The Search For Growth

Today, it gives me great pleasure to introduce you to Lihong Hicken, the CEO of TheySaid, and a seasoned startup veteran.

Lihong was raised in a remote village in China, and learned five languages before immigrating to the US where she then rocketed into a successful career in tech.

Starting out as an individual contributor selling high school parents' education packages, Lihong quickly moved up the ladder and became one of User Testings' first female employees and later became CRO at GitPrime where she grew revenues 300-400% YoY.

GitPrime’s co-founder, Ben Thompson, referred to her as "the most impactful hire they ever made”.

Since then Lihong has gone on to experience 4 successful exits from acquisitions to an IPO and is currently leading “TheySaid” as CEO.

Together, we unpack Lihong's story from China to the US and the learnings she’s had along the way.

(01:19) Growing up in China, running family businesses

(03:31) Coming to the US, visas

(06:02) Growing skills throughout her career

(09:02) Deciding to go to business school at Berkeley

(10:14) Building the Wild Dog sales team at GitPrime

(11:01) How her immigrant work ethic impacted her

(17:14) Building her sales team with the customer in mind

(21:58) Creating team incentives

(25:48) Exits and golden handcuffs

(29:47) Building ‘nuffsaid

(37:29) Why NPS doesn’t cut it

(45:36) How to get insights from 500 people

(50:12) Customer Perceived Value

(53:52) Rapid-fire questions

Alfie and Chris read a lot of newsletters. Here are some of our favorites and why you should subscribe to them.

Alfie (and Chris) listen to a lot of podcasts. Here are some of our favorites and why you should subscribe to them.

On today’s episode, we are joined by an incredible sales leader, entrepreneur, and keynote speaker with over two decades of experience in the field. After starting his career in sales, he went on to found the highly successful sales training and coaching firm, Vorsight, in 2005. But that's not all - he also had the vision to build one of the first conversational intelligence platforms, making him an early competitor to the likes of Gong and Chorus. Later, he sold ExecVision to Mediafly and now serves as the SVP of Sales Excellence.

In today's episode, we dive deep into his journey from employee to self-employed sales trainer, and the transition into running a successful service business that later became a software company. We cover everything from the life of a solopreneur to competing with the biggest names in the game and lessons learned from being acquired.

(02:14) Starting an appointment-setting business

(05:22) Idea behind conversational intelligence business 

(09:42) Getting customers

(12:01) Value of creating a training business - scaling your time

(15:12) First hires, the first office

(18:51) Pricing, revenue per month, margins

(19:56) Building your own business with significant profitability

(22:21) Building a curriculum

(27:02) Why there is more to building a business than an exit

(28:20) Building ExecVision and learnings from Vorsight

(30:54) Value of a technical cofounder

(34:18) Building two businesses at once

(43:06) Splitting responsibilities with another cofounder

(43:44) Process of acquisition

(46:12) Learnings after acquisition - being so focused on product

(51:51) Should salespeople build a software business or a service business

(54:16) Don't be a destination island

(55:13) Rapid-fire questions

On today’s show, we are joined by Will Ross the CEO & Co-Founder of Federato. After previously being an AI researcher at Stanford working on climate and atmospheric modeling, Will came up with the idea for Federato alongside his co-founder. They recently raised a $15M Series A in 2022 to help insurance carriers execute better decision-making at all levels of the underwriting process.   On today’s episode, we’re going to dive into how Federato was born, lessons from the insurance industry, and Will’s frameworks for entrepreneurs.

(00:41) Federato origin story

(03:33) Optimization vs classification

(06:21) Meteorology and business at Stanford

(09:46) How Federato helps insurance companies

(16:54) Federato's MVP and first-paying customer

(19:18) Targeting first customers

(22:29) Why insurance companies can't do this themselves

(24:03) Insurance sales hacks and using 10-ks

(29:21) Pricing Federato

(34:28) Federato's moat

(36:32) Federato's "unreasonable hospitality"  culture  

Kevin Blake is one of the top entertainers in the country. He’s a San Francisco Bay Area magician and mentalist who has been featured on America’s Got Talent and Penn and Teller’s Fool Us. You can watch him at his weekly show, the Illusionist at the Palace Theater (in San Francisco), or at his in-person and virtual corporate events. In addition to magic, he’s a big swimmer and has competed in the US Olympic Team trials twice in the 50 freestyle. In this episode, we discuss how Kevin got into magic, the business dynamics of magic, what it was like to perform on national tv, and his current performances.

(00:44) Getting into magic

(06:31) Ethical frameworks for mentalism

(08:27) First time getting paid to do magic

(09:34) Doing magic as a side-gig

(11:49) Moving into magic full-time during COVID

(16:43) How to get audience feedback to improve

(17:15) Magician pricing and distribution strategies

(19:01) Impact of VC on distribution

(20:44) His ideal customer profile and personal brand

(24:33) Magician competition

(26:17) Where magicians make money

(30:41) Where magicians buy tricks

(35:10) How magicians spend their time

(37:55) Are magicians lonely?

