Operational Sweat Equity w/ Tristin Sweeney | Ep. 76

In this episode David and Gary chat with Tristin Sweeney, a Startup Operations and Product Consultant who prides efficiency, metrics and straight talk as some of his organizational strengths. They discuss how to leverage your sweat equity and to stay on top of your devs.

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/tristin-sweeney/

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David Baxter has been designing, building, and advising startups and businesses for over ten years. His passion, knowledge, and brutal honesty have helped dozens of companies get their start.

In Biz/Dev, David and award-winning Creative Director Gary Voigt talk about current events and how they affect the world of startups, entrepreneurship, software development, and culture.

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Transcript

David: 0:05

Hi, everyone, welcome to the biz dev Podcast, the podcast about developing your business. I'm David Baxter, your host and I am joined by my Mary Kay associate Gary Voight. How's it going, man? I'm very, very close to that pink Cadillac. I got the big sticker across the back window, but that pink Cadillacs mine. I'm telling you nice, nice getting to that Ruby status. Well done. Well done. That's because all the foundation that I buy from you every day, I knew about the car you knew about the status name? Yeah. Oh. I guess I could go on about MLMs forever. One of our clients years ago was she was a consultant for what was her Rodan and Fields. And she was really high up. And so she went all into how all that stuff works. It is crazy. Not that one specifically. She didn't she was just about generally, but Well, it was Yeah, crazy stuff anyway. So we are joined. Or more importantly, we are joined by Tristan Sweeney, who is a startup operations and product consultant. So tell me a little bit about yourself and your company.

Tristin: 1:07

Absolutely, David, Gary, thank you both for having me here. I do appreciate you guys invited me to be on the podcast, it's really cool opportunity. A little bit about myself. So I have been fascinated with entrepreneurship since I was a little kid. It is I think oftentimes, people who find themselves in that position realized pretty early on that fascination with it in some capacity. And I have that same experience that then followed me through middle school, in high school and into college. And that's really, really kind of narrowed down how that was going to look for myself. And I really became enamored with this concept of startups, and how they operate and how they're different from kind of growth and enterprise sized companies. And so that's what I ended up sort of focusing my education on, at least in the later stages, and then really dove right into spending times kind of in the trenches with startups, whether it be I've had my own company before, as well as working with a nice little list of early stage seed stage companies and really getting to understand the operations behind them. Where I really found fascination was a lot of the things that entrepreneurs don't like, which is the back end operations and the things that kind of make the company take, which is the not sexy part of the startup world, it's the stuff that just kind of has to get done. But that's really where I found sort of a love and a passion for, for working in that space and really helping founders. Check that box. And as we'll kind of refer to traction a little later as well. The idea of an integrator, that's really where I kind of find myself.

David: 2:52

So you go into let me see if I can paraphrase that so my little mind can understand it, you walk into a company, now these companies, you're saying seed stage, so that usually founder plus a dude or dudette, right? There's only a few of them at that stage. Right, generally in seed stage. So when you're talking about operations and stuff, it's pretty minimal at that place, are you just laying the groundwork in the foundation for them to build off of because they're in a place where growth is going to start? Or is it before growth happens that you're just kind of planting this?

Tristin: 3:26

I think it depends on how it depends on how aware the founding team is of what they need. So seed stage I think can be a lot of things. So for a lot of companies seed stage, you have you know, you have a team, you have product market fit, you're sort of moving towards that, that growth stage precede would be kind of what what I would describe as more of what you're saying, were really over a couple of founders may be really starting to just formulate the idea. In most situations, that's not at least now where I am in my career now where I would plug in. So it's usually once like, Alright, we've figured out we have product market fit. We've sort of tested this idea in a way that we've started building our MVP, or we already have our MVP, and we are really ready to push towards growing this business in the market. Or what oftentimes happens happens is they did that. And they started this growth. And now they have real growing pains associated with the fact that they didn't think about operations and sort of strategic ways of moving customers through their process beforehand. And now they have the pain points of it, and they need to rapidly fix it, so that they can continue to grow and it doesn't become a barrier.

