Billion Dollar Tech

Billion Dollar Tech

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Billion Dollar Tech episodes

  • Growing Cheq.ai from $0 to $1B valuation

    "Simply put, we protect the go-to-market worldwide," says Guy Tytunovich, Founder and CEO of Cheq.ai who created the category of go to market security. During his ten years working in government cybersecurity, Guy realized that there are attack factors and vulnerabilities that most people within the company know nothing about. Cheq.ai was founded to predict all of these vulnerabilities, even the ones the client doesn't recognize. Today, the company is valued at $1 billion.

    Guy discusses what led to the decision to create a category, and the obstacles involved. While building his business, he was given two major opportunities that turned out to be the worst thing that ever happened to him. He discusses what they are as well as why entrepreneurs are–and should be–anxious at all times.

    He reveals the importance of perseverance, the uselessness of following the playbook and the most important thing to read (hint: it's not a book).

    Quotes:

    "Product market fit is a relative thing." (12:16-12:19 | Guy)

    "I found that a lot of times, the perception is that the problems go away as you scale. But my experience has been that that's not the case." (14:35-14:42 | Brendan)

    "What stays constant is the fact that you need to be, in my opinion, at least as an entrepreneur, as a CEO, for you to evolve with the company, you need to remain incredibly obsessed. And incredibly anxious. Always." (17:00-17:19 | Guy)

    "We had this thesis or hypothesis: if you throw your fishing net out there, you're going to catch 100 fish, but one of them is going to be really big tuna." (24:31-24:48 | Guy)

    "The playbook is worthless, unless you have incredible people. The playbook is worthless, unless you have incredible culture, the playbook is worthless, unless you have a certain amount of product market fit. At the very least, the playbook is worthless, if you are not a reasonable person who doesn't make decisions on a whim. Execution is more important than anything. If you don't know how to follow the playbook, you're not going to be successful." (36:45-37:24 | Guy)

    "I think a lot of entrepreneurs fall for the romanticism of talent and genius, and we make that mistake. And hire people with a lot of talent and a lot of promises that have a lot of experience, which is significantly more important than talent." (48:25-48:44 | Guy)

    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 Guy Tytunovich:LinkedIn: @guytytunovichCheck out Guy Tytunovich's recommended books:

    The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

    https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780345391803

    Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points that Challenge Every Company by Andrew S. Grove

    https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780385483827

    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

    58 min
  • How to Build a $1B LinkedIn Ads Strategy

    "It's the best place to target business buyers," says Brendan of LinkedIn Ads. In this episode he'll walk you through a set of tips to help you optimally utilize the platform, connect to your target audience, and get an optimal ROI. This starts with helping you to decide if you should be using it in the first place.

    This begins with knowing how to position your product. Being able to generate the right leads and get in front of the right audience at the right intersection is more important than the product itself.

    Brendan will walk you through the features to familiarize yourself with and tell you what is most likely to make potential buyers change their minds.

    Quotes:

    "We consistently see companies scale up using LinkedIn Ads." (2:35-2:36 | Brendan)

    "If you use just the job function, and don't either build lookalike audiences, where you're getting really specific about who you're reaching, or niche down based on job title, you will get a lot of crap back, especially if you're trying to target folks like founders, or CEOs. Because every yahoo on the planet calls themselves a CEO or founder in their LinkedIn profile." (7:04-7:34 | Brendan)

    "This is why positioning matters, and content strategy matters." (11:28-11:31 | 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

    18 min
  • Deconstructing the $1B psychedelics industry w/ VC Brom Rector

    "I want to fund the company that's inventing the Tesla Model S of psychedelics," says Brom Rector, founder of Empath ventures, a venture capital firm investing in the future of psychedelic medicine. A consumer of psychedelics himself for over a decade, he saw there was an opening in the newly forming for-profit psychedelics industry. Here he defines what psychedelic drugs actually are, which are considered medical or will soon be approved for medical purposes, and the answers may be surprising.

    Brom also addresses the benefits of psychedelics compared to the traditional treatments as well as misconceptions, and stigmas. There are some surprising potential uses for the drugs, including as treatment for alcoholism and premature ejaculation.

