Billion Dollar Tech

"Too many founders have solutions, and are looking for problems," says Brendan on this solo episode of Billion Dollar Tech. Today Brendan goes over the five key takeaways from his conversation with Trisha Kotari founder and CEO of Unit 21. Trisha cold called over 300 potential buyers and spoke to 100 before getting an RFP from Ebay. The advice she returned to throughout the episode was the importance of being customer-focused. This combined with the novel take on the product, helped Unit 21 differentiate itself in a saturated area.

This wasn't easy with such a risk-averse audience. Still, Trisha was able to meet with people and was able to raise the seed round and gain early customer success. Brendan gives some insight into how she managed to achieve this.

Though he admits that what Trisha did isn't always possible and that he's seen it go just as easily in the opposite direction. He explains what made the difference.

Quotes

"A phrase that I have was said to me on a previous podcast was this idea that there's too many founders out there that have solutions that are looking for problems, they design this thing that they think is cool, but they are not sure whether there's actually a market for this thing." (1:17-1:31 | Brendan)

"That they were able to go out, have these conversations and land a few key customers, which then got them entree into a dozen other companies and ultimately, ultimately led to 12x growth in the following year." (3:50-4:02 | Brendan)

"You're going to get a lot of advice from people and a lot of conflicting advice, especially early on as an entrepreneur, and especially from investors. It's easy to try to take that advice as gospel." (6:02-6:12 | Brendan)

Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926

Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts!

Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

"Fundraising is mostly about failing. Success is really the wartime," says Trisha Kotari, founder and CEO of Unit 21, a risk and compliance infrastructure which helps companies and financial institutions combat fraud. In 2019, she started the business from scratch, cold calling potential investors and raising seed. She discusses the way she differentiated herself from a saturated market, and convinced a particularly risk-averse crowd to get on board, all despite having no idea how to do sales.

Throughout the process and to this day, Trisha pays attention to customer reaction. The customer was her source of truth and helped her iterate. It helped her realize that there was a real need for her product and that she could provide an actual solution.

Trisha discusses the challenges of the process that might be surprising, especially those with Type A personalities, the problem with following advice, and what she wishes she had discarded after hearing it.

Quotes:

This is an actual pain. And it's not a vitamin, it's not the small improvement that we thought this would be. (7:31-7:38 | Trisha)

"Every company is slightly different, especially in the financial services space. And the types of users they target are different, the vectors of attack are different. And that was the main thing that we learned from talking to hundreds of people is that no one is looking for exactly the same type of rule to find fraud." (9:43-10:03 | Trisha)

"These people are naturally risk averse. They will go to jail if your software fails, and so it's very difficult to get a full set of customers." (14:48-14:57 | Trisha)

"The only advice that I would have for people is when starting a business is just expect a lot of rejection. And people are going to reject you because what do they have to go off of? And I think especially for a lot of high achievement focus people, it might become really startling to see that, 'Okay, I'm going to talk to 50 people and 49 as a no.'" (16:29-16:57 | Trisha)

"Fundraising is mostly about failing. And the success is really the wartime." (17:29-17:34 | Trisha)

"I wish I did not listen to all advice because every piece of advice and some kind of it's really based on someone's past experience. But your company, what you're building, who you are, the situation, the industry or in the time that you're in even the same company 10 years ago, or 10 years from now, will this advice apply to me now?." (28:56-29:20 | Trisha)

"It's pretty hard and it's something that is continuous. It's never a one time round thing. You are continuously learning, the market is continuing to evolve and it's a continuous effort." (42:55-43:08 | Trisha)

Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926

Connect with Trisha Kotari:LinkedIn: @trishkotariTwitter:@trishakotariwww.unit21.aiCheck out Trisha Kotari's recommended book:

Shoe Dog: A Memoir By the Founder of Nike by Phil Knight

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781501135927

Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts!

Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

"It's just like being in a relationship," says Brendan on this solo episode of Billion Dollar Tech. Today, he discusses what happens to a lot of startups when they bring in an outside expert or salesperson to help them scale, but the outside party through laziness or even with the best intentions fails to get the business past the growth stage. He lists five things most founders skip at the beginning stages, which can cost them everything, and explains what to do instead. Some of these are basic and universal such as being clear and specific with what you plan to solve, what your ideal customer looks like, and your results.

