The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
00:30:57 · Harry Stebbings, Max Freeman
[00:30:57] S1: Yeah. Wow. What are the big mistakes you think founders make when they're doing comp design? Because, again, like, we have challenging nuances. Like, when you have new products, you wanna incentivize them more. You wanna encourage bonuses for selling more of those. But I don't wanna then have a load of people sell all of that and none of the core. How do you think about that? [00:31:17] S0: I have so many thoughts on this. Depends on stage. First, if you're an early stage founder, you're probably still trying to take one product to market and you want to focus on that. You really need to understand your ICP. Said another way, it's so much more valuable to have 20 customers that are raving and thrilled about one single product offering than you in a half assed way serving six customers on multiple products that aren't as thrilled. You need to get the tailwind going of case studies, references, and positive momentum across your business. Later stage though, like where Ramp is today, incentive design is incredibly important. And I think it's existential to over incentivize new products to get off the ground. And so thinking through 2x to 3x quota retirement for new products, you got to get the again, you have to get the momentum going such that you earn your way into more multiproduct customers, more case studies, more momentum.
00:31:17 · Max Freeman, Harry Stebbings
[00:31:17] S0: I have so many thoughts on this. Depends on stage. First, if you're an early stage founder, you're probably still trying to take one product to market and you want to focus on that. You really need to understand your ICP. Said another way, it's so much more valuable to have 20 customers that are raving and thrilled about one single product offering than you in a half assed way serving six customers on multiple products that aren't as thrilled. You need to get the tailwind going of case studies, references, and positive momentum across your business. Later stage though, like where Ramp is today, incentive design is incredibly important. And I think it's existential to over incentivize new products to get off the ground. And so thinking through 2x to 3x quota retirement for new products, you got to get the again, you have to get the momentum going such that you earn your way into more multiproduct customers, more case studies, more momentum. [00:32:19] S1: When you get a higher wrong, Max, what do you not see that you should see? So, like, for me, sometimes, I'm I'm quite overtly aggressive. It's very innate, and I'm intense. And I'm gonna fucking kill competition, and I'm gonna salivate over it. And I'm happy to talk about that. The quiet killers, I don't find as easy sometimes to uncover. That would be the talent that I miss, and I try and correct for that. When you make a mistake on hiring, what do you miss that you should see?
00:32:19 · Harry Stebbings, Max Freeman
[00:32:19] S1: When you get a higher wrong, Max, what do you not see that you should see? So, like, for me, sometimes, I'm I'm quite overtly aggressive. It's very innate, and I'm intense. And I'm gonna fucking kill competition, and I'm gonna salivate over it. And I'm happy to talk about that. The quiet killers, I don't find as easy sometimes to uncover. That would be the talent that I miss, and I try and correct for that. When you make a mistake on hiring, what do you miss that you should see? [00:32:48] S0: People in sales, especially leadership, naturally tend to interview well. They are sellers by trade. They know how to say the right things. They know how to respond extremely quickly in the interview process to show that they are urgent and can follow-up ruthlessly. I think the the only mistakes that we've made are over indexing on pedigree and coming from, the big name brands and not truly understanding two things. One, do they have the agency and do they possess the figure it out x factor where they do not need to be dependent and reliant on so many different internal resources? And then two, which is related, are they gonna go all in? Are they going to have a deep obsession with working at Rant? Like, it has to become their identity. And if both of those things aren't ascertained crisply in the interview process, it could come out, and it's it's sometimes the wrong hire.
00:32:48 · Max Freeman, Harry Stebbings
[00:32:48] S0: People in sales, especially leadership, naturally tend to interview well. They are sellers by trade. They know how to say the right things. They know how to respond extremely quickly in the interview process to show that they are urgent and can follow-up ruthlessly. I think the the only mistakes that we've made are over indexing on pedigree and coming from, the big name brands and not truly understanding two things. One, do they have the agency and do they possess the figure it out x factor where they do not need to be dependent and reliant on so many different internal resources? And then two, which is related, are they gonna go all in? Are they going to have a deep obsession with working at Rant? Like, it has to become their identity. And if both of those things aren't ascertained crisply in the interview process, it could come out, and it's it's sometimes the wrong hire. [00:33:43] S1: Chad Pete said on the show, legendary sales leader, said that young people just don't wanna work and that there is a different appreciation for why they wanna work from home. They want work life balance. They want mission. They get burnt out. They want kombucha. Is he right?
00:33:43 · Harry Stebbings, Max Freeman
[00:33:43] S1: Chad Pete said on the show, legendary sales leader, said that young people just don't wanna work and that there is a different appreciation for why they wanna work from home. They want work life balance. They want mission. They get burnt out. They want kombucha. Is he right? [00:34:00] S0: I love Chad. He's a beast. I love Dagnon too. That was a fun show. I think he's right. It's a bit provocative, but there are plenty of young professionals that do want to go all in, and you have to find them. And it's on you to build the culture internally to make sure people want to come into the office every single day. We have younger sellers in their career that badge in on Saturdays and Sundays nobody's asking them to do that. But if you create that culture, it's super infectious and the beauty of that culture is it sniffs out people that do come in that don't want to adhere to that. Like look, if you want to work remote, you want to make calls for four hours a day, other ICs in the business are just not gonna let that permeate throughout our org. [00:34:44] S1: Help me understand. I'm delighted to accept your offer. Thank you so much, Max. What have been your biggest lessons on how to onboard new reps effectively?
00:34:53 · Max Freeman
[00:34:53] S0: So early stage, you're all locked into a room, okay? You're going through four very key components. The first of which is the product and the technology that you're selling. The second, the buyer personas that you're selling into. The third is the competitive landscape. And the fourth is just like the internal operating chaos of how your systems run and what you need to know as a seller. And so on point one, in the age of AI, and especially as the next generation of buyers sit and seat, they have what I would describe as bullshit repellent. They are direct, they could get answers quickly, and so the expectation is if they're talking to a seller, they need answers quickly too. And so if you're not technically proficient in your product offering, you're fairly useless as a seller. The second is the buyer personas that you're selling into. This is really important. You need to know what their priorities are. You need to understand their challenges. And it differs if you're talking to a CFO of a venture backed software company, that conversation is going to be a hell of a lot different than if you're talking to the senior accountant of a construction business. And you need to know that too. Like one is going to be super high level, they are trying to drive positive business outcomes. The accountant might need one workflow that is tied to the month end close that is creating a lot of laborious chaos for them, and you need to have that context switching capability. The third, the competitive landscape. We obviously play in an incredibly saturated market. A lot of players claim to do many of the same things. You need to study these businesses, you need to understand their weaknesses, and you need to expose them in a diplomatic way where you're positioning your product to be as perfect as possible for the buyer in question.