    Also discussed are the possibility of them being offered as an employee benefit, and any pitfalls of their becoming mainstream.

    Quotes:

    "One thing I discovered was that there are a lot of people that had made a lot of money in crypto that were very, very interested in psychedelics, and so I raised a lot of money very, very early on from a lot of like crypto rich guys. And then I also very interestingly raised a decent chunk of money from like, some real estate guys that you would not really think at first glance would be into psychedelics like totally different, you know, kind of just type of asset class, but they were interested." (9:53-10:22 | Brom)

    "There's this growing body of evidence that suggests that psychedelics are much more effective treatments at treating things like depression, anxiety than these traditional drugs are." (22:34-22:41 | Brom)

    "One of the cofounders of Alcoholics Anonymous, he was really into this idea that they should use LSD as part of the Alcoholics Anonymous process to get people off of alcohol. Not as something that you take every day instead of drinking a beer every day, but something that you do maybe once or twice, and have this visionary experience that helps you realize that alcohol is messing up your life and that you should, you know, take a break from it." (29:07-29:29 | Brom)

    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 Brom Rector:LinkedIn: @bromrector

    Twitter: bromrector

    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

    51 min
  • Growing ActivSurgical from $0 to $162M (and beyond)

    "We like to consider ourselves the Waze of surgery," says Todd Usen, CEO of ActivSurgical. Waze gathers and presents data from the road in real time, so that driver's can navigate their trip successfully and avoid problems before they occur. Similarly, ActivSurgical uses sensors and AI to anticipate problems that aren't visible to a surgeon's naked eye, and complements where a human is limited. This real time data is available not only to the surgeon performing surgery, but to surgeons, live throughout the world.

    With everyone having access to the same information, patients entering surgery can rest assured that they can receive a standardized level of care regardless of a surgeon's experience. This also has the potential to decrease time spent in hospital, and lowers the rate of readmission.

    Readmission not only increases risk of secondary problems and even death, but has implications on health insurance rates.

    Quotes:

    "Why does the 17 year old driver get all this amazing information that a 50 year old driver gets, whether it's a rear view camera, whether it's an orange light in their side view mirror to tell you that there's a car in your blind spot, a seat that vibrates if you switch lanes. Yet, you go to surgery and a surgeon just out of fellowship doesn't get the same information that a surgeon that's been practicing for 30 years does. It's all intuition and skills. What we're trying to do is bring that information live to the screen. So every patient around the world should have the confidence that their surgeon has the same exact information as other surgeons to get a great outcome." (3:27-4:03 | Todd)

    "The world's not going to be hardware forever." (8:34-8:36 | Todd)

    "If you're a football fan, and you ever watched the NFL on TV, you know, there's that first down marker that that we see on the screen, that yellow line, but the players don't see that we see it on TV, I want the players to see that yellow line, I want the doctors to see that yellow line live." (32:38-32:52 | Todd)

    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 Todd Usen:

    activsurgical.comCheck out Todd Usen's recommended books:

    The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown

    https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780143136965

    Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making by Tony Fadell

    https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780063046061

    Rogue Warrior by Richard Marcinko

    https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780671795931

    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

    57 min
  • Should You Create a New Category?

    "In the next five to seven minutes, I'm going to try to give you a very concise and declarative answer as to whether or not you should create your own category," says Brendan In this solo episode of Billion Dollar Tech. This is a question he receives from many entrepreneurs and executives, and here discusses criteria to consider when deciding. He references his recent interview with Guy Tytunovich, who created a billion dollar go to market security company Cheq.ai.

    Some of the questions to consider are applicable to any entrepreneur at any phase such as what problem does this company solve and how to create demand in the market space.

    For those who shouldn't create their own category there is advice on how to differentiate yourself successfully in a saturated market.

