Hunters and Unicorns

In this episode of 'RAW STORIES LIVE' we sit down with David Habibian, VP of Channel and Alliances at Rubrik. David shares the story of his greatest career challenge—facing a seemingly insurmountable quota—and how his focus on temperament and ownership became the foundation for his leadership success. From massive wins to lessons learned through failure, David reveals the single most important trait for thriving in leadership, even in the midst of crisis and chaos. 🏹 Key Topics Covered: 00:00 Intro 00:43 Overcoming Career Failure 02:16 The Most Important Trait in Leadership 06:54 Learning from Career Setbacks 10:35 Mobilizing Teams Around Common Goals 13:28 Staying Calm in Chaos 14:11 Lessons from “Ride of a Lifetime” ⚡️ Main Lessons: 1. Temperament Is Key in Leadership: Remaining calm, focused, and composed during times of chaos and crisis is a vital trait for effective leadership. It earns trust and inspires teams to follow your lead, even in difficult situations. 2. Ownership Drives Success: Taking full responsibility for outcomes—whether they’re wins or failures—demonstrates accountability and earns respect. Ownership creates a foundation for rallying teams around common goals. 3. Failure Is a Stepping Stone: Career setbacks can lead to significant growth. David’s biggest failure became the moment his leadership potential was recognized, proving that resilience and reflection turn obstacles into opportunities. 4. Mobilizing Teams Around a Shared Vision: Leadership isn’t about individual effort but aligning resources and inspiring collaboration across teams to achieve ambitious objectives. 🙌 Thanks for listening! This episode was hosted by Simon Kouttis and Ollie Kuehne, founders of Hunters & Unicorns, and post-produced by the team at videoforce.pro If you enjoyed this episode, please drop a like/share and subscribe to our channel! 🔗 Episode's Links: David Habibian on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/example Rubrik website: http://rubrik.com 🦄 Connect with Hunters & Unicorns: Website: http://huntersandunicorns.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/HuntersUn1corns Instagram: http://instagram.com/huntersandunicorns Blog: http://huntersandunicorns.com/blog 💬 Notable Quotes: "Leadership isn’t about the wins; it’s about who follows you in chaos." "Poise and ownership are the foundation of great leadership." "Stay calm, stay focused, and trust the process."

Zahir Abdelouhab, SVP EMEA at Navan, shares his insights on first-line leadership in software sales. He discusses the immense challenges of transitioning from a high-performing salesperson to a people-centric leader. Zahir emphasizes embracing failure as a critical component for growth and building high-performing teams. He also highlights the importance of choosing the right company for career development and developing a unique leadership style that prioritizes team success over individual accolades.

In this engaging conversation, Varun Mohan, CEO and Co Founder of Codeium, shares his journey of building a unicorn AI company in just three and half years. He discusses the importance of having fun in business, the challenges of navigating the startup landscape, and the critical role of sales strategy and market fit. Varun emphasizes the future of AI and its impact on software development, as well as Codeium's vision to revolutionize the industry. He also highlights the significance of cultural principles, lean operations, and personal motivation in driving success.   Key Takeaways Having fun is essential in business. Codeium achieved unicorn status in three years. Intellectual honesty is vital for startups. A product must solve real pain for customers. ROI is crucial for AI products. Running lean is important for sustainability. It's more valuable to be adaptable than to be right. Personal motivation drives success in startups. Surrounding yourself with smarter people is key.  

