In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about copywriting and writing good copy for startups. When it comes to marketing your startup, your copywriting is one of the most critical elements that could make or break your campaign. But what is copywriting? It consists of all the content that marketers use to try to get people to take an action after reading or hearing them. In this episode, Steli and Hiten talk about what copywriting is, why it’s important, tips that can help you write better copy and much more. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About today’s topic. 00:47 Why this topic was chosen. 01:46 Why copy is important. 03:10 Why the copy you write is key to pulling people in. 04:43 Tips for improving your copy. 05:29 Why you should write copy with the customer in mind. 06:00 What makes good copy. 07:37 Examples of bad copy. 08:36 Another example of bad copy. 09:29 Why you should read your copy out loud. 09:23 One tip that can help you to write better copy. 3 Key Points: To me, copy is everything. You should write copy that a 5-year-old can read and understand. We are in a world were click bait, headlines still work. [0:00:00] Steli: Hey everybody. [0:00:01] Hiten: Sure. [0:00:01] Steli: This is Steli Efti and in today’s episode of the Startup Chat we want to talk about copywriting and good copy for startups. We just recorded an episode that was published before this one about how to optimize for sales when you’re a self-serviced product. We did touch a little bit on learning and mastering copy and copywriting there. I wanted to talk to you about this Hiten because I feel like copywriting has fallen from grace a little bit or maybe it’s just not as cool or hot of a topic, especially in SaaS and in startups. I feel like a lot of other topics in marketing have become much more popular, but I don’t see a lot of tips shared and oftentimes when I go and visit SaaS websites, I can just tell that this website, their whole focus was on beautiful design of the website, a lot of focus was … The copy was kind of like a secondary thing. It’s more the visual design and workflow of how a website or how landing pages are created that have become a lot more important, and the words themselves are not always as strong and as good as they could be. First of all I wanted to ask you if you have the same observation and then I wanted to just unpack the topic. What is even copywriting? What is good copy and how can people learn it and why it’s important for your startup. [0:01:32] Hiten: Copy is everything and copy is everywhere. I think all marketing starts with content and copy. The same with even if you’re doing video, there’s content there, there’s copy there that you write, the script or whatever. So I think words are everywhere. The majority of humans know how to read words. So to me, copy is everything. I would say I’m a student of copy myself and writing and communication. Copy is communication is another way to think about it. I really prescribe to the philosophy that you should write content and copy that a five year old could read and understand. That rule is like, you could say, “But my product is really advanced,” or “My product sells to developers,” or something. Yeah, I get it. I totally get it, but can a five year old understand it? I would still ask you that because we are in a place in the world where clickbait headlines still work which are really pithy, right? And just pull you in. We are in a world where our attention is drawn to many different places so I’m sure if we looked at the stats, the amount of seconds you have on your website to pull someone in and capture their attention is probably getting less and less or has gotten less and less over time. So because of these reasons, the copy you write is actually the key to getting people pulled in and wanting to engage with your product, your site, your website, your business, whatever you’re doing. Think about even all the ads you see on Facebook and other places that you actually like and enjoy. A lot of it is very simple messages that are very direct and they really hit on something that you care about enough. So simple language, a five year old can understand it and copy that really is engaging, pulls people in and really hits on the problems they have or the challenges or the emotion you’re looking to evoke. That is done with simple copy. [0:03:48] Steli: I love that. I love that framework. I think that for me, oftentimes it is understanding that the words you write and that you use, and this is true everywhere but I think in certain places because you are more restricted than in others … So a landing page or a homepage might have a lot more restrictions on how many words you’re going to end up using than a blog post where you could just decide to write up a massive article potentially. In general, I think one thing that a lot of times can lead to better copy and that a lot of people don’t use as a mind frame is to think of your copy as one part of an active dialogue between you and your prospect or your customer and actually think about what the customer would respond either verbally to you or in their mind. Oftentimes people don’t go through that exercise. They’re writing copy as if they were writing something, a speech, where you stand on a big podium and there’s hundreds of thousands of people and you’re just talking to a mic and say your prepared notes and the moment you’re done with your notes, you just run away and then people have to push a button, either yes or no or like or dislike or I sign up or I don’t sign up. I don’t think that’s a useful framework, although it might feel like a lot of properties online, you write something and many, many people will read it and you cannot really hear the response, but you should think about it more like a one-on-one meeting with a prospect or a customer. You sit down and you tell them some important things and you need to anticipate, when I say this is the value I can provide to you, what is the number one question that the prospect will have or objection to this or concern about it. When I tell them, “Please sign up here,” why wouldn’t they want to sign up? What would draw them away from this call to action? Just thinking about the responses and thinking about it more from a dialogue point of view versus a speech point of view can make a big difference in mind. And really distilling things down. To me, good copy oftentimes means distilling the truth down to its core essence, so using the least amount of words to communicate and have the highest potency of persuading somebody to take action or to follow your advice. So oftentimes when I look at copy, I think oftentimes we just write copy in a framework of what are all the things I need to say and we don’t really ask ourselves how can I say this in the shortest, more concise way possible. You said say it in a way that a five year old could understand it which is a beautiful framework. Then also asking, what should I say first and what should I say second? Because if you think about it like a dialogue, there’s a sequence that makes sense. There’s something you would say first and then something you would say second. There’s the most important message that you have and then there’s other nice to have messages. Just going through that exercise a little bit and thinking through it from the framework of having dialogues with people and anticipating their concerns, their confusions, what they think and what they need to know at what point in the conversation can be really powerful and is something that I think oftentimes we forget when we write copy. [0:07:19] Hiten: Yeah. It’s so easy to just want to say everything you want to say, then your copy gets long. It gets into more than a line or two. Things get really messy. The amount of sites that I go to where the copy is just hard to understand, has jargon, is really long, you can tell that they’re just trying to explain everything to you all at once. It’s ridiculous. I think that what they don’t realize is that people are there on your site and they’re there for a specific purpose and you’re just getting in the way with your copy. So if you can figure out how to say something very specific, that would be good. So just for fun I went to a site today, and right now, just a random site from Product Hunt and you know what they say at the top? It says literally, “The Simplest Way”. [0:08:10] Steli: “The Simplest Way”. That’s the entire- [0:08:13] Hiten: “The Simplest Way”. No, it says “The Simplest Way to Do ‘X”. Right? [0:08:16] Steli: Okay, yeah. [0:08:17] Hiten: And I’m like, really? Is it the simplest way? And then it says, “No registration needed. Simply copy the code and embed it into your website.” I’m like, wow. [0:08:26] Steli: That’s not that simple. [0:08:28] Hiten: Yeah. It’s just like trying to make something simple that really isn’t and trying to make it sound simple of feel simple when it really isn’t and it says, “The Simplest Way”. So you know, it’s just some random site I picked up, right? And that’s how they pitch it. So it’s like mind-blowing to me that we’re expecting people to use our sites with copy like that. So here’s another example: I went to this site, focusmate.com. A random site, no relation to me. It was just from Product Hunt and it says, “Distraction-free productivity. Focusmate virtual coworking helps you get things done.” See, this is better. Not great, because I still don’t know what I’m going to get. I don’t know virtual coworking is, but that first part of distraction-free productivity? Okay, that got me. I want to know what that is. They pulled me in. They pulled me in so much I was willing to read the second sentence. After this though, I’m gone. I don’t know. I don’t need this. It’s also easy to screw it up even if you get it right, right? Because distraction-free productivity is exciting and the name focus makes me feel that, but then when you go deeper you’re just like, I wonder what this is about but I’m not interested in it enough to keep going. [0:09:55] Steli: I love that. So here’s my tip, I think, for this episode. The one other tip is read your copy out loud and more importantly, have other people, random people, read your copy out loud. Oftentimes when you have somebody else, well, even when you read it yourself, sometimes you’ll realize that when you read things out loud that they don’t make sense or they are hard to read so you stumble and you have to restart the sentence multiple times or you read it wrong, right? Because the sentence is overly complicated or there’s words that are too hard to say. Whatever it is, reading it out loud yourself should always be something you check. But I find it beautiful when you have somebody else read your copy out loud and you observe their body and their facial expression, their body language and facial expressions. You will see people, if their eyes light up as they read things, if they smile as they read things, if they feel comfortable or if they frown because they have to focus because it’s so hard to read this shit or if they have a facial expression of confusion. If they read it and they seem to not understand what the end of the sentence is. So they finish it up and they give you that impression of, wait. Is this everything? What am I supposed to do now? Just reading somebody’s body language and tonality as they read your copy can give you all the clues if you’re copy is exciting and crystal clear and inspiring somebody to take action and to feel confident and have clarity or if you’re confusing people, if you’re giving people too much work because it’s really tiring to read your fucking copy because it’s so long and so complicated or if it’s confusing. Oftentimes we don’t go through that exercise. We write up some words, we design the look, we send it to somebody, that person, because we’re all very visual, usually just glances over the written words and just looks at the design and goes, “Yeah, that image isn’t cool and can we put that button more to the left and make it green?” The copy doesn’t get the love and the importance that it really needs to have maximum impact. [0:12:15] Hiten: I couldn’t agree more. Read it or have someone read it out loud. [0:12:18] Steli: Out loud. There you go. That’s it from us for this episode. We’ll hear all of you very soon. [0:12:24] Hiten: Later. [0:12:24] The post 380: How to Become Good at Copywriting appeared first on The Startup Chat with Steli & Hiten.