David: 4:36

They find they know that they need it. This is we have the same problem. People need what we do, but they don't even know what to Google to find it like I I need a startup operations guy. That's not something you're going to type. So how do how does that work? How do you find these people because they don't exist. You can't go and buy a list from you know, dozens and brands. st for all the startups in your area. It's really hard to market that startups, specifically because they don't really exist yet.

Tristin: 5:07

Yeah, no, it's true, like. So I think like anything else, whether it be sales or marketing, the idea is to meet somebody where they already are. So in a digital ad space, that's going to be an advertising on a platform that they're already using, or it's gonna be targeting keywords or searching. For me, it's meeting these entrepreneurs and these founders where there are where they already are, they're going to these networking events, they're going to start up specific programming, they are going to the meetups. And for me, it's a lot about just going and meeting people who then more than anything, word of mouth is how things get around. Because I think what would I think would be difficult, and I have not explored this. So I'm making an assumption here is that like trying to do this, on a nationwide level, feels like it would be sort of near impossible, trying to make yourself known and relevant in every startup hotspot around the country will be really, really challenging. So for me, I've really hyper focused on this triangle locale, because I think one, there's a ton of opportunity. And there's a ton of really interesting companies, too, there's a remarkable pool of talent and people to choose from, to help build these companies. And three, there's a real lack of resources, as much as we see this area as a up and coming startup hub, and a place where innovation is happening. The rest of the country is like loosely aware of it, but where a lot of the major resources are, they're not concentrating efforts here. And so sometimes these these founders are just kind of lost, like they, they know they need help, they don't really know where to look for it. Every door that they knock on is like, Oh, well, if you don't have a million dollars in revenue, we're not gonna talk to you. And that leaves them kind of on this island. And so that's sort of helping meet them where they are, and then build a relationship first and foremost, and go from there.

David: 6:48

So referrals, your, that's a very fancy way of saying we're broke, which is where we live, right? It's like no one spends big bucks on custom software, because they found a Google ad, right. That's, that's just not how it works. And so we're in the same boat. So yeah, we talked about that pretty regularly as networking. You never stop networking. When you're, I guess I should say this. If you're a product company, maybe at some point, if I'm selling jeans, maybe I can stop networking at some point because you get your own gravity, right. They start coming to you. I want my Z cavalry T jeans. I'm coming up for you, Gary. Come on way back, baby. You've got you've got your name. And people come to you your Levi's or whatever, Bugle Boy. Anybody know? Okay. I'm sorry, my wife will appreciate that one. But when you're a when you are a consulting firm, you're never gonna have that gravity. I think when you were saying, Can you be a national firm that does that? I think at that point, you're like Y Combinator, right? You have this national recognition. But I mean, can you create a new Y Combinator for those who don't know, Y Combinator is like, the granddaddy of all accelerator programs, if you like they brought up Airbnb, and I know I'm forgetting a ton. They're all most of the really big ones that dominate the world right now, somehow are related to Y Combinator. And if you to create one of those now would be almost impossible. I mean, TechStars is out there. There's a few of those national names, that they tried to have one here called Startup factory, it worked well for a while and then died. But those are really hard to make. But that's the kind of thing you're talking about if you're on a big scale, but I don't even but even those guys, you know, it's not like Bank of America, right? They're just everywhere, even those guys that are well known, but they still bring them to that they only have one location. So anyway. And also, some of the guests that we've interviewed in the past, most of them actually, networking and referrals are basically top of the list for how they get new business, or at least in the beginning, until they, like David said, have their own gravity. But it seems to be a common thread. The differences if you have a product company, eventually you might be able to wander away like I was. A few episodes ago, I candidly admitted I thought I was done networking. And I thought I had reached a point where we were big enough that in our little neck of the woods, we were getting big. Now that was a dirty, dirty lie. We we we did find we do find we were but we weren't growing with new clients, like our existing clients were growing and using us and we have very low turnover in that regard. But finding new clients requires networking for us. And so I had to swallow my pride and get back out there again, as though I'm a noob, which is fine. It's different to go there when you're by yourself. When you're a one man shop and you're just kind of hanging your shingle on anybody who will pay your billable rate. And you have a team of 10 people that's that's a different field, but it's still networking. I went to a chamber of commerce meeting the other day. And it was first one I've been to. And man, I felt like I was brand new again, like I walked in this room, I know, zero people, and I'm looking around, I'm like, like the kid on his first day of school. And it you know, no friends gonna go sit in the eat in the corner, right. And I've just eaten my little snack because no one was talking to me. And I don't know who to talk to it. And I know the only value I got out of that in terms of learning experience. I mean, it was a cool program. Don't get me wrong. But I know because I've done this before, that it will get better when you first do that the first time. You're the kid at the dance with no date, and you're just open to God, somebody will look at you see this, what my interviews are like. That's just what happens. Tristan has been to a lot of these events. So Tristan might have some pointers, Tristan might have, I guess, some methods or at least some advice to kind of make you feel not like a noob. But someone that's comfortable enough going around and shaking hands.

