Hello Blink Show

Description

How do you get your first customers, and when should you hire help? Natalie Luneva joins us, who runs her own coaching and consulting business for software as a service (SaaS) startups. She talks about how she got started helping small businesses and offers insights into finding initial customers, the importance of joining communities, and the pros and cons of developing technologies that rely on other, larger businesses.

In the second half of the show, Natalie talks about hiring help, whether by contracting or full-time employment. She discusses how time can easily be wasted on menial tasks that can be outsourced and the associated opportunity costs. She ends the show talking about the need to find a good product-market fit.

Sponsor

We want to thank Cyber City Circuits for sponsoring this episode! Cyber City Circuits is an electronics shop and contract manufacturer based in Augusta, GA. Use the coupon code HELLOBLINKSHOW to receive 10% off your order of electronics or mention that you heard about them on the Hello Blink Show for a 25% discount on the assembly costs of manufacturing.

One Powerful Quotation

41:23 - Natalie: "You only grow when you are stretched. If you are not stretched, you never grow.”

Key Topics

• 1:15 - Harris asks Natalie about her experiences and how she helps SaaS teams grow, specifically with a focus on marketing over sales. Natalie talks about how she helps clients achieve growth by tackling “low-hanging fruit” issues in marketing and content.
• 3:45 - Shawn asks Natalie to give some tips on how new founders can increase traffic. Natalie responds by stating that a focus on getting initial sales is likely more important than inbound marketing content. Specifically, she says to join and engage with relevant communities (forums, chat rooms, social media, etc. that focus on your market area).
• 7:00 - Natalie talks about how to find and join communities with relevant audiences.
• 8:00 - Harris asks Natalie about how to create content (specifically, podcasts) that gets shared. Natalie shares her strategy of building relationships on her podcast with peers rather than focusing on potential customers.
• 10:00 - Shawn relates by talking about how partnering to create content can be used to provide business referrals rather than making new customers.
• 11:30 - Natalie talks about how a single viewpoint from a successful SaaS founder might be narrow-sighted, as what worked for them might not work for others.
• 12:30 - Harris asks Natalie about using integrations as partners. 
• 17:15 - Shawn asks Natalie about creating a company or service tied to a larger company or product (e.g. creating a plugin for Salesforce or an add-on board for Arduino). Natalie recommends creating a plugin or suite of plugins that work across multiple platforms so all your eggs are not in one basket.
• 21:00 - Natalie talks about focusing on one integration initially to learn what works before moving on to support other platforms.
• 23:00 - Shawn asks Natalie to tell her story about getting involved in coaching and consulting with SaaS founders.
• 26:45 - Harris asks Natalie what consulting looks like for her. Natalie talks about how she must combine different efforts to help coach her clients as well as apply good business practices. Specifically, she starts by examining metrics and finding the “low-hanging fruit” issues that will give the greatest return on investment (ROI).
• 31:30 - Shawn recommends the book “E-Myth Revisited” when it comes to hiring help. Natalie agrees and talks about the learning curve of managing people. 
• 34:45 - Natalie offers advice on hiring someone full time and figuring out which tasks can be outsourced to an employee.
• 37:15 - Harris talks about why he hasn’t outsourced any tasks yet, and Natalie mentions that the opportunity cost can hinder potential growth. Even if hiring and managing people is scary and uncomfortable, you must stretch yourself in order to grow.
• 42:45 - Shawn mentions the hidden costs of context switching between tasks and why it’s important to maximize time in the “genius zone.”
• 44:15 - Natalie adds that the “genius zone” also needs to correspond to the highest paying task in order to maximize profits and potential to scale.
• 46:45 - Shawn and Natalie discuss blocking time, especially as it relates to engineering and software development.
• 48:30 - Natalie talks about the importance of identifying and understanding the problem potential customers have before building a product rather than the mindset trap of “if you build it, they will come.”
• 52:00 - Natalie shares her contact information.
• 52:45 - Shout out segment: Matt Bradshaw talks about his first product, the DrumKid drum machine, and thanks Shawn for his KiCad tutorials.

List of Resources

Book - The E-Myth Revisited

Book - The Genius Zone

Site - MicroConf Connect Group

DrumKid drum machine

Guest Information

Natalie Luneva is a growth and team performance coach to SaaS founders. She is on a mission to help SaaS companies scale, clarify business priorities, and grow high performance teams. Drawing from her 10+ years of leading marketing teams, she helped over 100 companies implement high ROI opportunities, scale their operations, clarify business priorities and grow high performance teams.