In this conversation, Simon and Ollie interview Michael Musselman, the VP of Channel and Alliances at Astronomer. They discuss the evolving landscape of channel sales and partnerships, particularly in the context of cloud service providers like AWS, Google, and Azure. Michael shares his insights on building successful partnerships, the importance of understanding the partner's business, and the need for a give-and-take relationship. He also emphasizes the value of aligning with the market trends and leveraging the power of the cloud service providers. Overall, the conversation highlights the importance of effective channel strategies in driving business growth. In this conversation, Michael Musselman discusses the importance of leveraging the channel and partner strategy to scale revenue for startups. He emphasizes the need to build relationships with cloud service providers and other strategic partners to generate qualified pipeline and close deals faster. Musselman introduces the concept of the 5 C's (Co-sell, Co-build, Co-market, Consumption, and Champions) as a framework for evaluating and developing successful partnerships. He also highlights the growing influence of cloud service providers in the software sales market and the need for companies to adapt to this trend. Key Takeaways: • Building successful partnerships requires understanding the partner's business and adding value to their operations. • The evolving market trends indicate that every business is becoming a technology or software business, and cloud service providers play a crucial role in this transformation. • Effective channel strategies involve aligning with market trends, leveraging the power of cloud service providers, and nurturing strong relationships with partners. • Balancing the give-and-take relationship in partnerships is essential, where adding value to the partner's business should come before asking for favors. • The channel sales role requires individuals with attributes like an entrepreneurial spirit, curiosity, and a growth mindset. Leveraging the channel and partner strategy can have a significant impact on the size and speed of deals. • Building relationships with cloud service providers and strategic partners is crucial for generating qualified pipeline and closing deals faster. • The 5 C's (Co-sell, Co-build, Co-market, Consumption, and Champions) provide a framework for evaluating and developing successful partnerships. • Cloud service providers are playing an increasingly influential role in the software sales market, and companies need to adapt to this trend.

Gardner Johnson discusses his experiences and challenges in building successful channel ecosystems. He shares his journey from direct sales to the channel and how he developed a playbook for repeatable and scalable channel success. Gardner emphasizes the importance of data and metrics in understanding partner performance and driving success. He also highlights the need for buy-in from the entire go-to-market organization and the value that a well-executed partner ecosystem can bring. The hiring criteria for partner managers are similar to those for account managers, focusing on intelligence, entrepreneurship, and a sense of urgency. In this conversation, Gardner and the hosts discuss the qualities and skills required for success in partner management roles. They highlight the importance of drive, coachability, and experience in building successful partnerships. They also explore the challenges of convincing AEs to transition into partner roles and the need to check ego and take a backseat in sales campaigns. The conversation delves into the critical role of champion building in partner management and the need to build champions both internally and externally. They also discuss the evolving role of the channel in the changing buyer landscape and the emergence of marketplaces. Gardner shares his insights on why the channel is becoming more important and the potential for a channel-first approach. The conversation concludes with Gardner discussing his new role at Codeium and the exciting opportunities in leveraging AI and large language models to solve specific business problems. Key Takeaways • Building a successful channel ecosystem requires buy-in from the entire go-to-market organization. • Data and metrics are crucial in understanding partner performance and driving success. • A well-executed partner ecosystem can bring significant value to an organization. • The hiring criteria for partner managers are similar to those for account managers, focusing on intelligence, entrepreneurship, and a sense of urgency. Drive, coachability, and experience are key qualities for success in partner management roles. • Convincing AEs to transition into partner roles can be a challenge, as it requires checking ego and taking a backseat in sales campaigns. • Champion building is crucial in partner management, both internally and externally. • Enablement plays a critical role in building successful partner ecosystems. • The channel is becoming more important due to the emergence of marketplaces and changing buyer behaviors. • AI and large language models offer opportunities to solve specific business problems and drive meaningful business value.

