Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast The Scale Up Show
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Titre
Date
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Unlocking Growth: Kyle York on Integrating AI into Advisory Services for Startups
18 Sep 2024
00:12:10
Ryan welcomes back Kyle York, CEO of York IE, for a deep dive into the innovative integration of AI within business operations. Kyle shares his unique approach to productizing services in the advisory and venture capital space, emphasizing the importance of creating scalable, tech-enabled solutions for startups. The discussion explores the evolving landscape of business models, particularly the shift towards results-driven services, and how companies can achieve efficiency without sacrificing quality. As they navigate the challenges facing early-stage startups in a chaotic economic environment, Kyle offers insights into the future of entrepreneurship and the potential for impactful innovation across various industries. Tune in to discover how to grow a VC-backed company without traditional investment and the strategies that can lead to sustainable success.
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Integration of AI in Business Models: Kyle emphasizes the importance of integrating AI and technology into business operations to create scalable and efficient service offerings, particularly in the advisory and venture capital sectors.
Productization of Services: The approach to productizing services involves listening to the needs of startups and creating a modular advisory-as-a-service platform that aligns with their financial goals, offering various subscription tiers across different business functions.
Demand for Results as a Service: There is a growing trend among business leaders who prefer comprehensive solutions that deliver results rather than just purchasing tools or software. This shift reflects a desire for efficiency and effectiveness in operations.
Market Disruption and Innovation: Ryan and Kyle highlight the potential for disruption in traditional consulting and professional services industries by leveraging technology, automation, and subscription models to create more agile and responsive business solutions.
Future Outlook for Startups: Despite current economic challenges, there is optimism about the entrepreneurial class's ability to innovate and drive significant impact in the coming years, suggesting a resilient spirit within the startup ecosystem.
BEST MOMENTS
"There's a real gap on the go-to-market side for companies... I wanted to take that expertise and experience, but productize it and build it into a platform for the startup landscape."
"I thought there was an opportunity for a one-stop resource hub... to integrate technology, AI, and automation to build the next great companies."
"Every industry can be disrupted and models can be evolved... companies are going to take a different spin or slant on the company they want to build in that sector."
"I think everybody's looking for a little bit of a lowering of the heat... and I have strong faith that the entrepreneurial class is going to make a huge impact in the next couple of decades."
Preparing for the AI Revolution: Challenges, Opportunities, and the Need for Regulation in the Tech Space
15 Sep 2024
00:17:15
This episode features Ryan's interview on The Revenue Reimagined Podcast for a discussion on the transformative impact of AI in the tech and sales sectors. He explores the nuances of AI, distinguishes it from automation, and takes a look at the potential challenges and fears surrounding job displacement due to AI advancements. Ryan also touches on the future of autonomous agents and the need for regulatory measures to mitigate risks associated with rapid AI development.
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AI should be viewed as a tool for skill transformation and customization, while automation involves precise processes that need to be executed consistently. Many people mistakenly equate the two, which can lead to ineffective implementations.
Clients come with varying levels of proficiency in AI, and even those who rate themselves highly often have untapped potential. Continuous learning and adaptation are crucial for maximizing the benefits of AI tools.
There is a significant fear regarding job losses due to AI advancements. The potential for widespread unemployment raises concerns about macroeconomic stability and societal impacts if a large portion of the workforce becomes obsolete.
Effective use of AI requires a deep understanding of prompt engineering and the nuances of how to interact with AI models. This foundational skill is essential for leveraging AI effectively in business processes.
The development of autonomous agents, which can execute complex tasks with minimal human intervention, is on the horizon. However, without proper understanding and guidance, these agents could exacerbate existing issues, such as poor communication and ineffective outreach.
BEST MOMENTS
"AI is not a catch-all, but you could use it as a team of helpers for any individual department or organization."
"There's going to be a lot of people that lose their jobs if the government doesn't get their shit together."
"Even people that rate themselves as a four out of five still have a ton that they could use it for that they're not."
"I think if the government doesn't step in and regulate, you're going to see significant wide-scale unemployment that is going to change the face of the country."
"If you don't understand how to effectively even prompt, what you're going to do is have an autonomous agent that scales shit."
The Evolution of Sales Strategies Through AI | Expert Advice from Will Barron - Part 2
13 Aug 2024
00:27:20
In today's episode, Ryan continues his conversation with renowned podcast host, Will Barron. They consider high-performer traits in sales, focusing on the importance of habits and how they can impact success. Will also shares his insights on the use of AI in sales, sharing a practical example of leveraging AI tools to streamline content creation for his YouTube shorts.
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Setting habits, especially in prospecting, can lead to consistent performance and success in sales.
Assertiveness, comfort with talking about money, optimism, not being a people pleaser, high self-esteem, personal accountability, and goal-setting are key traits of high performers.
Controlling emotions and pushing through tasks even when not feeling like it is essential for success.
AI tools can be beneficial for speeding up processes, such as generating content ideas and questions for content creation.
Using AI tools for generating questions for content creation can save time and increase content output, leading to higher engagement and views.
BEST MOMENTS
"One of the things that I get the all new starters in our program to do is to prospect daily. And that is such a transformational leap in most salespeople's and small business owners and founders, if they're doing founder-led sales."
"Nobody wants to do cold outreach. Nobody wants to do content creation if you're doing inbound marketing, inbound lead sales. Nobody wants to do cold calls. But you have to do them routinely, systematically, every day to build that habit. And then it becomes like brushing your teeth, where it's an activity which is neutral."
"I used to be a massive procrastinator. Unless the deadline was three minutes from this moment in time, I wouldn't have started any project. I got over that by understanding this concept of the emotional, 'caveman' part of my brain."
Ryan talks to you in this episode about why you can no longer afford to ignore the power of AI for business, including how you can increase your volume of work by 20% alongside increasing quality by 40%!
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The relationship between time and business and time and sales is often misunderstood. Time spent doesn’t equal success, it’s about using your time on the right tasks and AI can help with this.
In the largest AI study conducted, individuals leveraging AI created 12% more and completed 25% faster too. The results they leveraged with AI were also of 40% higher quality.
To get the best results from AI, you need to focus on top level executives and then the employees you have the largest number of.
Look at your team members and tasks and really think about where automation can be implemented and what it would look like.
Investigate what is possible in your business with AI, then create small steps towards this, discovering use cases as you integrate more and more automation and AI.
If you can learn how to become competent in AI, learning how to leverage it to its best, you will be in high demand and start to become a leader.
BEST MOMENTS
"Unlock 10-20 hours in your week whilst also increasing your output by 40%”
“I can do 12% more tasks, I can do it 30% faster and I uplevel myself 40%, that’s freaking wild”
“There are salespeople that make more than executives”
“Organisations like Netflix are paying to have someone who is competent in AI”
We’re all being told to switch to AI, but what could this mean in real terms for your business? Join Ryan as he outlines the ways AI could save you up to 80 hours a month and give you time back to focus on sales and other high-value tasks.
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AI can be used to manage digital tasks, to help save you time and wasted activity so you can focus on more value-added tasks that need a human touch.
There are five buckets to leveraging AI: Time Execution Acumen Money Skill(s)
It’s critical to look at all your non-sales activities and figure out the best mix of large-language models you can use
If you can utilize the right language models in the right way then there is no need to spend thousands on tools.
There is always a learning period when you start using AI, build this into your timeline.
Create a daily AI log, so you are tracking your progress and what you are learning. You can also track and think about what other use cases this tool, model or prompt could work for
BEST MOMENTS
"The ultimate timesaver, how to leverage AI for that”
“I look at AI as a digital butler”
“AI is like life with 10 power-ups”
“I think this is going to change people's lives faster than anything in the history of man and I wanted to share this with you"
Ryan talks about how to leverage AI to skyrocket productivity and get an edge over the competition. He shares the reasons why many sales leaders are lagging behind and explains how to implement an “anti-fragile” sales process through AI for quick wins. Ryan also provides a step-by-step guide for prompts, frameworks, goal setting, and continuous learning. Ryan stresses that ignoring AI means volunteering for extinction, as it is evolving all businesses. He invites you to join the Sales AI Accelerator program for more tactics on achieving AI mastery!
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This episode discusses how sales roles could be impacted by AI automation in the next 12 months. Ryan explains how tools like Google Duplex demonstrate the rapid advancement of AI in mimicking human conversations. He warns that 30% of sales jobs could get eliminated due to AI's ability to automate communication and data analysis. However, Ryan offers solutions - take a personal audit of automatable tasks, understand the AI landscape, take initiative in your company to utilize AI, and establish yourself as an AI expert. By proactively using AI as an "Iron Man suit", sales professionals can augment their abilities rather than be replaced. Ryan makes an urgent call to action to ride the AI wave rather than be crushed by it.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
30% of sales jobs could get automated in the next 12 months as AI tools advance rapidly.
Audit your role for repetitive, automatable tasks and outsource them to AI.
Don't wait - take the initiative now to utilize AI daily and become the AI expert at your company.
Leverage large language models like GPT as your "master tool" instead of multiple niche AI tools.
Complete a 30-day AI challenge to build expertise and identify use cases.
Lead with AI expertise to future-proof your career and create new opportunities.
BEST MOMENTS
"We're human now. How do we then evolve to become a cyborg with how we work and effectively become superhuman where we're like Tony Stark flying around."
"You don't need to buy 50 slave tools if you understand the one master tool and how to leverage it, and that's the large language model foundation."
"By taking the lead with yourself and understanding AI, you will now be the go-to person - the AI expert in the organization."
"I wanted to make this episode to call out this threat because I see so many people falling asleep at the wheel with AI."
"You're either riding the wave or you are getting crushed by it. The challenge is up to you."
