Misfit Founders
Misfit Founders
Turning Obstacles into Opportunities: Retention.com's Remarkable Growth
Ever wondered how a founder can leap from a $3 million revenue to tackling the ambitious goal of $100 million ARR? Join us for an engaging conversation with Adam Robinson, the visionary founder and CEO of Retention.com. Adam unveils the innovative technology behind his company, which connects pseudonymous identifiers to personally identifiable information, supercharging marketing workflows for e-commerce leaders like Warby Parker and Dr. Squatch. Listen as he also introduces his latest venture, RB2B, aimed at revolutionizing SaaS revenue teams by linking visitor data directly to LinkedIn profiles and business emails.
Adam’s entrepreneurial journey is nothing short of inspiring, filled with raw honesty about the challenges faced in scaling his business. From high churn rates to market volatility, Adam’s story highlights the relentless pursuit of excellence and the importance of differentiation in a crowded market. Hear about his transition from a $22 million ARR company to aiming for $100 million ARR, drawing inspiration from peers like Jasper and learning from past missteps. This episode is packed with insights on navigating the highs and lows of startup growth, making it an invaluable listen for aspiring entrepreneurs.
In the final segment, Adam shares a deeply personal perspective on leadership and well-being, revealing how quitting alcohol three and a half years ago transformed his life. Hear about the health benefits, improved sleep, and reduced anxiety that have fueled his drive to build successful companies. The episode closes with candid reflections on the emotional toll of layoffs and the tough realities of business management, offering a genuine look into the sacrifices and resilience required to lead in the entrepreneurial world. This episode promises to be a treasure trove of practical advice, inspiration, and heartfelt stories.
⭐ Subscribe to this channel 👉 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnH68ixWKdhqD1hPZh3RuzA?sub_confirmation=1
⭐ Join the Misfit Founder community 👉 https://nas.io/misfits
⭐ Connect with Biro 👉 https://www.linkedin.com/in/sir-biro/
⭐ Connect with Adam 👉 https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinindig/
-------------------------------------------------------
DISCLAIMER
By accessing this Podcast, I acknowledge that Misfit Founders makes no warranty, guarantee, or representation as to the accuracy or sufficiency of the information featured in this Podcast. The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this Podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this Podcast is done at your own risk. This Podcast should not be considered professional advice. Unless specifically stated otherwise, Misfit Founders does not endorse, approve, recommend, or certify any information, product, process, service, or organization presented or mentioned in this Podcast, and information from this Podcast should not be referenced in any way to imply such approval or endorsement. The third party materials or content of any third party site referenced in this Podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions, standards or policies of Misfit Founders. The Misfit Founders assumes no responsibility or liability for the accuracy or completeness of the content contained in third party materials or on third party sites referenced in this Podcast or the compliance with applicable laws of such materials and/or links referenced herein. Moreover, Misfit Founders makes no warranty that this Podcast, or the server that makes it available, is free of viruses, worms, or other elements or codes that manifest contaminating or destructive properties.
MISFIT FOUNDERS EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL LIABILITY OR RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR OTHER DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF ANY INDIVIDUAL'S USE OF, REFERENCE TO, RELIANCE ON, OR INABILITY TO USE, THIS PODCAST OR THE INFORMATION PRESENTED IN THIS
When I was stuck at 3 million for four years, I legitimately did not know if I had it in me as an entrepreneur to get past that point. The path of retentioncom, which used to be called Get Emails, is very volatile. This is another thing that I say in my presentation. It's like I show this graph and it looks like it's that, but it's not. It's like yeah, and like we're in another dip right now, and like we're in another dip right now, and it's just. Oftentimes I feel like first-time entrepreneurs try to copy what's out there and they don't. They just try to be like the same but cheaper, or something right, which doesn't work. My view is you want to be as different as possible. You want to be like milk, milk, milk, orange juice, milk, you know, like something that's so different that people can hardly even. It stops them in their tracks and they're like I've just never seen anyone do anything like that before.