Guest Contact Information

Website - Natalie Luneva

LinkedIn - Natalie Luneva

Facebook - Natalie Luneva

Twitter - @natalie_luneva

Host Contact Information

shawnhymel.com

kennyconsultinggroup.com

LinkedIn - Shawn Hymel

LinkedIn - Harris Kenny

Twitter - Shawn Hymel

Twitter - Harris Kenny

License Information

“Hello Blink Show” by Kenny Consulting Group, LLC and Skal Risa, LLC is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Intro and outro song is “Routine” by Amine Maxwell is licensed under CC BY 3.0

Sponsor
We want to thank Cyber City Circuits for sponsoring this episode! Cyber City Circuits is an electronics shop and contract manufacturer based in Augusta, GA. Use the coupon code HELLOBLINKSHOW to receive 10% off your order of electronics or mention that you heard about them on the Hello Blink Show for a 25% discount on the assembly costs of manufacturing.

Key Topics
In this episode, we take a step back to look at how the show has performed over the past year. The Hello Blink Show is almost 1 year old, and we want to thank everyone who listens to the show!

Specifically, we dive into the listener and download metrics to try look for patterns to determine what worked and what did not work over the past year. Harris talks about his new podcast, "Pipeline Meeting," that specifically dives into sales process and teases his new product, Intro CRM. At the end, Harris and Shawn asks listeners to submit their own thoughts to the show about what they want to hear in 2021.

One Powerful Quotation
17:50 - Harris: "I think that we're doing a good job giving people exposure [and] access to what happens in the business side of the shop, which is obviously more important when it's your business."

Key Topics

• 1:20 - Harris talks about the reasons for moving the show hosting to Transistor.fm for the foreseeable future.
• 1:50 - Harris mentions that he has started his own podcast, "Pipeline Meeting," where he talks about the sales process and his own customer relationship management software, Intro CRM.
• 8:15 - Shawn dives into the metrics of the Hello Blink Show over the past year. We grew from only a handful of downloads to over 100 each episode.
• 12:45 - Shawn looks at the episodes that did particularly well, including SEO vs. SERP, how to become an engineering consultant, and IP clauses in contracts.
• 16:15 - Harris mentions that the practical, business-oriented topics seem to do the best.
• 18:10 - Shawn notices that when the guest had a large following, the episode had a larger number of downloads.
• 19:00 - Shawn and Harris talk about working to be inclusive on the show.
• 21:15 - Harris talks about the future plans for the show.
• 23:00 - Shawn mentions that he wants to continue covering the psychological aspects of running a small business, and Harris offers his own personal story regarding raising a family while taking on the risk of working for himself.
• 27:30 - Shawn asks audience members to give their thoughts: what do you want to hear in 2021 from the Hello Blink Show? Reach out to the show via Twitter (@HelloBlinkShow) or email (info [at] helloblinkshow [dot] com).
• 30:25 - We hear from one of our listeners, Nathan Mangar, a maker who runs tecknologg.website.

List of Resources
Podcast - Pipeline Meeting
Intro CRM

Host Contact Information
shawnhymel.com
kennyconsultinggroup.com
LinkedIn - Shawn Hymel
LinkedIn - Harris Kenny
Twitter - Shawn Hymel
Twitter - Harris Kenny

License Information
“Hello Blink Show” by Kenny Consulting Group, LLC and Skal Risa, LLC is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Intro and outro song is “Routine” by Amine Maxwell is licensed under CC BY 3.0

Trailer for the Hello Blink Show.

Sponsor
We want to thank Cyber City Circuits for sponsoring this episode! Cyber City Circuits is an electronics shop and contract manufacturer based in Augusta, GA. Use the coupon code HELLOBLINKSHOW to receive 10% off your order of electronics or mention that you heard about them on the Hello Blink Show for a 25% discount on the assembly costs of manufacturing.

Overview
In this episode of the Hello Blink Show, Harris and Shawn wanted to share their presentation on sales and marketing for Boulder Startup Week 2020. They are joined by Katie Hackos to delve deeper into retaining customer relations but the disconnect between sales and marketing can have adverse effects on these efforts. Listeners will hear their insights on communicating with customers and why marketers and sales people should work together. They explore the dynamics to why these departments operate in different directions and include best practices. This episode is an interactive, mock business discussion as they elaborate on these topics.

One Powerful Quotation

• 36:01: Harris: “...If you’re not creating a culture where everyone feels bought into what’s happening in the sales side of the business, you are not helping that build a culture that’s going to help the company grow in the long run…People need to understand what the sales team is thinking about. How they’re thinking about it. Marketing needs to know what the sales numbers are.”