How do you differentiate yourself from the competition? More specifically, how do you create demand for your product when there is a long-established brand that people trust and don't feel like changing? How do you overcome the inherent mistrust people have in strangers, salespeople, and both in one? Once you bring people in, what do you have to say to them?

Brendan uses examples such as Cassidy Shield and Clearbit, as well as Seth Godin.

Quotes:

"Especially as you grow, you will hire experts, but you need to be able to speak, you need to be able to read your financial statements. You need to be able to speak the language of product, you need to be able to speak the language of sales and marketing. It doesn't mean you need to be able to drive the whole function. But you need to reasonably understand enough so that you can effectively interview people and address, 'Do they know what they're talking about? Does this make sense for us?' and so forth." (2:51-3:14 (Brendan)

"What are their jobs to be done? What are the things that they think are part of their job? Or the outcome that they're trying to drive? And how are they doing that today? What's the status quo? And what's the emotional resonance and like the priority of those jobs that they're doing? Right? Some things may be less important to people than others." (5:25-5:44 | Brendan)

"It's just like in relationship. This is the overused metaphor which is that you wouldn't go up to a man or woman on the street and ask them to marry you, day one. You're going to start with coffee, then lunch, then dinner, then you know, and so forth and so on, building that trust over time. And that's the same with B2B sale." (9:25-9:43 | Brendan)

Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926

Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts!

Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

"I think, if you're doing business right, you're evolving every two or three years," says Bryan Clayton Co-Founder and CEO of GreenPal, an app that works like an Uber for lawn services, which bootstrapped $30 million. And that includes growing alongside your customer. The early days of GreenPal were spent putting brochures on door handles around Nashville until they eventually grew into a nationwide business in 180 cities. Bryan still spends an hour a day on customer service as that is the heart of his business, and, ideally, everyone else's.

Too many startups become enamored with innovation or bells and whistles. Meanwhile, the customer is simply concerned with the product or service, fixing the problem in a timely manner, even more than they're concerned about the best price. Many tech startups forget that their business is not just the app, but the business the app addresses and all the problems that go with it.

In today's discussion Bryan shares what he learned about business and life from his 3-month faux retirement in Costa Rica and what it means to lead from stewardship versus abdication.

Quotes:

"It wasn't like people were throwing capital at us. And so we kind of had to self fund it. And that was a lucky thing for us, because funding the business off of its own revenues, has always course-corrected us to focus on one thing, and that's customers. Are we making people happy? Or are people coming back to us? The products we need to make, we need to grow sales by 50% next month. So that's been a nice course correcting mechanism. That's kind of gotten us where we are today. (8:07-8:32 | Bryan)

"There's nothing wrong with raising capital, so long as you know what you're signing up for. And I think for most entrepreneurs getting the rocket fuel is a bad bet. It's like putting that rocket fuel in your Toyota Camry and wondering why the engine blew up." (9:35-9:52 | Bryan)

"That's why I got back in. And I'm glad I did, you know, because looking back 10 years, you know, I'm a completely different person, and know all sorts of different skills and things I didn't know, then, then the business required me to learn those things. If I had not done it, I'd be the same, you know, person I was 10 years ago, and what a tragedy that'd be, you know, you want to be growing and evolving. The business requires that of you. And that's one of the cool things about it." (13:36-13:59 | Bryan)

"There's a reason why it's broken. And when you develop an app in that space, all of those problems now become your problems. And they become your problems to solve." (17:54-18:07 | Bryan)

"We thought we were building a cheaper solution. Why? Because it's the competitive dynamics, you get multiple quotes, and you can compare and read reviews and hire the cheapest contractor if you want. But as time went on, and as customers were interacting with what we built, we became to understand that no, actually the price almost needs to be market, it doesn't need to be cheaper. What matters is reliability and speed. That's what people care about, do they get it done on the day they're supposed to, and then can they get it done quickly." (23:07-23:42 | Bryan)