Speaker 2:Adam, thank you so much for taking what 30, 45 minutes of your time to do this. Well, thank you, I was. I was mentioning this is a bit odd to me to do these short podcasts. My podcasts are usually Long-winded, an hour and a half to two hours, so we'll try to be short, brief and all. We have a couple of topics that we want to talk about. But first, maybe a quick intro of who Adam is and what is it that you do? Maybe pitching, elevator pitch of retentioncom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so my name is Adam Robinson. I am a SaaS founder. I'm currently CEO of two companies. One is called retentioncom it's 22 million. Adam Robinson, I am a SaaS founder. I'm currently the CEO of two companies. One is called Retentioncom it's 22 million ARR. I started four and a half years ago. It's bootstrapped and we sell to e-commerce stores and we do person-level website visitor identity so somebody can hit your site, not the letter form, we can figure out who that is and power a bunch of marketing workflows with that information, mostly over email. Um, the other company which I launched 10 weeks ago sells to sas revenue teams. Okay, it's called r like retention, rb2b, rb2b like b2b companies. Same core tech. Instead of taking it to an email address, we take it to to a LinkedIn profile and a business email. Then we push that to Slack and it's free.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm interested. So you mentioned that with retentioncom, you figure out who the person is and then send very specific workflows to them based on their I suppose interests and so on. How does that work? How do you figure out who that person is?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's a lot of pseudonymous identifiers in the ad tech world that, if you know what you're doing, you can sort of connect them to personally identifiable information.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's the whole magic of the technology and what are some of the companies? I don't know if you can mention this. I suppose you might have them on your website. So what are some of the companies that you work with on retentioncom?
Speaker 1:uh, so like think, like you know our, our top rosters, like big d to c brands like warby parker is this glasses company that a lot of people know about. Dr Squatch was like a big soap company that exited a few years ago. Vital Proteins is like a known Nestle bought them. So it's like these really D to C brands. That basically I mean I think it was marketing companies. That basically I mean I think it was marketing companies. You know they like have these products but what they're really good at is like figuring out how to sell on the internet better than anyone. So those are the types of companies for Redemptioncom that people know about. When did you start Redemptioncom?
Speaker 2:November 2019. 2019. Why.
Speaker 1:I had another startup and it was stuck at three million arr and uh, it was shrinking slightly every month by like half a percent. And um, I was single and I lived in manhattan, like literally wasn't making enough money to like do what I wanted to do. In the next phase of my life I was certainly making enough to be a single guy and do whatever I wanted to do but, like you know, I got a family now and it's expensive. You know my wife works.
Speaker 1:We need full-time help and you know, like I got another kid coming and there's all sorts of stuff for you to spend money on once you, once you have a family. So that was a primary motivator. Then it's certainly switched because I'm in like it's just a very different personal financial situation now. I wouldn't call those basic needs but like the basic needs for my family are like not really a question anymore. You know, um, and now I just like love the game. You know like it's.
Speaker 1:It's very, very much like a personal challenge at this moment. It's like I know that I've gotten as far as 22 million arr. Yeah, I don't know if I can get to 50 because I haven't done it yet. I think that I can. I got a lot of stuff in the hopper that I think will add up and get me there, yeah, but like I find that challenge deeply riveting and inspiring and like the ultimate validation for me which is so stupid and ego driven because I know if and when I get there, it's just going to be something else is like so few people have made it to a hundred million ARR as a bootstrapped SaaS. That like that to me is like you're an Olympic gold medalist of SaaS. Yeah, you can do that, and it's not even about being like a billionaire having a huge exit or like a unicorn or whatever. I love to like throw those words around because they get a lot of attention.
Speaker 1:It's literally just about, like you know, when I was stuck at three million for four years, I did not know I legitimately did not know if I had it in me as an entrepreneur to get past that point because I was stuck for so long. Now I know, right, but like now, I don't know. Now you know it's like. It's like I feel like, uh, you know, my peers as someone who's bootstrapped a 20 millionaire company are a different set of peers than when I was stuck at three, you know, um, so do I have it within me to be, you know, good enough basically at this craft to like to?
Speaker 1:get a lot farther, or not or you know, it's like I don't know. My retentioncom is kind of stuff right now. It's just high churn, it's like hard. You know it's just the market got a lot harder, the macro environment got harder. It's got a lot harder to do what we do. And you know my journey has been getting stuck and getting unstuck.
Speaker 2:It's interesting hearing you say that, because I've talked about this in the past it's you never get rid of that self-doubt. You know it's just at a different level right Totally Because you got to 22 million ARR. You know that you can do this right. If you start another company and you want to take it to 22 million, maybe you have more confidence that you know how to reach here.
Speaker 1:I certainly have more confidence in that. Yeah, there's no question.