Key Topics

• 4:25: The episode kicks off with Katie, Harris, and Shawn introducing themselves and their work background. 
• 8:15: Shawn is introduced as Chief Marketing Officer of boulder.io as he prepares to meet with the CEO to cover their annual statistics. 
• 12:54: Harris is introduced as Director of Business as he shares his reflections of boulder.io. 
• 17:15: Shawn and Harris answer questions from viewers and discuss their mock roles. 
• 25:46: Shawn continues his talks on why marketing teams should recognize KPIs to discover buyer personas. He also explains the Pareto Principle. 
• 33:14: Harris talks about the dysfunctions in sales teams and why this department should not be disjointed with marketing. He also discusses the prisoner’s dilemma as it relates to business strategy. 
• 41:40: Shawn talks to the audience about The Hello Blink Show. 
• 43:08: Shawn clarifies the Pareto Principle, and Harris/Shawn discuss calculating the lifetime value of your customer base. 
• 48:56: Harris and Shawn articulate the most common and costly mistakes they’ve witnessed in organizations for sales and marketing. 
• 52:50: Harris and Shawn respond to why there are no chief revenue officers in more organiza-tions. Harris thinks there is a cultural shift in venture capital moving away from having this position.

List of Resources
Website - Bonusly
Website - Boulder Startup Week
Website - Prisoner’s Dilemma
Article - Round canoe syndrome
Website - Pareto Principle
LinkedIn - Ben Travis

Guest Information
Katie Hackos is a high spirited and energetic Account Executive for WonderProxy, a SaaS company, who successfully manages accounts and contains a proven track record of retaining customer relations. Her specialties include: Retaining and building B2B and B2C relations, sales closer, superb communicator across all media platforms.

 LinkedIn
Twitter

Host Contact Information
shawnhymel.com
kennyconsultinggroup.com
LinkedIn - Shawn Hymel
LinkedIn - Harris Kenny
Twitter - Shawn Hymel
Twitter - Harris Kenny

License Information
“Hello Blink Show” by Kenny Consulting Group, LLC and Skal Risa, LLC is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Intro and outro song is “Routine” by Amine Maxwell is licensed under CC BY 3.0

Special Guest: Katie Hackos.

Sponsor
We want to thank Cyber City Circuits for sponsoring this episode! Cyber City Circuits is an electronics shop and contract manufacturer based in Augusta, GA. Use the coupon code HELLOBLINKSHOW to receive 10% off your order of electronics or mention that you heard about them on the Hello Blink Show for a 25% discount on the assembly costs of manufacturing.

Overview
Whether you have a new product idea or business project, listeners will appreciate hearing her experience with developing and building software applications. 

Lola is involved in the Atlanta tech startup scene, where she currently runs Lunch Pail Labs, a digital product studio and consultancy. Her insightful remarks range from being a solopreneur to the trends in risk capital investments. 

One Powerful Quotation

• 30:35: “I think the rise of the almost solopreneur I think we’ll see more of in this decade enabled by some of these tools that just enable you to do so much more with your time like the automation tools as a one person business.” 

Key Topics

• 2:01: Harris opens the show by asking Lola about no code development.
• 3:27: Lola shares use case examples of no/low code and internal business productivities that can be automated including web flows and domain sites.
• 6:02: Shawn asks Lola about cross app development tools.
• 7:21: Shawn further inquires with Lola about API integration for hardware. 
• 8:48: Shawn and Lola discuss custom, no code solutions that have integrated tools for transferring data. 
• 9:53: Lola shares her background and the inspiration behind her business, Lunch Pail Labs.
• 11:42: Lola explains how she runs her business and acquires clients. 
• 14:42: Lola digresses on this year, how remote work and networking help her succeed, and her thoughts about what it means to be an entrepreneur. 
• 18:40: Harris asks Lola about her client base and their type of use case needs. 
• 23:07: Lola talks about being a venture scout at Indie.VC and explains the difference of risk capital. 
• 27:00: Lola responds to Harris’ commentary on venture capital and the idea behind the “power law” compared to independent risk capital. 
• 29:19: Lola adds to Shawn’s remarks that there is a gap in raising capital. One of the trends has been the exchange for equity in business by providing human resources they need to grow and scale their business. 
• 32:32: Lola shares another trend in revenue sharing type agreements that invest in people that want to develop and create.
• 34:06: Shawn and Lola talk about networking and how she became involved in the startup scene. Lola highlights how early connections can help shortcut your business growth and create partnerships. 
• 37:08: Shawn and Lola further extrapolate on how these partnerships facilitate finding clients/customers. 
• 39:27: Harris inquires with Lola about considering building her own product. 
• 40:14: Harris wraps up the show and asks Lola to share her contact information. 

