A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
00:40:58 · Pablo Srugo, Aaron Schumm
[00:40:58] S1: During those three years where you'd lost it. What did you do with JP Morgan specifically to stay at least somewhat top of mind? [00:41:05] S0: Really, it was kind of like we just. I remember maybe once a quarter, just like, hey, remember this? We said we're going to do this, we did this, right? We said we're going to do this, we did this, right? Nothing grandiose or anything and then, you know, we'd go out there and we have our typical press releases, and posts, and everything we do out there, right? So it was just really just like, hey, go execute on what you said you're going to go do and the business is going to come back around. Similarly, it happened with John Hancock. We pitched John Hancock. We got to the finish line. It all fell apart and that was out of our control. That was more an internal thing. It all fell apart and then it all came back around. And now, again, they're one of our largest partners, right? It's like all these things you just kind of, as much as it was painful, and I remember just like, oh, like being so frustrated. You're like, just do what you do, guys and it's going to show up again. And we're going to win it the next time around. And that happens a lot. It's expensive and you want it the first time around. But, you know, when it shows up that second time around. There's an element of sweetness to it. You're just like, yes, we did it.
00:42:03 · Pablo Srugo
[00:42:03] S1: You know, it's something I hear often in enterprise sales and I guess the lesson is the bar is low. Most people, if they lose a sale in enterprise deals. Especially, because the little ones, they really just kind of go away. But, you know, you lose a big bid and you just kind of go to zero. You're like, OK, move on to the next one and that's it. And all it takes is a little touch point, like you said, quarterly cadence and doesn't have to be exactly that. But some sort of cadence, some sort of touch points. So you're not completely forgotten. Because the cycle is going to repeat and that's just another bad. And you do this ten twenty, thirty times over. You're going to win some of those.
00:42:33 · Aaron Schumm
[00:42:33] S0: Yeah, you get new leadership. Now, I've had on the flip side, too. Where you get there, you want an account, you want a deal, and then there's a riff or something, you know, the leadership gets changed. And then all of a sudden, you're like, oh, I got to start over again, right? So I think it goes both ways and, you know, enterprise sales is very expensive, right? It's some of these sales cycles that they're multiple years long. The procurement processes are, you know, slower than surgery. And, you know, but if you do it, you do it well. We spent a lot of time up front in our business knowing we're a new enterprise. On making sure our procurement, your responses were super buttoned up, right? We did our security, you know, our audits, all these things that you would typically kick the can on as a business. We pulled forward and got a lot earlier, more expensive than us but it was the right call. Because it allowed us to sail through these processes.
00:43:23 · Pablo Srugo, Aaron Schumm
[00:43:23] S1: So the other, the last thing I want to talk about and we have a few minutes here. Is we talk a lot on this show about hiring, finding the best talent, but I want to talk about the other side of that. Which is firing, because as you mentioned to me, nobody has perfect hiring. Nobody in the world, which means if you're doing your job, you're looking not just at bringing in the right people, but letting go of the people that are wrong for whatever reason. You have a bit of a ten percent rule or at least a heuristic. Where you think on a regular cadence about who are the bottom performers and how can we deal with that. Tell me more about that side of the business. The talent side, especially the getting rid of bottom performers side of the equation. [00:44:00] S0: Yeah, I mean, it changes over the cycles of a business, right? And how you're maturing. I would say the early days, right? A lot of it is Gut check, right? I think the earliest days, it's hard, right? Because I was trying to convince people to come on board. I was literally just paying people out of my pocket. Hey, just come on. I need you for that. I was like, I need a front end guy. I need a back end engineer. [00:44:19] S1: Yeah, I'll tell you about the early days. One thing that for me was always true, is you do so much work personally bringing the people on. The last thing you want to do is let go of anybody. You're like, I just know how much work it's going to take to replace it and it's so painful.
00:44:34 · Aaron Schumm
[00:44:34] S0: It's true, it's true. I mean, it's still true in a lot of ways, right? You get key players on the team to a point and then you're like, oh, I got to cut this person. I got to, re-get, you know, train someone else in this. That is painful but, you know, one thing I did early was I did not hire people as part of the C suite. So every hire I made, they were a VP or SVP or whatever, and what I did was like, hey, I want you to be CTO or CFO or whatever it is, right? But I need to see you kind of grow into that where I feel confident and I'm going to start you here. Because if I have to layer you and I have to hire someone above you, I have that space to do that. It doesn't become a demotion talk to someone else. Say, hey, you're on the team, you're gonna get your first crack at growing into these shoes to play this role but I need to see it, right? And they're pretty specific to what you see. Now, over time though, there are some people I brought on early that just didn't have it, right? And I was just like, ugh. I'm like, okay, if I can get another three months out of this person and then I'm going to go hire someone in the background behind there. I did that a lot, right? Where I was just like, they're going to have to move on. I can keep the lights on with them in the seat now, but I got to get someone that brings a different skill set that we're going to need for this next turn and that happens a lot. And you got to be honest with people with it, right? It's like, hey, you may really like someone. I have, you know, there is a lot of people on this team that have been here a long time. That maybe haven't, they haven't just gone up the ranks of the hierarchy of the org chart. But, you know, you have honest conversations with it. They're like, hey, I'm good with that. Like, I only want to be an individual contributor. I only want to do this and that's fine. So then you just, if you have those real conversations, it's easy. You know, it's harder when you get people who don't want to have that conversation or they have an overinflated sense of self. That's like, hey, it's not you. You know, there are times I remember I worked with people that I go, I should be this or I should be that. Like, no, because I have worked with other people in that role and they'll run circles around you, right?
00:46:32 · Aaron Schumm, Pablo Srugo
And, you know, and sometimes you just have that conversation with people. I've had to off board lots of people and I'm just like, hey, it's time. Let's come up with an elegant kind of off ramp here and we're going to move on. And that's okay, you know, maybe it's not the way you want it but it's the right thing for the business. And I think that's the key thing is, you always have to look at the business and say, what is the right thing for this business? You got to cut your own personal emotions out of it, which is hard to do but you have to do it. Because if you don't do it, you're going to make poor decisions. [00:47:04] S1: Here's a specific question on that. I have this kind of role myself, which is if a founder comes to me as the, you know, the VC partner in that company. And says to me, I've got this VPX, VP marketing. Let's say, I'm just not sure about them. I think I might let them go. My answer is always like, if you're coming to me with that, you got to do it. It's a done deal because if you've having the doubts and the doubts are so high. That you're like, I need to ask somebody else about my doubts. You're already past the doubt phase. You're actually, the decision is made. I don't know if you agree with that just in terms of a gut check.