Speaker 2:But not how to get to 100.
Speaker 1:Totally yeah strangely, when I'm thinking about my current company, I'm like, man, this is gonna blow the doors off to 15 or 20 million arr. But I already see the same problems that I'm experiencing trying to grow my current business past 22. Like, basically it's churn. Like all the business that I'm trying to create I know the way I'm building it it's going to be high churn, which that's what stops you from growing right because, like, eventually the the bucket is so large that like it's leaking at a rate and you just can't pour in the top fast enough. Um, and I don't know whether that's like me being honest with myself or a limiting belief, like I don't know which it is, but you said that and I'm like, yes, I'm already thinking that you know, and like, when I started retentioncom, I was literally I mean, I tell this story in the keynote that I made yesterday I was content with it being three million ARR. I had two 3 million ARR companies.
Speaker 2:You can start a family at that point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that were generating a buck and a half each. They each had six employees. I was going to start another one and Dave Roggenmoser, who I was sharing an office with the CEO of Jasper. I had literally sold him on this vision. He had proof. Had literally sold him on this vision. He had proof. I have this text from him on december 29th of 2020 where he's like first paying customer got the idea seven days ago. Maybe this is my get emails, which is what retentioncom used to be called at the time. Get emails was 267 000 mrr, but we thought it was huge because it was 25 bigger than the other two companies we had. Yeah, so that's what he was shooting for. And then he went from zero to 50 million ARR in 12 months with like 12 people or something fucking crazy like that, and it inspired me to believe that I could do more.
Speaker 2:Right. So was that the catalyst? At that point you were like, well, I'm going to make this business yeah, at least three million. But you, but his story helped push you in a sense.
Speaker 1:So the path, the path of retentioncom, which used to be called get emails, is very volatile. This is another thing that I say in my presentation. It's like I show this graph and it looks like it's that, but it's not. It's like, yeah, and like we're in another dip right graph and it looks like it's that, but it's not. It's like, yeah, and like we're in another dip right now. And it's just even the story of my current company. I've been stuck three different times. One time, early on, we had a lower revenue and we had a lower MRR, so it was between month nine and month 18. Month 18 was lower MRR than month nine. That's not good, that's not a good feeling.
Speaker 1:You think it's stuck right.
Speaker 1:And it was like right around three. But as Dave was doing what he was doing, we were kind of like figuring out a little bit more of who to sell to, who not to sell, to, getting more efficient and really by the time I was like we should go for it. I think this is a unicorn also. We were at 12 million ARR with 6 people, so it wasn't at 3 still, but before we decided to do the unicorn thing I was like I don't see many people running software businesses that are like in the tens of millions ARR and just like taking tons of money off the team. I see everyone going for this unicorn play.
Speaker 1:And that's interesting because, like I, tend to believe that the odds are against you with the unicorn play and you will never get paid a premium for one of these. Like you know, lower growth, lots of cashflow businesses in that range, but, like you, get an exit every year, you know like so.
Speaker 1:So that was my intention. Dave totally made me think that like it was time to go as fast as possible, try to hit a home run, you know, maybe team up with growth equity, like you know. And what I was seeing led me to believe that I had like a unicorn twice over and it was all wrong. It was just like totally the long story short was I thought that by really honing in on the super tight icp it would solve the churn problem, and then I thought that icp was a lot larger of a total addressable market than it was. So the combination of those two things it just kind of backfired. I mean, it just wasn't what I thought it was. Um, but yeah, watching that happen with Jasper made me shift my perspective from people who are building unicorns went to Stanford University. They all have venture capital and they are a class of person that I am not. It wasn't even that I was angry about it, I was just like that's not who I am. I'm like a bootstrap guy.
Speaker 2:Where did you study? You said you've gone to university and so on.
Speaker 1:I went to this university called Rice in Houston. If you're in the US, you kind of like have probably heard of it. It's like it's a good school, but like you know. And what heard of it? It's like it's a good school, but like you know. And what did you study? The University in America is like not, I don't view it as a serious thing from my speed head right, like people just go to like because it's I don't even I mean it'll be interesting to see where universities are at in 20 years I studied, I played basketball and I studied economics barely. I took like the easiest classes you could like to make the highest grades that you could, because I wanted to get a good job, you know, and did that happen?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I got a job at Lehman Brothers, the now defunct investment bank immediately after college and I was a credit default swap trader for 10 years before I started. Okay, and then?