The Future of Marketing in an AI World with Shay Howe of ActiveCampaign
19 Sep 2023
00:34:40
Join Ryan as he interviews Shay Howe, CMO of ActiveCampaign to talk about all things AI in growth and marketing. Shay shares what he would focus on if creating a start-up now: identifying market demand, building owned channels, and leveraging AI for content generation and research. With uncertainty around algorithms and paid media, he emphasizes product-led growth and referrals as key strategies.
Shay provides examples of how ActiveCampaign uses AI for attribution insights and highlights the importance of verticalized, practical content. He predicts storytelling and thought leadership will evolve to cut through AI-generated content.
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Look for existing market demand when starting a company, don’t try to convince people they need something new. Find where a solution is missing.
With changing algorithms and paid media, build owned channels like email and communities vs. relying solely on external platforms.
Leverage AI for content generation but avoid jeopardizing SEO. Use it for ad copy, headlines, chatbots, and translations.
AI excels at research and brainstorming. Use it to analyze competitors, explore verticals and generate ideas.
Feed survey data into AI to get summarized insights on trends and themes.
As AI democratizes content, focus on original, verticalized, practical information. Teach and help implement rather than just sharing ideas.
Storytelling and thought leadership will be key to cutting through AI-generated content. Build authority through genuine value!
BEST MOMENTS
"I would look for where is their demand already, it's fishing in a stock pond, right? Like we don't have to go out and try and find the fish. It's already there."
"I think thought leadership is going to actually really start to evolve and folks going to have to find ways to build true authority and market."
"I think the trick is going to be where, where can that AI side, what opportunities will it open that we have not yet seen that the first mover is going to have strong advantages in, right?"
From $0 to $8M ARR: Stefan Smulders of Expandi on Growth Marketing
17 Sep 2023
00:36:33
Ryan interviews Stefan Smulders, founder and chief strategy officer of Expandi, a LinkedIn automation SaaS company. Stefan shares how he bootstrapped Expandi to $8 million in ARR in just 4 years through relentless hustling, including doing over 700 product demos in the first 3 months. He emphasizes the power of inbound marketing through valuable content creation, building a personal brand with his face on it, and capturing leads into a tight community. Stefan also stresses the importance of focusing on reducing churn by improving onboarding and guidance instead of only chasing new signups. With the right team in place to solve these challenges, he’s confident Expandi can scale to $20 million ARR quickly. Tune in to hear Stefan’s energy, insights and unique story on growth marketing and scaling on LinkedIn.
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Scaling a Remote Company to Nearly Unicorn Status with Ori Keren of Linear B
13 Sep 2023
00:30:59
Ryan is joined in this episode by Ori Keren, founder and CEO of LinearB, a software delivery management company nearing unicorn status. Ori shares how he and his co-founder built the company remotely, him in Tel Aviv and his partner in California. He outlines LinearB's growth strategy of focusing on the mid-market before expanding to enterprise. Ori stresses the importance of constantly evolving based on customer feedback. He also discusses key challenges around scaling the company efficiently and how LinearB is leveraging AI, using it to build internal tools that increase productivity.
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From Family Business to Bootstrapping $5million SaaS Titan with Greg Rich of Vivantio
10 Sep 2023
00:24:40
Ryan interviews Greg Rich, CEO of Vivantio, a SaaS company providing service management solutions. Greg started working in customer service at age 13 in his family's business and co-founded Vivantio in the early 2000s to fill a gap in the market for cloud-based service management software.
Greg talks about keeping up with rapid advancements in AI and using it to improve customer experiences. He shares how Vivantio scaled from nothing to $5 million in ARR through channel partnerships, expanding to the large U.S. market, and focusing on customer education. Greg discusses the challenges of scaling marketing and sales as Vivantio transitions to a high-growth organization. Tune in to hear Greg’s unique origin story and his vision to reach $20 million ARR in the next few years.
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Greg Identified an untapped market for cloud-based service management SaaS in the early 2000s.
He leveraged partnerships to fill the sales gap without significant cost early on. Greg was also creative in using low-cost marketing and pay-per-click to grow.
Vivantio focuses messaging on educating customers about service optimization, education is key and Greg’s customer service background has enabled him to create and foster a customer-centric culture.
Vivantio expanded to the U.S. in 2011, and now 50% of revenue comes from the U.S. market.
Greg has developed tech to leverage customer data and AI to provide industry benchmarking as well as predictive analysis.
The biggest challenge when transitioning to high growth is scaling marketing and sales.
BEST MOMENTS
“One of the first things we did was realize that Russ and I weren't sales and marketing people...how do we fill that gap without the money to pay people?"
"We leveraged our relationship with partners who were able to fill that gap we didn't have."
"Now 50 per cent of our customers are in the U.S."
"My biggest challenge is go-to-market - how do we scale, reach more people, get our message across succinctly?"
How to Make Your Company Investable with Harpinder Singh - Innovation Partners
05 Sep 2023
00:31:38
Two-time founder and current VC investor Harpinder (Harpi) Singh joins Ryan in this episode. His firm, Innovation Endeavors was co-founded by the CEO of Google Eric Schmidt and they have invested in many companies including Uber. Harpi gives the interesting insights he has gained at a macro level of the start-up scene and talks about what you can do to make yourself more attractive for funding in the current climate. If you are looking at funding or just want to know what’s happening in the start-up space, particularly around the utilisation of AI this is an episode not to miss!
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Harpi met his founding team at Standford, sold 6 ½ years later, building another start-up which he then also sold.
Having two to three founders appears to be the sweet spot for success for start-ups.
As a start-up, you’re in a race against time to find product market fit and go-to-market and you want to try and do this as quickly as possible with the lowest cost. If you can focus on the right KPIs this can aid you with both things.
The toolkit that is available now to start-ups just got 10x bigger and better. They are now able to utilise AI and associated technologies faster and more effectively due to their agility and ability to take on more risks.
Chat GPT releasing an enterprise-specific AI will have a large impact on the marketplace, especially alongside Microsoft and Google releasing their own too.
If you’re an enterprise, you really need AI software that is end-to-end so you aren’t having to add the complexity of merging tools.
Harpi’s top 3 tips for a company to be highly investable is to create a must-have product. Be vigilant about the feedback you get back from the market and only act based on it.
Founding in an economic downturn doesn’t have to be difficult it has its own unique opportunities such as being able to hire easily.
BEST MOMENTS
“With new data and compute you are able to come up with automation, with decisions making that’s much faster”
“The fundamental advantage start-up companies have is the speed up iteration”
“Almost every founder I talk to says they wish they had a co-founder”
“People are using AI to give super powers to their people”
Bootstrapping to $10 Million with Customer-Centric Processes with Dmitri Adler of Data Society
03 Sep 2023
00:32:46
Dmitri Adler is the cofounder of Data Society which is an award-winning AI software and engineering firm serving the enterprise and service sectors. Data Society is one of Ink 5000 fastest growing companies and also one of the top ten ed-tech companies identified by Forbes! They bootstrapped themselves to $10 million using process-driven customer service and AI. Dmitri joins Ryan to discuss how they have achieved all of this and specifically highlights how to collect relevant data and the importance of AI literacy.
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The skills and expertise execution of Data Society’s team paired with excellent customer service is why they have such good customer retention.
Finding various yet consistent ways to drive value for their clients is one of Data Society’s core values.
Processes to quantify customer feedback have been essential, Data Society ensures they do customer evaluation at multiple steps throughout the customers' journey.
Humans are social animals and learning solo can be limiting. If you learn with others, such as your colleagues, it can be a lot more effective.
Data Society tailors their programmes to clients’ use cases, ensuring it’s actionable means that it has a higher retention rate; people stick with it.
We use AI to either do something by following a pattern or to make a recommendation based on a pattern it has learnt from. So, your organisation needs to be able to collect relevant data to utilise AI effectively.
AI is a great impersonator and learning from people but when people can’t discern what is real and what isn’t from AI, that creates a distortion of the world and will lead to bad decisions.
BEST MOMENTS
“We’re focused on the enterprise, it’s very much about customer service”
“Customers come back when you do a good job”
“We’ve stuck to our guns in terms of what we’re very good at”
“If you want to use AI you have to have data that it can learn from and that it can utilise in order to tell you something”
“The most dangerous thing about AI is when you don’t know what it is doing, it’s powerful”
Transforming Sales Strategies | Expert Advice from Will Barron - Part 1
11 Aug 2024
00:22:11
Ryan sits down with Will Barron, the renowned host of The Salesman Podcast. Will shares his expertise on how to effectively combine attention and prospecting strategies to overcome challenges in sales, particularly in acquiring new customers.
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Combining attention and prospecting in sales is incredibly important in overcoming challenges in pipeline activation.
Will Barron emphasizes the importance of creating content that answers buyers' questions and aligns with their desires to attract and engage prospects effectively.
The key elements of a successful outbound strategy include targeting the right person, crafting buyer-centric messages, and focusing on booking meetings rather than closing deals.
Consistent exposure through multiple platforms and interactions can help build unconscious trust with prospects, making them more likely to engage.
Simplifying messaging to create curiosity and elicit a response from prospects can be more effective than overwhelming them with product details.
BEST MOMENTS
"If you can just call someone, or you are just able to email someone to book meetings, you absolutely shouldn't be doing content marketing."
"You've got features, benefits, great, no one gives a shit. What are the desires of the buyer? How can you tie what you do with not even solving a problem, the desire behind that problem, why they want to solve it?"
"You're just trying to give them just enough where they go 'Wills emails me, and I would not be doing my due diligence in my role if I don't jump on a quick call of him."
"I think there's a lot of value of being like hyper direct. At least that's the way it is. I've shifted and I'm like, hey, this is where I'm at. This is what my pricing is."