"When you raise capital, it really, it changes the goalposts, you know, it moves the goalposts out further for whatever those are, a lot of times you're building a product that investors like, and not necessarily one that customers like." (41:27-41:41 | Bryan)

"And I think that's what holds up a lot of new founders. They aren't willing to do the crappy work." (46:43-46:49 | Bryan)

Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926

Connect with Bryan Clayton:https://www.yourgreenpal.com/ Check out Bryan Clayton's recommended books:

My Life in Advertising by Claude Hopkins

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781434117052

The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780307887894

The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-by-Step Guide for Building a Great Company by Steve Blank and Bob Dorf

https://www.indiebound.org/search/book?keys=The+Startup+Owners+Manual

The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects by Andrew Chen

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780062969743

Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts!

Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

"Most startups don't fail outright, they fail to gain meaningful traction," says Brendan on this solo episode of Billion Dollar Tech. He gets more specific with five reasons that contribute to the failure. The first reason is one that he has discussed many times, which is that companies go too wide at the start, and fail to specifically define their service and why it's necessary to their target audience.

Companies need to know what you can do for them within the specific context of their business. Do they see your solution as crucial to their tasks? Equally important is clarity of message and Brendan offers the minimum criteria for achieving it.

He defines anchoring bias and why getting ahead of it is so crucial, and why you're doing social media wrong.

Quotes:

"You have to build the thing, or position the thing in such a way that it solves for a core pain and that their life is more meaningfully worse without your solution in place." (4:52-5:07 | Brendan)

"So here's a super common scenario: somebody builds an MVP, a minimum viable product, or they raise a little bit of money. And then what do they do, which is natural and should happen, they go out, and they start to talk to everyone they know. Now, I'm not discouraging you from networking. I'm not discouraging you from posting on social media to people. But what you're not doing in that process is generating broad based awareness around what it is you do, how you help and why it's different than everyone else." (7:03-7:38 | Brendan)

"Are you aligning your team around just getting as many blinking lights to show up as possible?" (10:20-10:24 | Brendan) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926

Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts!

Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

"You have to be really agile and flexible, but also really stubborn about the problems you're going to solve," says Alan Chiu, co-founder of Boba and its contributing company Enya.ai, about the dual attributes successful founders must possess. Blockchain technology, similarly, is a balance of traits. On one hand, it offers a number of opportunities. The open source format and permissionless entree allow people who might otherwise be hindered by their geographical location, race, gender access to a business's information. This transparency has the potential to decentralize power, and form a system of checks and balances that keep everyone more honest. However, this type of demand on the system leads to slower performance and higher costs. This is where Boba comes in, as it's the only blockchain platform that takes advantage of blockchain's features while utilizing the sustainability of Web 2 infrastructure.

Alan discusses how the blockchain model makes money, how to identify the right time to execute on a plan. He talks about the most difficult aspect of scaling and how he approaches risk. First and foremost you must evaluate the founders when deciding to invest in companies, and that those founders must have a balance of strong convictions and openness to new ideas and methods.

Continuing the theme of balance, Alan discusses how he manages both the longterm and shortterm goals of his team. He gives his thoughts on the most common mistakes founders make when starting a company, and the most common reason they fail to scale.

Quotes:

"If these cryptocurrencies increase in value, you are starting to build a pretty interesting portfolio without being subject to biases against age, gender, ethnicity, geographical location. And that's really powerful. This is the type of opportunity that used to be reserved for Silicon Valley engineers. Now anyone in the world can have access to. (9:05-9:29 | Alan)

"The reason blockchains are always going to be much slower than a traditional web two infrastructure like AWS is because there's a cost to synchronizing all of these mills that the mega blockchain network with these centralized, the decentralized nature of blockchains is both a feature but also puts a limit on how many transactions you can do per unit time." (13:26-13:47 | Alan)

For any disruptive technology, in the early days, it's really hard to come up with something quantifiable and justify that with data, because everything is so new. (17:48-18:01 | Alan)