In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about how to design and write effective Calls-To-Actions (CTA). In the marketing world, a call to action is a prompt on a website, email or social media that tells the user to take some specified action. Call to actions generally takes the form of a button or hyperlink and are typically written as a command, such as “Book my call” or “Buy It Now” and so on. In this week’s episode, Steli and Hiten dive into what  Call-To-Action are, why they are so important in business, common mistake people make when designing CTAs and they share some tips that can help you design more effective Calls-To-Action for your Startup. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About today’s topic. 00:40 Why this topic was chosen. 01:02 One common mistake people make when they design CTAs. 02:16 Another common mistake people make when they design CTAs. 03:32 Why Hiten dislikes generic call to actions. 04:19 Why using disconnected CTAs is a bad idea. 05:49 How to determine what type of copy to use for your CTA. 06:25 The importance of telling the prospect what they are going to get with your CTA. 11:44 Why you should make your copy all about them. 09:17 The Startup Chat’s Call-to-action. 3 Key Points: I see companies using way too many calls to action. I don’t want to mind-read what you want me to do. Don’t be overly generic with your CTAs.   [0:00:01] Steli Efti: Hey everybody, this is Steli Efti.   [0:00:03] Hiten Shah: And this is Hiten Shah.   [0:00:05] Steli Efti: And in today’s episode of the Startup Chat we’re going to talk about CTAs, calls to action. How to design and write effective and killer CTAs. I can’t believe we’ve never had a dedicated episode to these, such an important topic, maybe it’s so all encompassing. We’ve touched on a lot of it, so we’re probably going to give today in many other ways, in many other episodes, but I thought it’d be fun to do a quick episode and bang it out on call to actions. So let’s go maybe through some of the mistakes people make, and then maybe we end the episode on some tips on how to do really killer call to actions. I’ll step in and give the first and biggest mistake on CTAs that drives me nuts. It’s actually two mistakes, and this is true both on websites, it’s true in emails, it’s true in many different form factors. It doesn’t really matter what the form factor is that you are communicating to a prospective customer to. It’s either, I see either companies have way too many call to actions, just like seven different things they want me to do, and I always go “Whoa, whoa. We don’t know each other that well and it’s not reasonable of you to ask me to do this much work.” Taking so much action means I can’t do anything else for the next two, three hours. I don’t have that kind of time and we don’t have that kind of relationship for you to ask me to watch this video, download this white paper, sign up for a newsletter, sign up for a free trial, and read these latest three blog post scripts. It’s just too much stuff you’re asking me to do, and they’re all not differentiated and not prioritized. And the exact opposite problem is when you have almost no call to action whatsoever. This is something I see more in emails than I see, in emails and in conversations in meetings I see this more often than I see this on websites, but it drives me crazy. It’s like somebody sends me an email, they write all this stuff about their company, the value they can create for me, all the things they could do, why this would be a great partnership, and then they just end this entire fucking email with “Thanks, Bob.” I read all this and I go, “What am I supposed to do now with all this information? What, specifically, do you want me to do?” Now, I can assume you want me to respond to you, but you could also just want me to go to your website. I don’t want to have to mind read what you want me to do here. What is the task? What’s the action I need to take? These are two mistakes that seem so obvious, but they’re still made. I see this every single day. Either you have too many calls to actions or none at all, and both of these are terrible ideas.   [0:03:13] Hiten Shah: Terrible. Making me do too much. You know the one, my pet peeve on this, and I think the biggest mistake that I see is generic calls to action … and I’m talking about the buttons themselves. So the buttons say get started.   [0:03:31] Steli Efti: With what?   [0:03:33] Hiten Shah: Exactly. What am I getting started with? Why do I care? How does this button have anything to do with the copy you just wrote? To me, there’s such baseless, there’s no basis, there’s no reason for that button to exist there in the way it does with the words it says. I think that’s the biggest mistake I keep seeing over and over again. Even start free trial. I mean, that’s better. At least I’m starting free trial, but you know how many sites say start free trial? So get started and start free trial are my two kind of pet peeves that I see over and over and over again. Even sign up or sign up now. These are generic. We could do a lot better.   [0:04:21] Steli Efti: I love that. Yeah, don’t be overly generic. And also, I think you touched on this, but I’m gonna say this again or highlight it a little bit, is using disconnected call to actions. So you’re entire copy was talking about free trial, but then the button says get started, or where the call to action that you might have had in your email communication, on the website, the designs that I see, everything is not related to what the button tells me or the call to action, what verbiage the call to action uses. So you might have something like, “We have a free account. You could start with free account.” Free account here, free account there, and then the button says free trial or start trial. It just is a mismatch between all the language and the words that you used everywhere else. And so matching and making it cohesive that your call to action actually matches everything you’ve said before, and matches, more importantly, what your prospective customer wants to do. What are the words that they have in their minds? “Where is the free trial? I need a free trial. Where can I get the free trial?” If that’s what everybody’s thinking that comes to your site, that should be probably the copy you use. But maybe they have something else on their mind, maybe they would verbalize differently what they wanted. You can learn a lot of that when you, obviously when you do cold prospecting, but also if you do inbound prospecting and you have, “Get in touch with our sales team,” or “Get in touch with our team,” or “Get a demo schedule,” and then somebody connects there. When you ask people “Hey, what made you come to our site and sign up? What did you do before? What is your number one goal today? What are you trying to accomplish?” Pay attention to the words that your prospects and customers are using, and if many of them use the same words maybe you want to use those same words in your call to actions. So don’t have too many call to actions, don’t make the mistake of having no call to action, use words in your call to actions, in your buttons and sentences that are focused and related to what your customer wants and not overly generic. Anything else? What else do we have on the topic of CTAs and call to actions in general?   [0:06:55] Hiten Shah: Tell me what I’m going to get.   [0:06:58] Steli Efti: Tell me more.   [0:06:58] Hiten Shah: Tell me what I’m going to get. Like, tell me what I’m going to get. Focus on telling me what I’m going to get. What I want to get is related to what you’re telling me is … Literally what you’re telling me I’m going to get in the rest of the copy. So at Crazy Egg we for years had this CTA, show me my heat map. Well, click the button because you want to see a heat map, right? That’s it. And we like making the button speak to you like that. Show me my heat map, as if you’re speaking basically. Show my my heat map. That’s what you want, you click it, you’re going to get your heat map. And that’s the idea. So the idea for me is always about how you can make it direct. So at FYI, which is about documents, it says add my documents.   [0:07:56] Steli Efti: Yeah. I was just, as we were talking I just was visiting Crazy Egg and I get FYI, and I was like, especially if I really like the … I like the whole thing to be honest.   [0:08:09] Hiten Shah: We just updated the homepage a little bit-   [0:08:12] Steli Efti: Yeah, I saw that. I love it.   [0:08:14] Hiten Shah: Yeah, so I think the CTA, when it does that it’s like … I said tell me what I’m going to get, so that’s interesting. So if you tell me what I’m going to get that’s pretty good. So if you tell me I’m going to find out about my website, or find out about whatever, for me I think it’s almost natural to always include a my in there or a me. Tell me more is pretty powerful too, believe it or not.   [0:08:45] Steli Efti: Interesting.   [0:08:45] Hiten Shah: And so one aspect is the button should describe what you’re going to get. Start free trial, start my free trial. Even though I don’t like the generic one, it’s like this is yours and you get this. So that’s what I mean by tell them what they’re gong to get, but in their words … Like a command. Like add my documents, show me my heat map, tell me more, start my free trial. These kind of things help a lot and if enough people listen to this I know I’m going to be tired of seeing that crap on peoples websites, but it’s not even my secret, it’s how I think about CTAs. They need to be really pulling people in and strong. And really it’s about “Hey, do you want this? This is it. You want it.” It’s not even want it, it’s like “Give it to me.” It’s almost as if you’re speaking to yourself saying give this to me. I think that there’s a concept there that I would probably suggest as my tip, which is can you make it a my or me thing, and can you use that language in whatever ways make sense on your CTA?   [0:09:54] Steli Efti: I love it. That’s such a powerful tip. I’ve never thought about this before, but now I’m going to be shamelessly using it myself.   [0:10:01] Hiten Shah: Go for it.   [0:10:01] Steli Efti: And I advise everybody who’s listening to us to do the same. Alright, that’s it from us for this episode. Here’s our call to action. If you like this episode and if you got value from it, go to iTunes, give us a five star review. Wherever you’re listening to our podcast, give us a review, write us something … a review, five stars, obviously. We highly appreciate it.   [0:10:24] Hiten Shah: Take care. [0:10:25] The post 379: How to Design/Write Great CTAs (Call to Actions) appeared first on The Startup Chat with Steli & Hiten.

Today on The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about if it’s necessary to sacrifice your life and your health in the early days of building your startup. In the startup world, creating a healthy balance between work and play is absolutely essential when it comes to leading a happy and productive lifestyle. But achieving this is not always easy – especially if you’re at the early stages of your startup. In this week’s episode, Steli and Hiten share their thoughts on the importance of having a healthy work-life balance, why you should do whatever you can to make your business successful, the importance of knowing when to take a step back from hustling and much more. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:32 About today’s topic 00:40 Why this topic was chosen. 03:01 Hiten’s thoughts on this topic. 05:14 Why you should do whatever you can to make your business successful. 06:40 Why it should be called work-life harmony 07:43 The importance of knowing when to take a step back from hustling 09:17 Why there’s no such thing as the right way to be successful. 12:16 Steli’s take on the idea of hustle porn. 14:44 Hiten’s take on the idea of hustle porn 3 Key Points: There are so many founders out there that can’t handle the stress of being a founder. You should do whatever you can to make your business successful. If you’re emotionally and spiritually burned out, maybe this isn’t for you.   [0:00:01] Steli Efti: Hi everybody this is Steli Efti. [0:00:03] Hiten Shah: And this is Hiten Shah. [0:00:04] Steli Efti: And today on the StartUp Chat I want to talk about, do you really have to sacrifice your life and health in the early days as a founder or is that bullshit. So, here’s the reason why I want to talk to you about this, I think throughout the episodes we’ve always aired on the side of working smarter not harder, people don’t have to sacrifice their health, and their family, and their emotions to be successful as entrepreneurs. We’re always attacking this myth that you have to burn yourself out to succeed. But then recently, I saw a discussion online that I thought, this is actually interesting and probably thought provoking and an interesting topic for us to digest where one specific founder, I’m not going to call him out by name, that has done a successful company and is now in a later stage in his life with wife, and kids and an investor and is advocating a lot doing a lot of press around this hustle culture is toxic, and working too many hours is toxic, and not working out, and not eating healthy is toxic, and entrepreneurs really need to have good work life balance. And so working too much and focusing only on work isn’t the right way. And I thought at first glance when I was just seeing the headlines of these podcast interviews and articles, I was like, sure. And then I started seeing a really strong counter reaction, and I started reading those comments and tweets and basically, I’ll summarize it, basically a bunch of founders, younger founders, but also some older ones are calling bullshit on this. And were basically saying, “Yeah, motherfucker when you started, your first startup, I mean you were nobody, and you had no resources, you had no success, you want to tell us that you were doing eight hours a day off, six hours a day, and weekends off, and going to the gym every day, and eating super healthy, and having friends, and traveling, and taking vacations? No you didn’t. You were working all day seven days a week hustling your ass off to make that first company succeed and now that you have the momentum of success, and recognition, and money, and fame in your much later stage in your life and a different stage in your life, now you’re all about eating healthy, and working out, and spending time with your kids, but young or early founders they can’t afford that work life balance if they really want to succeed. It was funny to see that I thought, all right, this is a great [crosstalk] [0:02:37] Hiten Shah: What a great topic. [0:02:38] Steli Efti: What a great topic for the two of us do to digested poke holes into it and look at. So, I’m dying to hear your first response or the first thought on this. [0:02:49] Hiten Shah: Yeah, I’m dying to hear what you think. I think, oh my god, much respect to everybody on both sides first of all. One for that gentleman being very successful I guess and being able to have a audience, and an ability to say whatever he feels. And then all those people jumped on him, you know what, I’m glad they did not because I have an opinion here but my opinion is pretty simple, look, if you’re running a business, just like if you ran a coffee shop, or if you