Tristin: 11:01

Yeah, I think that my number one tactic is nobody wants to be pitched to ever really just as a general rule, unless they specifically invite you. So it's very relational. My, my opening is always what what do you do? Tell me about your world, tell me about what it is that you are doing. And that inevitably, in nearly every situation leads to them following up and saying, and what do you do, unless they really just don't care, in which case, probably a dead end compensation there anyway, and you can move on to the next person. But I find that when you just leave with that is just just being genuinely interested in what they're doing, which, as a business, you also are genuinely interested in what they're doing. And you might realize 30 seconds of the conversation, it's not going to be a fit for you. But that's okay, because that's not actually why you're there. Or at least it's not what you should be here, you're there to build relationships, you are there to listen and hear what other people are doing and find potential good fits for what it is that you do. And so I think when you approach it that way, and you approach people that way, in a way have genuine interest in what they're doing, you're able to kind of quickly develop those those conversations into something that has the potential to be beneficial. And it might be that you drive value to them, because they mentioned something that they need during that conversation. And while you can provide it you know, somebody who can make an introduction, or you might find that they are a direct fit for you. Or they might find that when you start talking, they don't actually need what you have to do. But they know somebody who just told them earlier today, that they were looking for exactly that thing, and they can make that connection. And so I think between being very relational. And then the second piece for me is always trying to provide some sort of value to the other person and the conversation that you're having automatically puts you in a different spot in their list of consideration, if they're going to go look for somebody who's providing the services that you're providing, or if they know somebody looking to provide the services that you're providing. And so that's always my approach is build a relationship and try to provide immediate value, maybe there's something you heard and what they said that you have expertise in, and you have a piece of advice that you can offer anything like that, that just feels that feels because it is genuine, I think helps move that needle and, and expand that network in a meaningful way that can actually lead to, to to new business.

David: 13:21

I want to change gears for a second and dive more into what you're specifically doing. So I'm a seed stage startup dude. And, you know, I've got a product out there. Let's say I've got a v1, that big pixel built me. It's amazing. And like what I did there, Gary, we only got I've got all this ready to go. I've got some traction, I'm starting to notice some what are the what are some early signs that I need your service someone like you what squeaky wheels start showing up early that might make me think I'm about to lose this train.

