Paparelli Podcast

At age 21, Cheryl Bachelder’s father took her on business appointments in China, Japan, and Korea after threatening to quit college. Her college education no longer served her interests, and she saw no purpose. Her father’s investment changed her life.

As CEO, Bachelder led a historic turnaround of AFC Enterprises, the parent of Popeye’s Louisiana Restaurants. 

In ten years, Bachelder increased the stock price sixfold by changing the brand, the culture, and franchisee profits. Then she wrote a book on how she did it, “Dare to Serve: How to Drive Superior Results by Serving Others.”

Bachelder never saw the glass ceiling. She never worried about it. She focused on achieving results her entire career. And for that, she was consistently recognized and rewarded.

A lifetime student of leadership, she developed an effective leadership recipe. It included: 

Be daring - Have high aspirations
Servant-leadership - Help others be on their purpose
Achieve results - Measure the first two on financial results

This interview speaks directly to how she made it to the top as a woman executive: her leadership interest and relentless pursuit of bringing everyone along with her to the winner’s circle.

Lots to learn here for women in business. Even more to learn for all entrepreneurs about growing your business by being a dare to serve leader.

He achieved the sales club at New Relic in his first year as an Account Executive. That’s my son I’m talking about, Nick.

My questions are:

How did he do it?

What did he learn after being a Business Development Rep for three years?

Did his sales manager help him, and if so, how?

As an entrepreneur trying to get your salespeople motivated and on plan, this interview will help. 

New Relic is a public company selling application performance management to F1000 companies. 

Nick’s plan is heavily weighted to consumption. This was a new term to me. But once I understood it, I knew I’d continue to use it when talking to SaaS startups. It just makes sense.

Give a listen, and I think you'll pick up a few tips on managing sales reps or, if you are a rep, then how to make club level at your company.

Dennis Xu is a Stanford graduate, entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, and the co-founder of Mem. They recently raised a $5.6mm seed round on zero revenue. Since Mem’s founding in 2019, they went from writing the first line of code to attracting over 100k users. 

Mem.ai is a new entry in notetaking software's hectic market space. Dennis is competing with a host of well-financed competitors, but he is confident of his positioning. Mem mines and organizes your black box of ideas on all of your interests. 

I am an early user of Mem and a rabid notetaker. Mem is the first product I’ve used that eliminates all friction in capturing an idea and making it easy to find. Its AI engine finds the idea I am looking for and makes the connections to other thoughts and meeting notes that may contribute to my thinking. Mem promises to be the most straightforward Zettlekasten digital system on the market.

In this conversation, Dennis and I discuss the genesis of the Mem idea, how they got it funded with only a PowerPoint presentation, and how they attracted Andreeson Horowitz as an early-stage investor. Dennis also shares his BIG vision for where MEM is headed. And that is how Andreeson will make a significant return.

This is the promise of a morning routine.

In this conversation with social entrepreneur Karim Abouelnaga, we talk about the importance of a morning routine. He is thoughtful, diligent, and disciplined about his morning routine. He believes these early morning activities are the foundation for his success. He told me it is the reason for his health, peace of mind, and productivity. 

I asked Karim to share his morning routine because I had never met anyone so dedicated to it. His morning routine, which is always preceded by eight hours of sleep, is non-negotiable. Nothing interrupts it. 

Take the time to listen to Karim as he shares what he learned over the last decade about his morning routine. It will get you thinking about your day too. And who knows where that may take you.

He is a former federal judge who insisted I call him Bill and not Judge. In that first meeting, he made a powerful impression on me. Here is a man who is humble, intelligent, and a servant-leader. Digging just a little deeper revealed the values he lives by.

Bill Duffey remembers what it was like to practice law before the legal profession changed. The change was from a values-centric profession to a financial-centric profession. He knows the most recent two generations of lawyers practicing today never experience pride in their work. In many cases, they adopt values that counter who they want to be. They lost their idealism. They lost fulfillment.

Bill wrote a book focused on values to help them. He called it The Significant Lawyer. 

This book is the best book on values and the impact on work fulfillment that I have ever read. It is written for lawyers, but it is also noted for entrepreneurs. There is much to learn and reflect on from Bill sharing his observations and experience.

