Do you ever feel like someone on your team is out to get you? Or maybe an employee has learned to tune you out? When you’re struggling to manage your team, or handle your employees, then this episode is for you, because Steli and Hiten are going to talk about what to do when your people are being difficult. They will also share their thoughts on the importance of personality and company culture, and how these two should fit into your business.

00:05 – Today’s episode is about dealing with difficult team members

01:07 – He had a team meeting and told people they should not demo more than 4 features in the product during the first call, everybody followed his advice but this person shared 10-11 features and told other people on the team that she was doing that

03:01 – Hiten addresses the sales manager – why do you think she doing that? Have you talked to her about it and what has she said about it?

03:35 – There is a myriad of reasons why she is doing that and to make assumptions is not as good as speaking to her

04:42 – Steli says why the person is doing what she is doing matters

05:15 – There are good and bad reasons , a good reason is the person is passionate about an idea or approach and wants to champion it as opposed to those who just want to do the opposite…to “stick it to the man”

07:53 – Steli says the manager was able to have a conversation with his team member, but was unable to convince her to only demo 4 features

08:21 – If that’s just her personality and it cannot be changed, the better option is to help her find a team where she can be herself and align with the company culture

09:16 – A personality is not fixable

09:37 – People don’t always need to agree for there to be a healthy culture

10:14 – If disagreement is the norm then it’s toxic

12:04 – Steli told her to not waster her time on Quora but she went ahead and did it anyway and Quora became their highest source of traffic and conversion

13:10 – Steli says he loves that people on his team are comfortable enough to not follow everything he says

16:24 – “A lot of people are insecure about their authority and how they are being perceived”  

17:10 – Nuance and context matter

18:41 – Know the difference

19:30 – Hiten says he tries not to have strong opinions on something unless it is necessary

3 Key Points:

Do not be reactive to your employees and their patterns, be cognizant and proactive of them so they never become a problem.

In this episode, Steli and Hiten talk about cultivating the art of cutting your losses. Investing your time, energy and money into something that is NOT working is painful to admit, but necessary to confront when it comes to the success of your business. Listen as Steli and Hiten give examples of how people choose to not cut their losses when they really should. They discuss the dangers of holding on to that bad employee, poor marketing strategy, or ad agency that isn’t producing results. They also express the need for self-awareness when making that tough choice to STOP what you’re doing and cut your losses.

00:05 – Today’s episode is about how to cultivate the art of cutting your losses

02:28 – Hiten says it is the root cause of 99% of our business problems; and it won’t stop until we get over it

02:51 – In a previous episode, Hiten and Steli talked about organizational and personal self-awareness which relates to today’s topic

05:48 – Steli says thinking of the opposite in and of itself is not enough, especially if you are just doing something to prove yourself right

07:45 – An example of this is hiring an agency to do an ad for you and they are not delivering any good work

08:01 – Since you already spent money on them, instead of stopping the project and looking for another agency, you stay with them because the thought of stopping is painful – this is NOT cutting your losses

08:36 – When it comes to investments, people do not stop even if they have started losing

10:47 – Steli wants to cut his losses as early as possible; so, when things start out too complicated, that is his signal to stop

12:33 – Hiten says the more you persevere at something, the more likely it is for you to stop doing it the way you have been doing

13:05 – Hiten says to ask if what you are doing is making an impact

14:02 – For example: hiring someone that is not working out and you deciding not to cut them out fast enough

14:54 – Another example is selling one way that is not working for your business, but you keep doing it because it’s the easy thing to do

15:13 – This is the sunk mental cost – it will be harder to find another way to do things but what you are doing right now is not working

In this episode, Steli and Hiten talk about using an NPS (net promoter score) survey tool for startups. Steli didn’t know that a NPS survey could be used for anything other than testing your own core product. In today’s episode, you’ll hear the different ways Hiten is using this tool to build his business. You’ll also find out why the NPS survey tool is not just a score—the real value is found in knowing WHY you received the number you did in the first place. Tune-in to find out how to maximize the use of the NPS survey tool and how it can help you turn your “detractors” into “promoters” for your business.

00:05 – Today’s episode is about how and when to use an NPS survey for your startup

00:55 – Steli says he has not thought about getting an NPS score for anything else other than their core product

01:58 – A NPS is a customer satisfaction score that helps you put people into 3 buckets

02:34 – You use only one question – How likely are you to recommend this product to others?

03:58 – Hiten’s workshop got an NPS of 88 compared to Apple’s 89 and Tesla’s 93

04:55 – Aside from having the score, what’s really powerful is the next question you can ask – What’s the most important reason for your score?

06:13 – Steli says the NPS is very simple to do and is widely used; it is a benchmark for certain industries

07:15 – Steli says he has never heard of somebody doing a survey for someone else’s products

07:36 – Steli says he thought the NPS could only be used for their core product

08:37 – What Hiten wanted to do was gauge the success of his workshop and open his mind for different ways NPS could be used

09:41 – Hiten says at the end of every experience, it’s a great to hear the answers of the passives and detractors

In this episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten sit down for a candid conversation about listening. Like it or not, everyone (yes, even you) has a problem listening—especially company founders. Founders are notorious for having some of the worst listening skills out there. An inability to listen amongst company leaders is a big reason so many startups fail. Fortunately, listening can (like so many other skills) be learned Listen to Steli and Hiten to find out how…

00:31 – Founders have a problem with listening

01:45 – Customer intimacy and development is rooted in listening

02:18 – Founders apply the right techniques in getting feedback but don’t listen to it well enough to gain the insight they need

03:11 – They do not know who their customer is

04:14 – Founders are so busy talking out loud or in their head they don’t create enough silence to listen

06:10 – But if you can be quiet enough to listen, you’ll see people are looking for fully encrypted phones

06:44 – When asking for feedback, are you trying to LEARN or are you trying to PROVE YOURSELF RIGHT?—intention determines whether or not we are listening

07:16 – Your intention should be to learn whatever people have to teach you

08:31 – The better option is to ask open-ended questions

10:16 – Non-developers can learn a great deal from developers because they will ask you more questions about what you have told them

11:58 – You cannot have an inner dialogue if you are actually listening to someone

14:28 – Spend more time with them and observe what they are doing and the questions they are asking

15:13 – Hiten had to learn to listen by learning how to shut up in his head

16:22 – Because Hiten tends to be very reactive, he had to train himself to think about what the other person is saying and repeat it in his head

17:10 – Hiten looks at the person talking to help him not get distracted

17:42 – Hiten also listens for inflection points

18:03 – Use the meditation concept “be in the moment”

20:09 – Steli learned he has to give advice differently by listening

20:50 – Whereas he used to get frustrated when someone was not listening, Steli now sees it as a personal challenge to communicate more effectively.

21:35 – Invest in learning how to listen well

3 Key Points:

Being a great listener starts with intention. You should want to learn more from the person you are talking to.

Steli Efti:

Hey, everyone. This is Steli Efti.

Hiten Shah:

And this is Hiten Shah,

In this episode, Steli and Hiten talk about the value of learning about your competitors. Hiten used to ignore his competition, but has learned that he needed to change his attitude about this. In order to be able to provide the best product to the customer, one MUST evaluate one’s competitors. Hiten shares the simple strategies he has used to learn more about his competitors and WHY it’s important to dig, even if you do not have a product yet.

00:05 – Today’s episode is about how to learn about competitors before and after you create a product

01:06 – The email is what sparked today’s topic

01:44 – Check out producthabits.com to subscribe to Hiten’s emails

02:12 – Hiten sends a main email once a week that includes 10 links about business

02:50 – Steli does not read the email newsletters he is subscribed to

04:37 – In the middle of reading the email, he realized it had good content

06:34 – Hiten used to have a problem with competitors

06:41 – Hiten did not want to look at what his competitors were doing

09:22 – Up until this conversation, Steli thought looking at competitors was distracting him from looking at his customers

09:47 – Steli never thought he could  understand his customers better by learning from his competitors

10:41 – Hiten says to look at everything about the competitor

10:45 – Hiten uses G2 Crowd to read about customer reviews

12:31 – Hiten says they will not build a Dropbox, Google Docs or Microsoft Word but these are tools that companies relate to

12:44 – Hiten wants to understand the usage of the tools because they will build something in the document space

12:54 – You can build a product just by looking at the customer insights

13:01 – Look at their most important gaps that customers mention

13:22 – Hiten says to look at every single website of your competitor

13:25 – Look at their home page and the words they are using

13:35 – Hiten learned that every document sharing tool are targeting salespeople

15:22 – His competitors also do that to him

16:02 – Hiten realized you can survey your competitor’s customers

16:35 – You can see WHO cares about the product, HOW MANY people care about the product and their LEVEL OF SATISFACTION with the produc...

In this episode, Steli and Hiten may hate this particular question but are deciding to tackle it today: what are the things they wish they knew when starting their companies? Steli and Hiten give their candid responses which includes a discussion of how hard it actually is, what it means to put people first, and how to build a company with long-term objectives in mind. Listen in as they discuss how the answer actually does NOT lie in Steli and Hiten, but in you.

00:05 – Today’s episode is about the things Hiten and Steli wish they knew when they started their first companies

00:34 – This is one of the questions that Hiten and Steli get asked a lot

01:18 – For Hiten, he would start by kicking his younger self in the groin

01:31 – “It’s going to hurt more than that so get used to that”

02:14 – The second thing for Hiten is knowing that it really is about working with people

03:09 – For Hiten, people are the number one thing regardless of what you want to accomplish

04:07 – Steli says he would not kick himself in the groin

04:17 – Steli agrees with Hiten that it was hard and painful

07:29 – Steli would have told himself to think in the longer term

08:40 – Build your company in a way that will build your career, reputation and brand for the decades to come

09:31 – When working with people, Steli says he would nurture his relationship with people

11:01 – It is about having the discipline to accomplish something worthwhile

12:31 – To be honest, Hiten hates this question

13:05 – It is a personal question and the one asking would not get much value from it because it varies from person to person

13:55 – Hiten’s tip: For anyone asking this question, think about what it means to you and why you care

14:14 – It is about learning about yourself

14:25 – Steli also hates this question and he says his answers depend on the context

3 Key Points:

Starting a business can be hard OR easy depending on how you look at it.

[0:00:01]

Steli: Hey, everybody, this is Steli Efti.

[0:00:04]

Hiten: And this is Hiten Shah.

[0:00:06]

Steli: In today's episode, we're going to talk about the lessons learned, the things we wished we had known when we first started our first company. This is a super common question if you are interviewed often, if you are invited on podcasts, if you are on stage just like you've been on off, this is a question that people ask a lot. It seems to be something that people are interested in, "Hey, I'm wondering what is the one thing or what are some of the things that you wish you had known before you started your first company?

In this episode, Steli and Hiten talk about the value of giving titles in startups. Hiten believes titles are NOT important and people should be more focused on the work rather than the title. Steli says there is a cost to giving titles and oftentimes, people’s actual work does not match their description. Listen in as Steli and Hiten discuss when the use of titles is beneficial for your company and also when it should completely be disregarded.

00:05 – Today’s episode is about titles in startups

01:50 – Everybody has to do almost everything

02:33 – Steli does not care about titles

03:21 – One strategy is to give a title that is lower than their previous position

04:12 – Second school of thought: titles are the cheapest thing you can give out in a startup

05:14 – Steli knows a company who gave the title of founder to all the members of their team

06:45 – Hiten says the whole title thing is crap

07:06 – Overtime, a hierarchy forms and there is a need for managers

07:58 – Hiten likes to focus more on what needs to be done rather than the titles

08:04 – Hiten has a staff who started as an analytics engineer

09:21 – Hiten thinks his company had more problems when they gave titles to people

09:29 – They hired a VP of sales but calling him a director would have been better for the company

10:15 – Do whatever you can to preserve your company culture

12:58 – Steli knows someone who had a CTO title in his resume and was applying for a sales position in his company

15:03 – When people ask Steli what he does for Close.io, he usually tells them about the work he does

In this episode, Steli and Hiten spark up a discussion about learning based on Hiten’s tweet “Be a student. Always”. This particular tweet received a lot of attention and with good reason—we need to discuss how comfortable we are with learning on an everyday basis. Listen in as Steli and Hiten share the ways in which they learn best, the motives behind learning something new, and tips to maximize your learning today.

00:05 – Today’s episode is about Hiten’s tweet “Be a student. Always.”

09:15 – Steli was 12 years old when he decided he wanted to learn the guitar, but he wanted to do it on his own

13:13 – Hiten says people learn different ways

14:19 – Learning by doing means you are bound to make mistakes as opposed to the “safer” route of reading books

15:27 – Hiten’s tip: If you want to learn something, just go do it

17:24 – Look at the things that you were afraid of this past year and if you have outgrown it, it means you have learned from it

18:16 – End of today’s episode

3 Key Points:

Aim to be a life-long learner—try to incorporate learning into your everyday

Steli Efti: Hey, everybody, this is Steli Efti

Hiten Shah: And this is Hiten Shah. On today's episode, as a startup chat, we're going to talk about a statement I tweeted. I don't even remember how popular it became, and what I said was, "Be a student. Always." Now I'm searching Twitter for it. Yeah, I just messaged it to Stelley and said, "Hey, we should talk about this." The reason I said that is because I think we should talk about it and what it really means and because I'm sure we've both got something to say. By the way, I tweeted it a while ago now ... Actually, no, eight, nine days ago, and obviously longer from when all of you are listening to this, but whatever, and it's, "Be a student. Always.

In this episode, Steli and Hiten talk about buying and selling a SaaS business. With a lot of experience in both buying and selling SaaS businesses, Hiten shares how he evaluates whether a company is worth buying or not. Hiten also shares tips on how you can get the most out of the deal from both the buyer’s side and the seller’s side. Tune-in to find out the importance of doing your due diligence when it comes to making a deal and why it’s important to question a buyer’s motives.

00:05 – Today’s episode is about how to buy and sell a SaaS business

08:17 – Assess when you can get your return of investment

08:31 – If you are a seller, help the buyer figure out how they can get more money and when they can get it

09:34 – If you are the seller and the buyer hunted you down, ask yourself why the buyer wants to buy your company and estimate the price

10:21 – Every deal is a separate deal and it relies on the terms

3 Key Points:

Before buying a SaaS business, make sure it can either make you more money or be a tool that helps you get more money.

[0:00:00]

Steli Efti: Hey everybody, this is Steli Efti.

[0:00:03]

Hiten Shah: And this is Hiten Shah. And today on The Startup Chat, we're going to talk about how to buy and sell a SaaS business. Where going to focus on, sort of, both sides. But we're also ... I think it's going to go pretty quickly. The main reason is, I personally don't have much to say on this.