Tristin: 13:56

So I think there's a few different key areas. So I worked with, I would say two very distinct types of founders. I either work with highly technical founders, who don't have as much of the sort of like business sense, they created something that they're really excited to share with the world, but they don't maybe really know how to share with the world. For for them, it's really about building like a go to market plan. It's about figuring out how are we going to find these customers, how are we going to approach them, you probably need to hire somebody to do sales. Because if that's who you are, you might not be the best person to be to be pitching your product to be selling your product. If you're on the opposite side, and you're not a technical founder at all, and in the businesses that I work with, which are primarily b2b or b2c, SAS or software as a service. If you're a non technical founder, and you have like, let's say you're using a firm, like you guys or like more oftentimes what I see with early early stage stuff is like an outsourced development firm. Then there's going to be a communication gap. There's a language for that. development teams speak in the sense of how they talk about the product, how they talked about what they're building, how they scope out, sprints, and then there's what you want, which is you're like, I want to be able to click that button. And to do this, and there's a gap there somewhere, which is that they need a level of detail that the founder doesn't necessarily have the ability to provide. And the founder doesn't understand what they're saying, as they're talking about developing this product, I oftentimes find that I can sit in the middle there and help that communication in a really productive manner that allows the founder to get what they want in an efficient manner and the development team to be able to utilize their normal language and talk about their product development process and the way that they normally would. And I can kind of communicate back and forth between the two. So with that, pain points will kind of exist in a couple different places on the on the product side, pain points will come up in the sense that they will not feel like they're getting the product that they're asking for on a consistent basis. They're asking for something to be built, it gets built, it's not what they're looking for, that's constantly frustrating, you have a lot of technical debt that goes into that as they're trying to develop, that's one place where I can plug in or they'll start start to feel that pain point. On the flip side, if they're highly technical, you talk about them starting to grow, where they're really going to start to feel pain is when they find themselves focusing on all these really specific problems within the process that's distracting them from focusing on the bigger picture and what they're really trying to do. Oftentimes, it's things like, deals are slipping through the cracks or getting to the, you know, the signature stage, and then things are falling apart, because they don't have a process to support the customer in the way they need to be supported, or they're getting on boarded. But then things are falling apart. And they're having a lot of churn because customer doesn't know how to use the product, or they're having a hard time getting the value out of it, that they were sold. So that can be an implementation problem, it can be a customer success problem. It can be a sales process problem, it can be a problem that you have a sales guy who's pitching and selling something that you can't even offer. Like there's a variety of places where it can appear. But oftentimes, as a founder, you don't have time, or it's the wrong use of your time rather, to get into all those specific areas. It's really you need somebody who has what I would call that co founder capacity to look at all of those problems and deal with them so that you can focus on your sort of hotlist of goals and what you're trying to accomplish. As a founder as moving the business forward in big ways.

David: 17:30

You remind me of a story. I might have told the story before, but that's okay. I'll tell again, because not everybody's heard it. When I was a consultant early on, I was a tadpole developer, I was working for the Florida State, I was in their their House of Representatives. And I was with his big consulting firm, I was very tiny in this thing. And they, the sales guys had brought in an expert and at the time Crystal Reports, just man we got that no problem, we can bring that purple fly him in gonna be an expert. Dude comes in. He's like 23. And it never seen Crystal Reports in his entire life. He had to go and hide behind the closed doors. They call it a ramp up session so that the client had no idea what was happening. And the architect in him learned how to do Crystal Reports. Enough so that we could bamboozle Not we but I was not involved in this interview. But we they could Vamp bamboozle the client to think in Yes, in fact, this guy knew what he's talking about. And that from that point on that left it like a brand on my soul that I never trust salespeople. Ironically, so there you have it.

Tristin: 18:44

Right. And I think that same brand actually exists on consultants and a lot of than a lot of a lot of times, and I don't necessarily think it's unfounded, especially because most people are familiar with like really big consulting firms and what those engagements might look like, and really, really high billing rates, and somebody who's gonna come in, and oftentimes more than anything, they identified problems that you already knew existed. And that's their pitch, we're gonna find the problems for you. And I think while there's maybe a time and a place for certain companies, what I spend a lot of my sort of effort in the way that I've talked to potential customers and potential clients on is I am an impact focused and sort of like hands on focused consultant, I want to come in and I want you to feel like I am as close to a part of your internal team as possible. I'm not there to just sit there and, and work with you in a strategy session and help you figure out what these problems that really you already know are just help you to find them. I'm really there to help you build solutions to those problems, and then implement those solutions for you. Because you don't have to. And that's where I think there's a distinct difference. I'm not a strategic consultant in the sense of I want to come in here and help help you build the plan. It's like, we're going to plan and we're going to come up with a We're gonna identify your problem, we're gonna identify the right solution. And then I'm going to do it for you so that you can focus on the thing that you need to be focused on. Are there things that you need to be going?

David: 20:10

Do you find yourself with the title of fractional CTO a lot?

