S0: You know, I'd say we definitely did it a little bit earlier, right? As a solo founder, the way that I've always thought about it is, I visualize it as either like a balloon or a bucket but it's basically how and where am I spending my time. And how, and where should I be spending my time, right? Where is there becoming an increasing need for the business such that we need to bring in somebody full time. So, you know, our Head of Eng. was first. We were nine people at the time. I was an engineering manager, I was our salesperson, we were still in stealth. It's not much marketing, but I was doing all the things and we just got to a point. We were all engineers at the time, where I was like, it's time to bring in an effective engineering leader but also, this is a personal belief. Bring in somebody who can grow with this business, right? That's why I actually like your VP of Eng. anecdote of, it doesn't matter about size of team. It's, hey, bring in the right person and ideally bring in somebody who can grow with this business. Because as I tell everybody here at Nebulock, my desire is to build an environment and a business such that they are here for a good time, and a long time. And can grow as we grow. So that was really the thought process and the management of the team had gotten to the point. Where I was like, I can be of more service to this business if we bring in the right personnel and bring in somebody who's going to run this team, and scale it. And our head of engineering has done exactly that.
00:18:22 · Pablo Srugo
[00:18:22] S2: Yeah, I fully agree. One of my number one things for these heads of roles is their network. For Head of Eng., it's yeah, okay, you know, this, that management, whatever. But can you bring in the next five engineers without running a full outbound process? Because that is going to dramatically increase your, not just odds of success, but just your rate, right? If like, I need two more engineers and this person is like, well, let me ping ten people that I already know and work with. That's going to be a huge difference maker. So I always find that that's a big one. Last question then on this kind of hiring tangent. How do you think about where to hire? Do you hire where, let's say you're really good at the thing you're really good at that. You've solved and now you can bring somebody in and you go to the next fire, or do you hire for the fires? In other words, I'm incredible at sales, so I'm going to figure out a sales machine and then once sales is figured out. I'm going to come and bring somebody in who can take over. I'm going to move to the next unsolved problem versus I'm going to stay in sales because I'm great at sales and I'm going to hire somebody else. Which of the two philosophies do you typically go for?
00:19:17 · Damien Lewke, Pablo Srugo
[00:19:17] S0: Yeah, I mean, as a founder, I think one of the most important parts of your job is trying to see around the corner, right? So you said hire for the fires. I like hiring for the fires. I think the way that we thought about it, again, using the VP or the Head of Eng., discussion, right? Was I could see around the corner and go like, okay, more of my time now that we've got a big enough team is going to be spent more on sales and marketing. And at some point we're going to launch this company. I need somebody who can take and run with engineering. And I think it's important to do that because as a founder, you have a responsibility to create an environment where when you bring in anybody. An IC or a leader, you give them the agency to be successful. So I think the key is you want to bring them in at a time that the business is still growing and there's room for growth versus like, oh my God, everything is broken. Please fix this brokenness. Because then you get caught up in tactics and really what you want to do is bring somebody in and allow them to grow with that position. So hire for the fires. [00:20:16] S2: But you'd rather be the one that figures out the unsolved part and bring somebody in to run with the thing that's already working versus the opposite?
00:20:16 · Pablo Srugo, Damien Lewke
[00:20:16] S2: But you'd rather be the one that figures out the unsolved part and bring somebody in to run with the thing that's already working versus the opposite? [00:20:24] S0: Yeah, a hundred percent, right? Your fundamental job as a founder is two things. Number one, create an environment where people feel seen, heard, and empowered to do their best work. And number two, to de-risk the business. You are always selling and my focus is on the unknowns, to de-risk this business to ensure that we can continue executing. [00:20:41] S2: So back to the main storyline, you're the solo founder and you got the thesis. You've jumped fully on board on this. What's step one?
00:20:49 · Damien Lewke
[00:20:49] S0: Yeah, step one, customer discovery. If there is one takeaway for anybody who's listening, if you haven't read it, read a book called The Mom Test. It is, in my opinion, the best book on customer discovery that is out there. Followed by The Challenger Sale, but that's a sales book. Yeah, I kicked off what I called the ninety in ninety. Ninety customer interviews in ninety days. So I spent ninety days mom testing people. So not going to them saying, hey, my name is Damien, I've got this idea, this is what it is, can you please tell me you like it? But rather going, hey, I'm thinking about this space. Talk to me about how you've solved this problem. How would you rank this in order of priorities? Where would I focus on if we were to build something like this? And most importantly, friends, if you're doing customer discovery, always ask at the end if they're willing to introduce you to somebody else in network. Because not only does that build a relationship with this person, but it means that you also get routed to other like minded folks. Not for confirmation bias, but rather you're going to get to continue to see either in role or industry segment different folks. So it allowed me to build a pretty comprehensive market map of where am I solving this problem, for whom, and how would they expect us to do it? And to be honest with you, Pablo, it actually changed some of my thinking. It altered key parts of our architecture. It informed me that the underlying thesis and analytical layer I wanted to build was correct. There was a whole other system I thought that we needed to build and invest in, and I was totally wrong. And I found that that was really helpful because what that allowed us to do is have a warm group of prospective customers, many of whom became design partners, and also a core roadmap. So that when you brought in people, again, thinking about the unknowns, it was, hey, this is what we're building, right? Can you come in and take these systems, right? Show me how you would do this. Versus, welcome to Nebulock, here's your laptop. I don't really know what we're going to do today, but tinker around and do some Google searching. So it really helped in terms of focusing that and I think that is the one nuance about being a solo founder that is a bit different.