Episode Notes [03:47] Seth's Early Understanding of Questions [04:33] The Power of Questions [05:25] Building Relationships Through Questions [06:41] This is Strategy: Focus on Questions [10:21] Gamifying Questions [11:34] Conversations as Infinite Games [15:32] Creating Tension with Questions [20:46] Effective Questioning Techniques [23:21] Empathy and Engagement [34:33] Strategy and Culture [35:22] Microsoft's Transformation [36:00] Global Perspectives on Questions [39:39] Caring in a Challenging World Resources Mentioned The Dip by Seth Godin Linchpin by Seth Godin Purple Cow by Seth Godin Tribes by Seth Godin This Is Marketing by Seth Godin The Carbon Almanac This is Strategy by Seth Godin Seth's Blog What Does it Sound Like When You Change Your Mind? by Seth Godin Value Creation Masterclass by Seth Godin on Udemy The Strategy Deck by Seth Godin Taylor Swift Jimmy Smith Jimmy Smith Curated Questions Episode Supercuts Priya Parker Techstars Satya Nadella Microsoft Steve Ballmer Acumen Jerry Colonna Unleashing the Idea Virus by Seth Godin Tim Ferriss podcast with Seth Godin Seth Godin website Beauty Pill Producer Ben Ford Questions Asked When did you first understand the power of questions? What do you do to get under the layer to really get down to those lower levels? Is it just follow-up questions, mindset, worldview, and how that works for you? How'd you get this job anyway? What are things like around here? What did your boss do before they were your boss? Wow did you end up with this job? Why are questions such a big part of This is Strategy? If you had to charge ten times as much as you charge now, what would you do differently? If it had to be free, what would you do differently? Who's it for, and what's it for? What is the change we seek to make? How did you choose the questions for The Strategy Deck? How big is our circle of us? How many people do I care about? Is the change we're making contagious? Are there other ways to gamify the use of questions? Any other thoughts on how questions might be gamified? How do we play games with other people where we're aware of what it would be for them to win and for us to win? What is it that you're challenged by? What is it that you want to share? What is it that you're afraid of? If there isn't a change, then why are we wasting our time? Can you define tension? What kind of haircut do you want? How long has it been since your last haircut? How might one think about intentionally creating that question? What factors should someone think about as they use questions to create tension? How was school today? What is the kind of interaction I'm hoping for over time? How do I ask a different sort of question that over time will be answered with how was school today? Were there any easy questions on your math homework? Did anything good happen at school today? What tension am I here to create? What wrong questions continue to be asked? What temperature is it outside? When the person you could have been meets the person you are becoming, is it going to be a cause for celebration or heartbreak? What are the questions we're going to ask each other? What was life like at the dinner table when you were growing up? What are we really trying to accomplish? How do you have this cogent two sentence explanation of what you do? How many clicks can we get per visit? What would happen if there was a webpage that was designed to get you to leave? What were the questions that were being asked by people in authority at Yahoo in 1999? How did the stock do today? Is anything broken? What can you do today that will make the stock go up tomorrow? What are risks worth taking? What are we doing that might not work but that supports our mission? What was the last thing you did that didn't work, and what did we learn from it? What have we done to so delight our core customers that they're telling other people? How has your international circle informed your life of questions? What do I believe that other people don't believe? What do I see that other people don't see? What do I take for granted that other people don't take for granted? What would blank do? What would Bob do? What would Jill do? What would Susan do? What happened to them? What system are they in that made them decide that that was the right thing to do? And then how do we change the system? How given the state of the world, do you manage to continue to care as much as you do? Do you walk to school or take your lunch? If you all can only care if things are going well, then what does that mean about caring? Should I have spent the last 50 years curled up in a ball? How do we go to the foundation and create community action?…
Conversations between the venture investors and operators at Dell Technologies Capital and the people who are building what's next in enterprise technologies.
Conversations between the venture investors and operators at Dell Technologies Capital and the people who are building what's next in enterprise technologies.