Using AI to Power Your Processes with Three-Time Founder Vinay Patankar of Process Street
30 Aug 2023
00:32:33
Vinay Patankar is a three-time founder, including Process Street, an AI-powered process management platform that started with a workflow product. Vinay shares his experience of being a digital nomad for 10 years and how it inspired him to create Process Street. Ryan and Vinay also talk about the democratization of AI and the biggest value they think it will add to businesses.
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Vinay began working as a digital nomad, doing this meant he had to create his own work as remote working wasn’t really a thing yet. He began creating a series of internet companies including SEO sites and selling other services.
When he had 20 people on his team, Vinay started to feel overwhelmed by the management aspects, it became a personal pain and that’s what led to the creation of Process Street.
A lot of AI products that are and will continue to be launched are to make repetitive processes more efficient or higher quality.
Humans don’t like doing repetitive work but it is required for human prosperity, this is how AI can aid us.
Human quality control and unique creativity are not things AI can replicate but most other things can be automated.
HR, finance and real estate are the three main industries Vinay aids with his products.
Process Street is similar to a lot of collaboration platforms but its main difference is Process Street has a builder and collaborator user model.
BEST MOMENTS
“Why isn’t there a software that does this for me, it felt like what I was doing was very repetitive”.
“The biggest value AI is going to add is the execution of these repetitive processes”
“I see it as just another form of automation”
“You can manipulate data in interesting ways”
“We don’t want to be creative in these scenarios, there are parts of businesses and types of businesses where you don't want that creativity"
What’s the Best Way to Bootstrap a Company To $10 Million ARR with Lloyed Lobo Boast AI
27 Aug 2023
00:50:12
Lloyed Lobo is the founder of Boast AI. He scaled from zero to $10mil+ and all with no investment! Lloyed created an entire community, utilizing this community for growth and now has written a book about it. He talks to Ryan about how you can grow and lead a movement from scratch and then leverage it for your next opportunity and gives an amazing breakdown of how to bootstrap your way through building a business, avoiding giving up your freedom and equity to investors.
Grab LLoyed's entire GTM community led growth playbook here in his Top Selling Book: From Grassroots To Greatness: 13 Rules to Build Iconic Brands with Community Led Growth: Grab the Book
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Entrepreneurship is all about taking something from nothing and dealing with risk and uncertainty to create a positive outcome
After the advice from an entrepreneur, Lloyed took a sales job to learn the skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur.
One of the best ways to bootstrap a company to $ 1 million plus ARR is to sell a service.
Lloyed first started the company from his bedroom, he had to get very good at communicating with his customers and learning exactly what they wanted. They didn’t have anything else they could rely on.
When starting out, talk to your customers to find out what their pain points are and discover what they need. You need to do things that are manual and won’t scale in the beginning.
Think about the bigger picture and the wider purpose of your product, connect with your customers and help enable their success.
Utilise other people’s credibility and brand reputation by collaborating with them.
Get back to basics with your marketing and branding, simple can be very effective especially if you utilise tried and tested methods.
BEST MOMENTS
“You attract the energy you give out”
“I used to procrastinate on everything”
“Everything you do as an entrepreneur is all communication”
“You won’t know exactly what to build if you don’t do the work manually…do things that don’t scale in the beginning”
“You’re asking about the problem, not the solution”
“Building a service is a great way to bootstrap it”
Building an Effective AI Moat with 4x Founder Gaurav Oberoi CEO of Lexion.ai
23 Aug 2023
00:29:18
Gaurav Oberoi is the CEO and co-founder of Lexion.ai, a generative AI in the legal space. He is a 4x founder and was also a former VP of Product and survey monkey. Gaurav joins Ryan to talk about how to tactically create a mode with AI, how to get the best product market fit and the importance of time to value and demonstrating high-value ROI early on.
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Lexion.ai makes software that helps companies accelerate the entire contracting process. They bring AI and acceleration to every part of the process.
Linkedin is a great social platform to leverage, you can put content out there that provides value and also notifies people of your business at the same time
It’s essential to focus on delivering a very high-quality product with high ROI otherwise having a good referral engine is useless.
Positive feedback isn’t all you need to build a product, you need commitment from your early interest clients as well as the ability to read between the lines and push for the harder feedback that isn’t always immediately obvious.
AI is quickly becoming more sophisticated but it still has a lot of limitations such as when something has been done incorrectly or where more context is needed.
When using AI you need to teach it your personal rules, all the context it may need, generate guard rails and remember that it will constantly be evolving and you are driving that evolution.
If you want to grow a start-up then you need to show high value quickly, the faster and more clearly you can show the ROI the better.
BEST MOMENTS
“Our software is all about any kind of document process that needs accelerating”
“Nowadays the most powerful social network for b2b companies is LinkedIn”
“It’s not really when people have paid that you’ve got success, it’s really when you see repeat usage that you know it’s working”
“Having significant data about users and their activity is a significant mode”
Generating 38x ROI via AI with Matthew Tillman CEO of OpenEnvoy
20 Aug 2023
00:37:33
Matthew Tillman is the CEO of OpenEnvoy and has worked in the machine-learning space for over 20 years. Matthew talks to Ryan about how he built his solution to generate 38x ROI for his customers, where to spend your time in your start-up as well as machine learning and the role of AI in reimagining what is possible.
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OpenEnvoy replaces complex accounts payable processes by replacing human-centric workflows with AI.
One of the ways to overcome many go-to-market challenges is to hire a team that has the right skills to both create value and demonstrate it effectively to your customers.
Matthew recognised there was a problem in the accounts payable industry as none of the companies could handle variable cost invoices, so he set out to fix it.
As a founder, you have to recognise what things are worth delving into deeply and what ideas and thoughts need to be put ‘on the back burner’. It can be too easy to investigate and get involved in anything to do with your business as you have so much passion for it.
Focus on your business and what you can do more of today to grow it.
Customer feedback is always an opportunity, the information you get is invaluable.
Think about which people can add value to your business but also who you as a leader and founder can add value to, to get the most out of your people.
Focus on the customers who will love you and therefore will refer you, this is one of the least optimized customer acquisition levers.
Machine learning and tech are so much cheaper, in many cases even free. This wasn’t possible 20 years ago; it has democratised many industries.
Opensource tech means you get an incredible amount of feedback whilst having to provide a lot less value.
Matthew believes that AI gives us the opportunity to stop treating humans like robots, finding solutions to help find them value-add work to do instead of treating people poorly.
Demonstrating a 38x ROI for his customers proves that the OpenEnvoy solution is providing incredible value.
BEST MOMENTS
“All founders have to be insanely passionate about whatever they’re working on”
“I love hearing from customers, good or bad”
“It’s really important to nail your schedule”
“You optimize towards customers that will love you and refer you”
“The reality is machines do this black and white input better than you can handle it”
Solving the Pipeline Gap Problem with Jason Smith CEO of Klue
16 Aug 2023
00:33:25
Jason Smith is the CEO and co-founder of Klue, a five-time entrepreneur, Jason took a year off to travel with his family, recognising the importance of dedicated time and renewed focus. Jason talks to Ryan about his unique approach to handling and solving the pipeline gap problem as well as the things he has learnt in his entrepreneurship journey and what he will be focusing on in the future.
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Jason grew his previous company from a start-up to $15 million!
One thing Jason learnt early in building businesses is focus, so you can execute and prioritise the right things and get results.
After working incredibly hard for many years, Jason re-evaluated his life and decided to take a year off to spend travelling with his family.
Entrepreneurs tend to live in natural cycles, with a start and end to things, this is something Jason lives his life by.
It’s a skill to allow time to pass before starting new ideas, what might seem like a great concept when you first think of it will probably feel different a couple of months down the line. Give yourself time to assess new ideas and concepts.
Identify where you have lost to competitors and within that, what deals you could have won. This will give you the direction and focus for what needs to change to close the gaps in your pipeline.
If you truly understand your competitors, you can get into the fine details of exactly how they operate and what you can do to disrupt those operations.
Market and competitor understanding generates trust with potential clients.
BEST MOMENTS
“Love the fact you took a single product and grew it as big as you did, not a lot of companies have the discipline to do that”
“Build the niche that you need then expand from there”
“Building businesses is not easy, it’s time-consuming”
“If there are deals you should have won, how do you win them?”
“You create trust with your prospects when you can elegantly talk about your market”
How to Hit $70 Million by Measuring Culture & Performance with Ryan Wedig CEO of Vasion
13 Aug 2023
00:35:39
Ryan Wedig is the CEO and founder of Vasion who went from $0 to $70 million in just 7 years! Ryan opens up and works through his execution strategy, including the mistakes he made and what he would do differently if he had his time again as well as the key indicators he uses to measure performance.
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Originally Vasion were in the print space and they quickly realised they needed a strong direct sales team to enter this industry.
Vasion carved out a niche for itself by going after early adopters and demonstrating themselves as innovators.
Performance isn’t subjective, it can be measured and can be forecasted.
Don’t focus on ‘arriving’ somewhere or hitting the goal but instead on your performance and what it will take to get there.
Culture isn’t always a priority but it should be one of the most important things you focus on as it impacts everything you do.
As you scale, the skillset required will mean you need a broader set of personalities, this is when you really need to focus on building the right culture and measuring it.
BEST MOMENTS
“The technology was novel enough and innovative enough”
“The word success is kinda a silly concept”
“Culture is nowhere on your list, it should be the second most important thing on your list”
Are You Making This Go-To-Market Mistake in Your Business? with Laurent De Grauwe - Microsoft
08 Aug 2023
00:27:00
Laurent De Grauwe, a sales and marketing executive for over 20 years, joins Ryan in this episode to give interesting perspectives on the world of AI, tools and go-to-market strategies and teams. Laurent's unique perspectives are based on his breadth of knowledge gained from working at Microsoft as well as with start-ups.