List of Resources
Website – Lunch Pail Labs
Website – MicroConf Community
Website – Zapier
Website – Integromat
Website – Elementor
Website – Wordpress
Website – Squarespace
Website – Wix
Website – Indie.VC
Website – Adalo
Website – Bubble
LinkedIn – Robert Walling
Website – TinySeed Investment Thesis “Power Law”
Website – Steve Case’s “Rise of The Rest”
Website – Intro CRM: Harris' new project, built with no-code

Guest Information
Lola Ojabowale runs Lunch Pail Labs, which is a digital product studio and consultancy. She works with clients to plan and execute the initial versions of their products with no and low-code development tools. Her background is a mix of product, strategy, and operations, and she has built products for herself and others.

When she's not running Lunch Pail Labs, she's active in the venture and startup community. She is a scout at indie. vc and works with various early teams. She is a graduate of Dartmouth College and a native of the Washington D.C. area who currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia.

Twitter
LinkedIn
Website – Lunch Pail Labs
Website – Personal

Host Contact Information
shawnhymel.com
kennyconsultinggroup.com
LinkedIn - Shawn Hymel
LinkedIn - Harris Kenny
Twitter - Shawn Hymel
Twitter - Harris Kenny

License Information
“Hello Blink Show” by Kenny Consulting Group, LLC and Skal Risa, LLC is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Intro and outro song is “Routine” by Amine Maxwell is licensed under CC BY 3.0

Special Guest: Lola Ojabowale.

Sponsor
We want to thank Cyber City Circuits for sponsoring this episode! Cyber City Circuits is an electronics shop and contract manufacturer based in Augusta, GA. Use the coupon code HELLOBLINKSHOW to receive 10% off your order of electronics or mention that you heard about them on the Hello Blink Show for a 25% discount on the assembly costs of manufacturing.

Overview
In this episode of the Hello Blink Show, Harris and Shawn welcome back legal expert and attorney, Mark Tyson. Mark shares some legal advice in negotiating contracts and how to handle particular pitfalls with your employer or contractor. 

One Powerful Quotation

• 43:47: Shawn: “Read your damn contract.”

Key Topics

• 3:17: Shawn opens the show by asking Mark about the invention of assignment clause in contracts as a conflict of interest for ownership. 
• 7:18: Shawn discusses with Mark about forgoing statutes as an employee. Mark recommends negotiating your contract and understanding all of the terms/conditions. 
• 10:20: Harris asks Mark about defining formal employment agreements as an employee with a small company or startup. Mark encourages listeners to be upfront with the employer and the reality behind trying to copyright ownership.
• 12:49: Shawn inquires with Mark about red flags in contracts and when to seek legal advice. Mark highlights what to be look out for in the contract language.
• 15:31: Shawn and Mark agree that everything is negotiable; Mark adds this can leverage your value including compensation, benefits, stock options, etc. 
• 18:25: Mark explains his definition of inventions and how they are defined in contracts. He delves into the prior ownership clause and the importance of due diligence. 
• 27:32: Mark responds to Harris’ comments on future success and how contract negotiation are formulated.
• 31:14: Mark explains the difference between prior ownership and background technology clauses and their implications. 
• 33:37: Shawn asks Mark about disclosing prior inventions or body of works on contracts. 
• 37:02: Harris asks Mark how people should approach seeking legal advice. 
• 40:45: Mark discusses contract negotiation and reasons you need to ask good questions. He suggests sample agreements and why pricing isn’t always the benefit of the bargain. 
• 44:34: Mark talks about the risk-analysis in the value of contracts for ownership. 
• 46:48: Harris shares his final thoughts for the episode, and Mark adds that enforcing new contracts is contingent on additional independent consideration and covenants such as noncompetes or non-solicitations. 

List of Resources

Example of Invention Assignment Clause

Assignment of Inventions - Research or any other work performed while working on the behalf of CLIENT to CLIENT. You agree that all Inventions, research or any other work performed while working on the behalf of CLIENT that are developed using the equipment, supplies, facilities, or Proprietary Information of CLIENT or
 result from or are suggested by work performed by you for CLIENT or are conceived or reduced to practice during your contract term with CLIENT and relate to the business and products, or to the actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of CLIENT.