Tristin: 20:15

I would say more like a fractional CEO, or like a fractional product owner. So yes, those two kind of define exactly what it is that I do.

David: 20:27

Okay. Very cool. Yeah, I mean, a lot of what you're describing is stuff that we fight the same fights is trying to make sure that clients understand nerd speak, in a translating that to business speak, because nerds speak a different world language, not world, that doesn't make any sense. But they speak differently. And they get frustrated if they can't speak in their natural way. So I often find myself in that role. And it's always entertaining. Because as much as a client, we'd love to talk to the developers, what you said earlier is specific, they don't know how to talk to each other. And that miscommunication just always leads to problems. Well, it's funny how many ask us because we make, it's not a secret, we do not generally expose our developers to our clients, for exactly this reason, and they, every time a new client, that, especially if they're coming from a different development situation, like they had a dude who was building everything, and they were used to managing the dude. And they like that in some ways, and they hated it, and others. And generally, when we pointed out, they realized that our way is better, because you don't have you're not saying words you don't understand, and they're not blowing smoke up the skirt. Because they can. And that's probably why they're getting rid of the dude. But you know, it's it's a very common thing. But they always ask us, hey, so are we going to work directly with the devs? And the answer is absolutely not. No. I mean, you can meet them, they're great people that you don't really like them. They're nice, but you don't want to work with them. And that's why we have PMS. And those PMS are the ones who are constantly doing that dance of nerd speak, to bespeak and back and forth. And that's, and that's something I think, if I were to advise a lot of non technical startups, which is getting most of our clients, if you are that guy, don't try to dive in there with the devs. too, too much. I mean, if you're, if you want to, we have some clients that love nerding out, and that's fine. Here, you know, let's do this. So you can talk directly to the dev, that's fine. But most will not do well, they will not handle the you know, mean, devs are a little snowflakes, and they they are particular bunch, and you have I am one I've been with for 20 years, this is coming from a true place, but it's, they speak different. And it's, it's not a bad thing for you to have a little layer in between, I think your product generally will end up better, because the devs will understand their guy better because he's gonna speak their language, and you're gonna understand the business side better. So if you are that founder, founder who's wanting to get in there with the devs. Be careful, because that's a really easy way to absolutely build the wrong, build an app that you did not expect,

Tristin: 23:16

I think it's, it's really a matter of just like getting them to understand it in a, in a way that they are familiar with. So like, like, we have all come to accept that we hire an accountant to do our taxes. It's not because we can't do the taxes, it's not because we can't get in there and spend all the time and try and learn and figure it out. But somebody knows how to do it already. And they don't need you to tell them how to do their job, they need you to give them everything they have, you're gonna have somebody who's managing that project for you, they're gonna have a team of staff accountants who are doing a lot of the number crunching, but you're not going to interface directly with them, and you're not gonna you're looking for the end result. And you want to give them everything they need to do so. And so I think it's just a matter of getting people to a place where they really understand why product and engineering are very different things, even though they're oftentimes kind of construed as the same. They're two components of a system, both of which are equally important.

David: 24:09

That's a good way to explain it. I was gonna say earlier, there's always the time or it comes to a point where the business person will ask something of the depth and the depth will say, not necessarily that they can't do it, but maybe it can't be done that specific way that it was asked, and that little point of head butting right there. Well, I want it to do this. And then def saying, well, we can't make it do that that way, then it's like you can't build it. I want no, that's not what we said, Well, what did you mean? And then right there sparks the negative attitude from both sides going against each other. We always answer that. But the question the answer is always yes. The question is always budget. That's because we can do anything you want. But you probably don't want us to do that. Because it's we're real really big and I think any One who's outsourcing their dev to an external team, even an internal team, if I'm being honest, but the concept of bang for your buck should be always front of mind, because a dev can wander down a rabbit hole, and do lose three or four days on the dumbest stuff. And you've just got to make sure that you've, you've got them focused on the biggest bang for your buck, because, oh, man, you really want that animation to be just like this. Okay, that animation might take four days, to get a just like that. Is it really worth that? I don't think so. So and you need someone who you built up a trust with that can tell, you know, that's a bad idea. And if you don't have that person, you're gonna end up going way over budget, and missing every deadline? Absolutely, we've been doing a bit of a series on a bit, your number two, on hiring, and I know because of some of the past your past roles that you've worked at, you've hired and worked in the hiring business a lot. So what is it, you if you're a startup, or you're hiring your first people, or just getting you know, getting some momentum behind you? What are some strategies that you would say is good for hire and finding the right people?

