The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
00:31:09 · Ed Elson, Gabe Stengel
[00:31:09] S1: You have any specific strategies that you take to do that? [00:31:12] S2: I pace a lot and listen to, like, EDM music to get excited. I mean, you just have to you have to stay really excited about what you're doing, and that's easy when things are going well. And when things aren't going well, you know, it's good to have a good support system around you and family and friends who care about you and folks you can hang out with and unplug and realize, you know, no one else really gives a shit the way you do. Right? I can think I have the worst meeting, worst day ever. The reality is no one else on earth cares as much as I do. Right? And that's a good thing. That's a benefit for me. That means I can go harder than anyone else possibly could on making this thing a reality, but it also means that I feel the pain more than anyone else too. And it's it's good to be reminded that, you know, no one else feels the pain the way you do. [00:31:54] S1: What is your approach to management at this point? I mean, you're a you're a very young guy, and you've got 16 employees soon to be, I think, 50 is your goal by the end of the year. [00:32:06] S2: 18 now. We had we two people start today. [00:32:09] S1: Yeah. What's been your approach to management? How do you motivate your team, and how do you, I mean, lead?
00:32:09 · Ed Elson, Gabe Stengel
[00:32:09] S1: Yeah. What's been your approach to management? How do you motivate your team, and how do you, I mean, lead? [00:32:17] S2: I'm trying to become a good manager. It... I think it's very hard. You know, everything I'm doing, I'm trying to get better at it. Right now, it feels like I'm an f on everything, technical leadership, you know, managerial leadership, sales, and so on. And I'm just trying to get to, you know, c plus range. And being a manager is a big part of that goal for me. I think right now, I I have really, really smart autonomous folks that I trust. And so I don't have to do that much management. I trust everyone on my team to know how to prioritize and know how to get things done. And so it's eliminated a lot of my management burden. [00:32:51] S1: It sounds like having extremely talented people is why... Is what's making the job easy. [00:32:57] S2: Is... People are everything. I mean, I couldn't... You know, would I rather lose our five biggest customers or our five best people? Five biggest customers hands down right now because the people are who building the product, building all the processes that will allow us to scale. Everything else, you know, ebbs and flows in the near term. The people are who actually are transmitting knowledge from one person to another, building our technology, iterating with high velocity. I mean, I think people are so much more important than I thought going at.
00:32:57 · Gabe Stengel, Ed Elson
[00:32:57] S2: Is... People are everything. I mean, I couldn't... You know, would I rather lose our five biggest customers or our five best people? Five biggest customers hands down right now because the people are who building the product, building all the processes that will allow us to scale. Everything else, you know, ebbs and flows in the near term. The people are who actually are transmitting knowledge from one person to another, building our technology, iterating with high velocity. I mean, I think people are so much more important than I thought going at. [00:33:27] S1: I wanna talk about challenges and how you deal with them. I'm wondering what if if you can point to a specific time building this company that's... You identify as the biggest personal challenge that you faced.
00:33:42 · Gabe Stengel
[00:33:42] S2: There was a moment where nothing was working, and and we've been working on this for a while. Right? We've been pushing this vision of AI for finance before anyone in finance gave a shit about what we were doing, and we've been working on it. And there was a time when before we were picking up traction, before people were seeing the value, before we even knew how to how to speak eloquently about what we were building, and that's probably why people couldn't see the value. We had nothing, and it... I was fatalistic. I I wanted to give up. I felt trapped. I felt like there was nothing I could do to salvage what we were doing. I was here a steward of capital. I'd been given all this money to not just take care of, but then to create something and return value. And I just saw no way to to do anything. And I felt like I was in this box unable to get out. And, obviously, in retrospect, that was wrong. And, actually, the next day, we pivoted slightly of what we were doing. We were looking at structured data before, and then we started looking at unstructured data, which really for, you know, the the unanointed in Gen AI means stock going from analyzing things like stock prices to analyzing things like 10 k's. And it started working a lot better from a sales perspective. And the great part was we were actually able to leverage our preexisting work in technology to a huge degree that gave us a huge leg up, but I literally wanted to quit that day before. I was so ready to be done. I had a full panic attack. I called my cofounder. I was like, dude, what, like, what what what are we doing wrong? You know? I don't think we're dumb. I don't think we're working on things that aren't valuable. I actually think we're more sophisticated in the way we're building and thinking about this than so many people. Why is nothing going right?
00:35:13 · Ed Elson, Gabe Stengel
[00:35:13] S1: How did you get out of it? What did you do? I mean, you you... Specifically, the structured versus unstructured data point. But what did you do mentally Mentally? To [00:35:24] S2: continue? I mean, I I... One, I went home early and just like... I was like, I need to get out of here. And I I pace and listen to EDM music, so I did that quickly. And then I went home, and I just decided, you know, we're gonna run 10 more experiments on sales, on technology, on figuring out what wording works. And we're gonna give it, you know, three more months, and if it's still not working, you know, it's probably not a problem with the market. It's probably not a problem with the technology. It's probably a problem with me. And at that point, like, maybe it's time to wrap it up, and I should just be an investment banker rather than trying to be a technologist. Right. And we started running more experiments with more rapidity, and something worked. [00:36:02] S1: I guess that's sort of the question is identifying what is that moment when I should actually pack up and leave.
00:36:02 · Ed Elson, Gabe Stengel
[00:36:02] S1: I guess that's sort of the question is identifying what is that moment when I should actually pack up and leave. [00:36:08] S2: I actually... Yeah. I think that if you are a smart person working in an interesting space where there's a lot of commercial opportunity, the one thing you shouldn't do is is stop trying. Right? Like Mhmm. There's something that's gonna work, and you just need to keep trying until you figure it out. But it's hard. And that's the Jack Altman point about, you know, how much how how much grit do you have? Right. How much tenacity to not quit before you get to that point in PMF where, oh, you know, it's obvious I'm onto something. Yeah. Until then, have no evidence. And all the evidence at that point points to the contrary. It points to that you're wrong and dumb, and no one wants what you're building, and you're... Everything is incorrect. That's hard. [00:36:49] S1: How much of building a successful company do you think is the grit aspect that we've been talking about versus [00:36:57] S2: I innate ability. Just need to clarify for for everyone listening. I am nowhere close to yet having built a successful company. So, like, this is all, you know, this is all fun and and wishy washy. Like, we are still so far from being a successful company, and that's for many, many reasons. We've created great aspires to Yeah. [00:37:15] S1: You're on your way. [00:37:16] S2: Yeah. Hopefully. What am I trying to... Why what do I think is important, or what what do I think will be important? I mean, I don't know. I'm trying to figure it out.