The Founder's Playbook

Greg Segall is the Founder & CEO at Alyce. Previously, he was CEO and Founder at See Fit. Greg received his Bachelor's degree from Boston University.

On this episode: 

• Hear Greg’s evolution as an entrepreneur.
• Discover how he grew his business and sold it.
• Learn why greg was dissatisfied after selling his business.
• Chris and Greg discuss the mindset you need to find fulfillment besides just chasing money.
• Greg tells a story of buying keywords in the early days of Google.
• Learn the 3 Pillars of Giving.

Key Takeaways:

• Ensure you build repeatability in your agency business.
• Become the best and you don’t have to worry about the competition.
• A CEO's job is to always say no.

Tweetable Quotes:

• “If you’re not spending 50% of your time looking for new business and 50% of your time working, your agency is not going to work.”

Eric is the co-founder and CEO of Ramp (http://ramp.com), the only corporate card that helps companies spend less. He previously co-founded Paribus, a digital tool that automates price protection and shipping guarantees at online retailers (acq. in 2016 by Capital One). Eric is an active New York-based angel investor. He graduated from Harvard with a BA in Economics and East Asian Studies, and was raised in Las Vegas. EXCLUSIVE for The Founder's Playbook listeners, get a FREE Platform Plan + $500 Bonus!

Sign Up Here: https://ramp.com/partners/the-founders-playbook

On this episode: 

• Eric explains the background of ramp and how they tackled price adjustment policies.

• Learn when you should take a calculated risk.

• Hear how you can set up for a successful exit.

• Discover how to successfully acquire funding for your venture.

• Get the steps to grow to the next level by finding and hiring other talented team members.

Key Takeaways:

• Once you have an idea, take time to see if it’s a real need.
• Businesses get bought, they rarely get sold.
• Often, the most talented people know the other most talented people in their space.

Tweetable Quotes:

• “Stress is good but you shouldn’t be in a panic.”

About Andrew Gazdecki:

I’m Andrew Gazdecki and I’ve been an entrepreneur for longer than I can remember. I like to build stuff, mostly companies, and try to tell a story that goes beyond what the company does to how it’s changing markets. I've started two companies, Bizness Apps and Altcoin.io, both acquired. I have been featured in NYT, Forbes, WSJ, Inc.com, and Entrepreneur Magazine, as well as prominent industry blogs such as Mashable, TechCrunch and VentureBeat. Awards and accolades: 2014 - Inc. 500 #58 Fastest Growing Company 2014 - Inc. 500 #2 Fastest Growing Company in San Francisco 2015 - Inc. 500 #91 Fastest Growing Company 2015 - Entreprenuer.com: Best Entrepreneurial Companies in America 2015 and 2016 - G2 Crowd: Top 50 SMB Products 2015 and 2016 - TINYPulse: Top 10% for Employee Happiness 2017 - Inc. Magazine's 30 Under 30 Entrepreneurs 

On this episode:

• Andrew shares his background as an entrepreneur.

• Learn how to build a profitable software company from the ground up.

• Learn the 0-1 process for building a product.

• Discover when you should consider monetizing.

 

Key Takeaways:

• Watch trends when determining what product to create.

• Create strong relationships with buyers over time, even if you’re not yet ready to sell.

• Be someone that people want to root for.

Tweetable Quotes:

• “As long as I’m having fun, I’m happy.” – Andrew Gazdecki

• “Leverage is the name of the game.” – Chris Vasquez

Maju was previously a Vice President at Amazon. He managed all global logistics (referred to as Global Mile), as well as all Amazon Prime fulfillment technology teams worldwide. In his role he looked after the entire business unit spanning business, product, engineering, and operations. Maju rose the ranks at Amazon, becoming one of the company’s fastest rising engineering stars. He eventually led one of the largest global engineering teams at the company – a team consisting of thousands.

It can’t be denied that Amazon has changed consumer expectations for shopping online and raised the bar for retailers. It’s why companies like Bolt need to exist. We bring that same instant, One Click Checkout experience to the rest of retail. Maju played a critical role in scaling the products and technology that power worldwide Amazon Prime Fulfillment, which shaped consumer expectations around delivery speed.