Example of Prior Inventions Clause

Prior Inventions - It is understood that all Personal Inventions, if any, whether patented or unpatented, which I made prior to my employment by the Company, are excluded from this Agreement. To preclude any possible uncertainty, I have set forth on Schedule A attached hereto a complete list of all of my prior Personal Inventions, including numbers of all patents and patent applications and a brief description of all unpatented Personal Inventions which are not the property of a previous employer. I represent and covenant that the list is complete and that, if no items are on the list, I have no such prior Personal Inventions. I agree to notify the Company in writing before I make any disclosure or perform any work on behalf of the Company which appears to threaten or conflict with proprietary rights I claim in any Personal Invention. In the event of my failure to give such notice, I agree that I will make no claim against the Company with respect to any such Personal Invention.

Example of Background Technology Clause

The parties acknowledge that certain intellectual property developed, acquired, or otherwise obtained by Contractor prior to, or independently of, this Agreement (collectively, “Background Technology”) may be used by Contractor in the performance of Services. Contractor shall not include Background Technology in any deliverable or Work Product without Company’s prior written consent. Contractor unconditionally grants to Company a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, fully-paid right and license, with the right to sublicense through multiple levels of sublicensees, under all of Contractor’s intellectual property rights in any Background Technology incorporated into or necessary for Company to fully utilize and capitalize the Work Product, (a) to reproduce, create derivative works of, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, digitally transmit, and otherwise use the Work Product in any medium or format, whether now known or hereafter discovered, (b) to use, make, have made, sell, offer to sell, import, and otherwise exploit any product or service based on, embodying, incorporating, or derived from the Work Product, and (c) to exercise any and all other present or future rights in the Work Product.

Guest Information
Mark started his own law firm, Tyson Law PLLC, to help entrepreneurs and small businesses with their legal issues.

Twitter
LinkedIn
Website

Host Contact Information
shawnhymel.com
kennyconsultinggroup.com
LinkedIn - Shawn Hymel
LinkedIn - Harris Kenny
Twitter - Shawn Hymel
Twitter - Harris Kenny

License Information
“Hello Blink Show” by Kenny Consulting Group, LLC and Skal Risa, LLC is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Intro and outro song is “Routine” by Amine Maxwell is licensed under CC BY 3.0

Special Guest: Mark Tyson.

Sponsor
We want to thank Cyber City Circuits for sponsoring this episode! Cyber City Circuits is an electronics shop and contract manufacturer based in Augusta, GA. Use the coupon code HELLOBLINKSHOW to receive 10% off your order of electronics or mention that you heard about them on the Hello Blink Show for a 25% discount on the assembly costs of manufacturing.

Overview
In this episode of the Hello Blink Show, Harris and Shawn interview Matt Liberty. Matt shares his experience with finding contractor work and how you should go about referrals and selecting the best candidate. Listeners will hear his advice as Matt discusses his company, Jetperch, and their tool, Joulescope. 

One Powerful Quotation

• 20:47 Matt: “Overall, trying to find better ways to do your job, find better ways to value your work and value the parts and work you have and how to negotiate with local people as well to do it. I found that working through these freelancing sites has helped me figure that out better and be better positioned.”

Key Topics

• 1:31: Shawn opens the show by asking Matt about his self-employment experience as a software consultant. 
• 2:06: Matt explains why he developed Joulescope as a way to measure the dynamic range of battery power. 
• 5:32: Harris inquires with Matt about his go to market and direct sales strategy. Matt describes how his operations and contract manufacturing work. 
• 8:59: Harris asks Matt about his scaleability and why working with distributors is a roadmap to get back to working with engineering. 
• 9:44: Matt describes his freelance process discerning that his manufacturers/designers act as his engineers, and smaller projects were relegated to others with varying degrees of success. 
• 10:53: Matt notes his success with freelancers has been with designing his logos for Jetperch and Joulescope. 
• 12:14: Shawn follows up with Matt on his experience with hiring freelance engineers.
• 14:16: Matt shares what he believes is the biggest challenge. 
• 15:29: Shawn asks Matt about his experience with managing freelance, software engineers. 
• 17:32: Harris surmises that the risk benefits of freelancing are not worth the hidden and unseen costs. 
• 19:06: Matt explains the differences in using Fiverr, Upwork, and Freelance.com for finding artists and freelance engineers. 
• 22:47: Matt highlights why finding your community and leveraging relationships can can develop key strategic partnerships. 
• 25:16: Matt explains the tradeoffs with screening and hiring, qualified talent as full time employees versus paying freelancers for one time transactions. 
• 27:28: Shawn asks Matt his recommendation on a project management framework with freelancers. 
• 30:37: Harris asks Matt why you should consider using freelancing for accelerating the growth of your business. Matt encourages listeners to delegate responsibilities to those with the skills you need. 
• 34:51: Matt adds to Shawn’s commentary that the scaleability of your business can determine the amount of work to give your partners. 
• 36:28: Matt shares the percentage of managing his product engineering and customer service.
• 38:00: Shawn and Harris wrap up the show, and Matt shares his contact information. 