Tristin: 26:14

Yeah, I think that first and foremost is culture fit. The idea of having somebody who fits within the type of person that both you and anyone else on your team are and the type of people that you'd expect to be joining the company. And culture I think gets tossed around a lot that's used to describe things as kind of casual, as you know, to have a ping pong table at the office. But really, when you talk about culture as it relates to hiring, it's really about the type of people that you are in the way that you work as a team together. So it's how do you expect people to take initiative? How do you expect people respond to leadership? How do you expect people to seek out growth or maintain stability, there's a lot of different aspects of what of how a person acts and what they believe that impacts how they work. And so I think that's the number one thing. Beyond that, it's really about having the right person in the right seat, meaning you can have the right person doing the wrong thing, but having the right person doing the right thing where both they feel fulfilled in the role and what they're doing. And you feel like you're getting the value that you expected, and ideally more out of that role as you planned it.

David: 27:24

Now you're using traction language, right there your fan attraction,

Tristin: 27:28

I am a fan of traction, I think it I think it helps, it really helps to drive an infrastructure to build off of specifically when you're first getting started. And as you enter growth stages, but really giving yourself a a foundation to build off of and modify to become your own because I think you have to, you have to use that as a as a as a guide. But things are going to change for each individual company as those specific situations kind of curate themselves.

David: 27:57

So let me dig in there a little bit. So hiring the right person for the right seat, values, alignment, all those fun things. But the practical side of that, what does that mean? I mean, if I know my values as a company, right, ideally, as the owner, I have taken the time to write that out and figure out who I am in terms of as an enterprise. But how do I practically find someone? I mean, I'm in an interview for an hour, right? What is it that I can do to find success and finding out that right, fit within an hour or so?

Tristin: 28:35

So I think there are a variety of strategies there, there are tools that you can use to help you there are there are companies and businesses that have sort of automated this process using a lot of times it's like survey methodology. So taking a defined set of questions, having the employer answer those questions as it relates to what they are looking for, and then having independently the candidate answer those questions around how they would self describe. And the trick with that is not having them be positives or negatives, but a matter of fact statement and a spectrum, both of which could be construed as positive and or negative, so that it doesn't drive the candidate to a specific answer. And then it's quite simply kind of comparing and contrasting those and figuring out, alright, how close are we what's our standard deviation off of each of these data points. And that can then dry questions that you ask in an interview. If you don't use a system like that, I think you can kind of do the same thing during the interview. So you can take those key areas that you've outlined for yourself around what's important to you, where you lie on that spectrum, and then ask in an ideally non leading way for the candidate to sort of self describe within those areas as well without talking too much about how you feel about it on the front end, which can be tricky because everybody wants to kind of talk about what they're who their company is who they're looking for. But in that specific sense, the more honest of an answer you can get out of the candidate, the better sort of outcome you're going to have from that type of conversation,

David: 30:04

do you know any tricks or any language or questions that can actually get to get to the heart of those? Any hacks? Yeah,