On this episode:

• Maju shares the secrets to leadership, operational excellence, and scaling.

• Learn how to build a self-managing business.

• Find out how to scale your business.

• Get the fundamental pieces you need to build a team that can take your vision to the next level.

• Hear why Maju transitioned to Bolt from Amazon.

 

Key Takeaways:

• Define what excellence looks like for your team.
• Communicate clearly with a firm action plan.
• Surround yourself with problem solvers.

Tweetable Quotes:

• “Whatever you create upfront is what scales.” – Chris Vasquez

• “A company can’t be better than their teams.” – Chris Vasquez

Shishir Mehrotra is the cofounder and CEO of Coda, a new doc for teams that combines documents, spreadsheets, and powerful building blocks into a single canvas. Shishir was formerly an executive at YouTube, overseeing the YouTube product. Over his 6 years tenure, he helped grow YouTube to the world's largest video destination, one of Google's largest and fastest growing businesses, and the platform of choice for a new generation of video creators.   Prior to Google, Shishir spent 6 years at Microsoft and held leadership roles in the Windows, Office, and SQL Server divisions. Before Microsoft, Shishir was the founding CEO of Centrata.   Shishir is an MIT graduate, and was awarded the Technology Review's TR35 ("35 innovators under 35") award in 2012. He has been an advisor to Spotify since 2015 and joined the board in June 2017.

On this episode:

• Learn why Shishir made the difficult decision to leave YouTube and start a company of his own.
• Shishir explains why he was hesitant to found his own company.
• Discover how to stand out in a crowded marketplace.
• Learn the secrets to hiring well.
• Discover how to properly manage and develop your expectations.

Key Takeaways:

• Great businesses have an incredibly simple core thesis.
• Be brutally honest when you’re wrong.
• Ask every candidate you interview to do a presentation.

Tweetable Quotes:

• “By the time the whole world thinks a category exists, you can’t start the company anymore."

• “Entrepreneurship is full of naysayers.”

Sid Viswanathan is the Co-founder and President of Truepill. He graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering. He then joined Johnson & Johnson, working in the medical device and pharmaceutical sectors. In 2010, Sid founded his first company, CardMunch, a business-card scanning app.

Within a year the business was acquired by LinkedIn. Sid joined the company as Product Manager and saw CardMunch named one of Time Magazine’s Best Apps of 2012. After nearly four years at LinkedIn, he was ready for his next startup venture. Through his conversations with Co-founder Umar Afridi, it became clear that the pharmacy industry was ripe for a technological revolution. In 2016 Truepill shipped its first prescription and has since expanded its services to deliver an end-to-end, direct-to-patient experience unlike anything else in the marketplace.

On This Episode:

• Sid shares the background of True Pill and what led to it starting as a company.
• Hear the first “a-ha” moments Sid and his team had in their business.
• Learn how to grow your company to your first hundred customers.
• Chris and Sid discuss the importance of having strongly defined core values.

Tips from Sheldon's Playbook:

1. Try to build solid relationships with those who are in the industry you want to grow in.
2. Your mindset must continually evolve as you grow your team – while still staying true to your core values.
3. Rewrite your job description every six months.

Tweetable Quotes:

• “Either you gotta get back or you’re going to die.”
• “Our level of success will never exceed our level of personal development.”

Sheldon Lewis is co-founder and Managing Director of Blueprint. Prior to co-founding Blueprint, Lewis was Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Business Development at PayLease where he identified and executed strategic initiatives to accelerate the Company’s growth trajectory. Prior to PayLease, Lewis was a

Senior Associate with Mainsail Partners, a San Francisco-based growth equity firm, where he was responsible for sourcing and executing new investments, as well as working with portfolio companies. Early in his career, Lewis was an Analyst with Piper Jaffray’s Technology Investment Banking group where he executed mergers and acquisitions and capital markets transactions in alternative energy, Internet, software, and semiconductor sectors. Prior to Piper Jaffray, Lewis held positions at Deloitte, Transition Partners Limited, and Sargent Bickham Lagudis. Lewis is a graduate of the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Tips from Sheldon's Playbook:

1. Put in the reps.
2. Don’t be ashamed of rejection.
3. Find a good partner who you can be Yin and Yang with.

Tweetable Quotes:

The leader is always the bottleneck. – Chris Vasquez

Bill Macaitis offers board advisory services where he shares his cumulative go-to-market knowledge leading marketing for the three fastest-growing SaaS companies in history: Slack (CRO/CMO), Zendesk (CMO), and Salesforce (SVP Marketing). He has achieved 5 exits over his career. Bill now enjoys helping other companies achieve hyper-growth by developing cutting edge marketing strategies, helping them build out their own world-class marketing team, and implementing modern marketing tech stacks.