DTC's Radhika Malik in conversation with RunPod CEO and Co-founder Zhen Lu on the company's modest beginnings, accelerated growth, and learning to evolve with and for your ideal customers. RunPod launched with a classic tech startup story -- in the basements of co-founders Zhen Lu and Pardeep Singh, requiring some electrical rewiring and circuit breaker shenanigans at both homes. Immediately found traction with creatives playing around with Disco Diffusion but then began to attract developers and development teams working on GenAI-driven projects with commercial aspirations. Zhen talks about learning as much as possible from the platform's earliest customers and then evolving RunPod through a strategy partnering with some of the most promising projects to prioritize feature development and rollout. Some surprising early use cases with many that have already hit on popular and financial success Is this an AI bubble? Yes, but...…
“Confidence is the manifestation of having clarity and conviction. Focusing on these “Three Cs” is what helped us make the hard decisions at CloudKnox.” In a recent episode of the DTC podcast series “Exit Interview,” Raman Khanna sat down with Balaji Parimi, the founder of CloudKnox, to discuss the journey of his company from inception to category leader and then later, being acquired by Microsoft. Key takeaways from this episode: Find the solutions gap : Parimi’s motivation to start CloudKnox stemmed from his customer-facing experiences at VMware and CloudPhysics. He built products to deliver automation and efficiencies in multi-cloud environments but found that proper governance controls to manage and secure those automated cloud environments didn’t exist. First mover advantage: Building for an emerging issue versus an established one comes with risk but can also reward in big ways. CloudKnox’s focus on creating hybrid and multi-cloud environment solutions played a pivotal role in the company being able to establish and lead a new category in the market. Don’t underestimate the analysts: When Gartner introduced the cloud infrastructure entitlement management category, they did it with data attributed to CloudKnox. This was a direct result of proactive, early engagement with analysts who play a crucial role in educating the market, creating awareness, and prioritizing issues for their enterprise clients. Don’t go it alone: Early traction with Fortune 100 customers was achieved through trusted partners. These partners, already vetted by large enterprises, provided a level of credibility that facilitated introductions and trust that led to landing big logos early on. Founders are your 1st sales leaders: Initially, Balaji believed he was a product founder and that he needed to hire a sales team for GTM. He quickly realized that in the early days, it was his deep knowledge and passion that were crucial in landing customers. From GTM partnership to acquisition by Microsoft: Initially, CloudKnox engaged with Microsoft to establish a joint go-to-market partnership, but as Microsoft’s product strategy evolved to focus on multi-cloud security solutions, they saw the value in acquiring CloudKnox. The acquisition has provided CloudKnox with a vast distribution channel and the opportunity to see their product deployed widely, fulfilling a key entrepreneurial dream. Clarity + Conviction = Confidence: Balaji shared his three C’s of success for founders: Clarity, Conviction, and Confidence. Clarity in understanding the problem and solution leads to conviction, which in turn builds confidence. This clarity and conviction are crucial when communicating with customers, investors, team members and when making pivotal decisions. Balaji Parimi’s journey with CloudKnox is a testament to the power of identifying and addressing real-world problems. His experience at VMware and CloudPhysics provided the foundation for a customer-focused approach that ultimately led to the creation of a new cybersecurity category and the eventual significant acquisition by Microsoft. While good timing played a role, tactical decisions around product, sales, and go-to-market strategies are what made CloudKnox a success story.…
"We do have to hire to some extent ahead. And that's a bit of a bet. But again, when you've developed the conviction that you're onto something big, then we haven't waited. We move forward pretty forcefully building teams." Arthur Bellamy talks with DTC's Scott Darling about scaling Exotec to a global company with more than $1B in systems sold. They dive into sales strategies behind modernizing warehouse technologies. Arthur shares actionable tactics for entering new markets, how to hire the right sales leads for $10M+ system installs, and the importance of being able to show potential customers -- not just tell them about -- your product lines. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Overview of Exotec 05:32 Origin Story of Exotec and the SkyPod System 09:25 Scalable Product vs Customized Designs in Material Handling 10:26 Expanding Internationally/Coming to America 16:29 Scaling the Sales Team and Hiring Ahead of Growth 21:17 Navigating Channel Relationships for Success…