List of Resources
Website - Jetperch LLC.
Website - Joulescope
Website - Contextual Electronics Forum
Website - Shopify
Website - Upwork
Website - Fiverr
Website - Freelance
congruentgraph on Fiverr

Guest Information
Matt Liberty is the creator of Joulescope, the easy-to-use, affordable test instrument for low-power design, and also the founder of Jetperch LLC, a software and hardware engineering consultancy. Matt was the primary inventor of Hillcrest Labs' Freespace® motion control technology, and he was granted 27 US patents. Matt has a broad engineering background encompassing digital signal processing, PCB development, FPGA development, and software development in C, C++, and Python.

Twitter
LinkedIn

Host Contact Information
shawnhymel.com
kennyconsultinggroup.com
LinkedIn - Shawn Hymel
LinkedIn - Harris Kenny
Twitter - Shawn Hymel
Twitter - Harris Kenny

License Information
“Hello Blink Show” by Kenny Consulting Group, LLC and Skal Risa, LLC is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Intro and outro song is “Routine” by Amine Maxwell is licensed under CC BY 3.0

Special Guest: Matt Liberty.

Sponsor
We want to thank Cyber City Circuits for sponsoring this episode! Cyber City Circuits is an electronics shop and contract manufacturer based in Augusta, GA. Use the coupon code HELLOBLINKSHOW to receive 10% off your order of electronics or mention that you heard about them on the Hello Blink Show for a 25% discount on the assembly costs of manufacturing.

Overview
In this episode of the Hello Blink Show, Harris and Shawn interview electrical engineer, Mihir Shah. Mihir shares his insights into the success of his latest startup and his acquisition by another firm. Listeners will hear his advice as he shares his experience with selling inspectAR to Cadence Design Systems.

One Powerful Quotation

• 9:16: Mihir - “Fundamentally, your business has to make money…And if you don’t understand that this is going to make money, then don’t even bother going to an investor…Investors inherently are not bad people; there’re not sharks; their job is to buy into companies and in many ways help them get to a successful exit so they can get a return.”

Key Topics

•  1:03: Shawn opens the show by asking Mihir to describe inspectAR and how he envisioned the design to debug hardware. 
•  3:43: Shawn inquires with Mihir about the inspiration to form inspectAR as a need for the market. 
•  9:16: Harris advocates for Mihir to make the case for capital investment.
•  13:55: Mihir tells the story of what he pitched investors inspectAR as a lens for how all interactions and electronics will be done. 
•  19:30: Shawn inquires with Mihir about his acquisition and how that changes the process of growing and building a business if it’s your exit strategy. 
•  24:27: Shawn follows up with Mihir about VC funding and how it met the needs of his business.
•  27:49: Mihir explains the how and why of his structured acquisition plan. 
•  29:00: Mihir delves into the promenade process and his internal champion at Cadence that made his exit strategy successful.
• 35:09: Mihir shares his background and why his work experience was so invaluable to his professional development. 
• 46:49: Shawn wraps up the show and encourages Mihir to impart his final advice to listeners. 

List of Resources
Website - InspectAR
Website - Cadence Design Systems
Website - Royal Circuits
Website - Y Combinator
Website - Autodesk
Website - Transistor FM
LinkedIn - Justin Jackson
Website - Paul Graham - Don’t Talk To Corp Dev
Website - Axon
LinkedIn - Luke Larson
Website - LaBarge Weinstein
LinkedIn - Colin Wrynn
LinkedIn - Alicia Grant

Guest Information
An EE who grew up in a PCB Fab. The rest is history! Previously designed hardware at Tesla and Taser. Joined family businesses to help grow and get schooled in how to build an ultra profitable business that scales. Took those teachings to a couple failed startups, and ultimately inspectAR, which I helped co-found and operate as CEO. inspectAR was successfully acquired this month by Cadence Design Systems, just 18 months after being founded.