"One of the most difficult aspects of being a founder is, on one hand, you've got to have strong conviction around your vision because there's going to be a lot of headwind and a lot of uncertainty, if you don't have strong conviction, it's really hard to sustain. On the other hand, you've got to be really open to advice and feedback, especially feedback from customers, whether they want what you're building or not. You're learning and adapting and changing to your customer feedback, and also to a changing competitive landscape and market dynamics and new technologies that continue to evolve." (20:47-21:20 | Alan)

"Sometimes the best path forward is actually not commercializing the innovation itself. But finding some application for the innovation in a product or service. And commercializing that instead, and using the core innovation as a creative driver of a competitive advantage." (52:01-53:01 | Alan)

Links:

Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926

Connect with Alan Chiu:Twitter:@alanchiuhttps://www.enya.ai/Check out Alan Chiu's recommended books:

Connect: Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends and Colleagues

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780593237090

The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780142001103

The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom by Henri J.M. Nouwen

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780385483483

The Brains and Brawn Company: How Leading Organizations Blend the Best of Digital and Physical by Robert Siegel

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781264257775

Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts!

Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

"It comes back to communication," says Brendan on this solo episode of Billion Dollar Tech, where he unpacks the five key takeaways from his recent interview with Iggy Bassi, founder and CEO of Cervest. Iggy founded this data platform, which recently raised 37 million in total funding, first and foremost by articulating his vision specifically, and Brendan expands on the importance of this. He also talks about the balance between quality and efficiency, knowing when it's time to launch, and the importance of finding a clear focused market.

One should aim to position oneself on the back of a key trend. Brendan talks about finding a concept that intersects with what you know and care about versus what other people need and will care about in the world today. He lists resources available to even those outside of the industry where you can find companies with existing initiatives in place, whom founders can then piggyback on.

Brendan draws examples from successful businesses such as Oracle, Carta and Smarsh. He shares what he sees as the biggest stumbling block to success, and the most underappreciated skill in a founder.

Quotes:

"If you want to get people to invest money in your product, you want to get people to invest their lives and help you build a company, you have to be able to articulate the new world you're creating." (5:11-5:20 | Brendan)

"You look at Elon Musk, and the ability to market your ability to communicate, the vision is everything." (5:44-5:50 | Brendan)

"It's tempting when you're early on, and everybody comes from different places, but you should just take whatever money is available to you and offered to you. And this may sound like a luxury problem. But for anyone who has seen what it's like to work with unaligned investors, tyrannical investors, are people who just do not understand what it is you're building, the vision you're building, the time it may take to get there, what the hurdles are all of these things, it can create a horrible working relationship." (10:24-10:55 | Brendan)

Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Connect with Iggy Bassi:Twitter:@IggyBassihttps://cervest.earth/

Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts!

Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

"I want to spend my time solving problems," says Iggy Bassi, founder and CEO of Cervest, a platform that uses climate data, science expertise and data modeling to help companies predict their climate risk. It measures the potential damage a company's assets, like buildings, factories and property, could suffer from their surrounding weather conditions, and the potential resulting financial loss. With this data, it helps companies not mitigate risk, but adapt assets over time. Though it's not just real estate firms or manufacturers that have to worry about extreme incidents like flooding or storms. As Iggy points out, all businesses across all industries are at risk from the everyday effects of climate change.

Iggy considers this his driving mission—to democratize this data and get it into the hands of decision makers in order to serve the greater good. He talks about the process and necessity of marrying the mission to the method, that to achieve its noble ends, a company must still follow a capitalistic business model and make itself competitive in the market. Both are equally necessary and as Brendan points out, making money and doing good works are not mutually exclusive.

It's a matter of deciding what you want to invest your time in. It also means choosing the right people to be part of your mission. Iggy emphasizes the amount of time he spent and continues to spend considering his investors and encourages listeners to do the same.