run a coffee shop and you’re listening to this and it’s not an online business, you’re going to do whatever it takes to make that business successful or guess what that business will probably fail. And if what it takes is hustling, as the traditional term calls it, then you’re going to hustle. And if whatever it takes doesn’t require you to hustle in that way, you ain’t going to hustle. I mean, what why is this so complicated? Why do we need to give people advice either way? Why don’t we just let people do what they think is right and see what happens? The reason I say that is back in the day, and I’m going to age myself this way, but you remember this too, nobody talked about this crap. And you know why they’re talking about it in all seriousness, it’s because there are so many founders out there that maybe just can’t handle the stress of being a founder. That’s what it boils down to, to be honest, and/or haven’t figured out how to deal with the stress and there are unfortunate things that have happened as a result. And I think that’s why this is a topic not because some people should, or not because everyone should not be hustling. No. Not because that founder didn’t hustle in the early days, I am sure that’s another hustled in the early days, we both know that, right. Everyone knows that, he did. And so I think it’s more of calling him a hypocrite is what’s going on right now. But let’s not focus on that because it doesn’t matter. What matters is, what is the right advice here? I truly believe the right advice is, you should do whatever you can to make your business successful. And yeah, if you can find a way to have a work life balance, as they call it, which doesn’t even make any sense, you know what I call it, I call it a work life harmony. [0:05:20] Steli Efti: Harmony, I love it. [0:05:22] Hiten Shah: Right? That’s what we want here. And that might mean that your significant other, or your family, or your kids, whatever, understand what you’re doing. And what that means is you might not come home for dinner every day but they understand what you’re doing. And then when you are home you are present, that’s important, right? Or when you’re with your girlfriend, if that’s the stage of life you’re in, or boyfriend, or whatever significant other your present to them. You’re not just talking about work all the time. Yes, those things are very healthy but has nothing to do with hustle or no hustle to me. [0:06:06] Steli Efti: I love it. I love the word harmony replacing the word balance because balance suggests that both things are equally weighted and invested all times. You’re doing 50/50 on everything at the same way versus saying that both these things, sometimes maybe your work and life is the same thing as well, it’s a whole other topic, right. So when you’re at work What is this death? Life at work too but when it comes to your personal life maybe that takes on a dominance in your life at some point and is in harmony with running your company or doing work and at some point the work might take a more dominant part of your day or life and if you do it well it can be in harmony with your family life. I love harmony much more than balance because balance suggest that you do the same thing in both your private life and work life and you divide everything by half, right? [0:07:01] Hiten Shah: It also suggests an imbalance. [0:07:03] Steli Efti: Yeah. By default it suggest that there is an imbalance, you’re right, yeah. Yeah, that’s interesting. So, I think that there’s a lot of things to talk back here. I think one thing for sure is that when you look at people that give advice, right, I think that you have to ask yourself two questions, is this useful or helpful to me right now, right? And I think sometimes if you’re struggling with your health, if you’re struggling with concentration and focus, if you’re struggling with productivity, you might have to take a step back and when somebody comes across your attention span that says, “Maybe you should take a little bit more of a break, maybe you should meditate more, maybe you can’t just do 20 hours seven days a week of in front of your laptop and doing things that are unproductive but feel like work. Maybe that’s the right message, the right piece of advice for you at that moment that makes you go, oh, maybe I need to change a little bit the way I work and live to accomplish more, and to feel better, and to have more longevity in this. But the same piece of advice could be an excuse, right, which is the not handling stress well. The same thing can be you don’t have that work life harmony or balance issue, what you have is you don’t really want to work hard, or you want things to be easy, or you’re not that committed to the company, so now you’re looking for excuses, right. You’re looking for rationalizations why things aren’t working as well. And you’re like, you know what I think is going on, I’ve been doing this for two weeks, and I’ve been working so hard, I think I’m burned out maybe I have depression, maybe I have anxiety, maybe what I need is a meditation retreat. And it’s like, maybe what you need is not to be doing a startup, right? If after two weeks you’re emotionally and spiritually burnout, maybe this isn’t for you, right? So, I think that these things with context matters so much and we always highlight that importance I know. Some people are annoyed because they just want simple answers like, what is the right way to live life or to be successful in business for everybody, right? Just give me the answer and then I can just follow that that blueprint, but the reality is that it really depends who you are, where you want, what you’re trying to do. And similarly, when somebody gives advice the context of, where does this person come from? What is their limited life experience and overgeneralization that has got them to this? And what is the stage in life they’re in right now? I think it’s an important one. So, it’s funny, I lean back and I look at these arguments between the people that advocate hustling, right. There’s a lot of, you have to hustle, and that was more popular I would say two or three years ago there’s still some voices that are really pushing hard, but now there’s a big counter reaction and it’s actually really trendy to be totally against the quote unquote hustle, right? And be like, all these hustle people are bullshit, all these work hard people are bullshit, what you need is work life balance. As if work life balance is going to make you successful as an entrepreneur. Working more hours isn’t necessarily the solution or the answer to failure or success, and working less hours and doing more yoga isn’t the answer to being successful and succeeding with your startup either, it’s neither of these two things, but it’s funny to see these trends. And right now, I see a very strong counter reaction where a lot of founders, a lot of VCs, a lot of writers, and people that have a big stage will counteract the message of working hard, and hustling, and pushing further at work than in other things and doing anything necessary to make your company successful. Pushing against that message and going, hey, mental health is really important, physical health is really important, family Life is really important. You need to keep a balance from day one. Even if they didn’t do that in the early days. So it’s just fascinating. I think most people when they approached me about this topic, they just assume that I’m going to be firmly in the hustle camp, right? People that have been listening to the podcast for a long time might assume that I’m firmly in the work life harmony camp. But as oftentimes, it depends, I don’t know, it depends on who you are, what your life is all about, and what you’re trying to do. And it’s also fine to have, as you said, to have a phase where you might work much harder and everything else takes a backseat to work for you to succeed with what you’re trying to do. And then once you’ve gotten to a certain level, other things in your life might take a front seat again and take on more importance, and take on more focus and more energy. It’s unrealistic to expect people from day one in their life to do everything with equal weight, equal attention, equal energy, but it’s just unrealistic. All right, I think that’s it for us for this episode. What do you think Hiten. [0:12:16] Hiten Shah: I wanted to mention this idea of hustle porn, which you kind of touched on. [0:12:22] Steli Efti: Oh, yeah. [0:12:27] Hiten Shah: Before we’re done, we haven’t talked about it. So, what’s your whole take on this idea because there are definitely some people out there that I think have been advocating hustling and now there’s actually a backlash, like you said, what’s your take on that? [0:12:49] Steli Efti: I don’t know. I’m definitely conflicted. Again, I think it depends on who receives the message. I do think that there are certain people that scream all day long how hard they are hustling and that hustle and hard work and working many, many hours and sacrificing everything that, that is the ticket to success in life. And so everything they screams all day long it’s them working hard, them waking up at 4:00 AM, them going to sleep at 2:00 AM in the morning, them just working, working. And so that’s what you call hustle point. I think that when you look at the audience, these people touch a hustle porn audience. I think that there’s a small part of that audience that probably gets real motivation out of it. And positive motivation that get inspired that it puts a smile on their face. It’s something that really fuels them. They see that and they’re like, yes, that’s awesome, that’s amazing, it’s a positive emotion, a positive motivation and inspiration and it helps them to have more fun at work, or to take more pride in the work they do, or to have something inspirational to work towards to. And I think for those people that works, hustle porn is good for them. I think that there’s a majority of people that probably consumed hustle porn where it’s actually bad for them, right. I think that instead of it being something that truly inspires them in a positive way it is something that they use to either guilt themselves to feel like they’re lacking something, oh, shit look this person is doing so much more than me. So they are either going to use that as a way to rationalize why they’re not successful as somebody else or this person just is hustling so much harder than me I’ll never have that energy, I’ll never have that drive, I’ll never have that drive, I’ll never have that commitment, or they take it as a blueprint where they now think if I just add more hours in front of a laptop and if I take more pictures of myself looking tired and exhausted and hashtag it with hustling, that will be my ticket to succeed with my startup of my company, which is a very bad idea. Just adding more hours in your day is not going to do anything to either your success or your failure if you don’t do the right things in those hours. So, I think that, to be honest, for some people, I think hustle porn can be a positive force. For some people, probably it doesn’t really matter. But I do think that there’s a good portion of the audience that’s consuming that where it’s not helping them accomplish their goals, it’s not helping them live a better life. So net, net I’m oblivious to it but if I had to decide I would think that in many cases it’s probably doing a little bit more harm than good but I don’t really know that’s just a guess on my part and my hypothesis. What do you think? [0:15:25] Hiten Shah: Right. I think people went to the extreme on the whole idea of hustling and it was bound to have some backlash at some point. And there is really no justification for a constant message that says, you have to hustle, that’s my take. Doesn’t make sense. What do you mean? So, I’m going to work myself into the ground and get so stressed up that I can’t do anything. I’ve always been allergic to the way that it’s been popularized by many people, and it just feels like we’re just going to one extreme or another. And that message enables people to go to extremes or encourages people to go to extremes in order for them to be successful. I just see that cladiator style entrepreneur with big muscles and really lots of testosterone, right? That’s what I see when I hear that. And I think that for me, that’s definitely not most of the founders I know they’re nowhere near that, right? [0:16:34] Steli Efti: Yeah. [0:16:34] Hiten Shah: Anyway, yeah, it’s good to get your take. [0:16:36] Steli Efti: Yeah, and I think the funny thing is, I think most people that we know and respect the two of us, in all honesty, I don’t think that, you even less than me, but even I, we don’t publish any content day to day that is suggesting to people how hard we work, right? I never see pictures of you, it’s 1:00 AM I’m still working on this product. You don’t do that shit and I don’t do that shit. Although people probably that see me on stage would assume that I am and then just stop following me, right. But I don’t and I know how hard you work and you know how hard I work, we work hard and it’s part of our life but it’s not something that we take pride in or that we think needs to be broadcasted, right. [0:17:21] Hiten Shah: Right. [0:17:21] Steli Efti: It’s just like, of course we work hard but we also love working. And I think that the problem that I have with broadcasting it all day long all the time is that, I think it’s one of these simple messages that makes people think there’s a simple solution, all I have to do is just work more hours and then I’m surely going to succeed it’s like one of these simple answers that’s not true. It’s the similar way if I see somebody all day long telling people they should take fat loss pills as a way to live a healthier life, I don’t know a lot about these pills and maybe for some people, this is a good thing to mix into other lifestyle changes they’re making. But in general, I’m like, this is probably not a good message to be broadcasting all day long, to be telling young impressionable people, if you want to live a happy and healthy life and look really sexy just take fucking chemicals all day long, to lose your appetite for food or something like that. That’s not a healthy long term strategy to succeed here. And similarly, I think the entrepreneurial community when I see people all day long screaming hustling broadcasting how hard they work, I’m like, what are we doing here? What is this really net net going to … How many people are really going to live a better more successful life following this advice long term? All right. I think we touched on this topic, this is an interesting one, we might have to come back and revisit. Do you really have to sacrifice your life and health in the early days as a founder or do you not? Curious to hear people’s opinions so if you have something on this topic an opinion, a story, something to share, some wisdom, always love to hear from you. Just ping as at Steli.co.io to an hitenshah@gmail.com or ping us on Twitter. And as always, if you enjoyed the episode five stars, give us all the stars, give us a nice review on iTunes. We highly appreciate it. That’s it from us. [0:19:22] The post 378: Do You Have to Sacrifice Your Life & Health in the Early Days as Founder? appeared first on The Startup Chat with Steli & Hiten.