What's it like to be the first communications leadership hire at a hypergrowth, IPO-bound startup? In this episode of The DTC Podcast, Ronda Scott talks with Lindsay McKinley , the first comms hire and director of communications at Samsara . She shares advice on how to swing for the fences when you're at a resource-constrained early-stage startup and how to hit the ground running when you join a fast-growing company to take it all the way through an IPO. Key Takeaways for Comms Success Do the work to understand how comms can best serve current business priorities. Develop close relationships and trust with key stakeholders by managing expectations. As you build your team, hire for skillset spikes and balance of egg breakers and diplomats. Understand the invaluable leadership comms plays throughout the entire IPO process. Embrace the challenges and opportunities inherent with comms at every stage of a startup. Chapters 00:00 Introduction 04:06 Getting scrappy and successful at 15-person edtech company ClassDojo 12:15 Joining the hypergrowth team at Samsara 15:00 Three tactics to thrive in your first 30 days 18:42 Building a world class team 28:06 IPO experience through the communication lens…
In this episode of the DTC Podcast, Deepak Jeevankumar interviews Slavik Markovich , co-founder of Sentrigo, Demisto , and Descope . Slavik shares lessons learned from his previous startups and discusses the acquisition of Demisto by Palo Alto Networks . He also talks about his current venture, Descope, which focuses on authentication and authorization. Slavik emphasizes the importance of solving real problems for customers and offers advice to founders. He predicts that AI (of course) and consolidation across cybersecurity vendors will be key themes that follow the 2024 RSA Conference . Takeaways Solve a problem that matters to you and your customers. Identify and build a team around you with complementary skill sets who have the same vision of solving the problem for your customers. Maintain transparency and open communication within your team. Focus on execution and customer satisfaction while maintaining a position of strength as the company grows. Acquisition opportunities will come. Consolidation and AI will be prominent themes following the RSA conference. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and initial challenges in founding companies 08:17 Lessons learned from building multiple startups 10:34 The journey of scaling Demisto and the acquisition by Palo Alto Networks 21:59 The importance of solving real problems for customers 31:17 Maintaining a strong company culture and open communication 33:30 Looking forward: challenges and opportunities in cybersecurity…
Ankit Gordhandas, a staff engineer at Zapier, shares his journey from being a biomedical engineer to a startup founder and his current role at Zapier. He discusses how Zapier embraced AI and the impact it has had on the company. Ankit also talks about the pivot at his previous startup, Intersect Labs, and the decision to join Zapier. He explains the focus on AI at Zapier and the projects they are working on. Ankit discusses user demand for AI and how Zapier is meeting those demands. He shares his thoughts on measuring success in AI projects and how he continues to scratch his entrepreneurial itch at Zapier. Finally, Ankit offers lessons for founders based on his experiences. Takeaways Ankit's journey from being a biomedical engineer to a startup founder and his transition to working at Zapier. The pivot at Intersect Labs and the decision to join Zapier. How Zapier embraced AI and encouraged every employee to use AI to make their workday lives easier and deliver a better experience to users. Zapier's focus on AI and the projects they are working on, including chatbots and workflow automation. Chapters 00:00 Embracing AI at Zapier 06:34 Ankit's Journey from Biomedical Engineer to Founder 13:13 Joining Zapier and the Pivot at Intersect Labs 18:26 Transitioning to Zapier and the Focus on AI 21:13 Zapier's Code Red and the Adoption of AI 24:30 User Demand for AI at Zapier 26:20 Measuring Success in AI Projects 27:44 Scratching the Entrepreneurial Itch 30:00 Lessons for Founders…
Geeta Schmidt, co-founder and CEO of Humio, discusses the founding of the company and its evolution into a cybersecurity focus. She shares the importance of customer validation and the pride, as a Nordic-based startup, in acquiring Bloomberg as one of the company’s first major customers. Geeta also talks about how the leadership team evaluated the opportunity to be acquired by CrowdStrike and the post-acquisition integration experience. She highlights the learnings from CrowdStrike and talks about her current role of advising and investing in early-stage startups. Takeaways Customer validation early on is crucial for the success of a startup, so paying attention to how what you’re building is being used in the wild is key. Choosing the right acquirer involves considering factors such as company cultures, alignment of product portfolios, and the ability to execute and scale. The importance of having diverse skill sets in a founding team cannot be underplayed. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Background 01:35 Founding of Humio and World Domination Plan 08:29 Importance of Customer Validation 10:22 Proud Moment with Bloomberg as a Customer 11:49 Transition to a Cybersecurity Company 15:04 Acquisition by CrowdStrike 20:10 Announcing the Acquisition 21:47 Post-Acquisition Experience 23:23 Learning from CrowdStrike 25:19 Next Steps for Geeta 26:45 Investing in Early Stage Startups 27:13 Key Qualities in Founding Teams…