    Quotes:

    "This question often comes from somebody who's either A, trying to bring their product to market or B, is launching some sort of a renewed version of their product or has hit some kind of a growth plateau, and they're trying to breathe some new life into their product into their category." (0:33-0:47 | Brendan)

    "By definition, you have to create a new category and enter into this with eyes wide open. Knowing that it's going to require education, it's likely going to be expensive." (4:09-4:21 | Brendan)

    "Are you a new paradigm where you really are modifying or improving upon an existing process? And in a meaningfully different way?" (3:20-3:28 | 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

    17 min
  • The Tech Career Toolkit - From MIT's Famed Career Accelerator Program

    "Leadership isn't a single thing. It's a bunch of things together," says Mark Herschberg, the co-founder and one of the principal developers of MIT's famed Career Accelerator Program. The program teaches future tech leaders the soft skills like communication, networking and negotiating that they don't teach in school but are crucial to success. Here Mark discusses the origins of the program as well as the most important aspects of communication and how those aspects all build on each other.

    Mark discusses the importance of career planning, and dismantles the myth of the 20-something founder. A major part of Mark's 20s was spent as a champion ballroom dancer, and he gives a peak into that world here.

    He discusses his app Brain Bump and how it relates to the evolving way that we utilize books. He discusses what sectors on the horizon make no sense to him and which he finds terrifying.

    Quotes:

    "I recognized I was missing those skills. I had heard of them, but I was never formally taught. I didn't think I was very good at them. So I set out to train myself. And as I did so, I realized these are not just skills for entrepreneurs, for founders, for executives, these are skills for everyone down to even your summer interns." (15:24-15:42 | Mark)

    "The most popular article I've written was one called 'Leadership Is Not Atomic." Because what does it mean to be a good leader? What you're probably going to be good at is communication skills. As a leader, you're going to have to bring together coalitions. That's negotiation skills. You probably need to be able to connect with other people, networking skills. Leadership isn't a single thing. Leadership is a bunch of things together." (18:06-18:34 | Mark)

    "You can learn leadership, networking, negotiating, it's all the skills that we think some people are just born with. Well, people are also born natural athletes or natural musicians. But just because they're natural at it doesn't mean the rest of us can't learn it, if we put the time in." (52:12-52:27 | Mark)

    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 Mark Herschberg:Thecareertoolkitbook.com

    cognoscomedia.comCheck out Mark Herschberg recommended books:

    Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister

    https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780321934116

    The Charisma Myth by Olivia Fox Cabone

    https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781469033075

    Survival of the Savvy: High Integrity Political Tactics for Career and Company Success by Rick Brandon and Marty Selman

    https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780743262545

    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

    1 hr 1 min
  • How to Use AI to 10X Your Sales Pipeline

    "Wouldn't you respond to someone that knows you like a friend better than someone who called like a robot that's just doing outreach?" asks Leena Joshi, Co-Founder and CEO of Closefactor, which applies machine learning, artificial intelligence and natural language processing to the go-to market process. They help go- to market teams find their exact right accounts and to generate pipeline more efficiently and at a larger scale. This creates higher closed one growth rates and results in less wasted time, as well as making for a more personalized approach.

    One of the most important things in getting the exact right accounts into your pipeline is getting very specific when building your ICP. Consider every factor, including the size of a company and the size of the team within it, where they are on their journey and the potential of what they might become. Even private companies have a wealth of information online.

    Though she does warn about over-indexing on a general search. This is one of many mistakes people make that results in wasted time, wasted energy and a poor fit for all parties involved. Leena discusses other common mistakes market teams make and what to do instead.

    Quotes:

    "Wouldn't you respond to someone that knows you like a friend better than someone called like a robot that's just doing outreach." (6:44-6:52 | Leena)

    "You may have the best product in the world. If you can't bring it to market, to the right customers, if you can't find the right audience, you're going to have a tough, tough time." (8:56-9:06 | Leena)

    "And once you have your ideal customer profile, it's a matter of increasingly creating the layers around that ICP. So that as you start to cross the chasm, you know who to go after." (12:08-12:20 | Leena)

    "One mistake that I see very often is people tend to spray and pray. I can't emphasize enough how harmful the spray and pray motion is because you are ultimately left with no control over who comes into your pipeline." (17:05-17:22 | Leena)

