A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
00:39:26 · Pablo Srugo, Jonathan Awad
[00:39:26] S1: go to a very, well, I think part of it, at least if I'm thinking about it, like, part of it is your bar for value or ROI. In other words, you look at somebody like that, and you're like, I just don't really think, I'm going to get anything out of it. I'm going to spend 30 minutes. It's worth my time. But if you just get rid of that, you're like, it could be useful. There's like a 1% chance that's good enough. You're going to meet a lot of people. And a lot of them are going to be a waste of time, but like, some of them won't. [00:39:47] S0: Exactly. But that's kind of the issue. A lot of them could be a waste of time, or seem like a waste of time in the moment, and then they change jobs, and then they make a friend, and then they go and do something different. Or they just get senior somewhere, and then they're useful, because they have a bunch of useful, cool friends. So when you look at people like, dollar signs, it really just doesn't go very well. But you look at people like, hey, you seem cool. You seem great. You seem like you're doing something interesting. I'm doing something interesting. There's no reason why we shouldn't be friendlier. There's so much serendipity that comes out of it, and I think people just totally underestimate that. And it's worked so well for me. It's just an immense amount of work, because of what you said, like a bunch of things. Are you a waste of time in the moment?
00:39:47 · Jonathan Awad, Pablo Srugo
[00:39:47] S0: Exactly. But that's kind of the issue. A lot of them could be a waste of time, or seem like a waste of time in the moment, and then they change jobs, and then they make a friend, and then they go and do something different. Or they just get senior somewhere, and then they're useful, because they have a bunch of useful, cool friends. So when you look at people like, dollar signs, it really just doesn't go very well. But you look at people like, hey, you seem cool. You seem great. You seem like you're doing something interesting. I'm doing something interesting. There's no reason why we shouldn't be friendlier. There's so much serendipity that comes out of it, and I think people just totally underestimate that. And it's worked so well for me. It's just an immense amount of work, because of what you said, like a bunch of things. Are you a waste of time in the moment? [00:40:28] S1: Well, you've got to do basically 12-hour days, seven days a week, because you've got to do eight hours times five for the meetings, another four to just figure the shit out, and then you've probably got to do another 20, 25 hours on the weekends, just to get work done and move the ball forward.
00:40:41 · Jonathan Awad
[00:40:41] S0: And I did a lot of all-nighters. If you're not doing any all-nighters, you don't have enough on your plate. You're not loading yourself up with enough people to get back to, things to respond to, things to build. Your timelines, for when you think it's acceptable to do a task, is too long. I'm all about like, what do you mean today? Like, we could just do that today. It'll take two minutes, just do it today. And if you do enough, it'll take 10 minutes to do it today. Well, you could think of probably 100 things, and that's 1,000 minutes. So, 1,000 minutes, it's like, we can think of a lot of things that take 10 minutes, and I'm all about doing it today. And so there's so many things, like, you end up doing just an all-nighter. And we did so many all-nighters, Tim and I, shout out to Tim, as always. We've done multiple all-nighters, two all-nighters back to back. We just put super aggressive timelines. We promise it. We're like, well, if we did all-nighter, could we finish it? And we're like, well, yeah, we could. I'm like, well, why aren't we? What are we waiting for? Like, I really always tell people the SLA of 20 minutes is so important. The reaching out to a few hundred more people, 200 more people, that first message, that first touch, do it today. If you do it today, the clock starts from now. I'm all about that, and I think people just miss that, because it's hard. I think, you know,
00:41:51 · Pablo Srugo
[00:41:51] S1: the analogy that comes to mind, and I've always thought this, like, about startups, and the amount of work required to get things going is like, imagine like a truck, like a big, big truck, right? That's your startup. You go and you try and push that truck, it's not moving. It's not going to go anywhere. And default is, it's not going to move. If you give it a little push one day, and then you come back the next day, give it another push, it's still not going to move. It's not going anywhere. You got to push it, and then as soon as it starts rolling, you got to go more, and more, and more. And it's just like, if you stop, it's going to stop. And that's the thing about a startup, unlike a company that has legs, default is, nothing happens. Like, nothing will happen, because nobody knows you, you are nothing, you have nothing. You've got to put in so much effort to get the ball rolling, and at some point, you're going to feel, like, momentum. And like, even if you let go, like, things are going to still go forward, but for a long time, the second you let go, the second you stop, it all just dies off. It's, it's, it's just, it's painful that way. Great Sam Altman quote on that exact thing.
00:42:45 · Jonathan Awad
[00:42:45] S0: CEO's job is to build and sustain momentum. I totally agree. And if I'm messaging so many people, my calendar's so stacked, everyone, we're talking to everyone, we're going here, we're going there, we're posting on LinkedIn, we're going on Twitter, we're doing an event, we're doing this, it just feels like, whoa, so much is going on, whoa. Oh my God, Jonathan's is tornado. And then people get excited. And then the excitement breeds excitement. It inspires more work. And when I'm grinding and they see me late nights, they see me doing so much. Then when I say, hey, like, can we do it today? Then they're like, all right, we'll do it today. Like, fine, we'll do it today. There's so many people on our team. And, you know, I got to credit so many people. Juan on our team, Solutions Engineer Lead and one of our core products focus people. I'm telling you, this man had worked so hard for so long on our team. Shout out to Juan. And you don't have to tell him, probably have to do a late night on this one. Like, you kind of have to. It's like, hey, like, here's a bunch of things. Do you think we can get it all by Wednesday? And it's like way too many things for most people. And he's like, yeah, let's do it. And then he, on his own, shout out. That's why I'm giving him shout out. And we've given him many raises and we love Juan. He's just, he sometimes does a very late, four or five a.m. night or an all-nighter on his own. I never have to ask him to do it. He just knows that urgency is everything. Time is everything. If you get more done now, we're going to learn if we all put in the effort, if we all really care. And I think for top of funnel for early stage founders, whatever you think you're doing, if you 10X it, wouldn't that be much better?
00:44:18 · Pablo Srugo, Jonathan Awad
[00:44:18] S1: Yes, yes, yes, yes. [00:44:19] S0: It's kind of the mentality. I'm like, well, if you add like tons more people on LinkedIn and you try to engage with them in the comments, engage on them on the posts and you try to see like, oh, you're mutual with that person, you're mutual with that person, you ask that person, you teach it to that person. And you know, like if you kind of just keep doing more and more and more and more, wouldn't that be way better? Of course it is. There's no answer besides obviously yes. And I think that people just have to face reality, like face yourself in the mirror. Do you want this or not? Like that's it. That's definitely the advice that I always give people. And most people just don't do it. It's like, [00:44:52] S1: what do you mean? [00:44:52] S0: That sounds really difficult. So that's top of funnel. [00:44:56] S1: The other thing we want to dive into because you've got some pretty crazy hacks there is the bottom of funnel. This is now you've met people, you figured out who might be able to help, who might not be able to help. And now you've got some people that like genuinely, you know, could be buyers or could influence like a real buying decision. You're a startup, you have no trust, you're selling to pretty big companies and credibility is like the thing. How did you manage to really win over these champions to win their trust and have them kind of do that work for you? What I realized very early on, it actually touches a little bit