In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about early morning routines and the act of waking up early in the morning as a founder. It is common knowledge that how well you sleep and the state of mind you create at the beginning of the day have a lot to do with how much you’ll accomplish in that day. It’s a good idea to develop a morning routine that makes you be more productive. Tune in to this week’s episode to hear Steli and Hiten thought on morning routines, waking up early in the morning as a founder and much more. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About today’s topic. 00:32 Why this topic was chosen. 01:21 About Hiten’s morning routine. 01:49 How having a reason can help you wake up early. 02:57 Steli’s morning history. 04:39 The magic of waking up at 5 a.m. 06:42 Why waking up super early is not for everybody. 07:31 Why you should do what works for you. 08:04 The importance of observing times of the day when you could be doing more. 09:31 Why you need to adjust your routine. 3 Key Points: Do what works for you. For me, I wake up early because I don’t want to hit traffic. There’s not just one formula that works for everybody.   [0:00:01] Steli Efti: Hi everybody, this is Steli Efti. [0:00:03] Hiten Shah: And this is Hiten Shah. [0:00:05] Steli Efti: Today on the Startup Chat we’re going to talk about waking up early in the morning as a founder. Maybe we’ll expand to like early morning routines but it’s 6:00 AM in San Francisco. Thankfully, I’m in New York so it’s just 9:00 AM for me. But I’ve heard and read a lot about morning routines, being a super early kind of morning person. For I think about five or six months, I had actually established a morning routine where I was waking up at 5:00 AM every morning. I really, really thoroughly enjoyed it. Now, it’s in the past distance, this year I don’t even know what time I wake in the morning. I’ve been traveling so much, I’m all over the place, but I’ve noticed consistency over the past years that you are a super early morning person, right? [0:00:52] Hiten Shah: Yeah, these days I am. [0:00:55] Steli Efti: These days, all right, certainly. Is that something that … Would you say it’s not a natural thing, it’s like a learned thing or? Tell us more about it. [0:01:03] Hiten Shah: Totally a learned thing. I think- [0:01:05] Steli Efti: A learned thing? [0:01:06] Hiten Shah: Yeah. [0:01:06] Steli Efti: Yeah. [0:01:07] Hiten Shah: I think for me, truthfully, I can go either way very easily, I think maybe just like you. I don’t travel much so I guess like people are different and some people really prefer or think, I think, that they think that they’re night people, right? [0:01:30] Steli Efti: Mm-hmm (affirmative). [0:01:30] Hiten Shah: Or they’re morning people. I’ve been both in my life. Right now I’m a morning person and for me, the way I do it is I just have a reason. So I have reason to get up and do something. So today my reason was getting on the podcast and recording a few podcasts with you, so that’s my reason. I live about 20 to 30 minutes south of San Francisco in a city called Redwood Shore. I call it the city that Larry Ellison built because it’s right behind essentially his main office, like the big buildings and stuff. It’s like suburbia and so I live here. If I get up early, that means get up right around 6:00-ish, I can make it to the city by 7:00. I wake up, shower, and what not, get ready, and I can make to the city by 7:00. If I get up any later, then I end up making it to the city by like 8:00 and it takes me like 45 minutes. So it’s a difference between like 25, 35 minutes, and like 45 minutes to an hour, and hour and 10 minutes. So my excuse for getting up early is I get to drive less and I don’t have to drive in traffic in the morning. [0:02:54] Steli Efti: Beautiful, I love that, having a reason. All right, so I’ll give my quick history in terms of my mornings. I think, I mean, I definitely have been both., super early morning person, normal morning person and late. I think I don’t know that for sure but my natural tendency would not be … Like I know that I work best if I either work, either wake up at 5:00, or wake up later, let’s say at 8:00. These days I wake probably around 6:30 to 7:00 AM-ish and that’s actually not an optimal time for me to wake up. I don’t know why, maybe it’s kind of a sleep rhythm thing where I’m like in deep sleep during that time. So it’s harder for me to wake up a little later than 5:00 AM. But for me, the first that I really worked hard to experiment with my morning routine was when I had my first son. I was responsible in the morning when he was waking up, to feed him, to do breakfast when he was a little … I think at the one year age when he wasn’t a baby anymore and wasn’t breastfeeding anymore. I noticed that it was really messing with me to wake up in kind of at different times. Some days he would wake at 6:30, some days he would wake up at 7:15. It would always within a range of 40 minutes at different times and it really messed up to wake up hearing a crying kid or hearing a kid waking up. I was kind of a little out of it, craggy, preparing food, changing dippers. It was kind of a very weird way to start the day where I’m like one step behind. I did that for a while and then I read an article somewhere about like the magic of waking up at 5:00 AM and how amazing it is and it’s the best thing ever. I was like, “Huh! Maybe I should try that.” I did. I established that routine and for a while I really loved it because it allowed me to wake up at 5:00 AM. Nobody is up at 5:00. So I would go on a walk, I would go to Starbucks, get some coffee, sit down, plan my day, clear up my inbox, do some routines, read a little bit. Then I would go back around 6:20 at home, sit down, start meditating and whatever. He would wake up, I would be actually excited to hear him, I was awake, I felt prepared for the day, and then I was actually in a really good mood, pick him up, changing dippers, rock and rolling with him in the morning. I felt that that really changed the tone and rhythm of my day. But as I said, I think that this year, like with moving from San Francisco to New York and Germany and having like two home bases and traveling so much, I don’t even know. Like I don’t. All my routines are a little on shaky ground this year so I need to work on this again a little bit. But it’s funny, I feel like it’s this preconceived notion. Some people, as you said, are like, “Oh, I’m a night, late night person and that’s just the way it works for me. When I have to wake up in the morning nothing works.” Then there’s other people … I think that this is more prevalent in the entrepreneurial community at least. There’s this kind of myth of the super founder that wakes up super early to win or whatever. Like three hours more working time. They’re like, “If I wake up at 5:00 and start working and the normal founders starts working at 8:00, I have a three-hour headstart to all my competition.” I think that that’s a really damn idea just to throw that out there. I don’t think waking up earlier or later should have to do with like hours, like adding hours to just pure work or answering emails or anything like that. I think like you said before, you just need to look at your life probably and we’re getting into the tip section of this. But looking into your life, your routines, the demands on your time and just designing your day in a way that it’s going to allow you to be most productive and waste as less, as least, as little time as possible. [0:06:55] Hiten Shah: Oh man, yeah. I mean, lool, it’s not for everybody. You want to have enough productive hours in the day. For sure, trying to wake up early so you have more hours in the day is probably detrimental to your health if that’s just not what you’re meant to do. But sometimes maybe you need to work that hard if that’s the way you look at it. I guess my tip is just like do what works for you, don’t make it this thing. Like you were saying, like don’t make this thing, “We have to have more hours.” Don’t make it this thing where you have to wake up early ’cause “they”, whoever “they” is says you have to wake up early. I think do what feels right for you. If waking up late and sleeping late makes you feel most productive and you actually get enough done, do it like that. If waking up early does that for you, do it like that. I mean, I don’t like, I think these are all myths and all these made up stuff about like what makes a good founder, and what makes a good person, or whatever, or that you have to wake up early and it’s better or worse. I feel like you just need to like we’re here to like work mostly. That’s right, and do stuff, and make money, and what not. So just literally, like figure out what works best for you and sometimes that might need to change for whatever reason. Like for me, I wake up early because I don’t want to hit traffic. [0:08:19] Steli Efti: I love it, yeah. The other thing is I think just observing yourself and seeing like what are the times of the day that you are maybe not taking as good advantage of. I remember back in the day when I switched my day rhythm from going to bed at 11:00 or midnight, and waking up at like 7:00 or 8:00, to going to bed at like 9:00 or 10:00 PM and waking up at 5:00, I realized that most nights between 10:00 and midnight, I really didn’t do anything enjoyable, right? I didn’t even try to be productive but even the unproductive things, like even when I was like watching a movie or just browsing the web. It was a part of the day, like maybe early in the evening if I would read a book or watch a Netflix show or something, I would enjoy it, it would relax me. But then later in the evening or in the night, I realized that these activities were not enjoyable anymore. I was just like at a place where I was too exhausted to go to sleep but too exhausted to do something productive. So I was just like stuck in this like browsing weird sites, reading, not useful, blog post, just like wasting time in a way that was not really energizing, fulfilling or really helping me with rest. So I was like, “You know what? The last two hours of my day, I’m just wasting, I’m not even enjoying this. So I might as well go to sleep and see if in the morning, the two hours that I win there if I can do something that’s more enjoyable, more quality for me.” That was true back then. But again, I think we always go back to like look at your life, look at your day and your hours, how do you use them, what’s challenging, and then adjust. Sometimes you might have to be or want to be a morning person, sometimes you might want to take advantage of starting your day much later. But there’s not one formula that’s right for everybody. But this morning, it was just funny, usually we don’t record at 6:00 AM and Hiten you said, “Steli, can we move this up to 6:00 AM Pacific?” I was like, “We should talk about morning and being a morning person for founders. It’s very applicable to the recording session today.” [0:10:32] Hiten Shah: Absolutely. [0:10:33] Steli Efti: All right. I think that’s it for us for this episode. If you have learned anything interesting about your morning routines, late in the evening routines when you’re productive, anything else, just let us know and always get in touch with us, steli@closeio, hnshah@gmail.com. If you have not done it yet, five-star review rating on iTunes, please give us all the stars and all the reviews. We highly appreciate it and that’s it for us for this episode. [0:10:58] Hiten Shah: See you. [0:10:59] The post 377: Should You Wake up Super Early in the Morning as Founder? appeared first on The Startup Chat with Steli & Hiten.

In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about learning to ask for help in business. Many founders are not used to asking for help and this can be a disadvantage for themselves and their businesses. It’s common to see founders who are great at helping others solve their problems to be horrible at asking for help when they need it. In this episode, Steli and Hiten share their thoughts on why it’s important to ask for help when you need it, why you should figure out how to ask somebody for something, tips for figuring out how to ask for help and much more. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About the topic of today’s episode 00:33 Why this topic was chosen. 02:22 How Many founders are not used to asking for help and this can be a disadvantage for themselves and their businesses. 04:00 Why you should figure out how to ask somebody for something. 04:27 A major reason why some people are terrible at asking for help. 04:50 How Steli is working on his ability to ask for help. 05:29 One moment in time that made Steli more aware of his struggles with asking for help. 06:44 Another moment in time that made Steli more aware of his struggles with asking for help. 10:25 Tips for figuring out how to ask for help. 11:33 How to reach out to Steli and Hiten if you need help. 3 Key Points: Many founders are not used to asking for help and this can be a disadvantage for themselves and their businesses. I needed such a good reason to reach out that I was actually helping them when I asked for help. Figure out how to ask somebody for something.   [0:00:00] Steli Efti: Hey everybody, this is Steli Efti. And this is Hiten Shah . And today in this sort of chat, we want to talk about learning to ask for help, asking people for help. And here’s why I wanted to talk to you about this. Just recently at a conference, I was talking to a founder and when she was describing to me what she was going through, some of her challenges and problems, I think after 30 or 40 minutes of talking, eventually we arrived at this point where it was clear that one of her biggest challenges is that she just doesn’t ask enough for help. She has this huge network of people that could help her; help her find customers and clients, help her find people to hire, help her with good advice, but she’s not tapping into that network because she’s the type of person … And I think that that’s something that applies to a lot of founders, that has been so accustomed to being asked for help and being the person that’s just offering solutions, that her solution muscle is awesome and her advice muscle is awesome, but her asking for help and asking for advice muscle is terribly weak. She just always cooks her own little soup and when she’s challenged by something or when she has a problem, she just tries to figure it out on her own versus tapping into the amazing ecosystem and network that she has developed and the good will she’s developed by helping so many people. And she was like, “Yeah, I’m just not comfortable asking people for help. I never realized that.” And I tapped into that, giving her some advice and talking to her about how important it is to ask for help as a founder and entrepreneur. I thought that would be useful and valuable to other people to hear us talk about this. First of all, right off the bat, let me ask you: Would you agree with a problem statement that I’m making that many founders are not used to asking for help, that that is a disadvantage for themselves and their businesses.   [0:02:01] Hiten Shah: Yeah, I think that … I want to say I used to have this problem, but I’m actually going to say I still have this problem. It’s similar to what you described because for me, there are clearly enough people I’ve helped and it’s disproportionate in terms of the amount of times I ask for help versus the amount of times that I help someone or have helped someone in the past. It’s only recently that I’ve started reaching out to people I know and ask for their help. I’ve reached out recently to people I haven’t talked to in like three or four or five or six or even seven or eight years, maybe even longer and asked for their help and it was hard. I always felt like I needed a really good reason. More importantly, and this is where it gets tricky, I needed such a good reason that I was actually helping them when I asked them for help. That’s so weird, but I think if you have this muscle where you’re helping other people, it is the people I’ve met that help a lot of other people similar to like I have, have this problem because they’re constantly in one mode. They have one muscle they’ve worked and the other side of that muscle is being able to find people who can help you and ask for that help when you need it. I think that it’s very tricky to navigate this and force yourself to go get help when you need it. Because oftentimes when you’re helping other people, you tend to be good at problem solving and just almost feel like I should just solve the problem myself. It’s just a place that you’re in from a mindset standpoint. So the only advice I have for someone like that is just get over it; just figure out how to ask somebody for something. It might even by somebody who’s really close to you because the thing I’ve noticed about myself is even when it comes to my wife, I will not ask her for help when maybe I should. So I think this kind of mentality does permeate with certain people. That’s one reason. I think another reason that this happens if you haven’t necessarily helped a ton of people or you aren’t giving advice to people all the time or whatever, you just grew up in a family that never asked each other for help.   [0:04:35] Steli Efti: That’s a good one. I love the honesty, Hiten, and I’m not surprised. I knew that you were terrible at asking for help obviously, since we are good friends. But I also would put me in the same bucket. I’m not above this. I don’t think that I’m good at asking for help and this is actually something I’m working on. To some degree, I think there’s many reasons for it, but I’m not even that interested in that. I think I’ll share my biggest “aha” moment. There were two “aha” moments that made me start working on it and then obviously, I get all these founders. I talk to them and eventually at some point, we get to the well, who do you know who could help me with this? And it’s like well yeah, this, this and this person could easily make a massive difference here. I’m like, cool. Do you know these people? Yeah, yeah, I helped this person. Yeah, I know this person really well. Have you ever asked them for help? No. And I’m like, would you ask them for help? And the answer is always like, I don’t know. I would have never thought about it. I’m like, okay. This might be a universal issue or challenge or opportunity. I think for me the two things, the two moments that made me more aware of this and that started shifting my mindset … Well, there’s a variety of it. I remember there was one big challenge that we had where I started actively reaching out to a few people to help with. It was a recruiting challenge. We needed to hire somebody very specific and I had a hard time finding that person. Then eventually, I sucked it up and I reached out to a number of people, asked them if they knew somebody. And what I was most surprised about was the enthusiasm and the response. People were just so enthusiastic about me asking them for help and they went so out of their way to try to help that I was like, wow, I do have this incredible resource that I almost never tap into. People that know me, that have known me for a minute, if I ask for help, they’re actually … They’re not just like dealing with it, but I think oh yeah, sure, if it’s convenient here. I know somebody. They will like … I spent an hour. I talk to all these people. I research all these things. Here’s what I can do and I’ll do this other work. They go beyond what is reasonable to help me and they seem really excited and happy about it. That was the first moment I was like, whoa, this is a much stronger response than I expected and consistently from a number of people. The second time around was an “aha” moment I had recently where I had a friend visiting me in New York. Everywhere we went, I had the inclination to pay for our food, for this, for that, for the other. And eventually, he stopped me and he looked at me and he said, “Stelly, I love you. You’re an amazing friend. But what you’re doing really sucks.” And I looked at him and was like, what? He was like, “Listen. I know that your intention is always to try to make sure that you give and you give and you give. And your goal is that your account is always in the plus. In any relationship you’re in, you want to give more than you take, so your account always needs to be in the plus, right? You’re always building surplus in terms of how much you help and what you pay for and just going, always taking more responsibilities, paying more than the rest of the people, helping more than the rest of the people.” “That’s part of why I love you and that’s part of what makes you awesome. At the same time, I also like my account to be in the plus and you make it impossible. And that’s just not cool. That puts me in a really bad spot because I don’t like my account to be in a bigger, bigger, bigger minus in our relationship. I also want to help you. I also want to pay for things. I also want to feel like we’re equals and it’s a give and take. It’s not just me taking all the time from you. That just doesn’t feel awesome.” And nobody had ever given me the business this way. Nobody ever had confronted me about this in quite a similar way and I was like, oh wow, okay. I didn’t realize that. He’s like, “Please let me pay. Please let me help a little bit more. Please … Because it feels awesome to me as well, to be an awesome friend to you. I know it feels great for you to be a great friend to me, but I also want to be a great friend for you. And you don’t give me an opportunity to become that. You don’t allow me that.” He’s like, “Many of your friends, you’re in a much more dominant position. Why? Because you always give, you always help, you always … And you don’t give people as many opportunities to give back and create kind of an equal level of relationship.” And that blew my mind that I didn’t realize that as clearly as in that moment. I was like, oh shit. People are actually happy when you give them a chance to help and I don’t give people a lot of chances to help. I’m always so eager to help others and to give that I don’t realize that it’s a joy for people … Other people also want to give and help and I don’t give many people an opportunity to do so. So I never thought about it that way. I think that that was a real big “aha” moment for me. Since then, I’ve been just practicing this a little bit more, asking for my help, stepping back and giving other people the chance to also step in and help and be a real resource. It has both provided a lot of value to me, like I’ve gotten a lot more help, a lot more advice, a lot more resources than I had gotten before. And I see that I’m giving people more value in our relationships because people are excited that they finally get a fucking chance to do something for me versus like the last few years, they were only able to receive help from me.   [0:09:58] Hiten Shah: Yeah, it’s interesting to understand that psychology on the other side, too. I think that opportunities like that where you can have someone feel like they helped you when you’ve been really helpful to them is really useful and important. I think another aspect to this is also, if you aren’t asking for help and it’s not because you’ve been helpful to other or anything like that, it’s just because you don’t know how to. I would say that you should just think up whatever problem you’re having right now that you’re challenged with because everyone has got one of those at any given time at least, hopefully one. Hopefully not more, but you can just be very practical and think through or list out, whatever you want to do, the people who can help you and go send them an email with a single question. Just say hey, I’m struggling with this. I’d love your thoughts and give them something very short to respond to you and see what happens.   [0:11:07] Steli Efti: I love that.   [0:11:07] Hiten Shah: I think you have to force yourself to do it because as humans, we want to help each other. That’s the majority of humans, not everyone, but that’s the majority of humans. Even though I say not everyone, even the person who you think might not be willing to help somebody else, there is somebody that they’re willing to help with something. So I feel like you just have to push yourself to do this. This is something that’s part of living life, having a fulfilling life and being able to be happy as well. You’re learning to get help from others. That way, you don’t feel like you’re alone and struggling with something. As all of you that are listening know, Stelly and I are always here to help you. So, you want to do the usual thing, Stelly?   [0:11:55] Steli Efti: Yeah, I’m going to say you could always reach out at , but also let us ask you for help, which is please, if you haven’t done it yet, it would mean a lot to us. Just go to iTunes, go to our podcast page and give us a fast review and write a little bit about what this podcast has meant to you; why you like it, why you enjoy it, really helps make the podcast more popular and visible so more people can enjoy it and hopefully find using it. That’s it for us. Ask yourself, who can you ask for help? What is an area you need to ask help for and then ask for help today. [stelly@closeitionhhi@gmail.com   [0:12:31] Hiten Shah: Yeah, and we don’t do this for our health. We do this to help you. We do like talking to each other but we do this to help you.   [0:12:38] Steli Efti: Yes, very much so.   [0:12:41] Hiten Shah: Cheers.   [0:12:41] Steli Efti: Cheers. [0:12:42] The post 376: Learning to Ask for Help appeared first on The Startup Chat with Steli & Hiten.

In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about what they call “the second time around”. “The second time around”, also known as second time syndrome, is basically starting a new business after a previous success or failure at another business. It is common for second-time founders to believe that they will be successful at a second business and most of the time this is no the case. In this episode, Steli and Hiten talk about what “the second time around” is, how your first attempt affects your second attempt, why being successful the first time does not guarantee future successes, and much more. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About today’s topic. 00:45 What is the second time around? 01:00 Should the second time around be easier? 01:15 How your first attempt affects your second attempt. 01:43 A big factor that determines your success in business. 01:53 Why your ability to make good decisions is all that really matters. 03:34 Why it’s important to take the lessons from past experiences. 04:37 Why being successful the first time is not a guarantee for future successes. 05:49 An example of a successful entrepreneur struggling with future ventures. 09:29 A lot of people fail at starting a business and never do it again. 09:23 One tip that can help you be successful in your second attempt. 3 Key Points: There’s so much that can be different the second time around. People don’t realise that you’re literally building a business from scratch. Your own ability to make good decisions is all that really matters.   [0:00:00] Steli: Hey, everybody. This is Steli Efti.   [0:00:03] Hiten: And this is Hiten Shah and today on The Startup Chat that we’re gonna talk about what we call “The Second Time Around” which is basically when you have a startup and it either fails of succeeds and then you do another one.   [0:00:16] Steli: Yeah. The thing that most people think … I’ll start us off with a premise that I want to dissect with you which is the one that’s like the second time around should be easier, shouldn’t it be, Hiten?   [0:00:31] Hiten: No.   [0:00:33] Steli: Why? Well, you have all of this experience, you’ve done it before. Well okay, maybe it’s … Is there a different between having failed the first time around or having succeeded the first time around in terms of what the second time around looks like?   [0:00:51] Hiten: I think people would lead you to believe it’s that just because they want you to believe it’s either easier or harder or failure helps you or success helps you, but honestly it doesn’t matter. There’s so much that can be different the second time around. There are a bunch of patterns and things you learned, no doubt. But it’s not … I feel like people don’t realize you’re literally building a business from scratch and there are a lot of factors that determine whether your business works or not. One big factor that you learn the hard way oftentimes is that your own ability to make really good decisions is all that really matters, and your ability to do that decisively and fast. The reason I’m picking on that specific one thing out of the millions of things that you could consider is because the first time founder either lost or won, whatever that means, because of their ability to make the right decision at the right time. That could be a fast decision and then undo it later, whatever. Whatever that means. There’s a lot to that. So by the time you’re at the second, whether you won or lost, you’ve made up your mind about a bunch of different things that you might not even realize you’ve made up your mind about. For example, if you tried sales for four years and it didn’t work for you, you might be like, I can’t do sales. Well, when you get into that second business and you’re hit with a problem and sales is going to solve it, what are you going to do? Are you going to make the right decision and just go figure it out even though you failed for four years trying to figure it out? Or are you going to sit there and be like, I can’t do this, and then you’re going to quit. Then now all of a sudden you’re a third time founder. The reason I went there is because that’s just one little nuance of someone’s experience clouding their judgment for the next experience. So I think that it’s really important, to what I do in this specific case, and I’ve done this more than twice unfortunately, is I try to figure out … I have an advantage. I do it sometimes in parallel. So what I do is I try to figure out what happened last time and I be honest with myself. So after my experience with Kiss My Tricks, once I was done with it, I have this one and a half or two page document and it’s got bullets. Not the timeline of what happened, but I just poured in all the lessons that I learned from that experience. A lot of them were mistakes I made, about 75%. 25% were things I think we did really well. That has led to a bunch of things that honestly, I honestly will be conscious of the next time around. I have been conscious of it the next time around. It’s also helped my existing businesses. I think the tip here for me before I let you say anything about this, sorry, is to just reflect on what happened if you want to be honest with yourself. I think this is one where intellectual honesty is what you need. Otherwise, you’re going to just be doomed to the same cycle of mistakes that you made the first time.   [0:04:23] Steli: Beautiful. I’ll come out of the bed and say, unfortunately, unsatisfyingly, the answer to will the second time around be easier or harder is always: it depends. Right? It depends on so many factors.   [0:04:35] Hiten: Yeah.   [0:04:35] Steli: But I do want to start with something that might be counterintuitive to people. I do think that just because you succeeded the first time around doesn’t mean the second time around is going to be easier. I think people think that because they’re like, well, if somebody succeeded with their first venture, it means that they’ve done a lot of things right, it means that they now have wealth or resources, it means that they have a brand or a name that will attract talent and other investors, it means that they have working relationships with customers, investors, employees that they’re going to be able to utilize again. There’s so many advantages. How could it not be easier the next time around? Well, it’s funny. I have a good amount of friends and people that I know well that had tremendous success the first time around and have failed to be successful a second or third time around, right? It’s not because they’re not smart, it’s not because they don’t work hard, it’s not because they don’t know what they’re doing or that they don’t deserve success. It’s just because it’s not that easy. There’s so many factors at play. With good friends, I always bring up one example that I won’t name here of somebody that I know that is incredibly wealthy. So his first success was not just a little success, it was a massive success. We’re talking billions. We’re talking an insane amount of wealth. That person has been trying to do another venture for I think four years now or five years now and has done two or three different things and none of these things have panned out. I always bring him up as an example because he had such insane success the first time around and I’m like, look, the first venture that he did was incredibly successful, it sold for an insane amount of money. Awesome. He’s obviously smart, works really hard. All the right things. But it’s not a perfect formula. I do think that if you draw a long enough timeline, he’s going to succeed again. But with the ideas, with the ventures, with the timing, the market, for a lot of factors, the few project that he worked on after that just haven’t worked out. They haven’t been as successful. Just because you succeeded the first time around, it’s going to create a certain amount of resources and advantages, but it might also create disadvantages, right? You might have the pressure to immediately succeed. You might have the pressure to go much bigger the second time around ahead of its time. Maybe you’re a little clouded or confused about your skills because the first time around you had perfect timing and you were a little lucky and you confused that luck and timing for skill, right? So the second time around you approached it the exact same way because you don’t have the self awareness that you were highlighting of sitting down and trying to really dissect what did I learn? What did I do well? What didn’t I do well? You just felt like you did everything well because it worked out. So the second time around, you’re lacking the little bit of luck or the right timing and now those same strategies, those same activities, are just not creating the same results. So you might have a bad bias based on your success. The same thing could apply on failure. You could fail and be in a much better position the second time around because you’re learning all the right things and you’re making all the right conclusions and it makes you hungrier and just tougher and more focused. Or you failed the first time around and now you’re less confident. Now you’re more confused. Now you are … It takes away some of your strengths and the beauty of your ignorance and now you’re cynical. Everything that’s proposed by your team, you’re like, “Yeah, but we thought last time this could work but …” Everything that didn’t work the first time around, you’re not approaching anymore with a beginner’s mind. You’re like, all this shit doesn’t work. So you have this cynical mind. Maybe you’re lacking confidence, you’re lacking resources and you’ve got to take that failure and make it bigger the second time around versus making it better. So I think the lessons you learn, the conclusions you make, the skills you’ve acquired can drastically vary. It does matter if it was successful or if you failed, but you can draw the wrong conclusions from failure and from success and you can draw the right conclusions or build up the right skills from failure and from success. I think that’s counterintuitive. I think that founders and entrepreneurs, they want to believe that if they have … I think they kind of concede that if they failed the first time around, maybe the second time around is not going to be easier, but they want to believe, we want to believe if I succeed, if I sell my startup for hundreds of millions, how could it not get easier the second time around? It must be. But I cannot find any evidence for that. Being an entrepreneur for decades now and having so many friends that have both failed and succeeded their first time around and then try it again. I can’t seem to find any conclusive evidence that the second time around is any easier necessarily. It can be, but it doesn’t have to.   [0:09:44] Hiten: This is funny. I couldn’t agree more. I think there’s just a lot of storytelling around being a second time founder and what that means. I think that’s what it boils down to, right? Think about how many people start a company and actually never do it again.   [0:10:03] Steli: Yeah. That’s also true. Wow. Yeah, yep.   [0:10:06] Hiten: There’s a reason for that, right? So yeah, I love what you said about it. It is counterintuitive. The first success doesn’t mean you’ll be successful again.   [0:10:15] Steli: I think I’ll bring up one little tip here before we wrap up this episode. This is just because I had this conversation twice this year with friends of mine and so I think maybe somebody out there is having similar thoughts and this might be useful. If you’re a founder, this was your first time around and it has worked out. You’ve seen some success. But you’ve not seen this breakthrough success where in a very short period of time you’re selling this thing for billions. You make a few million in revenue. Maybe you’re in a phase where it’s stalling or it’s really hard to keep it scaling and succeeding. You’re kind of in this messy middle phase and you are thinking, wow, it was so much more fun when it was the beginning and now that I’ve learned all these things and I’ve made all these mistakes, if I did it again, I could do it so much better and I would not have all this messy equity structure with all these investors. I would not have all this … Whatever. Messy things that have accumulated over the two or three years that you’ve been around. You’re like, you know what? Maybe I should just fucking sell this thing or leave this company and just start fresh and take all my lessons learned and everything and just do it much better, much bigger. If you’re in that phase, you really need to step back and ask yourself, do you really believe that the second time around is going to be that much easier and that much better? Or is the risk that once that second startup succeeds up to the point where you’re in right now, you’re going to face the same challenges? It’s just like your company’s now in a phase, in a stage, that you haven’t mastered yet so you’re struggling to get it to the next level. What tells you that the next time around, if you find even a company that will find product market fit that will get to the level of success you are having today … And that’s a big “if”. You might have to fuck around for many years to get to that point … But if you get to that point again, what tells you that you’re going to enjoy that moment better if it’s going to be easier then? Are you just running away from a stage of running a business and a stage of skill that you have to develop that you need either way? The problem is not that this business is shitty. The problem is that at this stage of a business you are dealing with a new set of challenges that you have to master either way. Doing it again will not solve that fundamental issue or challenge.   [0:12:31] Hiten: So you’re saying you’re shitty so fix yourself, basically?   [0:12:34] Steli: Yeah. The reason why it’s hard is that-   [0:12:36] Hiten: Not the business.   [0:12:37] Steli: The reason why it’s hard is that you don’t have the skills, right? You don’t know what you’re doing right now.   [0:12:42] Hiten: Yeah.   [0:12:42] Steli: It’s not that it’s hard because the business is terrible. That can be the case, but in the situation that pop in my mind, I don’t think that that’s the case. I don’t think the business is shitty. I think those people, quote, unquote, “with love” are shitty in the sense that they don’t have the skills and the abilities and the decisions to make it great. But it’s not the business that is the problem.   [0:13:05] Hiten: Yeah. I couldn’t agree more.   [0:13:07] Steli: Yeah. Maybe it’s a similar metaphor to the like, your relationship isn’t the problem, so just getting out of that relationship and finding a new one will not solve it. You are the problem. Just figure out yourself and fix the realities of a real relationship in year three, four, five or 10 versus thinking, the next relationship, I’ll make everything better and it’s going to be so much easier forever, right? Alright. Second time around. We hate that we had to break your hearts out there if anybody felt that the second time around is surely going to be easier and more successful. It can be, but it doesn’t have to. That’s the real reality of entrepreneurship. Alright, that’s it from us for this episode.   [0:13:47] Hiten: Cheers. [0:13:47] The post 375: The Second Time Around as a Startup Founder appeared first on The Startup Chat with Steli & Hiten.

This is an encore episode. In today’s Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about big picture thinking, its importance and some ways through which you can develop this skill. Oftentimes, we find that people are so caught up in day to day tasks that they fail to stop and prioritize. Steli and Hiten talk about being mindful in order to develop good prioritization skills. Tune-in and discover how you can cultivate mindfulness and build your prioritization skills which can help you execute tasks of greater value. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:03 – Today we are going to talk about big picture thinking 01:14 – Most people struggle with big picture thinking 01:28 – Steli is great at prioritizing and showing the bigger picture to his team 02:34 – Prioritizing is a skill that anyone can pick up by cultivating mindfulness 03:31 – Go-getters continue to attack what is in front of them 04:23 – Yet, there are some people who get bogged down by intense work activity and have yet to develop those prioritization skills 05:16 – Keep your to-do list short in order to develop your prioritization skills 06:20 – Important to touch every area of the business and be aware of what is going on 07:58 – Someone who is involved in day to day operations will find it much more difficult to see the big picture view 09:10 – Easier for someone not involved in day to day tasks to be MINDFUL; mindfulness is the driver of good prioritization skills 09:42 – Step back physically, spiritually and mentally every once in awhile to develop mindfulness 10:27 – If you don’t stop to ask BIG questions, you will never be good at prioritizing 11:17 – If you wish to create VALUE, you need to be in control of your time and mind 12:20 – Mindfulness enables you to take a step back and look at everything with a more clear mind 13:47 – Have an inner discussion with yourself or someone else who can help you see the big picture 15:05 – A CEO or a manager has a high level viewpoint that others simply don’t 15:34 – Take a step back every morning to reflect upon what you did or what you are going to do 16:57 – Look at the smallest items on your to-do list and think about what will happen if you do not do them 18:08 – Oftentimes, it is easier to keep doing things than to stop doing them; do not replace an inconsequential activity with another one 19:58 – Replace a mindless activity with a productive, high quality one 3 Key Points: Prioritizing is a skill that anyone can pick-up by cultivating mindfulness. Step back physically, spiritually and mentally every once in awhile to develop mindfulness. Oftentimes, it is easier to keep doing things than to stop doing them; do not replace an inconsequential activity with another one. Steli Efti: Hey, everybody. This is Steli Efti. Hiten Shah: And this is Hiten Shah. Steli Efti: And today in the Startup Chat we want to talk about big picture thinking, and  how to prioritize better for your startup. So here’s the reason I want to talk  about this, Hiten. Ramin, big shout-out to Ramin, who is an invisible man behind this  podcast and is helping and organizing a lot and is working on the marketing team.  Ramin has been asking me about, or suggesting this topic to me for a really  long time now. And he keeps coming back, and any time I ask him, “Hey,  do you have anything you think Hiten and I should discuss on the podcast?” whenever I run out of ideas, he goes … Well, he offers a few topics, but  this is the one that’s been most consistently shared. And he always goes “You know,  you are amazing at prioritizing and keeping the big picture in mind”. And Hiten seems  to really, really amazing at this. And it’s something that most people struggle with, and  I think Ramin struggles with this directly in marketing topics. And I’ll talk a little  bit about this when I join team meetings. When I join marketing calls, and Ramin  is on there and I’m on there, I’m usually the one that is pushing to reprioritize some things, bring in the big picture of thinking. I think that’s an unfair  dynamic and I’ll talk a little bit about that. But he experiences many, many times  when I join a discussion and will help the team think differently about what is  the true priority and what isn’t. He’s been dying for us to talk about this.  I honestly have not been that excited about this topic, I don’t even know why,  I was like “I don’t know, prioritization,” but finally I’ve cracked and I was like  “all right, all right, I’ll ping Hiten, we’ll talk about this.” It’s probably something that  maybe, I don’t know, maybe you and I feel that this is not that big  of a topic or we don’t feel like it’s a big need in our life.  But I can see that a lot of people will benefit from this, so let’s  chat about it. Hiten Shah: Yeah, you know, first of all, shout out to Ramin. I know he’s behind the  scenes doing a lot of stuff for us that I don’t even have to think  about. I honestly, just ’cause he wants it I’m down to do it on my  end. Steli Efti: Nice. Hiten Shah: So yeah, let’s do it. On the prioritizing, you know, I think that it’s a  skill anyone can learn. It has to do, honestly, I think, I’m gonna get a  little foo-foo for a second, but you and I might be good at it ’cause  I know how mindful we are. That has to do with mindfulness. I’m not saying  either of us probably meditates every day religiously. But I think we are the type  of people that can easily … I mean, I was walking with you yesterday for  a few blocks, ’cause we happened to hang out. It felt like for a bunch  of time we weren’t talking, we were both kind of like meditating, so to speak,  or just being mindful of where we are. I felt that and noticed it. I  think a lot of that has to do with … Everyone I know that’s not  good at prioritizing fits in one or two camps today. One camp is they’re just go-getters, the just go, go, go. And they are just very good at attacking what’s  in front of them. Or just what’s on top of mind. And that’s interesting. I  have a co-founder who’s very much like that, very, very much like that. He’ll just  go at it, and attack whatever’s in front of him, whatever’s top of mind, and  he does a great job of it. But one of the reasons he’s very good  at it, without actually having to prioritize as much as, I’d say, you and I  probably do, is that his horsepower, so to speak, being able to do something and  just get it done and pull people into it is uncanny. So the speed at  which he can get people to do things, and himself do things, it’s pretty strong,  pretty high when he puts his mind to it. I’d say it’s much stronger than  mine. The other camp, I would say, would be someone like Ramin. And I don’t  know enough about what he does, exactly, every day, but I can hypothesize, being in  marketing, he’s probably just got a lot of shit going on and his to-do list  is massive if he even has one. And his prioritization skills are probably just not  developed. The reason is, there’s just a lot going on. So those are two different  modes for me, because my co-founder Neil, he has a lot going on, but he  just demolishes through everything and is very good at just being mindful, not mindful but  anti-mindful. Just whatever’s top of mind for him, whatever he’s thinking about. And he has  a very singular goal in mind in life. And that goal is what drives him  to just prioritize, essentially, without having to think about it the way you and I  would. Steli Efti: Yeah. Hiten Shah: And then on Ramin’s hand, I think the to-do list is long. And when your  to-do list is long, it is definitely a challenge to learn how to prioritize it,  ’cause the short answer to prioritization is keep the to-do list short for what you’re  trying to do right now. And that’s not how everyone is, so I don’t know.  