This interview will get you thinking about who you are and what is important to you. 

Bill will help you make the right career decisions, build great companies, and choose the right relationships. In short, it will make you a better man and woman for your community, your business, and your family.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-s-duffey-jr-a45002126/
Book: https://www.williamduffeybooks.com

Mike Gomez told me, “I solve the ‘I didn’t know” problem.

“What’s that?” I asked.

We think companies buy from us because of the product we sell. We later find out, our product or service was simply a qualifier to get us in the deal. The real buying criteria have to be discovered in the sales process. We are not selling to companies. We are selling to people.

Mike Gomez and I discuss this problem that needs to be solved in your salesforce. You don’t want to continue to hear, “I didn’t know” after you lost a deal.

You gotta solve this problem!

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/growthguy/
Company: https://www.allegroconsultant.com/

I am sharing this conversation with one of our community’s best angel investors. There is a lot to be learned here by first-time entrepreneurs seeking angel funding. Specifically, who can help you succeed faster, and how can they help?

Bill Midgette is an active angel. He is the former CEO of a public company. He leads the selection committee for the Atlanta Technology Angels. And he aims to add value to his early-stage company investments.

I’ve been an angel investor for thirty years. I always believed angel investing is a contact sport. You must be involved with the companies you invest in. Help the entrepreneur any way you can. Add your wisdom, network, and expertise to the new enterprise. Do all you can to help the entrepreneur and his leadership team succeed.

This describes Bill Midgette. He came to angel investing later in his life, but he adopted these principles. Today he enjoys the upside of a carefully selected portfolio of great new companies.

Bill and I had this conversation at an Angel Lounge. Angel Lounge is a monthly gathering of Angel investors whose purpose is to learn from each other and become better early-stage investors.

In this conversation, we are talking about increasing returns by contributing your expertise.

Sid Mookerji built Software Paradigms International Group, LLC, a worldwide information technology company. He started it in 1994 and sold it in 2018. He grew it organically through cash flow. His biggest competitor was IBM Global Services, but they also just happened to be his partner.

And it is this last bit that speaks to why Sid is such a wild success in business and life. 

Sid started SPI, having no idea what market it should focus on or what problem he would solve. He started his company because he recognized he was surrounded by knowledgeable, underutilized people here and in India. He broke all the rules of startups and was a great success.

I learned a lot from Sid in this interview. From the beginning of their marriage, he and his wife wanted to impact their fellow man. Their focus is entrepreneurship and disadvantaged women and children. They worked hard and always seemed to have a talent for finding diverse talent worldwide. They are still doing this today, even after the big exit. They see too many opportunities to help others.

Please join Sid and me to discuss his VC firm, family office, and entrepreneurial and angel interests and experiences. Lots to be learned.

Chris Klaus is the founder of Internet Security Systems. Sitting in his dorm room, he put down the sci-fi book that gave him a big idea and started coding. This was the genesis of becoming the first genuinely successful cyber security company of the 1990s. 

I loved Chris’ surprise when government labs contacted him looking for his product. They heard about this kid at Georgia Tech who figured out a way to find the security-weak point in any government or business’ computer network.

The most challenging question he had to answer at 19-years old was, “How much does it cost?”

There is so much said these days about finding authentic demand. How to ask potential customers the right questions. Strategies around denying the product to people who seem interested. Sometimes even canceling an existing paying customer’s contract. All this to prove you have authentic demand. 

Chris never had to deal with any of this. He built it, and they came. His biggest problem: How do you build a real company?

Step 1: Own the intellectual property
Step 2: Get the right co-founder 

Tom Noonan had just the right personality, contacts, and experience. 

Together, they blew it up.

The rest is history. Investors and customers beat a path to their door. And so did IBM, who bought ISS for $1.3b. And to think it started in a dorm room.

Join our conversation. It isn’t just about ISS. Chris also spent over two decades and personal millions on what we now know as the Metaverse. Long, long before Mark Zuckerberg changed Facebook to Meta. In our conversation, I even told Chris, “Zuck should consult with you.”

Come, join us.