    "When you're able to connect a customer's pain to a high priority initiative inside the organization, it's magic, it helps with moving your deal forward. So you're really looking for the high priority initiatives inside the organization that you can attach your deal to, your project to. And typically, companies will talk about these high priority initiatives all the time. They talk about it in their earnings call transcripts, they talk about it in their hiring." (22:44-23:15 | Leena)

    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 Leena:LinkedIn: @closefactorTwitter:@closefactor[email protected]

    Check out Leena's recommended books:

    The Qualified Sales Leader: Proven Lessons from a Five-Time CRO by John MacMahon and Dev Ittycheria

    https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578895062

    Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari and Derek Perkins

    https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780062316110

    Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment by Robert Wright

    https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781439195468

    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

    45 min
  • Growing TopHat from $0 - $130M & Founding a Crypto Fund

    "Be perpetually paranoid and constantly thinking about how you're going to die," Mike Silagadze jokes about the mindset it takes to navigate the constant fluctuations and risks (and resulting stress) of founding a company, especially in the tech space. He has plenty of experience in the area. He first founded TopHat right out of university. Discusses the challenges of founding a business in the edtech space TopHat, where they worked to replace existing paper materials with digital materials, particularly the overall lack of incentive and the competing and contradicting demands of too many stakeholders. He explains the innovative bottom up method that engaged students directly, which became the standard model that many edtech companies ultimately followed.

    Taking risks, knowing when to pivot, recognizing where your revenue opportunities come up when they arise are all part of being an entrepreneur, which, Mike admits, most people don't have the personality for. He talks about what it felt like when it came time to sell, and it's not the cliche a lot of people think it is. If there is a true cliche, it's that you must find meaning in what you're doing, that the journey means more than a "someday" destination.

    Mike discusses his latest company Gadze, and helps clear up some of the common misconceptions about cryptocurrency and why they present such a benefit, such as evading regulatory systems, access to global capital by tokenizing assets, and giving people sovereignty over their wealth.

    Quotes:

    "Today and pretty much for the entire history of crypto until now, it's mostly been a mechanism for gambling, I mean, there's not a lot of real economic activity happening in the crypto world, arguably, just gambling." (5:06-5:23 | Mike)

    "Most sane, healthy people are not temperamentally suited to try to found a company, especially a startup, but a tech startup, because it's just it really is, to use the cliche, it's a roller coaster, where one moment you're on top of the world. And the next moment, you you think it's all over. I mean, all I can say is, it was a lot harder. In the beginning, the first few times that we almost died after like, the 10th time, you learn to kind of ride it out and just think, "I've seen this before. We've been able to get through it before, and so we'll do it again." So, all I can say is it gets easier." (23:11-23:52 | Mike)

    "Part of the reason that I decided to make this pivot I guess into crypto is because I spent some time thinking, 'What is the most important problem that or a movement or change that I can help contribute to?' And the idea of a stateless decentralized money felt like that's arguably the most important thing to accomplish. Because it becomes the catalyst for so much else." (34:38-35:04 | Mike)

    "You have this sort of naive and incorrect idea that once you just hit that success point, and you get enough money that you're not obligated to work anymore, then it's, 'Okay, cool.' You've won. Now suddenly, everything's awesome and you're just gonna be great sitting there, just relaxing. But you realize, 'Okay, well, what now? What do I do now? What's my purpose in life? What's the meaning?' And you realize, no, no, the thing that you're doing is the meaning. There is nothing else. If you're not doing something that is giving you meaning, you should probably be doing something else." (32:23-34:00 | Mike)

    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 Mike Silagadze:LinkedIn: @mikesilagadzeTwitter:@mikesilagadzeWebsite: https://gadze.finance/

    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

    56 min
  • Growing Blockchain.com to $14B - The Story of Peter Smith

    "Increasing human freedom and economic freedom around the world is just a mission that I'm really passionate about," says Peter Smith, Founder and CEO of Blockchain.com. That mission has remained at the heart of Blockchain since its inception in 2009. When still a graduate student at the London School of Economics, Peter became interested in the intersection of economy and technology, long before they were attached at the hip as they are now. Today, digital money is the greatest example of this intersection, and the Internet is the world's largest GDP.