Twitter
LinkedIn

Host Contact Information
shawnhymel.com
kennyconsultinggroup.com
LinkedIn - Shawn Hymel
LinkedIn - Harris Kenny
Twitter - Shawn Hymel
Twitter - Harris Kenny

License Information
“Hello Blink Show” by Kenny Consulting Group, LLC and Skal Risa, LLC is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Intro and outro song is “Routine” by Amine Maxwell is licensed under CC BY 3.0

Special Guest: Mihir Shah.

Sponsor
We want to thank Cyber City Circuits for sponsoring this episode! Cyber City Circuits is an electronics shop and contract manufacturer based in Augusta, GA. Use the coupon code HELLOBLINKSHOW to receive 10% off your order of electronics or mention that you heard about them on the Hello Blink Show for a 25% discount on the assembly costs of manufacturing.

Overview
We chat with Lisa Lewis Miller, career coach, owner of Career Clarity, and author of an upcoming book about changing careers (or starting fresh!). Lisa describes the four pillars for career fulfillment that make up the framework she has been using throughout her coaching practice to assist many clients in their journey. She also discusses the importance of finding a good lifestyle fit (even if that means working for a company rather than entrepreneurship) and how a “bridge job” can help make a career transition smoother. Lisa runs her own career coaching service and is releasing a book, Career Clarity, which is due out on November 17, 2020.

One Powerful Quotation

•  8:45 – Lisa: “Phase one of the career discernment journey is: you need to start with who you are, what you value, and what you prioritize, and use all of those data points to then help you generate some hypotheses and some ideas for what could be next.”

Key Topics

• 0:45 - Lisa talks about starting her journey as a career coach and her upcoming book, Career Clarity, which you can pre-order here (due out on November 17, 2020): https://getcareerclarity.com/order/.
• 6:30 - Shawn asks Lisa to describe her “Career Clarity” framework to career coaching. Lisa responds by talking about how someone can prioritize happiness in their life and career to achieve success.
• 8:45 - Lisa talks about doing some self-discovery to figure out what drives a person and makes them happy before trying to find the right job or career.
• 11:00: - Lisa lays out the four pillars for career fulfillment: strengths and gifts, interests and passions, personality, and lifestyle. 
• 15:30 - Shawn asks where making money fits into the pillars.
• 20:45 - Shawn asks Lisa to share her views on how much luck plays into career success.
• 24:15 - Lisa talks about finding a “bridge job” to help people transition from one career to another (or to help prepare for entrepreneurship).
• 28:15 - Harris asks Lisa about the benefits of not working for yourself. Lisa mentions that if safety and security are high priorities for someone, they may be better off working for a company.
• 34:00 - Shawn and Lisa talk about “paving your runway,” which involves taking side hustle jobs before jumping into full-time freelance or entrepreneurship. 
• 36:30 - Harris and Lisa discuss the risks of working for yourself while trying to start a family.

List of Resources

 Career Clarity by Lisa Lewis Miller
Good to Great by Jim Collins
Pivot by Jenny Blake

Guest Information
If there’s a job out there, Lisa Lewis Miller has probably done it. Lisa is a career change expert and the founder of Career Clarity, a company helping individuals step into the careers they’ve been dreaming of. Her path evolved into coaching after working in digital marketing for nearly a decade at companies like 2U, Edelman, the American Cancer Society, Teen Vogue, Seventeen, Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship and CBS College Sports.

Lisa has been featured in Business Insider, US News and World Report, Fast Company, Refinery29 and more, and received her coaching certification as one of only 7 coaches in the world trained in the Pivot Method. Clients praise her ability to see through their excuses, champion their possibilities, and give resume reviews that are like “purifying hellfire.”

Lisa is based in Westminster, Colorado and received her bachelor’s degree in economics from Barnard College in New York City.

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Host Contact Information
shawnhymel.com
kennyconsultinggroup.com
LinkedIn - Shawn Hymel
LinkedIn - Harris Kenny
Twitter - Shawn Hymel
Twitter - Harris Kenny

License Information
“Hello Blink Show” by Kenny Consulting Group, LLC and Skal Risa, LLC is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Intro and outro song is “Routine” by Amine Maxwell is licensed under CC BY 3.0
Special Guest: Lisa Lewis Miller.

Overview
In this episode, Harris and Shawn chat with David and Chris, owners of Cyber City Circuits. David and Chris are working to expand their contract manufacturing (for electronics and PCB assembly) business and need help reaching new customers. As a result, Harris and Shawn perform a live consultation with them to give advice on how to approach marketing and sales.