On This Episode:

• Bill talks about how optimism plays a role in his business success.
• Learn the importance of automation.
• Hear the story of Bill’s first start-up.
• Get secrets to branding a B2B company.
• Learn how to develop helpful metrics for your team. Chris and Bill discuss how to stay innovative without waiting to move forward.

Key Takeaways

1. 1. The marketing playbook is always evolving.
   2. Infuse personality into your products to create an emotional bond with your customer. Don’t be afraid to have fun.
   3. Money is not as important as the mission.

Tweetable Quotes:

• “Your brand goes way beyond your logo.”
• “The lid of your success is you.”

Since 2019, Elisa Steele has served as Chair, Board of Directors at Namely, Inc., a financial and human capital management software company, where she served as Chief Executive Officer from 2018 to 2019. Ms. Steele previously served as Chief Executive Officer and President of Jive Software, Inc., a collaboration software company, which was acquired in June 2017. Ms. Steele was a member of the Jive Software executive leadership team since 2014. Prior to joining Jive Software, Ms. Steele served as Chief Marketing Officer and Corporate Vice President, Consumer Apps & Services at Microsoft Corporation, a worldwide provider of software, services and solutions, and Chief Marketing Officer of Skype, an Internet communications company, from 2012-2014. Ms. Steele also has held executive leadership positions Yahoo! Inc. and NetApp, Inc. Ms. Steele has served as a member of the board of directors of Cornerstone OnDemand, Inc., a learning and human capital management software company, since 2018. Ms. Steele holds a B.S. from the University of New Hampshire and an M.B.A. from San Francisco State University.

On This Episode:

• Learn the belief systems that Elisa has carried through her career.
• Find out how sales helped Elisa get hooked on the idea of impact.
• Discover the keys to creating a solid product for your customer.
• Get tips regarding how to pivot.
• Elisa explains what you should takeaway from failure.

Key Takeaways

1. 1. Develop a broad collection of experiences in life and business.
   2. Don’t be afraid to innovate in uncharted territory.
   3. Build an advisory board around you.

Tweetable Quotes:

• Good leaders respect and admire the talents in their people.
• If you don’t have a diverse team, you’re not going to perform at your top performance.
• Be yourself and be okay with that.
• Marketing is about influence.

Quentin was CTO of Dropbox, a company that’s brought millions of consumers, teams, and business onto the cloud. As CTO, he was integral to taking the company public, leading the engineering, product, design, and growth teams throughout the process. Quentin also helped broaden the company’s portfolio with the HelloSign acquisition and the recent launch of their new team-oriented collaboration product, Dropbox Spaces.

Prior to Dropbox, Quentin spent nearly two decades with Microsoft, starting as a software engineer, then product manager, and eventually leading the entire family of data products — from Microsoft SQL Server, the BI products, no-SQL, and ML capabilities on-prem and in Azure. After Microsoft, Quentin joined SAP and helped to build the company’s growth strategy, first as their CTO, then leading strategy, corpdev, M&A and strategic partnerships. As a part of that role, he helped SAP spin-up an emerging business unit with a venture mindset for working directly with the startup community.

On This Episode:

• Learn how crucial a clear vision is to your career path.
• Discover the importance of becoming. self-aware of your own limitations.
• Hear the key philosophies to building high-performing teams.
• Get a few helpful interview questions to ask potential team members.
• Quentin shares how he chooses what founders he makes bets on.

Key Takeaways

To be a full-stack leader you must possess the following qualities:

1. 1. Vision
   2. Strategy
   3. Leadership
   4. Management
   5. Technical Accuity
   6. Business Accuity

Tweetable Quotes:

• It’s very easy to mask people dysfunction with short-term success.