Quotes:

"Most of our losses actually came because of these extreme events, we just couldn't predict them. We couldn't control them. So I think in 2014 I sort of picked up a climate model. It helps to think about climate modeling. I said, `I want to know what's going to happen to my facility, for my $6 million factory and tell me what's going to happen to this." (8:14-8:38 | Iggy)

"I think there's a more fundamental question about, 'Where do you want to spend your energy as well. I want to spend, personally, my energy on solving problems. So that's what really drives me is 'Can we make an impact because we're all going to work hard, whether you're in for profit, or social sector, what is the purpose to the work?" (12:10-12:31 | Iggy)

"We are a B Corp that allows us to marry the mission with raising capital, creating a certain type of culture, which was all driven by a central mission. Can we take the power of plant intelligence into the hands of decision makers? Can we democratize this complex data? So people like me are not stuck on the farms going forward? People can get answers when they need them, how do I protect my assets? How do I adapt my assets? So we want this intelligence to be democratized as fast as possible at the lowest possible price point, potentially, with a freemium model as well, so that people can get a certain level of climate intelligence on their most critical assets for free. And then the larger banks, insurance companies and governments will actually pay for this." (12:51-13:31 | Iggy)

"Even at the height of COVID, most global surveys, when they asked citizens the number one concern, it wasn't COVID, it was still climate. And climate is a number one concern across the world, when you ask the citizens, particularly the younger generations." (25:21-25:37 | Iggy)

"I'm always always careful about who my capital partners are. I spent a long time focusing on choosing the right investment partners, because if you don't have that alignment, it can be catastrophic later on." (33:53-34:05 | Iggy)

"I think there is a combination of mission driven people who are technically good, and people who've got method. So you have to marry mission with method. Because at the end of the day, it is a competitive business, it's a competitive market, you have to be able to sell this stuff into the marketplace, build a brilliant product. And you have to be a commercially orientated organization over time. So mission is great, method is also great. But you need a combination of the two, particularly if you're solving this type of problems."(36:40-37:10 | Iggy)

Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926

Connect with Iggy Bassi:Twitter:@IggyBassihttps://cervest.earth/Check out Iggy's recommended books:

Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant's Guide by Bill McGuire

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781785789205

Nutmeg's Curse by Amitabh Ghosh and Sam Dastor

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9798212010450

Origins: How Earth's History Shaped Human History by Lewis Dartnell

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781541617902

Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts!

Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

"In a world where there's so much overwhelming noise, you've got to be specific," says Brendan in this solo episode of Billion Dollar Tech. This pertains to everything, from the benefit you're providing to how you're helping, to the language you're using, even the difference between your impression of what you're selling versus how other people view it. Too many people try to target multiple personas, and this, as Brendan explains, is one of the biggest mistakes a startup can make.

To illustrate this point, Brendan provides examples from both sides of the issue. He relays an anecdote told to him by Steve Marsh, founder and chairman of B2B tech business Smarsh, about the biggest mistake Steve says that he made. He draws from his own experience with Sudozi and explains what they've done right.

Of course, there are a couple of caveats to this rule. Find out what those are and why the companies you think are exceptions to the rule really aren't.

Quotes:

"The foundational element here is strategy." (1:22-1:24 | Brendan)

"This sentiment is one I hear echoed again and again and it might be the single most common reason that I see other than founder burnout or wrong timing is lack of focus, that keeps startups from winning." (3:18-3:32 | Brendan)

"These are all things that require a lot of time and expertise that you can't get if you're saying, 'Well, I want to sell into six different personas across five different industries and so forth." (5:29-5:42 | Brendan)

Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926

Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts!

Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

In this solo episode of Billion Dollar Tech, Brendan breaks down the highlights from his interview with Guy Tytunovich, founder of go to market security company Cheq.ai. Guy founded a unicorn company, and part of this discussion will focus on the unique challenges and considerations of this particular scenario.

Much of the advice is invaluable to all entrepreneurs including the best method of company-wide communication, recognizing a pain point and finding a solution (and not the other way around) and deciding the best time to launch.

Brendan discusses what makes a great leader and why Guy embodies that.

Quotes:

"With Guy, I don't know him well, I only know him from this conversation. But it felt very authentic and very real. To me, it didn't feel like a guy who was pandering or just trying to sound good." (8:29-8:40 | Brendan)

"You can't rest on what is." (11:43-11:45 | Brendan)

"You'd rather have a smaller piece of a bigger pie and a team that feels engaged, and that feels appreciated and that loves what you're doing rather than somebody who is just sort of phoning it in or sees you as another one of the things that they're working on." (14:10-14:25 | Brendan)

Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926

Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts!

Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm