Startup Hypeman: The GOAT to Market Show

2 times a month in the Startup Hypeman newsletter we share a list of upcoming pitch competitions taking place. Why? Because pitch competitions are a great way to fund your startup in the early days — if you can win. No one understands how to execute this better than Dapo Kolawole. He came to me a few years ago when his first startup, Citispoon, was getting off the ground. We worked on his pitch and shortly after I was receiving almost weekly updates from Dapo telling me he won another competition. Now on his second startup, Roomii, Dapo has amassed over $170,000 in total winnings across both companies. He steps to the mic in this week's episode to share his lessons learned and best advice on how to win.Dapo's contact info:Twitter :@dakola07Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dapokolawole/Instagram: dapo.kolawoleThis week's episode is sponsored by Oribi — a marketing analytics tool that shows you what your website visitors actually do while on your site, without using any code. Start your free trial at oribi.io/today and use code HYPEMAN at checkout for 20% off. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's a brand new season of Startup Hypeman: The Podcast! Can you believe we're on our 17th season now? This season we're featuring exclusively past and present clients from the Startup Hypeman portfolio. Kicking off our first episode is Searchspring's CEO Peter Messana. Within 2 months of taking over at Searchspring, the company merged with it's top competitor, Nextopia. It's not easy to show up as the new kid on the block and before you can even drop off brownies at everyone's doorstep you start remodeling. In my conversation with Peter he shares how the deal came together, what metrics they focused on to decide if it was a good move, why they chose to keep the Searchspring brand over Nextopia, and the way they messaged the change to the team.Peter's contact info:LinkedInThis week's episode is sponsored by Oribi — a marketing analytics tool that shows you what your website visitors actually do while on your site, without using any code. Start your free trial at oribi.io/today and use code HYPEMAN at checkout for 20% off. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

700 customers, including Hubspot, Linkedin, and PayPal. $68.1 million in funding. 200+ employees. Next-level brand awareness. Category leader.Do you think all that happens just from direct selling? Think again.Gong has produced, in my opinion, the BEST content in the game. And it's reflecting in those numbers you see above (and oh yeah, nearly all of their content itself gets hundreds and thousands of views, likes, and comments). I've been a huge fan of Gong for the last year so I was really excited to get their Content Strategy Manager, Devin Reed, on for this episode. Devin started as Gong's second sales hire and achieved $1 million in sales before transitioning to content. How have they dominated with their content? Devin lets us inside the Gong war room and shares their creative process.We also talk hip hop, can you guess Devin's favorite rapper of all time?Find Gong online:IG @Gong.ioTwitter @Gong_ioFind Devin @thereedercoAnd head to https://www.startuphypeman.com/articles/devin-reed-podcast for a blog post where Devin expands further on the topic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Most conversations in B2B sales are about how you sell to the person you're speaking with.Ask them the right questions, learn their pains, needs, and goals, give them pricing, send them proposals, etc.There is A TON of content in this area.The oft-overlooked part is how to navigate a multi-stakeholder deal.Most enterprise, and many non-enterprise, sales include a main point-of-contact, influencers, the economic buyer, and the final decision-maker.In these cases, your main point-of-contact has to become your champion, and you have to coach your champion to gain buy-in at these different levels.Because there's not much content about how to do this, I'm especially excited to have had the opportunity to speak with Nikki Ivey, cofounder of SDRDefenders and sales rep at Emtrain, who sells a DEI product to a customer who often has to fight for budget internally.Nikki steps to the mic in this week's episode to share the ins and outs of weaving this tangled web to ultimately win the deal.Find Nikki online:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knownikkiivey/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikki-ivey/Find SDR Defender online:https://www.sdrdefenders.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We are gearing up for Season 17, but in the meantime, enjoy one of our favorites from Season 15!Every leader has a job to not only make decisions for the company, but enable employees to make decisions for themselves.To pave the way but avoid getting in the way.To handhold but not handcuffed.Many leaders struggle with this, especially as more and more responsibilities get delegated.So how do you empower your team to perform their best every single day?Teamworks Sales Director Larry Long steps to the mic this week, bringing his infectious energy with him to talk through his experience and advice, in what I can only describe as like being part of a TEDTalk.Find Larry online:Twitter: https://twitter.com/larrylongjrLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/longjr7/Find Teamworks online:Website: https://www.teamworks.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

3 words: Fill. The. Gap.Traditionally you think of massive companies like AT&T or ADT Security having resellers.But what about for a company on the come-up?At only 5 years young, less than 10 employees, and 200+ customers (including United Airlines and Chic-Fil-A), PeopleVine stumbled into a situation where a customer opportunity led to a partnership, and that partnership evolved into a full-on channel reseller relationship.In this week's episode I welcome their VP of Marketing, Sales, & Success and my friend Mobolaji (Mo) Akintunde to give the lowdown on how it came together, how they've since operationalized it to grow, and how they plan to expand it in the coming months.Mo says you have to fill the gap.Listen in to see what he means.Find Mo online at:Socials:@mobillionaireWebsite: http://mobolaji.co.uk/Find PeopleVine online at:www.peoplevine.comToday's episode is brought to you by Sales Hacker. The world's smartest community of forward-thinking B2B professionals. Grab their latest expert-created articles, webinars, and podcast episodes at www.saleshacker.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We are gearing up for Season 17, but in the meantime, enjoy one of our favorites from Season 14!You know to ask about budget.You know to ask about timeline.You know to ask about what they are looking for in a solution.But when you're selling your product, do you know how to go beyond these surface area "100-level" questions?If you can, you've opened the door to learning about your prospect's true thoughts and opinions, and most importantly their emotions.This is where your 400-level questions live.What are these questions, and how do they influence your sales process?Anita Nielsen, Author of the bestseller "Beat The Bots: How Your Humanity Can Future-Proof Your Tech Sales Career", and Owner of LDK Advisory Services, steps to the mic this week and takes us to school on the topic.Find LDK Advisory online:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ldkadvisoryWebsite: www.ldkadvisory.comToday's episode is brought to you by Sales Hacker. The world's smartest community of forward-thinking B2B professionals. Grab their latest expert-created articles, webinars, and podcast episodes at www.saleshacker.comPLUS -- hear from me and 40+ other leading sales professionals this summer in the Blissful Prospecting Think Outside The Script summer virtual tour! All talks are live and interactive, sign up at tour.blissfulprospecting.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We are gearing up for Season 17, but in the meantime, enjoy one of our favorites from Season 12!As marketplace startups become more and more popular, the strategy to capture the market becomes increasingly important, AND nuanced.After raising a $400k angel round to begin 2019, Melbourne-based wellbeing marketplace Avaana focused the year on owning the B2B side first -- to the tune of over 1,200 practitioners now onboard.Avaana is a Startup Hypeman client and in my conversation with Rohan, we talk through how they've successfully formed their footprint on one side of the market. It's a great conversation exploring how and why they underpromise, how their mission dictates who they target, and why Rohan believes the most overlooked but impactful element is TRUST.Find Rohan and Avaana online:IG@avaanawellbeingwww.avaana.com.auPlus, this week on Startup Open Mic: Goodfynd.Today's episode is brought to you by Sales Hacker. The world's smartest community of forward-thinking B2B professionals. Grab their latest expert-created articles, webinars, and podcast episodes at www.saleshacker.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You've heard it before: A Founder talks about the great idea they are building, and then when you ask them how it will work they reply with zeal, "MARKETPLACE!" Now, I'm not saying that's inherently a bad idea, but many companies are inherently misguided in their building of a marketplace. We're seeing the long-term business model viability of companies like ClassPass, DoorDash, and others get tested after years where it seemed like these companies were invincible. Shelly Patel has spent her career in strategy and operations roles building up marketplaces for companies like Uber, ChefHero, Groupon, and her newest role as Director of Operations at Alkeme Health, a SaaS content marketplace for mental health. She joins me in our season finale to drop a healthy dose of reality on what it really takes to build a successful marketplace.Find Shelly online:https://www.linkedin.com/in/shellyaggarwal/Find Alkeme online:https://alkemehealth.com/Plus hear the elevator pitch of Startup Hypeman portfolio client Avaana using the Que PASA Elevator Pitch Formula!™ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There's a distinct difference between selling a product that everyone and their mother has heard of (think SEO or payroll software) versus selling a product that virtually no one has heard of. The former starts with a baseline understanding of what the product offers, how it typically behaves, what the pricing guardrails are, etc. The latter there is no baseline understanding — of anything. So what do you do? StoryFit CEO Monica Landers is working to bring Artificial Intelligence to the scrip writing process in movies and television. Not only has A.I. never been heard of in this scenario, but the industry overall has a history of producing shows and movies that demonize A.I.'s very existence (think of any robot takeover film). She steps to the mic in this week's episode to share how StoryFit is overcoming this and introducing their technology to a market that is very hesitant.Find Monica online:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/molanders/Find StoryFit online:https://www.storyfit.com/Plus hear the elevator pitch of Startup Hypeman portfolio client Avaana using the Que PASA Elevator Pitch Formula!™ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.