    One major misunderstanding that persists is how long it takes to adopt new technology. Success requires being in it for the long haul, and Peter says that too many entrepreneurs want too much too soon. He shares examples of companies that have finally found major success, but only after years of struggle and even ridicule.

    Being a CEO comes with a great deal of responsibility, stress and fluctuation. Hear Peter discuss the best approach to dealing with it all, and why all entrepreneurs have something wrong with them.

    Quotes:

    "It's actually a common misconception that people don't know about the image of Bitcoin, which is that there was a 10-year plus period of attempts to create digital cash." (7:24-7:40 | Peter)

    "It's really important to us that we build tools that enable people to hold their assets themselves, but their own key. And you know, this is our original slogan, be your own bank." (12:56-13:05 | Peter)

    "One of the things I miss most about early crypto, was that it was not a business. It was a mission." (16:19-16:25 | Peter)

    "When I got into crypto, it wasn't it wasn't to make money. It was like, wow, if we pull this off, really cool. We can build a financial system that lives on the internet that anyone can be part of, and I can honestly look back and say, I spent my early adult life doing that, no matter how it works out. It's like a regret minimization framework. I could spend the next five years reinventing some enterprise SAAS tool, which is probably more likely to be successful, especially in 2000, and exit a lot faster. It's really hard to exit crypto businesses. But when I look back on that life, I'm not going to be proud of that." (19:45-20:40 | Peter)

    "You have to be very rooted in reality as a founder. And I think anytime you're not, anytime you're too optimistic, you're just waiting to get lucky. That's a very dangerous mode to be in. But you also have to realize as a founder that not everything is under your control." (33:14-33:29 | Peter)

    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 Peter Smith:Website: Blockchain.comTwitter: @justonemorepeterFacebook:@justonemorepeterInstagram:@justonemorepeter

    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

    53 min
  • Time Management Secrets for High Performers

    "A lot of people mistake activity for progress," says Fineas Tatar, Co-CEO and Founder of Viva, "What matters is is working on priorities that actually move the needle forward." Many CEOs, particularly of startups, don't know what their priorities are and therefore what tasks to focus on and in what order. As new leaders, they try to do everything themselves instead of effectively delegating. As a result, time gets wasted, less gets done, and quality suffers. Fineas discusses his approach to effective time management, including starting with a mission or objective and working backwards, matching each task to its best employer.

    He describes the qualities he looks for when hiring salespeople, which skills can be taught versus those that are innate, and what new hires learn in Viva's analyst training program. He explains why hiring (or not hiring) under the guise of fitting in with corporate culture is largely bogus, the most challenging parts being a company leader, and the most common mistakes CEOS make when trying to prioritize.

    A huge part of establishing priorities is always keeping the ideal customer profile in mind. He discusses how to establish and maintain your company's ICP as your company grows and some great ways to get customer feedback.

    Quotes:

    "First, a lot of people don't prioritize well. What's actually busywork versus what's going to move the needle? I always ask myself, 'What is the work that only you can do best within the company?' And if I'm not doing that, we're not moving the needle." (8:15-8:31 | Fineas)

    "I've seen leaders who work eight hours a day make significantly more progress than those crushing themselves 14 hours a day to try to move the needle. But it's all about what they choose to focus on." (10:08-10:21 | Fineas)

    "A lot of people mistake activity for progress. They mistake daily inputs for progress, even though it's not moving the needle. I've fallen in this trap before as well. And sometimes you think you move fast, but it's not necessarily like moving fast. It's making decisions on things quickly, right? It's moving the needle forward on things that actually matter."(38:38-38:59 | Fineas)

    "Saying no is just as important as the things you say yes to." (43:10-43:14 | Fineas)

    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 Fineas Tatar:

    Website: https://www.execviva.com/

    LinkedIn: @ Viva Virtual Analysts; @fineastatar

    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

    57 min

About Billion Dollar Tech

From the publisher's feed

Advice & growth frameworks from three comma founders, VCs, and executives (and those on their way there.)