Laurent talks about how go-to-market is a team sport and the importance of remaining customer-centric and authentic in your approach. He also defines concepts from his point of view and reveals the biggest mistake companies are making with their go-to-market strategies.
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Laurent believes many people start their go-to-market strategy from the product but this isn’t the best way, he believes you need to start from the customer and end user, identifying their pain points and whether you can offer value to them.
It’s easy for companies to get stuck in the product-fit stage of a company because they haven’t previously engaged the customer enough or gained the right insight and research.
When you have an idea, talk to as many people as possible, stress test it with potential clients and then you will have enough feedback to create a first version of your product.
There is a vast amount of tools available, it can be overwhelming and confusing to know the best ones to use for your business, something to consider is how easily you can connect tools to your existing software.
It’s easy as a business to forget to connect authentically with people as humans. If you do the right customer discovery and build your creditability, your customers can see and feel your value to them.
BEST MOMENTS
“Can I shape my value proposition so it might resonate?”
“Customer-centricity is not just a buzz word it’s a starting point”
“When you have an idea, go stress test it, talk about it with as many people as you can”
“When you find the right balance between building connection and building your credibility, then you start to earn trust”
Creating Outcome Based Product Development with Amrit Robbins of Axiom Cloud Inc
06 Aug 2023
00:32:19
Amrit Robbins is the CEO of Axiom Cloud Inc, his newest start-up which he transformed from a previously failing start-up, whilst retaining its investors customers and employees! Amrit talks through his framework for creating a product based on the outcome, why and how technology and product development can create a high impact as well as the value businesses can deliver without AI.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Ask questions is core to Axiom Cloud's client strategy, gaining an understanding of who the key stakeholders are, their pain points and what it is they want to achieve, demonstrating true customer empathy.
Having the right technology, to help aid people with their difficulties is very scalable, more so than environmental policy. This is what Amrit is trying to do, to have the biggest impact on climate change.
Simplicity and an outcome-based approach are what Amrit focuses on in product development.
Make your customers excited and they will want to buy from you.
One of your core competencies as a business should be around product development, so your team have buy-in from day 1 and in all of the work that they do.
The biggest challenge of Axiom Cloud is getting through the constant bottlenecks of a new company, particularly around the scalability of their platform.
BEST MOMENTS
“One of our superpowers is really truly understanding our customers”
“Policy is forcing people to do things that they wouldn’t otherwise do”
“There’s always so much room for improvement here, in terms of making things better”
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
Webex CEO to Serial Start-Up Founder with Doug Dennerline of Betterworks
01 Aug 2023
00:31:58
In this episode, Ryan is joined by an individual with possibly the deepest and richest background of anyone he has ever interviewed! Doug Dennerline originally started out in Silicon Valley back in 1982 at HP, he then worked his way to becoming the CEO of Cisco and took it from 400 sales reps to 6000 with a 9.8 billion dollar budget. After this, Dough was the CEO of Webex before founding and selling his first start-up and now is onto his newest start-up called Betterworks which is reinventing the way people are managed.
Doug and Ryan focus on leadership and people management in this episode including the importance of finding the right HR partner, how to build a great team and incentivise them to generate revenue and how AI will change the HR world forever.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
BetterWorks is trying to reinvent the processes in how large companies manage people.
70% of large companies still do annual reviews even though most people hate it and it doesn’t improve performance. What’s more important is creating conversations between managers and employees and becoming aligned with goals and targets.
Doug joined Cisco in 1998, during the dotcom boom which he says is still one of the greatest experiences of his life, being there when so much was happening.
Doug’s tech guy went on to be the CEO and founder of Zoom!
Many more businesses are recognising that their people are their most important asset, Doug gets great satisfaction from seeing CEOs and HR professionals who love the Betterworks product, he gets to see its impact on the workplace.
Companies that value their people, whose employees feel they have purpose and direction in the company create more revenue.
CEOs should spend time with their people who have to go through their review processes, this will make them realise things need to change.
AI will change the world of HR, from helping with how to have difficult conversations to writing reviews.
BEST MOMENTS
“The annual performance review, research has proven people hate giving it, people hate getting it and it doesn’t improve performance”
“The hardest people worked for me was when I was able to connect the corporate goals to individual goals, both personally and professionally”
“Cisco just had massive growth when I was there”
“We bought Webex in 8 days, closed that deal in 8 days!”
“I went from being a sales leader to an operator, a CEO, and I’ve been running SaaS companies ever since”
“I really enjoyed the start-up aspect, the impact you can have on a smaller company”
“The company with the best team has the highest chance of winning”
“I have a very low ego environment in my company and I don’t believe in lines”
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
Managing the Disruptive Nature of AI to Your Advantage with Tania Zapata of Bunny Studios
30 Jul 2023
00:28:12
Tania is the CEO and founder of Bunny Studios, her second start-up after successfully exiting her first company. Tania has been doing some really amazing things in her niche, including creating a marketplace through Bunny Studios and the way she is managing AI disrupting her space. Tania and Ryan talk in-depth about the creation of Tania’s companies as well as how AI is disrupting the business world, Tania’s approach to it and how you can handle the related challenges and barriers in your business too.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Bunny Studio provides content creation at scale, mostly working with companies that need content at a high volume and they provide what they need from start to finish.
It was when looking at becoming a voice actor freelancer that Tania realised the difficulties in getting jobs, finding them and for agents to find voice actors. This led her to founding Voice 123 in 2003.
Tania sold Voice 123 after founding a second company, she wanted to be able to put all her focus on Bunny Studios.
Most people do not create a full product from the start, the less risky thing to do is to test smaller products on a marketplace and tailor your product market fit.
The biggest challenge for a lot of companies right now is AI, but Tania says it can also be a big opportunity.
AI can be a useful tool for a lot of businesses, it doesn’t have to be able to replace jobs or companies but instead this companies in that space utilise AI for customers and then spend time on other aspects to increase customer satisfaction.
With the rise of AI, it may be the case that people will crave authenticity more including in relationships and intimacy which may in turn create more and new products that people will pay for.
BEST MOMENTS
“We were so inexperienced at the time we didn’t realise you could go and ask people for money”
“One of the biggest learnings is you don’t create a full-blown product right from the get-go”
“We were very lucky in the beginning, and I think it’s because we were focusing on such a specific market maybe that’s the reason the success rate was high”
“I think AI will be able to do the more routine things we do for creating content, complex things a human will have to do it still”
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
CRO ChatGPT Use Cases - Part 2 with Tyler Barron of Encapture
07 Aug 2024
00:22:51
This is the second part of Ryan’s conversation with Tyler Barron, CRO of Encapture, where they discuss AI use cases for sales and marketing. From leveraging AI for strategic research and RFP automation to creative prospecting and collaborative ideation, Tyler and Ryan share their expertise on using AI to enhance efficiency, scale ABM efforts, and improve deal scoring.
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AI tools can significantly enhance strategic research for high value deals, allowing sales teams to efficiently analyze financial documents and earnings calls to identify potential problems and align solutions with strategic initiatives.
Automating RFP and vendor questionnaire responses using AI can save significant time and resources, especially for companies dealing with similar questions across multiple clients.
Leveraging AI for one-to-one creative prospecting can lead to highly customized outreach using a prospect's own language and quotes from their public appearances.
AI powered call analysis tools can be used for efficient "game film" sessions, allowing teams to quickly review and learn from customer interactions without listening to entire calls.
Collaborative use of AI tools across departments can dramatically reduce project timelines and enable rapid implementation of time sensitive campaigns.
AI presents opportunities to scale ABM efforts by enabling the creation of custom content for specific accounts more efficiently.
Data driven deal scoring using AI can help identify patterns in successful deals and apply those insights to future opportunities, improving win rates and deal velocity.
Focusing on analyzing top performing customers and deals can lead to significant increases in deal size and help identify the most promising opportunities in the market.
BEST MOMENTS
"We primarily are getting value out of AI tools right now for strategic research. We have higher ACV deals, longer sales cycles, and we're trying to prospect up to the C suite."
"I think one of the biggest things that I've learned about kind of the scale up stage is that you can't outrun your supply line as a revenue leader and so you really got to bring everybody along with you at the company"
"Every year doubled our deal size and a hundred X, our largest deal. Just from that alone. Vista equity uses it to actually to convert companies from a bill to three bill in like three years."
Democratizing the World of Investment with Bob Elliott CEO of Unlimited
25 Jul 2023
00:32:14
Bob Elliott previously worked with Ray Dalio for 14 years, and was the head of his investment committee and was also involved in creating the largest hedge fund in the world with over 100 Billion Dollars!
Bob recently co-founded the charity GiveWell and is now the co-founder and CEO of Unlimited, an investment start-up that uses propriety tech for alternative investments to give access to all. He joins Ryan to talk about what drove him to create such a company, the things he has learnt from his experience in the finance industry as well as what he sees for the future of tech and AI in how the economy operates and functions.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Unlimited democratizes unique alternative investments that otherwise wouldn’t be available to 99% of people.
Unlimited isn’t just democratizing access to the returns but bringing institutional equality and information to every investor.
Utilising content platforms is a way to show proof that you have the expertise in the industry to help engage advisors and investors where they already are. Content creation in these places builds the credibility needed to convert them into clients.
The thing that got Bob excited was not to create his own investment fund but how he could in fact bring unique investment opportunities to everyone, how he could create a start-up to make this possible.
The problem with hedge funds and managers is they charge very high fees, if you can bring the fees down then it radically transforms the result for the investor. Using the right technology allows Unlimited to offer its services at a much lower cost than traditional avenues.