Ghazal Asif Fahadi, VP of Channels, Alliances, and Inside Sales at Rubrik, shares her expertise on the importance of channel partnerships in software sales. She highlights two primary reasons why companies often get the channel playbook wrong: inadequate measurement of channel impact and working with too many partners. Ghazal emphasizes that companies often fail to track the incremental contribution of the channel to the business, leading to mistrust and self-sourcing of deals. To address this, she recommends measuring the deals that are sourced by partners and approved by reps to ensure accurate tracking. This approach will enable companies to understand the channel's true impact and make data-driven decisions. Ghazal advises companies to highly qualify their partners, commit to a few strategic partners, and invest in them instead of trying to work with a large number of partners. This strategic approach will allow companies to build stronger relationships, improve focus, and increase accountability. Ghazal attributes the failure of the conventional channel playbook to the lack of understanding of the channel's true impact, particularly among software companies. She notes that many large technology companies that have grown up in the hardware industry may not fully comprehend the importance of measuring channel contributions. This gap in understanding can lead to misguided strategies and ineffective channel partnerships. Ghazal shares a personal anecdote about a turning point at AppDynamics, where they realized the need to establish leading indicators for their channel partners. These leading indicators would help track progress, ensure accountability, and provide a more sales-organization-like approach to the channel. Rubrik has implemented a set of leading indicators to measure the performance of their channel partners, including: * Deal registration: The number of deal registrations submitted by partners * Deal registration conversion: The conversion rate of deal registrations into opportunities * Opportunity conversion: The conversion rate of opportunities into closed deals * Save the Data: A group of people who learn about the chaos caused by cyber attacks and attend events that generate pipeline * Account mapping: Research and identification of high-potential accounts * Propensity to buy: Researching and identifying accounts with a higher likelihood of purchasing the company's technology

The Importance of Channel Sales and Leveraging Partnerships Tom Henderson, VP of Worldwide Channel at Wiz, delves into the world of channel sales and provides valuable insights on how to implement a successful channel go-to-market strategy. As someone who has spent years working in the channel sales ecosystem, Tom shares his personal experiences and expertise, highlighting the misconceptions and strategies that companies often overlook. According to Tom, many playbook companies struggle to effectively leverage the channel due to a lack of understanding of how to build a channel sales motion. He attributes this to a focus on direct sales and neglecting the importance of building relationships with partners. Tom emphasizes the need for a channel-forward approach, where companies prioritize building trust and relationships with partners to generate revenue. Tom highlights the numerous benefits of leveraging the channel, including reduced rep ramp time, bigger deal sizes, and faster deal cycles. He also mentions the importance of pipeline generation and marrying it with channel sales. Tom suggests that companies should focus on understanding what their partners do well and building champions, as this is key to successful deal-making. The podcast stresses the importance of building trust and relationships with partners to generate revenue. Tom emphasizes the need for executives to provide sponsorship and support, as well as for companies to spend time with partners and build trust. This trust is essential for partners to generate revenue and for companies to achieve their goals. Tom emphasizes the importance of executive sponsorship and building champions at the executive level to help reps become more productive. He suggests that having a business partner mindset is essential for success, and that companies like Pure Storage have demonstrated this by making their channel person a business partner of the second-line manager. The podcast also discusses the importance of having a playbook and structure to make the most of the channel's potential. Tom has developed a playbook that has evolved through his different jobs and companies, and emphasizes the importance of getting reps productive and having good RD enablement. Tom speaks about building a team with a mix of experienced sales reps and people who have run their own companies. He emphasizes the importance of molding each person's growth and development, and suggests that it's not necessary to hire people with 10,000 hours of experience, but rather those who are curious and have good DNA. Tom's playbook is quite prescribed, but he emphasizes that it can be adjusted to fit the channel by moving a few parts. He suggests that having a business partner mindset and a clear structure is essential for success in the channel.

Arturo Marin, CRO of cast.ai, shares his journey from talented salesperson to successful leader. Reflects on early career challenges, mentorship, and leadership success. Emphasizes adaptability, humility, mentorship, and diversity in leadership. Highlights lessons learned, personal growth, and the value of surrounding oneself with influential individuals.