Speaker 2:you got into startup.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the reason why is I showed up to my apartment in new york and I got connected with these two other guys from my friend from high school who I was living with, that he went to college with and they were starting a website in 2003 in that apartment called vimeocom. Oh really, yeah, really. Yeah, so I watched that happen and I was like I want to do that Right and like I mean, what would have been if you would have gotten involved with that at that point?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, I mean. I mean, who knows, you know?
Speaker 1:like probably you know similar. I would have ended up in a similar place, but a very strange journey's. So, man, it's so hard going from zero transferable skills to like basically, the only reason I was able to do is because I I basically experienced this amazing stroke of luck in and around the financial crisis. Everybody doing what I did during that time made tons of money, so I like saved a bunch and then it all kind of disappeared after the financial crisis. They regulated this market and it was just very boring. So, uh, obviously, I paid a ton one year, zero the next year, and I was like I don't want to do this anymore. I'm gonna go try to figure out. I'm gonna go spend all this money trying to figure out a new life and if that has not worked, by the time it's gone, I'm gonna go get a job again. Right, thank god, you know it comes. I I find that startups consume every dollar that's around, like it literally came down to like the last and the last where you have you always been bootstrapped?
Speaker 2:did you get any investment?
Speaker 1:yeah, I mean I got investment for you know from myself and my brother had sold a business, so like we ended up plowing 2 million bucks of our own money over the course of five years into this thing, so like it's bootstrapped in the way that we behave.
Speaker 1:But it was not a true bootstrapping story which was like, oh, yeah, like 50 grand, god you know it's like, but I, you know I could have. Yeah, it's like hindsight. So like just as an example of like an entrepreneur's journey. My first product we spent 20 months building it, it consumed $2 million of capital and it petered out at 3 million ARR. The second product I built in 12 weeks. First month we ran Facebook ads, spent five grand on Facebook ads and we got $10,000 a month of MRR out of it and it was basically like cash flow positive. After six or seven months and two years in it was $10 million ARR to six people. Why, what got you?
Speaker 1:there, Dude I think it's just like if I think about every, because it seems a very big, um yeah like, let's take what I'm doing right now. Right, I have this. Like I'm spending all my time and energy on personal founder brand on linkedin and things related to it.
Speaker 1:Right, I have a free product that I have a good hypothesis if I think we're going to monetize it, but I am not sure yet. Neither one of those things 10 years ago I would have thought would be worth one second of my time. Okay, how is it going Right? How is it going Right? So we don't even have the three key features that we're going to sell, which is like we're gating our free trial from unlimited to like 200 leads a month. Hotspot integration that's like cooler than what you can do if you just like steal the leads and, uh, an ICP filtering in like a hot page feature. Don't even have them yet and we have 500,000 annual recurring revenue in 10 weeks in and we don't even have the features we're going to charge for.
Speaker 1:Like why? Because, like I appreciate all of this stuff from watching companies like MailChimp and like ConvertKit and like all the Klaviyo, like all of this really magical company building. You know non-intuitive things that like just unlocked these superpowers in the world with an unbelievable amount of efficiency that I would have had. No, there would have been. No way I would have been able to understand that when I started. You know like your first instinct if you know nothing about SaaS. When you saw what MailChimp was doing with this free offer, where you're like this is a shitty free product, I mean I'm just. I remember right, it's like like their competitors. This company called Constant Contact and Constant Contact was a public company. They were like MailChimp sucks, they're idiots. They're free, they have no customer service. It fucking blows. Use it if you suck. That was basically their line.
Speaker 1:I've never thought MailChimp sucked, no, but I mean that's because they built an incredible product, the brand dominated over time, but it was this very slow and exponential thing that happened. I mean, I was watching it in 2011,. You know? So, yeah, in summary, what I believe that I am good at now, which is like, in many ways it's like marketing and product and like sort of identifying places where there's asymmetric uh, you know growth opportunity.
Speaker 1:I I had zero understanding of when I was trying to build this first company. You know, like everybody builds way too much the first time right. Like you build the wrong things. Oftentimes. I feel like first time entrepreneurs try to copy what's out there and they don't. They just try to be like the same but cheaper, or something right, which doesn't work.