Tristin: 30:14

I mean, there are a so typically when we when we've done in the past them and actually reference one of the companies that I worked with, which is Scouter, we broke everything down into two kind of distinct categories, there was team culture. And then there was workstyle. team culture was about how you actually interact with the team. So it'd be questions around your communication style or questions around the type of expectations that teammates have for one another, in terms of supporting each other within work is a very, you know, is it a very independent team? Or is it a very collaborative team? Is it a very top down leadership is a very flat leadership, those types of kind of scenarios, which different people will thrive in different scenarios as it relates to that. And then we have workstyle, which is very independent, that's about how that person prefers to get their work done. That's where you can talk about do you prefer to be remote? Do you prefer to work in an environment where there's a lot of ambiguity and your role really allows you to find itself? Or do you need a specific set of instructions and when given those, you're going to execute without a doubt 100% on every single one of those questions like that will allow you to one define your role better? Because I think that's one area where a lot of times startups specifically struggle, as they say, I need somebody to do customer success. Awesome. What does that role actually look like for you? And what is that? How do you define what that role is because it can mean a variety of different things in a variety of different companies. And it could be a very independent action, that just sits in a seat by itself, and they handle customer success, or it could be really collaborative with your product team and with your sales team. I think it helps you to find that role. In order to find the right candidate, as much as it helps you find the right candidate.

David: 31:53

It's funny, you talking about hiring makes me realize how bad I am at it. May I tell you why yours is so organized, I, here's how I interview people, I talk like 80% of the time 80% of time is me talking and telling them what the role is and what I expect for them. And then the other 10% of them is agreeing and telling me that that's exactly what they do, and they will be the best at it. That I'm realizing, Man, I'm really bad at this. Just, it's funny, because you're like, hey, ask questions in a non leading way. And I'm like, there is no way that I am not just absolutely wearing a flag around my whole body telling you this is the right answer. And yeah, I'm really bad at that. Okay, I'm gonna go and take some notes to myself, this is really sad. Okay, I'm gonna be really bad. I need ice cream anyway. So if you were you, that's a fun way of saying that five years ago, running into your startup guy, or any of your clients, even honestly, that this would go into both. And they wanted three piece of advice from you. On how do I do this? How do I get into business? How do I do take care of my business? Or how do I run my business? Maybe that's a better way of asking it for you. What would you your top three piece of advice for that startup founder,

Tristin: 33:13

I think my number one piece of advice would be don't force yourself to learn all of the hard lessons yourself. Use the network and the resources and the people that you know who have gone through to learn those lessons from them, and not have to do it on your own. Because I think, to some degree, especially as you get into specific niches of startups there, it's a little bit less of an art and a little more of a science, which I think is potentially a hot take for some people. There are like defined ways that you can do things that are going to set you up for success, much more so than other ways that you could potentially be doing it. And you don't need to figure that out yourself. If other people have already figured it out, we can help you. So I'd say one, use that, that network of resources and ask for and utilize the help that you have to would be under understand the value of equity in both directions. One, you shouldn't give up everything just to try to make this happen. Otherwise, you're gonna get down a lot. And you're gonna stop feeling like what you're doing is worth the amount of time you're putting into it, because you're not going to get enough value out of it on the backend.

David: 34:33

Man, I'm gonna interject there because that one really hits me hard. I, I hate dev companies that come in there and say, hey, you need me. So in order for me, it's not I shouldn't say dev companies. This is usually a dude, but, you know, I'm gonna be your technical guy. And because I'm your technical guy, you can't do this without me. So I need at least 40% of all of the company equity Man, I hate that guy. That guy is lying to you, anybody who's listening to my voice, my dulcet tones here, and you hear that they are lying to you and you need to run. Statistically speaking 90% of your success as a founder is going to be on you, not the dev, the dev on average, if you're doing an equity swap is usually around 4% Give or take, you can plus or minus that a little bit. 4%, not 44. And so I hate that. Sorry, you hit a hot button for me. And I think it's something worth mentioned, that's coming from a developer turned founder. So right trust that. I don't I don't I just really bothers me, because a lot of people, it to me that smoke, right? That it's making yourself seem important. They're in a desperate situation, because they're not technical. And they think that they cannot do this without you. That's not true. Just keep going. Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt your your, your top three, but that one really gets me.

Tristin: 35:53

No, I think you're spot on now. But I do think it is really important to also talk about the flip side of that, which is, Hey, guy or doubt, your idea. And all of your equity in your idea is worth this right now.