**Finding Product-Market Fit and Building a Successful Company** Laurent Gil, co-founder and Chief Product Officer of cast.ai, shares his insights on finding product-market fit and how it drives organizational success. Discover how elite sales, combined with product-market fit, create a successful company. **Journey as an Entrepreneur** Laurent recounts his entrepreneurial journey, from his 2005 startup using facial recognition technology acquired by Google to founding a cybersecurity company leveraging GPUs for machine learning. Learn how he overcame skepticism and demonstrated the potential of facial recognition, paving the way for digital sharing and social media. **From Idea to Success** Laurent emphasizes that commercial viability comes from solving real problems, not just building cool products. He underscores the importance of understanding issues and developing effective solutions. **Cast AI: Optimizing Cloud Costs** Laurent's company, Cast AI, tackles the problem of cloud over-provisioning, where 87% of machine utilization is wasted. Cast AI's engine dynamically adjusts resources in real-time to optimize costs, especially for applications with variable user traffic. **Key Insights** - Over-provisioning wastes 87% of machine utilization. - Cast AI dynamically adjusts cloud resources to optimize costs. - Beneficial for applications with variable user traffic. **Case Study: Bank Client** Learn how a bank client used Cast AI to scale compute resources based on user activity, minimizing waste and reducing costs during off-peak hours. **Challenges in Selecting Machine Types** Laurent discusses the difficulty of choosing the right machine type from numerous options. Cast AI automates this process, selecting the most efficient machine based on real-time usage and cloud provider availability. **Traction and Scalability** Discover how Cast AI developed its technology with a California client, optimized their compute resources, and gained traction with other clients, becoming a scalable solution for cloud optimization. **Actionable Insights** - Understand and solve real problems. - Optimize cloud costs to reduce waste. - Utilize technology like Cast AI for real-time resource adjustment. Laurent's experiences offer valuable lessons for entrepreneurs and tech professionals on finding product-market fit and building successful companies.

The Journey of a Founding Entrepreneur: Leveraging Experience and Data to Build a Successful E-commerce Solution Background and Motivation Eli Finkelshteyn, CEO and founder of Constructor, has a background in computational linguistics and data science, which led him to work in search technology. His experience in search algorithms and his observation of e-commerce companies re-reinventing the wheel sparked the idea to build a specialized search solution for e-commerce. The Founding Journey Finkelshteyn saved for years and gained industry understanding before starting his company. He spent three months building the product before starting testing in different environments. The early stages of the business were a rollercoaster, but he remained driven to prove the value of his solution. Product-Market Fit and ROI The company's goal is to provide a search technology that ecommerce businesses can use to improve their customer experience and increase revenue. Finkelshteyn emphasizes the importance of finding product-market fit, creating a compelling event that customers need, and mapping that to a clear return on investment. Case Study: Solving a Problem for a Client The company's co-founder shares the story of how they founded their company by solving a problem for a client. The company started by solving a problem for an e-commerce company, focusing on metrics that the business cared about, such as revenue, conversions, and profit. The product improved the search functionality for the client, leading to a 2% increase in conversions and a significant return on investment. Overcoming Sales Challenges Eli emphasizes how the focus was on building a product that solved a problem which in turn enabled them to rely on the data to speak for itself. They would convince a customer to try their product and demonstrate the value of their product by showcasing the results in the customer's own data. Revenue Growth and Partnerships The company has seen significant growth, with data showing that they are generating an additional $10-20 million in revenue due to their product. The speaker notes that they are working with big companies and that even a small percentage lift in revenue can result in significant gains. The company has also partnered with Bernd Mahrlein, a respected expert in the field, to improve their marketing and sales approach. Unique Sales Process The company's sales process is focused on providing proof to customers within their own data before they pay. They use a unique process that involves installing two lines of JavaScript on a customer's website to collect anonymized clickstream data. This data is then used to identify areas where the customer's product discovery is falling down and where customers are not finding what they are looking for. Actionable Insights 1. Focus on data-driven decision making: Rely on your product's capabilities to speak for themselves, rather than relying solely on sales and marketing efforts. 2. Focus on solving a specific problem: Identify a specific problem that your product solves and tailor your marketing and sales efforts to that specific need. 3. Collaborate with industry experts: Partner with respected experts in your field to improve your marketing and sales approach. 4. Focus on ROI: Emphasize the clear return on investment that your product provides to customers. By following these actionable insights, entrepreneurs can learn from Eli Finkelshteyn's journey and gain valuable insights into building a successful e-commerce solution.