The things we have learnt about the world in the past 40 years around finance are no longer going to work in the future and we need to be prepared for that.
Advances in technology, including AI will help with company productivity which in turn helps employees, it won’t be replacing everyone's jobs like some of the fear rhetoric out there.
BEST MOMENTS
“[We’re] bringing that sort of institutional quality investment insight and making it freely available to everyone”
“It nagged at me whether there was a way to bring those sophisticated asset management strategies and bring them to the everyday investor”
“Weak growth and weak economic activity and falling stock prices isn’t that bad if you can protect yourself from that by holding bonds in your portfolio”
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
How I Sold My Company to Twitter for $65million with Pete Hunt of Elementl
23 Jul 2023
00:38:16
Ryan is joined by Pete Hunt, who has worked at two of the biggest tech giants in the world, both Facebook and Twitter. Pete talks about everything from meetings with Mark Zuckerburg, to how he created a high valuation to sell his previous company, to how he has built a company to revolutionize the way we harness the power of data.
Pete also talks through his thoughts on threads as a product, the differences between working at Facebook and Twitter, the reliability of AI and his number one piece of advice for getting the perfect product market fit.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Most of Elementl’s revenue comes via inbound leads.
Smite built trust and safety tools for social media platforms, pretty much anyone not owned by google were a customer of them including TikToks former named company Musical.ly
Smite grew fast but Pete came to the conclusion that it would be best to sell due to the marketplace of social media platforms, there’s always a limited amount.
After selling to twitter, Pete actually stayed working there for over 3 years.
So many companies have issues with controlling their data, made more complex by constant new regulation. Pete's newest start-up, Elementl, was started to help control this problem.
Looking at AI as a way to accelerate your business process is one of the best ways to utilise it’s strengths.
Start-ups need to focus on the top of the funnel more so than any other business type and size. It can feel repetitive but don’t undervalue it and put the hard work in at the beginning.
BEST MOMENTS
“We started the company to bring start of the art software engineering best practices, to build rock solid, testable data pipelines that you can trust”
“It was 2011 in the tech industry, nobody got fired”
“The thing I don’t like about threads is it’s a lot of brands being brands and people engaging with brands”
“There’s really strong engineering at both companies but Facebook really valued speed of delivery”
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
Prove Your Monetization Strategy First with Joe Baffone of Annexus Health
18 Jul 2023
00:27:26
Joe Baffone is the founder and CEO of Annexus Health, who provide tech enabled services to manage health and life science services. Joe talks to Ryan about his unique business model and why taking two years to identify their monetization strategy before product building was one of the best decisions they made. Joe also talks about the rest of his business journey including unique insights on networking and systematic ways to build your business.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Like many of us, people Joe loves were touched by cancer, he realised there was nothing that offered solutions to help patients manage their care. This inspired him to try and do something to help.
Annexus was originally bootstrapped but recently got funding to help them scale and grow!
Joe advises those looking to start a SaaS company, is to not take a step until you have a rock-solid and tested monetisation strategy.
You need organisational structure and operational mindset to create scale.
One of Annexus' main methods of customer acquisition is building strong strategic aliences with large healthcare organsations, service provers etc. This is closely followed by their referral techniques.
Operational excellence that gives Annexus the ability to ensure they are as productive as they can be as a company and as individals.
BEST MOMENTS
“Watching and seeing so many people struggle with administrative and financial toxicties because there wasn’t solutions available to help them, the patient”
“We are a transaction model to health science”
“Before we even started, we really thought long and hard about the monetisation strategy”
“Collaboration with strategic partners is probably number 1”
“Align at the board level with those industry associations, get them as customers then it’s very easy to fuel that out with the rest”
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
The world is going through yet another major change in humanity as AI starts to infiltrate every aspect and area of our lives. Ryan wants to begin to share what he is up to around the progression of AI and share the knowledge and expertise he is gaining with his audience so you can benefit from everything he has learnt, and is still learning, about AI.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Ryan has had an MVP created for an AI product, he decided now is the time for him to serve the market in this way
You’re able to compress hours into minutes with AI if used the right way
What would have taken years to learn can now take hours or even minutes as you simply ask AI what you need to know
Automated execution is either how you automate a task or dictate smaller tasks to then get the outcomes that you want
BEST MOMENTS
“We are going through one of the single biggest changes in the history of mankind”
“I want to start sharing this journey with you because I’m getting exposed to some really great things”
“I’m starting to get excited about what’s really possible, not just for me but for my family, community and my business”
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
AI and Machine Learning to Transform Your Workforce with Kian Katanforoosh CEO and Founder of Workera
11 Jul 2023
00:32:10
Kian is the CEO and founder of a groundbreaking platform with AI skills assessment, Workera. Kian is also a lecturer and has created some of the most popular courses on AI and machine learning with over 3k views per video! Kian joins Ryan to talk about how AI intersects with learning and development and its role in helping workforce transformation; from employee skillset management to mentorship.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Workera’s key method for customer acquisition has mostly been via outbound sales
Workera provides an open platform that helps companies understand their employee's talents, measuring skills and then use that skill data to empower them to make decisions; on everything from up-skilling and recruitment to project management
Kian and his team knew they needed investment to begin and sustain Workera, because of how quickly they wanted to get things moving but also because of the tech-heavy side of the business.
The gap many students are finding is not in content and information to learn but actually mentorship but this is difficult to scale, this is the first problem Workera wanted to solve and did so using AI and utilising existing psychometrics.
Employee assessments, using psychometrics, are often a stressful task with poor UI. Workera have reinvented the testing, creating a much better user experience that is empowering and mentor-like with a feedback loop rather than just selection-based.
A recommendation system will only work as well as the data it is given. You need good data that is rich and meaningful.
Workera allows companies to utilise their employee's time by assigning the right tasks for their skills and putting them on the training they actually need.
Benchmarks are helpful to employers but also the individuals, so they can learn what to focus on and what opportunities are there for them specifically.
Identifying the ideal customer profile and providing value and thought leadership aimed at that profile is one of the main things Workera focused on to scale and gain market share.
You don’t train a tech person in the same way you would a non-technical person. You need to think about whether your employee is a builder or a consumer as well as what existing skills they already possess.
Many individuals already have the right skill set for AI, they might even be better at some aspects of machine learning than people who have solely trained in it!
BEST MOMENTS
“What we want to achieve requires investment especially if we want to do it as fast as planned”
“Everyone should have access to a mentor that can help them in their next stage”
“We had to change the mindset of assessments, reinvent”
“The recommender system will be as good as the skills data that fuels it”
“Skills building becomes highly focused and intentional”
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
Creating Half a Billion Valuation in Less than Three Years with Akash Magoon Adonis
09 Jul 2023
00:33:33
Akash is the co-founder and CEO of Adonis, he has also helped multiple companies create over 100 million dollars in valuations! Akash joins Ryan to go in-depth on how to build a company from the ground up and create a great product market fit in record time.
Akash comes from a software engineering and machine learning background and has spent a lot of time building software in healthcare, he talks about his journey to building Adonis, how they have achieved a 5% market share in a year and his strategic framework to ensure you don’t become replaceable in business!
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Adonis builds software to help medical doctors of all shapes and sizes collect revenue from insurance companies
The main strategy Adonis now uses is inbound on their website, driving traffic via events after previously relying heavily on word of mouth and referrals.
It was after going through the health system himself and enquiring about the problem Drs were having, that Akash realised a lot of these pain points came from a data problem.
Adonis focuses on giving a unique experience and being a company with the most up-to-date knowledge in their field. They ensure that they are in no way replaceable by any of their competitors.
As an early-stage company, think about what your defence is against larger and corporate companies.
Before starting your company, look into the space and see what the existing solutions are and what they are offering. What can you do that is truly unique?
BEST MOMENTS
“Obviously you’re doing something right with how fast you’re growing”
“It was a dream of ours to be able to run companies together”
“There's so much opportunity in healthcare to solve problems and create a big impact”
“We’re building software to help them get paid”
“If you’re looking to solve a problem, one must look at the existing solutions in the space”
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
Choosing Happiness over Being a CEO with Aviv Grafi founder of Votiro
04 Jul 2023
00:34:09
Aviv Grafi is the founder of Votiro. Aviv bootstrapped the company for four years, becoming it’s CEO. He joins Ryan to talk about his journey and why he decided to make the difficult decision to step down as CEO. He also talks about how to make yourself happy in business, his emotional journey to stepping down to a CTO role and the importance of prioritising yourself as well as the implication for AI in the enterprise and cyber security space.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Votiro are now looking at how they can effectively expand internationally.
One of Votiro’s key marketing strategies is by focusing on partnerships, particularly in reselling.
Votiro is a cybersecurity solution, utilising software as a service to ensure that every file and document entering an organisation is safe. They replicate a document allowing employees to open any file and see it without having to think twice about its safety.
Recognising they needed to differentiate themselves to get their share of the market led Votiro to finding niche partners to work with.
Covid impacted Aviv’s ability to communicate and manage his team was what made him first consider no longer being the CEO.
After great growth, Aviv came to the realisation that the best thing for both the company and himself would be to hire a professional CEO and so he stepped down to make this happen.
Consumer AI will help how people work every day but it’s important to recognise how AI will change enterprises and how they work and also how it would fit within security systems.
AI should be used to reduce work and this can definitely be adapted to the security space, but there will be a downside too, scammers will be able to take advantage.
BEST MOMENTS
“We take a document and redeliver that as safe”
“Every minute I spent out of the office was spent still mentally in the office”
“The bad guys are also using that [AI] for their advantage”
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
How to Transform a Sales Training Company into SaaS Company in 12 Months with Mario Martinez, CEO of Vengreso
02 Jul 2023
00:40:08
Mario Martinez is the CEO of Vengreso and joins Ryan in this episode to talk through how he transitioned a 7-way merger sales company into a SaaS company, which he is now also taking global! Mario also talks about the evolution and future in business, SaaS and AI for the knowledge worker and the unique ways you can utilise Podcasting and LinkedIn to market and create organic leads.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Vengreso focuses on a product-led growth strategy with a sales-led motion
Social media influence is a huge opportunity, Mario spends most of his time on Twitter and LinkedIn as this is where most of the b2b salespeople are including sales reps and marketing leaders
FlyMSG is a unique product that doesn’t only utilise snip technology across app platforms but also utilises AI to help form replies and responses for you.
You can’t plan for every eventuality but what you can do is recognise trends and patterns early and react to them.
Research, identify and adjust plans, keeping yourself agile as a leader and company.
Teaching himself product design and product development is how Mario turned himself into a sales leader, sales influencer and marketing leader. He is now asked by Fortune 100 companies to air them with their marketing strategies!
Mario believes that start-up leaders have to be ‘scrappy’, making decisions quickly, taking risks and investing themselves completely in whatever they do.
If you want to be a business owner, a start-up founder, you better make sure the only thing that impacts is yourself. This will incentivize you to eliminate the pain as soon as you can or make you quit early if it is not for you.
The goal of FlyMSG is to streamline the lost productivity in the knowledge worker, which is trillions of dollars worth of productivity a year!
Write down 20 questions that your buyer would ask to lead to them needing your product, for your product to solve their problems. Then create content around this.
BEST MOMENTS
“Product-led growth is really going out and having the masses”
“Save an hour or more a day to reduce the typing out or copying, pasting and editing a message, we are eliminating all of those things”
“83% of all users said that they actually use the same message one time or more over a month, 61% said they do it daily”
“I’d like to say I was smart enough that I planned the whole thing out, but I wasn’t, I was smart enough to see the trend though”
“Make the sacrifice, at the stage you’re at, to make it a reality”
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
From Uni Drop out to Serial SaaS Founder: Darren Gallop Carbide Talks Security and AI
27 Jun 2023
00:39:41
Darren Gallop is the founder and CEO of Carbide and joins the show to share his amazing backstory including his journey from a university dropout to creating a record company to becoming a serial SaaS founder! Darren also talks to Ryan about his opinion of AI, cyber security in business and shares the single biggest challenge Carbide is facing.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Carbide's primary go-to-market strategy is traditional sales via both outbound leads and inbound content leads such as creating valuable SEO enriched content and appearing on podcasts.
All the new privacy and specific regulations have created a complex world, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses. Carbide offers a solution to businesses, figuring out exactly what they need to do to comply and helping them do it too.
After creating a music SaaS company, Darren began to discover what a pain point complex security measures and compliance were for clients and businesses alike. This is what started him on the journey to creating Carbide.
AI will mean that many companies will cease to exist, especially if they ignore it.
If you aren’t doubling down on how to leverage AI in your business then you will struggle, particularly if you are an agency or service-based model.
You can’t be everything in a business, not if you want to scale and be successful. You need to bring in people who are better than you at the things you aren’t good at.
Many companies still have the incorrect perspective on security, they see it as administrative red tape have to get through.
Moving upmarket has allowed Carbide to work with companies that generally have a good perspective on security and realize its importance for a modern company.
BEST MOMENTS
“We really dialed in on being highly effective in a small market”
“I think we’ll see layers of regulation popping up quickly {with AI]”
“A lot of companies still don’t think about security for the purpose of security”
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
How We Hit $30 Million ARR with only 4 sales Reps in 5.5 Years! Ryan's Talk at SaaS Open 2023
25 Jun 2023
00:22:55
This episode is a recording of the talk Ryan recently gave at the 2023 SaaS open. Ryan talks through hitting $30mil in ARR and how you can apply it to your business in 2023, Ryan also gives tips on using podcasting as a pipeline and the internal use cases for AI.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Look at your 5 biggest wins, 5 fastest wins and 5 biggest losses and you can learn quickly.
After getting an initial large customer, Ryan and his team focused on expansion.
The comp plan was planned purposely differently from its competitors, building in a residual payment and finding this meant clients wouldn't then want to leave.
Fast implementation where their customers barely had to do anything helped Ryan and his team disrupt the space.
If you can find the patterns and outliers in your business you can then use a strategy to repeat success.
Focus on building strong relationships with your sales reps, so much so that you can align their personal goals and mission with the company mission.
People go too broad with events, you need to think of specifics and niche down
You can utilise a podcast as a pipeline by interviewing those in your space including potential clients and customers.
People love promoting themselves and their brand and if you give them a vehicle for it, such as podcasting, they love you for it. You are proving value before asking anything of them.
BEST MOMENTS
“This journey started for me out of failure”
“Think about how lazy people are and how resistant to change is”
“We still go the deals but we got ridiculous margins”
“You can literally interview those perfect customers I talked about in a podcast format”
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
Putting the ROI in AI - Part 1 with Tyler Barron of Encapture
05 Aug 2024
00:23:25
Tyler Barron, CRO at Encapture joins Ryan in this episode. In this part 1 of 2 episodes, Tyler shares his journey transitioning an AI company from consulting to SaaS, focusing on FinTech solutions. They explore the challenges of demonstrating ROI in AI, adapting to market changes, and the importance of customer-driven product development.
Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.
Transitioning from consulting to SaaS requires repositioning the company, developing repeatable processes, and building the right team.
Market listening is crucial for product development; focus on what customers are willing to spend money on, especially during economic shifts.
Demonstrating AI ROI involves quantifying problems, focusing on practical use cases, and tying solutions to tangible business outcomes.
Simplicity in execution and low-friction processes are key to the successful implementation of new systems and technologies.
Executive level sponsorship, particularly from operations leaders with P&L responsibility, is vital for AI adoption in organizations.
AI solutions don't need to be perfect. Even 50% improvements can significantly move the needle financially for businesses.
Selling AI solutions involves working on a "big math problem" with customers, making it an intellectually engaging and partnership driven process.
AI implementation often faces resistance due to a lack of comparison points; persistence and demonstrating value over time are crucial for success.
BEST MOMENTS
"We saw a lot of companies out there in our space, like really, really getting to a lot of pain around that. A lot of our peers in FinTech have had a tough time."
"Why does it have to be 99 percent accurate if 50 percent actually moves the needle financially."
"The biggest thing with AI is that your unit economics improve over time one, because the AI gets smarter, but to your cost basis on a lot of these tasks can ultimately stay flat and you can pick up the efficiency."
"Look, I'm not an AI expert, so I think I can probably give some very pragmatic answers to what I, what I see and hear, which... there's a lot of buzz and there's a lot of over promising around just AI in general, but there's also some very good quantifiable common sense use cases."
Building a More Useful ChatGPT for Marketers & the Future of AI in Business
20 Jun 2023
00:35:00
Yaniv is a silicon valley veteran, founder of content audience platform KeeWee and now Generative AI Writing tool Anyword. Working on LLMs and generative AI for more than 5 years, Yaniv shares his insights on growing a company in an emerging space, dealing with the rollercoaster of founder life, the seismic shifts industries can undergo overnight and his thoughts on the future of generative AI. Join Ryan and Yaniv as they break down one of the most exciting new technologies of the last decade and the opportunities for founders, creators and investors.
Key Takeaways
Anyword Ai content creation tool spun off from publishing platform KeeWee, has been building generative AI for 5 years.
Specializes in using a combination of specialized training data alongside your data to generate personalized performance content and copy for brands
Used by big brands with a go-to-market strategy focussing on mid-market marketing teams and SMBs upselling users from free and trial plans.
Specialized LLM using millions of points of A/B testing data to inform best decisions.
Content is easier to create than ever using LLM’s now the focus needs to be on quality and performance
Two primary ways to use LLMs 1. Help me with ideas and write them. 2. I have an idea help me refine it.
Written content can be broken down into Formula/Talking Points/Tone of Voice
Anyword has different prediction models for each channel to enhance performance, it's 82% accurate predicting which of 2 pieces of copy will perform
LLM’s are a competent sidekick but true experts with a unique take will always outperform them however plagiarism is potentially a huge problem.
Very difficult to turn data and insights and actions, which is a big opportunity for generative AI
Best Moments
“When I was like pitching investors five years ago and saying, Hey, in five years AI is gonna write most of what you read or people are going to use AI to write, they’d say you're crazy.”
“It’s easy to create content when there's, there's a massive amount of quantity just like we're seeing with all the streaming services It all comes down to quality.”
“Today we're at 82% accuracy. 50% is random, and we've tested it a lot. We're pretty confident and it's getting better the more data we train it on.”
“We were like a hundred per cent growth month over month, over a month. We didn't buy into that hype and we started understanding how we can position ourselves differently.”
“Our cost per lead is just decreasing all the time. Really since we, since we launched. It's, it's keeps on decreasing over and over because there’s way more organic traffic”
ABOUT THE SHOW How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom?
Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset.
This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
Revealing Productivity Hacks with Four Time Founder Brandon Metcalf CEO Place Technology
18 Jun 2023
00:29:25
Brandon Metcalf is not just another entrepreneur, he is the CEO of not just one but three companies including Place Technology. Brandon is reimagining how businesses can operate and flourish in a technological world and talks about the unique things he is doing to be disruptive and change the space he is in. Brandon talks to Ryan about how he manages multiple companies including what he has learnt from each and also reveals the single best strategy for building and growing a business.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Brandon is a big advocate for scheduling and being process driven. He is not a procrastinator and says these three things are why he can successfully manage so many companies and scale them the way he has.
To lead a successful life, you must find the balance between work and personal life. Brandon manages this by having a calendar for all things, both work and personal.
Pushing Slack for all internal comms allows email to be freed up for external communication within his businesses.
As a leader, delegation is essential and giving the right amount of support and ensuring everyone is aligned as a team.
Brandon supports his team to help them meet their goals and progress but he is firm about the fact they need to put the hard work in themselves to achieve.
If you choose to build a business around something you have knowledge of and passion for, then it will be much easier to scale and find success.
Workflow, automation and visibility when building a business allow it to find product market fit quickly and keeps things simple and organic. Teams can then focus on what they are supposed to.
The main challenge for Place technology is that people don’t know what they do, once they have the client looking at their offering they can convert easily, but it’s getting seen by the client in the first place that they are struggling with right now.
BEST MOMENTS
“If it’s not on my calendar it's not happening”
“I learned the importance of the balance of the rest of your life outside of work”
“You need to work hard to get to where you want to go”
“Do something your passionate about and that you know”
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
Owning the AI Algorithm to Unlock Trillions with Dr Cindy Gordon CEO and Founder of SalesChoice Inc
14 Jun 2023
00:27:07
Dr Cindy Gordon is the CEO and founder of SalesChoice, an AI solution for B2B sales. Cindy has over ten years experience of working with AI and is doing some incredible work around leveraging AI software to predict revenue. She joins Ryan to talk about the work they are doing right now, what we may see in the future and the human side of AI.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
AI can have a place in behavioural insights, this is something Cindy is looking at and the many benefits it could have.
SalesChoice has an audit trail and attributions needed to understand the algorithm behind the AI they are using.
Driving value and building use cases that solve real business problems whilst remaining ethical is SalesChoice's main vision.
AI should be an advantage for humans and humankind, SalesChoice is passionate about bringing more humanity to these tools and the business world.
The key to AI is not what is populated but that the right data has been entered in the first place.
The human side to AI is key, AI is created, operated and managed by humans, it is they who need to put the right checks and balances in place and we will see this happen via new laws.
BEST MOMENTS
“AI can play a very interesting role when it comes to coaching people”
“One of the hardest things in the world is bootstrapping a business”
“We care about you focusing on the best opportunities with the global knowledge of your company”
“You can unlock trillions of focused revenue enablement [with AI]”
“We need a lot more humanity in the business world”
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
How to Save 80% of Your Time with AI – Speaking to Manuj Aggarwal founder of TetraNoodle Technologies
11 Jun 2023
00:29:53
Manuj Aggarwal is a founder and chief innovation manager at TetraNoodle, a data science and AI consulting company he is also a fellow podcasting hosting the podcast Bootstrapping Your Dreams.
Manuj has over 15 years of experience in working with AI and talks to Ryan about how not to be fearful of new technologies and how you can embrace them in your business; saving you time, money and helping you grow. Manuj also runs through how Auto GPT works including the best value cases he can see.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
TetraNoodle is focusing its efforts on being an authority and thought leader in all things AI to attract clients. They also run events and utilise outbound sales.
Ask yourself, where is your team spending most of its time and then figure out how AI can help you with that/those tasks.
By introducing the right technology, TetraNoodle can save up to 80% of its clients’ time.
When the internet first came along people resisted it and missed opportunities, don’t be those people this time around with AI.
Start using the tools being released by Microsoft and Google and start streamlining your business operations.
Do everything you can to understand your customer and give them something they need and want before they even know they want it. They will never leave you and will bring you more business via referrals.
Don’t upload private or sensitive information to Auto GPT as it can share this information with others.
No technology is inherently bad, it’s all about people use it.
There are always unwanted consequences to new technology but it’s also the inevitable journey of human evolution.
AI won’t take your job, but someone who can use it will as they will be able to work smarter than you.
BEST MOMENTS
“Spread the right information rather than fear-mongering”
“We can easily introduce AI and save at least 75%-80% of their time”
“The idea is to think how we transition through those periods of technological revolution and what did we miss out on”
“Tools like Auto GPT is a preview of what this will turn into”
“AI won’t take your job but a person who can use AI will”
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
Building a BRAND NEW Category in Your Industry with Eric Olden of Strata Identity
06 Jun 2023
00:30:18
Eric Olden is the CEO of Strata Identity, an identity management company. Eric is a serial entrepreneur and visionary and has been transforming the way businesses navigate the complex world of cloud and hybrid security systems, having previously worked in a senior role at Oracle he is now leading one of the most innovative companies in the tech space. Eric joins Ryan to talk about digital identity, creating a new category in his industry and how he came to create the holy grail of identity management.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Strata uses a hybrid model to sell its software by using both the cloud and data centres.
You can use a product-led motion to accelerate your sales cycle, giving you the best of both worlds.
Almost half of the company is in sales or go-to-market in some way, showing prioritising these areas can help build sustainable growth.
Strata’s software Maverick, decouples the application from identity security and allows upgrading external software without rewriting the application.
The first task for Eric with Strade was to find the perfect product market fit, once this was achieved he focused his attention on how to sell the product in a repeatable way.
Working at Oracle with customers who wanted to go to the cloud but had so many pain points to get to it is what gave Eric the idea for Strata.
To create a new category in the industry, Eric had to first figure out if the problem is big enough. He interviewed people to assess their issues and pain points and how that would fit with the product.
Strata used strong SEO and media presence to attract people to its product and then created content marketing around the use case of its product.
BEST MOMENTS
“It does for identity security what the m word did for compute”
“It’s really mission critical for some of the big enterprises because without it they’re stuck, they can’t move their applications to the cloud”
“You don’t have to convince us the cloud is where we want to be, the problem is getting there”
“Marketing and product-led growth are hand in hand, the intent is that we use the marketing effort to attract people and aware of the product so they can serve themselves”
“When we were doing product design we really mapped out the sales process and then made sure the experience and the product supported each thing”
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
How to use Outbound Sales and AI in Your Business with Liam Patterson Founder and CEO of Bidnamic
04 Jun 2023
00:26:30
Liam Patterson is the founder and CEO of Bidamic, a marketing tech platform that lets retailers unlock their full potential. Bidamic is the 4th company Liam has founded and he joins Ryan to talk all about his entrepreneurial journey and the amazing things he is doing in the e-commerce and marking space. Top topics include how AI is impacting business and how you can utilise it in yours, the power of outbound and Liam also reveals his single best strategy for growing a business.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Bidamic’s primary go-to market for revenue growth is predominantly outbound via email, LinkedIn and cold calling. They also attend events to raise awareness to marketing brands and marketing decision-makers.
A lot of Bidnamic’s potential clients don’t realise the software that could be helping them, just speaking to them about what can be done for them is one of its main strategies for selling.
Using scientific learnings and data allows Binamic to calculate the bid price for the exact customer, for the exact product for the exact search term
Bidamic are enthusiastic users of AI, from using it in the products they sell to applying it to their everyday business practices including analysis and data collection.
If there are mundane repetitive tasks, we need to be smarter as businesses and use AI, allowing us to lead strategy and creativity instead.
Outbound has a terrible reputation but it’s an incredible way to grow a business in the early days, especially if you are bootstrapping.
BEST MOMENTS
“A lot of the companies we work with are easy to identify, they are on google shopping”
“We find it pretty powerful to get in front of them via outbound”
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
How to Penetrate the Sports Market and Leverage Referrals with Angelina Lawton CEO and Founder of Sportsdigita
30 May 2023
00:30:30
Angelina Lawton is the founder and CEO of Sportsdigita. A trailblazer in the sports world, Angelina has been named one of the 30 most powerful women in sport by Forbes! Angelina talks to Ryan about how she has transformed the way that over 450 of the biggest brands in the world market and sell, from massive sports brands to Fortune 500 companies and reveals how they generate referrals systematically as well as the lows and highs of her business journey.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Inbound sales and referrals are the majority of Sportsdigita’s market strategy. More recently they have spent time building their outbound and lead generation.
Digideck is Sportsdigita’s core product, which is a programme for building cloud-based presentations and includes integration with Salesforce and other platforms.
The sports world has a herd mentality but can be difficult to penetrate. Angelina hired salespeople who already had existing relationships with the sports world and then the referrals began pouring in.
Recognising what your business is at the core is essential. It took Angelina time to figure out that she was actually building and running a software business, once she did she hired people with the skills she was missing to aid scaling and success.
Angelina and others like her, expect bigger brands to be on point and up to date with their branding and marketing but so often she has found this not to be the case in actual fact, they are the companies that need the most help and guidance.
Sportsdigita is starting to figure out how AI will fit into its business and how to leverage it whilst recognising the importance of the human influence in content and marketing.
BEST MOMENTS
“Think PowerPoint but on steroids”
“Sports is a herd mentality”
“AI is on the horizon and we know it’s surrounding us and we’ve got to figure out what to do with it”
“We do think there is always going to be that human component, guiding the content”
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
How to Leverage LinkedIn for Revenue with Mike Montague of Sandler Training
28 May 2023
00:34:28
Mike Montague is a fellow podcaster, author and the director of community at Sandler Training. He joins Ryan to talk about how he got started in marketing and his book as well as giving many online marketing tips for various platforms including LinkedIn and YouTube and also reveals the number one reason people don’t listen to your podcast!
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Mike was gifted with computers at a young age, he was programming from 8th grade!
Mike got into internet marketing after creating and hosting a successful internet radio station in the mid to late 00s.
You need to create forward-looking profiles, talking about who you want to speak to and attract and talk about the problems you solve, making your profile outwardly focus rather than simply about you and your services.
You can demonstrate your experience in a variety of ways such as hosting events and creating valuable content.
People can get too focused on getting more followers and likes but what matters is what you are doing with the audience you already have, are you serving them well and getting good engagement?
Stop putting things off and waiting for perfection, just get yourself out there and build consistency in all you do.
BEST MOMENTS
“When I was young, so was the internet”
“There are things you can to do build your credibility but it’s not what you think”
“Everybody moves too fast, it’s the hard work you actually do that builds a business”
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
Using AI to Solve Your Pipeline Problems with Gil Allouche CEO and Founder of Metadata
23 May 2023
00:21:24
Gil Allouche from Metadata joins Ryan in this episode. Gil is the founder and CEO of Metadata, he came from a systems engineering background and then went into marketing where he worked on automation and creating a product leading to 5 patents in his technology. Gil talks to Ryan about many topics surrounding AI and automation including how his company solves the age-old problem of pipeline and why we shouldn’t be frightened of AI and instead embrace it wherever we can in business.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Metadata built a programme where marketers can log in and automate all the mundane and repetitive tasks they need to execute to build a sustainable and profitable pipeline for their sales counterparts.
Specialising in b2b, Metadata is able to focus on complex data environments and products to suit businesses directly.
Gil is a software engineer and has been creating, building and inventing for a long time, he was creating new and unique technology that he didn’t want to be taken from him so filed 5 patents. This uniquely places Metadata in the market as no one else has the ability to have the tech they do.
One of the things Metadata is focusing on is how to make the messaging of AI more accessible to individuals as it can sometimes overwhelm and frighten those who aren’t in the space.
The more comfortable you are trying to utilise and lead the way with AI rather than fighting it, the more success you will find in the future.
BEST MOMENTS
“They will learn through experimentation what works and what doesn’t”
“I’m a software engineer I like to create things and build stuff and I experienced stuff from early on, I like to invent”
“It’s one of the big differentiators, no one has the technology we have”
“It’s a way of removing barriers to sale for your products”
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
Integrating AI into Every Day Business with AI Expert Alex Castro CEO and founder of M Corp
21 May 2023
00:36:48
Alex Castro is the founder and CEO of M Corp. He is the creator of the REM score method and one of the best-selling authors in the AI space. Alex is uniquely placed to educate on AI having been in the space for over a decade and having a breadth of knowledge in Identifying how businesses can implement the world of AI. Alex talks to Ryan about how we can all utilise and integrate AI for use in day-to-day services and how we can push this further by using the web3 space and even creating NFTs.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
M Corps go to market strategy is about the art of the possible. How they can enable companies that have data and AI strategies and allowing them to realise these visions.
M Corp is a services firm that has developed IP products and solutions in how to collect good quality data that you can then feed into an ai model to facilitate automation.
People fear that automation limits jobs but it in fact creates more demand from customers.
In the AI/Automation space, there is a new version being created every 48 hours, -vs- the typical 3-month period of other industries.
Having individuals use and utilise AI for certain tasks frees them to focus on more value-added activities including product development. It can also be used with quality data to show which products are worth spending time on as proven by M Corp with many of their clients.
What M Corp advocates for in AI, is to not buy projects anymore but instead buy an ‘engine’ and click it into what you already have and then an engineer managing that for you.
The best way to keep up with AI and its developments right now is to choose one of the companies with big infrastructure and apply and modify it for your own use.
BEST MOMENTS
“There’s a 12%-30% uptick in customer engagement when automation kicks in”
“Every 48 hours there is another version of AI being deployed”
“We don’t have any investors and we don’t have any debt”
“They began to dwindle down products that weren’t performing”
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
Beyond Pipeline: Rethinking AI's Role in Sales | Andy Paul Part 2
31 Jul 2024
00:25:19
Join Ryan in part 2 of his conversation with podcaster Andy Paul as they explore the pros and cons of AI in sales. They discuss new use cases for AI and share transformative examples for revenue growth. Andy provides interesting ideas around the challenges of AI adoption, the importance of helping buyers make decisions, and the need for thoughtful application of technology in sales processes.
Join 2,500+ readers getting weekly practical guidance to scale themselves and their companies using Artificial Intelligence and Revenue Cheat Codes.
AI is currently being used primarily to automate repetitive tasks, but there's untapped potential in helping buyers make decisions.
Despite technological advancements, B2B selling productivity may have decreased over the past 20-25 years due to misuse of technology.
The focus on using AI for building pipeline may be misguided; the real issue is often not knowing how to win deals and help buyers make decisions.
AI can be used to rapidly condense annual reports and customize information for more relevant first appointments with potential clients.
Many salespeople fail to understand company pressures and industry-specific problems beyond their own offerings, which AI can help address.
Thoughtfulness and curiosity are superpowers in sales, but current sales processes may be training these qualities out of sellers.
The goal of sales interactions should shift from "discovering" information to helping buyers define what they want to achieve.
High win rates are crucial for efficiency; a team with a 50% win rate needs to do significantly less selling than one with a 20% win rate.
BEST MOMENTS
"We need to have thoughtful people who are looking at the problem from the right perspective
"Pipeline is the siren song that's going to cure all for companies. That's what most folks are attracted to."
"If we're gonna make the decision to actually sell to this person, actually bring this opportunity into our pipeline, we should win it. It's that simple."
"Thoughtfulness is definitely a superpower. I agree with you on that, man. And I think like one, one other one that I'm seeing that's... is curiosity as well, right?"
"We're training curiosity out of our sellers and saying that this is the way they should act when really we want the opposite."
Building an Emotional SaaS Tool with Drew D’Agostino of Crystal
16 May 2023
00:31:20
In this episode, Ryan is joined by Drew D’Agostino of Crystal. Crystal is an emotional intelligence tool that leverages AI to create better conversations with clients, and prospects as well as internally with co-workers. Drew talks to Ryan about how he is approaching the business and what they are doing in the space including the journey to finding the perfect product-market fit and the uniqueness of building a SaaS tool that connects with people on an emotional level.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Crystal’s primary go-to-market strategy is b2b which accounts for 75%, 25% comes from its b2c channel
Crystal is founded on the truth that people have fundamentally different personalities and that these are strong, observable and measurable
Crystal was founded 8 years ago but in the past 2 and a half years Drew and his team have had to pivot and make significant changes, particularly in how it is packaged and sold as a product.
Initial inbound leads aren’t a challenge for Crystal, what they have historically struggled with is the middle funnel; taking raw interest from a pool of leads and allocating the right time and sales team to them.
There are multiple reasons people would use Crystal which presents a unique challenge when trying to capture use.
Investing in SEO was a decision made in 2019 that has paid off for Crystal, for example, they are now one of the top personality tests taken and this generates a lot of leads.
BEST MOMENTS
“When people have these differences between one another it can make communication very difficult”
“We’ve been building a 2 and a half-year-old business on top of an 8-year-old product”
“Top of funnel isn’t a problem for us, we really get a lot of inbound interest”
“If you ask 10 random people why they came to Crystal, they’ll generally give you 10 different answers”
“It’s deeply in our DNA, having a SaaS tool that connects with people on an emotional level”
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
Why Cybersecurity is a Human Problem and Talking Open Source AI with Casey Ellis of Bugcrowd
14 May 2023
00:41:39
Casey Ellis is the CEO of Bugcrowd, a platform that connects users with digital locksmiths/hackers to help solve their problems, they also offer task service management and security consulting. Casey has 18 years of experience in the security space and has supported every type of client from small start-ups to large national corporations. Casey and Ryan have an in-depth conversation around AI and Security and Casey also talks about Bugcrowd's interesting combination business model, talks about marketing virality and reveals why his company were a chosen partner by open AI to try and penetrate AI as an open-source programme.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Bugcrowd uses a traditional SaaS business model alongside operating a marketplace too.
Bugcrowd uses a combination of direct sales and channel marketing for its go-to-market strategy.
The ethos behind Bugcrowd is that cybersecurity is a human problem and they focus on human creativity to solve it and then utilise technology to accelerate the solution.
Having the ability to develop innovative tech as well as recognising and empathising with the human component uniquely placed Casey to build a solution like Bugcrowd.
If you are looking at putting all of your eggs in one basket with one platform, make sure you have a great relationship with them.
Viral marketing starts by creating value, initial value is what will engage people and want them to share.
Being in the cybersecurity space for a considerable amount of time and building up a good reputation for doing what they do well, means Bugcrowd and its team often get approached for testing new tech.
Casey believes having the goal and conviction around what you are looking to achieve in business is a better motivator than money.
BEST MOMENTS
“Cybersecurity is a human problem technology just makes it go faster”
“Don’t be valuable create value”
“When new stuff comes out, we get a phonecall”
“There’s a trust in us as an organisation”
“I wanna see the production of wealth actually being the product of something I’ve set out to solve”
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
AI for Every Day Communication and Every Consumer with Suman Kanuganti of Personal AI
09 May 2023
00:38:26
Ryan is joined by two-time venture-backed entrepreneur and AI enthusiast Suman Kanuganti. Suman was also recently awarded Forbes 40 under 40 and is the co-founder of Personal AI. Personal AI is a unique and personal AI model to aid and communicate with one another. Suman talks to Ryan all about his vision for the company including why he chose the b2c market and to be venture-backed as well as the value he sees it bringing to everyday consumers now and in the future.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Personal AI is a consumer-based product messaging app that learns whilst you communicate.
Educating consumers about AI is something Suman sees as Personal AI’s responsibility as well as serving as a go-to-market strategy.
We all have limited time anything that can save us time in communication can aid our relationships, this is Personal’s AI mission.
Suman opted for funding due to the complex development that would be needed for his concept to function.
Suman sees the ai that is created from your communication through Personal AI as not even benefitting your future self but also those around you and potentially, even after you are gone.
BEST MOMENTS
“We are about to serve everyday consumers”
“That education itself is a go-to-market strategy”
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom? Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset. This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.