David: 36:08

He's holding you and

Tristin: 36:10

holding up zero, yeah, it is worth nothing. How owning 100% of nothing is nothing, do not double down on that. You want to incentivize, and then reward the people who help you make it happen. That's co founders. That's your early team. That's the people, the advisors along the way who are helping you. What it isn't, is letting an investment firm take advantage of you, that's not worth it. Sure. But it is giving them and understanding that they are taking on a lot of risk. If they're going to put money into your company, especially at an early stage. If you have an idea and you're asking somebody to give you money, you are going to have to give up something meaningful for them to see any possibility of it maybe working. And I think sometimes founders don't appreciate that as much, because they're so convinced that it is going to work. And you want the best one, I hope that every founder comes up with an idea it works. Unfortunately, the statistics show otherwise. And so you have to understand that when you're going out and asking for these things. Or if you're asking your buddy who's a dev to work on your project, you know, quit his job and work on your project full time one, unless you've got some real cash to throw around, then you better be ponying up some equity, because you're asking them to take a pretty significant cut of what their life looks like to also make a bet on you. If everything falls apart, you're not going to be able to recoup that cost that they incurred for them. So they're taking a bet too. So I think it's balancing don't, you know, don't give up the whole barn. However, understand that without these key pieces who are going to help you get to that level of success, you're more than likely not going to be able to get there. And it's going to mean you're going to split up the company into some pieces that you're going to share with those people. And they're going to be incentivized both short term and long term as you continue to grow, to want to put in that extra effort to go the extra mile to make things happen. Because they're going to reap and share in the rewards on the back end. The third piece is yeah, the third piece is you have to be passionate about it. And I think that shows itself in two ways you can be really, really passionate about the problem. Or you can be really, really passionate about the the solution and the way in which you're helping people. So for some like for some founders, just developing a cool piece of fast technology is enough of a passion for them to really be able to push forward on a project, they'll come up with a unique solution to a problem that they may maybe don't care as much about. I think that's less common. But I think there are a lot of examples of somebody seeing an issue and being like, I can fix that. I don't come from that world I don't necessarily have a strong passion for but I can fix that. And who it's going to impact. That's going to mean a lot to me. Or it's I have a real passion about this problem. I really want to help solve the waste that is associated with the clothing creation process. And I think I have a way to fix that. Or I really, really am passionate about sales and I have a way to expedite the sales process for software teams. I think those two things are one of those two things are critical to help weather the storm. And where you see almost every successful founder story you hear you hear about these crazy trials and tribulations they go through and what pushed them generally was one of those two things because money is not enough to get you there.

Gary: 39:41

Yeah, we hear the passion thing from every guest that we have one way or another whether it's just talking to them about how they started or if it ends up in there three pieces of advice. The passion thing is a definite rock solid foundation of anybody in any startup to keep moving forward. Now interesting if anybody want I'm gonna get a hold of you and ask for your help and consulting with the best way for them to find you be to reach out on LinkedIn. Or do you have a website or an email address or anything you want to plug?

Tristin: 40:13

Reaching out via LinkedIn is probably the safest bet. It's the best chance of me kind of seeing it. Otherwise, I'm around at all these different networking events, come up and introduce yourself. I love to hear what people are working on whether or not you're interested in what I do. I like to hear what you're doing. I my passion. And what what has driven me to do this is I love helping founders Be the best version of themselves and create companies to try to impact and I want to be able to assist them in that journey and help remove as many barriers as possible. That's why I do this. That's how I ended up in this sort of consulting role is being able to help in a meaningful way, as many of these founders as possible, really, them in their company to be the best versions of themselves that they can be.

David: 40:54

Awesome. I love that.

Gary: 40:57

Thank you very much for your time today. Dressen. Appreciate all the answers you've given us in the advice that you've given. We will link your LinkedIn double link, it will link that in the show notes. So anybody wants to reach out and consult you about your consulting we can

David: 41:11

put a lot of consulting going on.

Gary: 41:15

And if anybody wants to reach out to us, ask us any questions or leave comments you can do so below the video here or email us at Hello at the big pixel dotnet or get in touch through any of our social media channels as well. Awesome.

Tristin: 41:29

Thank you, gentlemen, for having me. I appreciate it.

David: 41:32

Alright everybody, we will see you next week. Have a good