That’s what I got so far. Steli Efti: Yeah, no, this is good shit, I think. So one, I want to start with  a disclaimer, and I think this is an important one. And I mentioned this earlier,  with the … You know, he might feel this the most significantly when I join  a call. But I don’t think that’s necessarily a fair comparison. So oftentimes, people like  you and me, Hiten, if you’re a founder of a startup or the CEO of  a startup, when you have some kind of a leadership position, oftentimes you, we’re a  little bit of a unique case because I know that both of us are a  bit more hands-on and do have some deliverables, more so than other CEOs might have.  But even us, we are operating most of the times from a position that has  the most context, the most context-rich position in the team, in the company, because we  touch every team and every area of the business, most of them probably, any other  person in the company. So you have a much better idea of what’s going on  all around the company. You probably have a much better idea of what’s going on  in the market in general, and you’re not as hands-on, like your list, typically, as  CEO or co-founder, probably is not gonna be as long, with as many little to-do  items, so when you join somebody else’s meeting, you can come in without that tunnel  vision. You can come in with a little bit of a distance, which gives you  the power of perspective, right? You can see the big picture because you’re just not  drowning in the tasks and to-dos of every single day and deadlines. And you also  come in with the benefit of knowing everything that’s going on in the overall business  and market. So when I join a marketing call and Ramin might have four to-dos and I might challenge him on the four things that they are working on and  I might challenge him on those and go “Why are we even doing these things?  Are they really important, are they really gonna move the needle?” Or I’m bringing up  something that was not on the list but that is of much greater importance, I  can feel, I can easily see how after a call like that or a meeting  like that, Ramin is like … And in this case, Ramin and myself, we’re just examples for this happening everywhere, I could see Ramin thinking “Holy shit, why didn’t I  think about these things?” Or “Why is it so easy for someone to just walk  into randomly a meeting or call and just know with such level of certainty what’s  more important and be right about it?” And I think it’s an unfair comparison, because  I come into the conversation with the ability to have much more higher-level, big-picture thinking,  and a much easier time for me to have the distance to see what should  or shouldn’t be a priority, probably, versus him, who’s in the day-to-day operational role. It’s  just easier to do that. If he joined a call from another meeting, it might  be much easier for him to see the big picture of what they’re missing or  what they should be doing there. So I think that it’s important for anybody that  has experienced this, especially with the founder or CEO-level person, to not compare yourself one-on-one,  like “Why am I not acting like this other person, exactly the same way?” Because it’s easier for an outsider to have big-picture thinking sometimes, or to see what’s blatantly  obvious but everybody else in that meeting or conversation is missing because they’re so drowned  and buried in details and to-dos and deadlines. So that’s one thing. You need to  be careful how you compare yourself with others, you need to understand that when somebody  else comes into your meeting that is not doing this stuff all day long, ten  hours a day, eight hours a day, and drowning in all these tasks, it’s gonna  be much easier for that person to be mindful and see the big picture, have  perspective, enhanced … You know, probably be better at bringing up priorities. So that’s one  thing. The other thing is, I think what you said is a really killer thing,  which is mindfulness, I think, is really the driver for being good at prioritizing things.  And mindfulness just means, if you don’t stop frequently, multiple times a day, a week,  a month, step back, physically and spiritually and mentally, to think “What is truly going  on in my life, in my team, in my business, on my projects? What are  really the things that drive and make a significant difference, that I’m working on, and  what are the things that aren’t really?” And what would happen if I just stopped  doing some of the things that I’ve been doing forever that are unfulfilling and not  really driving results? Is it really gonna be that bad? Versus “What if I double  down with the things that truly matter?” Or what is something that truly matters that  I’m not working on because I’m drowning on all these little tasks? If you don’t  find ways to slow down, to stop to take a break, to take a pause,  to step away and ask some of these big questions, you will never be good  at prioritizing. And to stop is much harder than to just keep going. It’s easier  to just keep going, go with the flow, be interrupted, let your inbox and people  emailing you and the people on your team that are chatting you on Slack and  the people in your office that walk up to your office and push you and  go “Hey, can you do this for me? Hey, what about … ” People come  to you with their problems, with their tasks, with questions, and you just let the  world around you dictate what you’re worrying about, what you think about, what you’re working  on. That is much easier because it requires zero mindfulness. You just allow everybody else  to dictate what you’re doing. But if you want to be good at creating tons  of value, which means being good at having big-picture thinking and prioritizing well, you are  forced to develop the discipline to be mindful and to be in control of your  own time and your mind. I think that’s just something that most people have not  yet had. And I didn’t have this my entire life. Ramin knows this directly because  Ramin worked with me on a company 15 years ago, and he will tell you  I was not good at big-picture thinking or prioritizing back then. I was horrible, terrible  at it. So it’s not like … Going back to what you said earlier, this  is not some kind of a personal gift, it’s not a personality trait, you’re not  born with it or without it. It’s a skill set you can cultivate or not, I couldn’t agree more with it. So maybe for the, to end and wrap up  this episode, maybe you can give a tip each on how to cultivate that mindfulness  allows, particularly well, to be good at prioritizing things. Hiten Shah: Yeah, I mean, one of the reasons I think mindfulness helps is because what it  enables you to do is take a step back and look at everything you’re doing  with a more clear mind, a more blank slate. You’re not so much in the weeds, trying to get every to-do list item done. Instead, what you’re doing is you’re  taking a step back and actually thinking through what needs to get done, what’s the  most important thing. The interesting thing is, you know, I’ll give a quick short story.  I was at … I saw you yesterday, Steli, and then, I saw you with  my business partner Marie, met her for the first time, and that was awesome. You  came up with some ideas for the pilot cast, but we’re not gonna share them  right now. And after we met you, we actually went to Cyclops Coffee in San Francisco, I guess I’m a hipster like that. Steli Efti: Yes, you are. Hiten Shah: And … Or I can at least say Marie is and blame her. And we  actually had a meeting, her and I over some coffee, at the Cyclops instead of  at our office, which is her apartment. And we actually had one of these meetings  where we prioritized. And literally, we just took a step back and said “You know,  we just launched this product, there’s these seven, eight things that we actually have slated  to do. What’s most important?” And so to me, the mindfulness part is more about  stepping back, not looking at your to-do list, not even writing anything down yet, and  having either a discussion with yourself, which is totally doable, or having a discussion with  the person that can help you or is helping you, and responsible equal to you  or even not equal to you, just in whatever capacity makes sense. And just talk  about it. And literally, we reprioritized, in that fifteen-minute talk about this topic, and figured  out “Oh, crap, what we were thinking about and all this jumble in our head  about all these eight or nine things, boils down to these two things that are  most important right now.” And we were able to discuss why. And I don’t think  that conversation could have happened unless we were both being mindful about wanting to have that conversation and stepping back from the to-do list. Otherwise we would have went back  after seeing you, ’cause you know, it was a fun meeting seeing you and we  were definitely not talking shop as much, and going back to work directly and being  like “All right, we’re gonna go crank out our stuff.” But I don’t think the  decisions would have been the same. And so that’s what I mean by being mindful,  from my perspective. It’s like when you’re in the weeds, literally I call it “in  the trees,” not the forest, you’re not able to look at, from a higher level, what’s going on, what are we working on or what are we proposing to work  on, and how can we just focus on what’s the most important thing? Usually that  discussion just doesn’t happen in people’s heads. And like you were saying, like a founder,  a CEO, an executive, a manager tends to have a viewpoint on the situation or  the details or the high level of something that other people don’t. And so we  have learned to manage all those inputs and prioritize and keep people on message, on  task, etc. But an individual person who’s working day to day like Ramin, he’s probably  not stepping back. And I can give you hacks, ’cause it’s probably about that time,  right? Steli Efti: Yep. Hiten Shah: One big hack for me is, take a step back either every morning or every  evening. This is one reason I love all the content out there. Every time I  read something about this, about that dream of making your three things you need to  do tomorrow, or making your to-do list in the morning or the evening before. All  those things, to be honest, are very good, very, very good. We don’t do them,  nobody does them, I’m sorry, but they are very good because they give you that  opportunity to spend five or ten minutes to reflect upon either what you did, which  is always good, or what you’re going to do. So for me it’s like, I’ll  reflect on what we did or what we think we need to do to figure  out what we do next, and so it’s about “Okay, what did we do, what  do we need to do, or what do we think we need to do?” All  the things, and then how do we make sure we’re focused on the most important things? And if you can just have that discussion with yourself either every morning or  every evening before you go get at it … I actually like the evening, ’cause  sleeping on it is helpful and writing it down. It’s not a to-do list, ’cause  I know that formalizes it too much for most people, at least for me. But  it’s more of just a discussion with yourself about it. Even if you don’t write  it down it will be in your head. And so I think that can help  you reprioritize and stay a little more sane regardless of what level you are or  what you’re doing inside of a company. Steli Efti: Absolutely, love it. All right, so I’ll give a tip before we wrap this up.  My tip is, do two things. One is, look at your current to-do list, especially  at the smallest of items. And really challenge yourself frequently, you know, maybe once a  month, maybe every two weeks. What are these things, if I stop doing them, what  would really happen? And oftentimes it’s like “Wow, then this wouldn’t exist.” And the important  thing is to keep asking the question “Okay, and then what would happen?” Well, then  we wouldn’t have that number in our reporting. Okay, when was the last time that  number really led to an insight or to an action? Are we just looking at  that number because it’s interesting, or have we ever learned something or changed our behavior  on this? Well, we haven’t really ever done anything with it. All right, then kill  it. Right? Or, this is a small thing I do every day, but if I  stopped it … There’s a lot of small things that accumulate in our lives, to-dos,  that if we really challenge ourselves, we would come up with answer of like “Yeah,  if I stopped doing this nothing would really happen.” Nothing of consequence would happen. And  so finding ways to simplify your to-do list or to take away, especially the noisy,  little, tiny tasks that really, some of them are necessary, but oftentimes we do these  things out of habit and it’s easier to keep doing them than to stop them.  So it’s important to once in a while just do house cleaning and stop some  of these items. But then even more important than just stopping them is to make  a conscious effort not to replace them instantly. So if I, every morning if I  spend ten minutes doing this one small task, then my challenge to people would be,  not just to kill it, ’cause when I kill it mindlessly I will just, some  other small, dumb task will just fill up those ten minutes. Or I will just  use these ten minutes, you know, going on Facebook or Twitter or doing something else  that’s mindless activity. I will replace one mindless activity with another one that’s inconsequential. Maybe  better, maybe worse, but I’m not in control of that. What I would challenge people  is, kill a few of these little items, save yourself ten, twenty, thirty minutes a  day, and then consciously use that time for mindfulness. So you say “Tomorrow from 9:00  to 9:10 AM I’ll go on a walk.” Right? Or every day now I’m gonna be doing a 30-minute walk or meditation, I’m gonna go out in the park and  read a book, or I’m gonna have a call with a friend talking about big  picture, what we want to accomplish, setting goals, or I’ll talk to somebody on my team. But not to-dos, but big-picture, creative thinking. Just take those thirty minutes and don’t  instantly replace them with other small items, ’cause that’s a lot of times what happens  and what I see happening is, people will reprioritize, or kill some of the items,  it will create some gaps, and these gaps again will be mindlessly filled with other  random shit. And then you really haven’t accomplished anything. So an important thing to think  about is, when you kill something, ask yourself “What am I going to replace this  with? How am I gonna fill up my time instead?” Making sure that that replacement  is of higher quality, is of higher priority, and if you can’t come up with another specific item, just make sure you don’t do anything during that time, right? Rather  go on a walk or drink a coffee by yourself, or chit-chat or daydream, or  take a nap, than just spend another 15 more minutes a day on Twitter or  Facebook or some other site. That’s my tip for becoming better at prioritization, big-picture thinking, and keeping perspective and mindfulness in life and in business. All right, I think that’s  it from us for this episode. Hiten Shah: See you later. The post 374: Encore Episode: Big Picture Thinking / How to Prioritize appeared first on The Startup Chat with Steli & Hiten.

This is an encore episode. In this first ever podcast of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten chat about why they are starting the podcast and they unsuccessfully try to come up with a name for it. This ones all entertainment so get ready to laugh. The post 373: Encore Episode: How It All Began appeared first on The Startup Chat with Steli & Hiten.