Speaker 1:My view is you want to be as different as possible. You want to be. It's like you want to be like milk, milk, milk, orange juice, milk. You know, like something that's so different that people can hardly even it stops them in their tracks and they're like I've just never seen anyone do anything like that before. You know, um, and like I just didn't have an appreciation for how or why that works and now I just feel like it's. I just view it as absolutely critical to getting something off the ground the ground with any type of capital efficiency. So that is one reason why I chewed through millions of dollars getting this crappy product off the ground the first time, and now I'm able to do things like I'm doing now, which is like I find it unbelievable. It's like how do we have half a million ARR and we don't even have the features that we plan to charge people for? I got asked on the podcast earlier. It's like well, what are they buying? I'm like I don't even know, because they could literally just steal what they're paying us for.
Speaker 2:You know, but 72 people think it's cool to pay us 500 bucks to like the product so much you know Well, you mentioned about the millions that you invested in your first company to um, that they didn't grow that fast, but I feel that that's isn't that uh learning tax in a sense, because I failed a lot, a lot of businesses as well, and I put energy and time and money in it, but you know it gets you to where you are today.
Speaker 1:Yes, so I think that I mentioned this before. I think that if we only had 200 grand, I probably still could have gotten into work. I just would have had to been much more disciplined. You know, like money creates lack of discipline. I think, uh and I think you're exactly right I would not recommend doing what I did. I mean, the only way you really could is if you like saved a bunch of money in a prior career or you have like a rich spouse, which is like even worse Because, like the rich spouse thing is like no one has any idea anything about startups and there's so much emotion and ego going on with startups that, like you just keep plowing money in even though there is like no semblance of product market fit. Like progress looks like oh, I got a website up. It's not like real progress you know.
Speaker 1:So if I get asked I want to be an entrepreneur, what should I do?
Speaker 1:It's like learn on someone else's dime. If you can in any way right, like, become a great engineer or become a great product person or a great salesperson, those are, I think, the three ways to do it. And when you're there, try to do your job incredibly well, but try to understand the system that has been built around you, you know, and just really become the best in the game at one of those three disciplines. And if you're thinking about the world that way, it will very likely an opportunity will come along and present itself to you. And if you're really good, you can find the other side right like. It's always super hard for founders who are not engineers to find good tech teams the first time around, because why would someone work with my buddy who's never built a sas company, who's in wealth management that like thinks that he's got this idea? It wouldn't, yeah, because they want to work with somebody like like me, who's in wealth management that like thinks that he's got this idea.
Speaker 2:It wouldn't, yeah, because they want to work with somebody like like me who's like had two successful sas companies right, like, but you're building and and you're completely right, and I I give this advice quite quite often as well whether you know what you want to do or you don't know what you, what you want to do, you should experience working for a variety of companies, teams and so on, because you gain one. If you know what you want to do, just go and work for a company that does it well. If you don't know what you want to do, explore work for a couple of companies, because you assimilate a lot of that knowledge and scenarios that you might want to go through as a founder, as an entrepreneur I want to go through as a founder, as an entrepreneur. I want to ask you something.
Speaker 2:So you mentioned, which is pretty valid, and I think a lot of people don't see this from the outside or if you're an aspiring entrepreneur just starting, you look at those graphs and say, oh, this company went from this to that, and you did mention you know, there's dips. There's always dips. It doesn't matter how successful you are as a, as an organization, as a company, as a product, there's always dips. I've had someone on the podcast recently that said that told me a very funny thing, but I relate to quite a lot was you have 10 months grade of growth and then you have two months where you stagnate or you you lose each turn, and then the first thought that you have is okay, we need who do we need to let go, because we're not going to have enough money to pay everyone in two, three months. Yep, have you been in those periods where things have dipped? Did you find yourself in situations where you had to kind of like tighten the belt a bit and take decisions like that?
Speaker 1:yeah, the two worst days of my professional life possibly my life. One was probably 2016, um, and then one was in 2023. So, and they're both just big layoffs the IDD so, and they were you know, it's always your fault, right the CEO seat. That's just what it is. So in 2016, we had this data mining in like a boiler room cold calling strategy that allowed us to grow that company to 3 million. We had this list that was 250,000 contacts that were like incredible. They were one of the competitor's customers. We knew it. Like they were just leaving information all over the internet. They didn't know they were leaving. It was amazing.