In particular, Harris gives his thoughts on best ways to set up a sales pipeline, and Shawn helps brainstorm marketing ideas. Both Harris and Shawn agree that marketing and sales must be approached with a scientific mindset: experiment and learn from the experiments.

One Powerful Quotation

•  58:45 - Shawn: “Everyone thinks marketing is fun colors and shapes and photographs, and while that is a part of branding, real marketing comes down to ‘what do customers engage with?’...you have to take a scientific [approach] to go ‘I have a hypothesis, I’m going to test it, and see the results.’”

Key Topics

• 1:00 - Shawn asks David and Chris to explain what Cyber City Circuits does.
• 3:40 - David talks about how he’s working to ramp up a contract manufacturing business within Cyber City Circuits.
• 4:45 - Harris asks David and Chris about why shipping is a hard problem.
• 9:00 - Shawn talks about automating shipping processes to allow for capacity and time to work on sales and marketing.
• 12:00 - David talks about wanting to find more CM customers to help pay for his and Chris's time and provides some examples about what ideal customers would look like.
• 14:00 - Shawn asks David and Chris to define whether they want to be B2C or B2B.
• 15:30 - Harris gives his thoughts on setting up sales pipelines.
• 18:15 - Shawn asks David and Chris to elaborate where their current customers are coming from.
• 20:30 - David mentions that they currently test 100% all of their boards.
• 21:30 - Shawn and Harris help David define their current sales pipeline.
• 23:00 - Harris gives some advice on setting up onboarding techniques when hiring a salesperson.
• 28:30 - Harris talks about how a good, simple CRM tool can help Cyber City Circuits.
• 32:00 - Harris and David discuss the various ways to position a brand when it comes to sales.
• 33:45 - Harris recommends that David and Chris create marketing and sales personas and then use outbound marketing to validate hypotheses about those personas.
• 36:30 - Harris talks about the customer acquisition process.
• 37:15 - Shawn asks if Cyber City Circuits is seeing repeat customers for their CM service.
• 41:00 - Shawn recommends following Hubspot’s tutorials for developing personas.
• 43:15 - Shawn and David talk about potential problems Seeed Studio’s CM service might run into. Correction in the show: Seeed Studio still offers their Propagate service for low-to-medium volume manufacturing.
• 45:00 - Chris and David talk about why tooling costs are so high for CMs.
• 46:45 - Shawn talks about how to find potential customers outside of an existing network along with how to engage with people on Twitter.
• 50:30 - Harris gives feedback on Cyber City Circuits’ Twitter profile page.
• 54:30 - Shawn talks about what it takes to create good content.
• 58:00 - Harris and Shawn talk about experimenting in sales and marketing.
• 1:00:00 - Harris and David talk about the difficulty in setting up a bootstrapped business. David mentions that he used Shopify to build his ecommerce storefront.
• 1:01:30 - Harris and Shawn talk about how to test and measure various sales and marketing tactics.
•  1:07:00 - Harris and Shawn discuss ways to develop good content and apply search engine optimization (SEO) to appeal to a particular audience.
• 1:12:30 - David and Shawn talk about the necessity of having a good product to start with before being able to market it.
• 1:14:30 - David talks to Shawn about handling poor designs or customers that want things outside of what a CM can provide.
• 1:19:00 - Chris and David talk about wanting to transition to being primarily a CM shop with electronics distribution on the side.
• 1:25:30 - David leaves listeners with some words of wisdom.

List of Resources
Hubspot’s Buyer Persona tutorial
Shopify

Guest Contact Information
David Ray and Chris Williamson started Cyber City Circuits to bring our passions for electronics and education together in an effort to make it our full-time job.  We bought a full production line worth of equipment to try to pay our bills with and it is kind of working out, but slowly.  We would like to find new and innovative ways to contribute to the electronics and makers communities while being able to earn income.  We started our store (CyberCityCircuits.com) at the beginning of May and have had several products with varying degrees of success.

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Website
 

Host Contact Information
shawnhymel.com
kennyconsultinggroup.com
LinkedIn - Shawn Hymel
LinkedIn - Harris Kenny
Twitter - Shawn Hymel
Twitter - Harris Kenny

License Information
“Hello Blink Show” by Kenny Consulting Group, LLC and Skal Risa, LLC is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Intro and outro song is “Routine” by Amine Maxwell is licensed under CC BY 3.0
Special Guests: Chris Williamson and David Ray.