This is an encore episode. When a business grows and scales up, it’s very easy to lose touch with the lifeline of your business—the customers. Many people begin to outsource their customer support and the gap between the CEO or founder with the customer grows wider and wider. Steli and Hiten warn against the tendency to forget about the importance of retrieving those customer insights. Since customers ultimately drive our success and inform us of how we can improve, Steli and Hiten talk about the different ways we can keep the connection going strong. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: tips on how to stay close to your customer 00:38 – Customer intimacy is what Steli and his team discussed on their team retreat in Dublin 01:28 – Hiten’s tip if you’re in sales: consider getting a sales call 02:06 – “Sales calls give you one type of insight” 02:32 – Doing customer support is also useful 03:27 – For Hiten, customer support is key 04:00 – In Close.io’s first year, Steli’s team answered customer tickets the whole time 05:15 – Outsourcing your support is one thing Steli will never understand 05:46 – Visit and spend time with your customers in person 07:11 – Steli has been doing customer meetups this year and the results are powerful   07:42 – Now, Steli and his team are thinking about having customer dinners in small groups 08:41 – Think about how many customers you want to connect with during the week 10:01 – As Close.io grew, they fell into the trap of talking to managers and high-level decision makers instead of talking to their users 11:46 – Stay in-touch with the end users 12:16 – Have parts of your company talk to end users to get feedback 13:56 – When your company grows, you get so busy internally that you forget about external factors, including your customers 14:55 – Fight forgetfulness 15:40 – Without customers, you don’t have a business! 3 Key Points: Staying close to your customers is one way to check the pulse of your business. Handling customer support yourself is the best way to connect with your customers. Never forget that without your customers, you don’t have a business. Steli Efti: Hey, everybody. This is Steli Efti. Hiten Shah: This is Hiten Shah. Steli Efti: In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, we’re going to do a tips episode on  how to stay close to your customer as your business grows. We’ve talked about this  many times with Heaton. Whoever understands that customer best ultimately will own that relationship and  will get those customers. This was a big topic recently in our team. We just  did a team retreat in Dublin Heaton and … Hiten Shah: Cool. Steli Efti: A big topic was customer intimacy. How can we stay close and close into our  customers to serve them better, to understand them better, to get more insights. So why  don’t we just go back and forth on the tips and share ways that people  can stay close to their customers and cultivate customer intimacy as they’re building, launching, and growing their business? Hiten Shah: Okay, I’m going to start by asking you a question. Steli Efti: Boom. Let’s go. Hiten Shah: This is kind of a tip, but it’s like, when’s the last time you got  on a sales call yourself for Close.io? Steli Efti: That probably was four or five weeks ago. Hiten Shah: Cool, great. I think one tip I have is if you’re doing sales and you  have a sales team, as executives under CEOs, even the marketer on the team, whatever,  should just consider getting on a sales call. Whether it’s to listen in or actually  do the sale. That’s my crazy idea to kick it off. I’m glad you said  four or five weeks ago and not a year ago. Steli Efti: I love it. Yeah, and I feel even guilty saying that, because I was like,  Yeah, I … Hiten Shah: Yeah, I figured. Steli Efti: I feel like I should do this more often. All right, but building on that  tip, so … I think there’s almost … There’s a few function in the team  that are going to be really close to the customer, right? Sales calls gives you  one type of insight. Hiten Shah: Yup. Steli Efti: Usually you’re talking to prospects. People that are not yet customers. You could do support.  I just saw recently some … A tweet became really popular. It was showing a  founder doing customer support. I think in email and on the phone. A founder CEO,  and then it was just some famous VC tweeted it, and it became a whole  thing. But doing customer support even if it’s just one week out of the month  or one week out of the quarter or a day, could be super useful. Hiten Shah: Yeah, for my first two products, I did customer support for the first two years. Steli Efti: They go two years? Hiten Shah: For most of that time, it was doing it myself. It’s just because nobody else  … Yeah, there’s just nobody else on the teams to do it. It just wasn’t  their problem, and they were doing other stuff that was much more important that doing  customer support. I was doing it. That made it so that I was so close  to the customer. We were able to iterate on that. Even at Crazy Egg, after  those two years, my wife Amy does a lot for that company. She was just basically literally we built a lot of product just by looking at customer support and  improving it based on what we heard. Then until we kind of built the team  out and things like that. I would say that for me customer support is key.  I mean right now for any of the products that we have that are kind  of at earlier stage, it’s literally the founders doing support. We don’t have a support  team. We don’t outsource it anywhere. We just do it, so I can’t highlight what  you said enough. I know that tweet that was shared. I retweeted it too was  out there, but I almost started laughing. I actually literally laughed my ass off when  I saw the tweet, because I’m, “Wait, this should be something everybody does. I don’t  understand why this tweet is so popular.” Steli Efti: Yeah, it’s because they don’t. For us, I think for … When we launched Close  the first year, basically everybody was doing support. We’re a team of six people. We  all had accounts on our support desk software, and we all would go in there  and answer tickets at all times. Then as support started ramping up, one of the  tree co-founders Antony basically became the first full-time person on support. He for the three  or four years was full-time doing support as one of the founders. He built a  support team and just this year, he kind of was pushed out of support. He’s  now just going in there occasionally like we all do, but for the first three  and a half – four years one of the founders was doing full-time support. Being  super, super close to the customers that way. Doing support regularly is just a super  powerful way to hear the pain points of your customers, to understand how they truly  feel about your product, once they’ve been using it for a while. It’s super important  thing to understand your customers. Outsourcing support is something that just I will never understand.  How? Why would you want to take this amazing thing that gets you really, really  close to your customers and give it to a stranger? Then lose out on all  that relationship building. Lose out on all that understanding. Lose out on all the ideas  on how to improve your product. That just seems crazy to me. All right, so  but in the vein of going back and forth, another things I’ll point out and  another thing you should be doing. I’ve said this many, many times, and I’ll keep  saying it: visiting your customers. Spending time with your customers in person. There’s really …  There’s three flavors to we’ve tried out a lot this year. The third one we’re  just about to test and try out. One is you can go and visit your customers, especially if it’s B2B, you can just go to their office and visit them.  There’s nothing more powerful than that. There’s nothing more powerful than visiting your customer in  their natural habitat. Seeing how they use your product. See? There’s also something incredibly gratifying.  I was just in London and we visited a big customer, and walking to a  room full screens where there’s I don’t know, 50, 60 people, and seeing your software in all these screens. I don’t know, but there’s something uniquely gratifying and fulfilling about  that, that you can’t get by just looking at a dashboard with X amount of  users using your product today. You can just see your software out in the wild  being used by real people just can be a big boost for motivation and inspiration.  But talking to these users, hearing about their problems, seeing what other software they’re using  on their computer setups, talking to management and asking … Learning about their growth goals  and how your software is going to help them or hinder them. There’s so much  insight, so much context. When you visit customers it’s just … It’s one of the  most powerful ways to develop intimacy. On top of that, one thing we’ve started doing  this year and it’s been very, very successful is doing customer meetups. We visit a  bunch of customers, but then we’ll throw an event one night and we’ll just invite  all customers in the city to drop by, have drinks, talk to us. We’ll show  them a little bit about the roadmap and the things we are about to build  in the future and get feedback and get Q&A session with them. These events have  been incredibly useful and powerful. Having our customers mingle with each other, give each other  tips that’s been super, super useful. One thing we are about to try out, something  we haven’t done yet is to do customer dinners. So going to a city and  inviting a smaller group, but instead of doing a big meetup with tons and tons  of folks showing up, you just select maybe five to 10 people and you’d invite  them to dinner. You have two hours of a really intimate dinner with them, where  you talk about their goals, their challenges, your product, their products, what they’re doing. Just  establish even more intimate and really in-depth, good relationship. We’re going to be trying that  out soon, but just spend time with your customers. Visit them, invite them to parties  and events, go out for dinner with them. It’s one of the most powerful things  for you to understand your customers better and build the right things for them and  succeed. That’s a really, really big one. Hiten Shah: Couldn’t agree more. I mean whatever you can do to get close to them and  do it on a regular basis. That’s just exactly why I started with my question.  I think there’s a really simple trick, tip, whatever, that really works, which is just  think to yourself how many … Whether it’s the beginning of the week or end  of the week, how many customers am I going to talk to this week? Regardless  of what part of the team you’re on. I think that can be really useful.  I know sales people are doing that all the time, because some customer support people  are doing it all the time. One of the key kind of challenges as a  company scales that people have is the founders getting further and further away from the  customer and relying on team members to stay close to the customer. That’s why I  like … One thing I’ve seen really great CEOs do is they … Especially when  they … Let’s say they take over as CEO of a company, they actually do  customer visits in person. As part of their onboarding process into the company, so that  they can get a really intimate perspective from the customers about what’s up with the  product and what’s going on and say hi to them. Steli Efti: I love that. Let me ask you this. One thing that we realize is sometimes  you start … As you start building your product, you’re serving a specific user. In  our case, we were the first CRM to really focus on the salesperson, so not  to build CRM to sell to management, but we’re building a CRM to empower the  end user, the salesperson. That made us make a lot of decisions very differently from  all the other competitors in the market. That really formed a product philosophy and point  of view, and made Close what it is and what it was. But as the  business grew, one funny thing is as we started building a success team, as we  started taking care of our biggest customers, we fell into a potential trap of spending  more and more time talking to the managers, the admins, the high-level decision makers at  our customers. Have them be kind of the gate keeper and the filter through which we were receiving feedback, so we would have … The earliest we would talk to  every single user, but as our customers grew and as our business grew and now  we have a shit ton of customers, we started naturally just getting a point of  contact. That point of contact naturally started being some manager or some higher up person that’s not really doing the job of sales. So now instead of talking to those  40 people that are using the software every single day to close deals, our success  team would talk to that … The head of growth or revenue whatever who was  responsible for managing these people and setting processes in place and all that, but not  using the software every day themselves to close deals, to drive revenue. This happened in  such tiny tabs, steps that we really missed it. We just recently realized, wow we’re  now spending a lot more time talking to these gate keepers than talking to the  end users. We just started thinking about ways for us to reverse that and balance  out that trend. I’m just curious to hear about your thoughts and how do you  … As your business scales and grows, how do you make sure that even bigger  customers … You stay in touch with the end user on an individual level, and not just with some person that … A lot of times these end users they  won’t send support tickets. They won’t call us. They will be talking to their point  person internally and that point person comes and talks to us. How do you circumvent  that to make sure that you don’t just get a very filtered version of reality,  but you still stay in touch with the end users which we care a lot  about? Hiten Shah: That’s great question. The one way I learned that you can do that is by  actually having … I’ll start by saying different parts of the company talk to different  types of customers. The part of the company that tends to talk to that end  user is the part of the company that needs to worry about that end user  experience. Usually, it’s either customer success, customer support, whatever you want to call it, or  product. Usually end product. If you’re doing more user research and actually trying to improve  the experience of the product, you’re generally going to be talking to end users. If  you’re a CEO or an executive or somebody in the company who generally doesn’t talk to the end user, then you can go to that team and do a user  research session with end user and start learning more about them. For me it’s as  a company scales, different parts of the company really start talking to different types of  customers. Just like you said, sales talk to prospects. I consider them a customer, because  they give you a certain perspective. They might be a customer of someone else’s product  right now. But they’re still a customer and they’re still important. All those different types  of customers or different stages of the customers that gives you a different perspective. My  short answer is just support and product tend to talk to that end user a lot more than sales, let’s say. Steli Efti: Right. What else? Is there another tip? Another thing that we can think of in  terms of how to generate customer insights? How to stay really close to a customer  as the team goes? Is there any other pattern that companies fall into as they  start growing where they start losing touch with their customers? Hiten Shah: It’s almost like you get so busy with operations and the internals as your company  that you don’t … You forget about the externals. The externals being people that are  outside your company, those customers. It’s almost like out of a forgetfulness. It’s almost not  out of laziness usually. It’s just out of being forgetful about it. So for me, and I know we’ve talked about this a bunch, but for me, product is everything  and the customer has to use the product. If the product sucks, customer won’t use  it. Oftentimes, they won’t complain about it either. What I’ve seen is if you were  good at founders looking at the product and making improvements, if they were engineers or designers or whatever on their own, over time they have other roles and other jobs.  Someone else is either tasked with either improving the product, or it’s just not getting  improved as much just because you got product market fit. Not you felt like you’re  done, but you kind of felt like you’re done. That’s not the case. To me  it’s just forgetfulness that I am always looking to fight. Fight in the perspective of  … As I said, how many customers did you talk to this week? How many  are you going to talk to next week? Those kind of just questions in your  head regardless of what part of the company you’re in can be really helpful. Because  if you’re not talking to at least a few customers every week, you probably don’t  have a good pulse on what’s going on with the customer. You can look at  data and see that there’s issues or problems or whatever, but at the end of  the day, it’s that customer touch, that customer conversation that’s really going to have the  biggest impact in your learnings about what to do. I think it’s just a forgetfulness.  We all forget at some point that … It’s because we get busy with other  things. But yet, the customer is what matters because without them, we don’t have a  business. Steli Efti: I love it. Let’s just wrap this episode up on that note. Such a powerful  one. All right. Don’t have fear of missing out, have fear of missing touch with  your customers, right? Hiten Shah: That’s right, I like that. Yeah, I like that. Steli Efti: All right. So go and spend time with them, talk to them, listen to them,  and then you’ll be able to serve them better and that’s going to be …  The foundation’s going to allow your business to grow and deserve that growth. That’s it  from us for this episode. We’ll hear you very, very soon. Hiten Shah: Later. The post 372: Encore Episode: Tips to Generate Customer Insights appeared first on The Startup Chat with Steli & Hiten.

Today we’re re-publishing our most popular episode of 2018, which is all about finding product-market fit. The post 371: Encore Episode: How to Find Product Market Fit appeared first on The Startup Chat with Steli & Hiten.