Speaker 1:We had this other list that was like a million, but it was lower quality. Instead of being first name, last name, zip code and company name, it was like just the company and instead of knowing they were a paying customer, we just knew that they had trialed the software. So like much lower quality list, but still like it was working so well that, even if it was lower quality, maybe it would work, and if it worked, I would need a lot more sales people. So I put my best three sales people on it and it appeared over like six weeks that this test we were running on this new list was working. So I'm like, okay, we gotta like hire salespeople and like grow the sales force anymore. I don't know, we had 25 salespeople at the time uh the 31 people total.
Speaker 1:A month goes by. We get everybody calling this list and it is like it's not even that they aren't closing deals. Like it's not, they're not even connecting. You know what I mean. Like people's not even that they aren't closing deals, like they're not even connecting. You know what I mean. Like people are not even picking up the phone on the other end. Like it was so far beyond. Like what can we do to salvage the situation? That was just like there's only one thing we knew. Like this is not a business anymore. Like it's we don't have anyone to call, you know.
Speaker 1:So, uh, it became very clear late one week that, like you know, it was just totally fucked. And uh, there's a guy who's an advisor of mine. He's like kind of like, uh, ben torre, he's the chairman of the board. I called him and he's like, look, you know, hardest part of your job is this. Right, it's like, but if you you see something that is a systemic, like catastrophic risk to your business, like you have to cut the arm, as though it has cancer right like off of your body.
Speaker 1:And you know, it's one of these situations where we walked in on Monday and it was like I called 25 people into a room. And it's one of these situations where we walked in on monday and it was like I called 25 people into a room and it's like if you're standing in this room, you don't have a job anymore, and then we just say what are you talking about? So I explained to them the details and people mostly understood, uh, and then, of course, you get wrecked on glass door and you know, with that company we didn't hire anyone. After that, like we we've stayed a squad of like six people. And then you know, I was able to sell it three years ago and there were like 10 when we sold it, so it was just a small thing.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I mean, that's terrible, that's like the worst people betting you. There's this horrible situation with this one girl who, like I loved, like we were gonna hire a bunch of sales people. She was a recruiter, she was in Australia, she was from Australia, so like I helped her with this visa issue and then, like, let her go eight weeks in, you know, and it's just what are you gonna do? You know, and, like I don't know, it was absolutely terrible. That was like the hardest situation of all of them and you said you had.
Speaker 1:You had one in 2023, 2023 it was like going for this unicorn thing, like all of the signal that we were getting back. I was like this is a unicorn twice over. Like we needed outbounds working, like which it wasn't. It was like our brand was growing and we were getting inbound that was getting caught by these outbound reps. So like you took the outbound squad from two to eight and like they're booking the same amount of demos anyway. It went from total euphoria, which was actually overselling, which gave us a. Basically we thought that there were 30,000 Shopify stores sorry, 50,000 Shopify stores that we could sell a $30,000 deal to in seven days, that I thought in year two would have like a 25 to 50% revenue expansion. When the dust settled, we were overselling so hard. It was 1400 stores that we could sell a $20,000 deal to in one month at a 60% churn rate. You know that is just so radically different.
Speaker 1:And when that started to become evident, this VP sales that we had like worked forever and brought him on or whatever, he just like quit and uh, you know the sales org was 20 people and it was like all right, do we, do we like replace this guy and keep these 20 people? I wanted like a super light inbound model. The whole time, anyway, I was like Diana, can you just like keep the minimum amount of salespeople we have a tremendous amount of inbound coming in here, like just flood them with deals and be the VP sales yourself. And she's like, yeah, it's a good idea. So again, I didn't have to do it this time Someone else did, but it was like 15 people on a call.
Speaker 1:You know, I don't even remember this guy's name, but VP sales quit, mike quit. You know we're shrinking the sales team. I mean, like you know, again I got annihilated on Glassdoor because, like before this whole thing, we only had six people. Like we went from like six to like 50 or 60 in 60 in like 60 days or something like that. And then I have these HR ops, people, whatever you want to call them. They like don't want us to manipulate the Glassdoor thing either. So, like my Glassdoor presence for me personally and our company is just terrible and like really does not reflect what it's like to work at our shop does not reflect what it's like to work at our shop, um, but it's funny that that is like.