In this episode, DTC's Victoria Kinnealey talks with Rick Berends, a veteran BISO, about the importance of startups in driving innovation and growth within enterprise organizations. They discuss the traits that startups should have to establish partnerships at an early stage, including agility, the ability to reduce complexity, and a focus on smarter approaches to security. Rick emphasizes the importance of trust and building relationships when engaging with startups, and advises startups to be honest, avoid over-representation, and steer clear of jargon. He also highlights the value of EQ (emotional intelligence) in startup teams and the benefits of white labeling products for instant buy-in from enterprise clients. Chapters 00:00 Introduction 00:30 Introduction to Rick Berends 01:13 Understanding the Role of a BISO 03:03 Traits of a Startup for Partnership 05:02 Startup's Role in Building Roadmap and Strategy 08:22 Advantages of Startups in Meeting Customer Needs 09:50 Importance of EQ in Startup Engagement 11:19 Importance of Building Trust and Avoiding Jargon 15:41 Understanding the Customer's Perspective 19:06 Importance of Flexibility in Enterprise Partnerships 20:31 Considering Long-Term Relationships and Value Adds 22:58 The Notion of 'Good is Good Enough' 28:45 Importance of Flexibility and Contract Length 30:12 The Need for Startups in Innovation…
Julie Crabill, a fractional CMO, discusses the benefits of the fractional C-suite model for early-stage startups and how it can help scale their marketing and go-to-market teams. She emphasizes the importance of understanding business priorities and having empathy for founders. Julie also shares insights on engaging with technical teams and determining readiness for a dedicated marketing hire. She highlights the need to build marketing into the DNA of a business and adapt to changes in the industry, such as the impact of generative AI on marketing roles. Takeaways The fractional C-suite model can be a cost-effective way for early-stage startups to access strategic marketing expertise without committing to a full-time hire. Understanding business priorities and having empathy for founders are crucial for a fractional CMO to effectively support the growth of a startup. Engaging with technical teams requires building mutual respect and helping them understand the value of marketing in achieving their business goals. Determining readiness for a dedicated marketing hire involves assessing the specific needs of the business and having a budget to support marketing efforts. Building marketing into the DNA of a business and adapting to changes in the industry, such as the impact of generative AI, are essential for long-term success. Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:17 Background and Journey to Becoming a Fractional CMO 02:38 Empathy for Founders and Understanding Business Priorities 04:30 Scaling Skill Set to Become a CMO 06:45 Benefits of Fractional CMO Model for Early Stage Startups 07:43 Engaging as a Fractional CMO 09:08 Determining Readiness for a Dedicated Marketing Hire 13:21 Engaging with Technical Teams 15:42 When Fractional CMO Model Works and Doesn't Work 18:08 Tactical Considerations for Engaging with a Fractional CMO 20:22 Hiring Plan and Time Horizon 25:54 Impact of Generative AI on Marketing Roles 27:46 Building Marketing into the DNA of the Business 28:43 Conclusion…
In this conversation, DTC Managing Director Deepak Jeevankumar interviews Varun Badhwar, co-founder and former CEO of RedLock and co-founder and current CEO of Endor Labs. They discuss topics such as creating a new category in cybersecurity, building a customer-centric company, and the challenges and successes of scaling a startup. Varun shares insights into the importance of starting with the simple problem, productizing simplicity, and nailing an efficient demo. He also discusses the acquisition by Palo Alto Networks and the key factors that contributed to the successful integration of RedLock into what became Prisma Cloud. Finally, Varun shares his thoughts on starting a third company with Endor Labs and the future of application security (AppSec) in the context of software supply chain security and AI. Takeaways Start with a simple problem and focus on visibility gaps. What’s keeping your buyer up at night? Productize simplicity by ensuring that customers can set up and derive value from the product within a short timeframe. Building a customer-centric company involves understanding customer priorities, providing value in a short amount of time, and simplifying the customer experience. Choosing the right design partners and investors is crucial, and it's important to prioritize the human connection and alignment of values over the brand or firm. Embrace change in the software supply chain, particularly in the context of software assembly and the increasing use of open source components. AI can play a role in enhancing productivity and security in this area. Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:26 Creating a New Category in Cybersecurity 06:09 Starting with the Simple Problem 07:37 Productizing Simplicity 09:00 The Cloud Security Intelligence Team 12:04 The Acquisition by Palo Alto Networks 21:03 Starting a Third Company 25:43 The Future of AppSec 28:38 Building the Right Team and Culture 30:32 Choosing the Right Design Partners and Investors 33:29 Building in the Open and Embracing AI 36:18 Embracing Change in the Software Supply Chain 36:46 Closing Remarks…
Introducing The DTC Podcast. These episodes feature Exit Interviews with enterprise founders who've gone from square one to major acquisition, conversations with the CTOs, CISOs, and CIOs interested in the latest enterprise innovations, and deep dives into strategies and tactics with the sales, marketing, and brand practitioners leading the go-to-market charge.…
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