Speaker 2:I have these hr people that tell me don't manipulate, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I try to let people like do what they believe in and not just bully them or whatever. But like it's to me, I'm just like guys like I look at this. Everyone's gonna look at this. It's like a urine stain on my pants. I don't have to have a urine stain on my pants, but like we do Like why are we just leaving this here like that? Like well, you know, I think it's bullshit and no one really believes it anyway. Like it's like whatever. Like maybe they don't believe it, but like people look at that. I try to like fight it in my own ways. I try to like fight it in my own ways.
Speaker 1:I basically have not looked at Glassdoor since the first time in 2015. I know what it says because they tell me. I want to understand what people's bribes are. Um, but I had. I had our video producer text me negative reviews about me and us. I didn't even know what our rating was. So we did this whole 45 minute shoot that I put on linkedin of me doing like mean tweets, like reading these negative reviews about our company and myself. Uh, and it was hard, man. It was really funny, but like like there were 45 minutes of bad and then she sent a good one and I was like, oh my god, I want to give this person a hug. Like this is just amazing does that?
Speaker 2:is that glass door?
Speaker 1:those, those glass door reviews um currently impacting your ability to hire the right people I think I'm just in a unique situation with all the founder brand work I'm doing, like we have. You know, literally every single day someone is saying I want to work for somebody who has vision like you. Do you have any room for x, right? So, um, I think we get the benefit. I think that, like that effort, it's just so inconsistent with what people see on Glassdoor, yeah, and I think for the people that are sort of in it, you know it overpowers it or something like that. I mean I kind of like doing something, like I would like to like pay for the branding package on Glassdoor and just make a banner that says all of these people got fired at once.
Speaker 2:Like, literally, like, have that be our company company brand yeah, um, I mean, I I feel like at the end of the it is what it is, is it's the reality of things it sounds like you had a couple of um occurrences where you you did a big bet.
Speaker 1:It didn't work out yeah, and then people do this for 11 years, right people?
Speaker 2:People won't be happy. They're going to go and give reviews and so on. You have to embrace it Totally. And I think to me, what are you doing with you know being on stage talking about the vision and you know being on podcasts and all of this PR and so on? Like you said, you will have people that really like what you do and how you think, yeah and uh. You know, if they, if they join the boat, you know it's gonna get rocky at some point. Um, and it is what it is. I. You know at least you're, you're taking on the responsibility it was. You know, as no one else's fuck up you's leadership Decisions are being taken in a certain direction, I think it's also it's kind of like unrealistic to expect that everyone will be there for the long run, especially in a volatile ecosystem and economy that we exist nowadays and in early stage startups man, they're just risky it is.
Speaker 1:I try to run mine in a way where they're less risky, but like man it's just a risky space.
Speaker 2:You know A couple of things to close off, because I'm being told that we need to close off and I'm like I want to talk for another hour. Three questions that I usually ask at the end what's a quote that you live by?
Speaker 1:something like I think you know the whole, like reputation is built over years and to be destroyed in a day like I really like that.
Speaker 2:I think it's super important in everything to do with business and it sounds like it comes. It stems from your personal experiences. Is there a book that influenced you?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So my favorite book, as it pertains to building startups, which I recommend more than anything, is called Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank.
Speaker 2:Check it out. Awesome and a good habit that you advocate for.
Speaker 1:Check it out. Awesome and a good habit that you advocate for. So I stopped drinking three and a half years ago. It was just like a bad habit. So it's a really good habit for me to not do it, just because it leads to so many other healthy things, like I sleep much better, you know. I think you work out more and I just experience less anxiety and like annoyance with people when I'm hungover, a lot, you know. So, yeah, that was a big one for me, the habit of not consuming alcohol. Perfect, it's a big one.
Speaker 2:Well, I know a couple of people that don't drink alcohol. Awesome. Well, thank you, I have a gift for you.
Speaker 1:Oh amazing.
Speaker 2:You are the 47th guest on my podcast.
Speaker 1:Heck yeah.
Speaker 2:In less than a year, hopefully by the one year mark, it would get to a point where there's enough impact to say and that's why I'm giving these away, because the conversation with you I'm sure there are a lot of founders out there that resonate with your story, especially the one around letting people go, especially in the last couple of years. It happens to everybody, it's the worst part of the job, but it's part letting people go especially in the last couple of years.
Speaker 1:It happens to everybody. It's the worst part of the job, but it's part of the job.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much and I'm sure we'll have the opportunity to do another lengthier podcast, especially you told me that you do five podcasts per week so I'm sure there's going to be an opportunity. Cool Cheers. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Thanks everybody.