(39:17) Going on America's Got Talent and Penn and Teller's Fool Us

(47:44) Kevin's show the Illusionist at the Palace Theater in SF

(49:26) Relationship with theater and producers in regard to distribution

(52:54) Rapid fire - favorite books, advice that is incorrect in magic

(56:36) Where to find Kevin

(01:16) Background

(04:26) Learnings from his first startup

(06:11) Finding co-founders

(09:18) Learnings from Spendesk

(12:03) Pitching tent framework

(17:56) Defacto

(23:31) Importance of distribution

(30:05) Macro interest rate trends on Defacto

(33:49) Defacto geography

(34:29) Rapid fire questions - Favorite books, advice that is wrong

(00:55) First business in Toronto

(03:12) Building a zero-emissions landscaping business

(06:35) Value of door-to-door sales experience

(08:32) Prospecting with LinkedIn, selling to CRO of Shopify

(10:41) Using the Sphere of Influence in sales

(14:05) Why the first 100 days of a new hire is so valuable in sales

(18:05) Think of your CRM as an iceberg

(22:51) The biggest problem in sales quota attainment

(27:21) How relationship signals can give you insight into your customer success strategy

(33:12) Top recommendations for SDRs

(36:46) How to spot job changes, where Pipeline Signals gets its data

(40:31) How data is insufficient. You need sales enablement to get the full value of relationship signals

(43:22) Value of outsourced labor. Building multiple businesses at once

(50:13) Why picking a lane in your career is important

(52:54) Rapid fire questions - favorite books and advice that is wrong

(00:50) Starting at Beacon, a YC-backed crowdfunding journalism company

(03:03) Pivoting to Chargehound

(09:01) Using tech stack to get the idea for Chargehound, chargeback overview

(13:53) Getting first YC customers

(17:04) Identifying the correct types of customers

(22:10) Identifying which is easier to sell to - customers using alternatives or ones without a solution

(27:53) Leveling sales up over time

(28:33) Distribution strategy and using puppies as a marketing hack at a conference

(36:48) Getting acquired by PayPal - timeline, process

(39:29) Getting ideas for new companies

(42:20) Hiring insights

(44:13) Challenges at Chargehound

(45:44) Rapid fire questions - Books and pieces of advice

(00:00) Remembering vs Experiencing Self - What is it

(03:22) Peak-End Rule

(05:29) Duration Neglect

(14:36) Emotion in Demos

(20:14) Why Journaling is Important

Books Mentioned

(00:00) Intro - Daniel Kahneman Thinking Fast and Slow

(00:58) Defining System 1 and System 2

(04:22) Cognitive friction

(06:23) Pattern matching in sales and hiring

(07:36) System 1 as heuristics

(08:34) System 2 takes energy

(10:05) Narrow vs broad framing

(12:19) Narrow framing in life and the availability heuristic

(15:24) Framing when making business decisions

(19:45) Framing in sales

(23:58) B2C as System 1, B2B as System 2 implications

(29:56) Interplay between System 1 and System 2 - illusions and traps

(31:38) Loss aversion and EV

(34:12) The biggest competition in sales is the status quo

Books Mentioned

(00:00) Intro - Founder & CEO @Lempire, Guillaume Moubeche

(01:33) Growing up in Paris, first business

(3:55) Starting a business with his dad

(10:22) Raising $30m as a publicity stunt

(15:07) Reasons for bootstrapping

(16:53) Quickly profitable, early strong growth

(19:36) Using community as a strategy

(24:31) Deciding to take VC

(29:25) Mission, narratives, and stories

(36:35) Financially supporting himself in France while bootstrapping

(42:42) How to measure success

(45:59) Pressure of last 12 months

(51:20) What's next

(52:44) Rapid fire questions - books, advice

(00:53) Wavelength Overview

(02:09) The Idea - How to better map user networks using organization data

(06:02) Why Wavelength was bootstrapped

(07:55) Reason for alumni networks. Importance of donations

(10:37) Why Wavelength focused on data. What it does with the data

(14:47) Why focus on schools

(17:17) Problem of focusing on product vs distribution

(19:55) Colleges vs high schools. Endowments and how they work

(27:52) Importance of domain expertise

(32:06) Cofounder dynamic

(39:43) First customer strategy

(45:30) Motivation of building Wavelength.

(53:29) Major takeaways

In today's episode we discuss generative AI:

(1:33) Generative AI - What it is, how it works

(7:31) Market landscape

(13:18) Data vs models

(28:22) Text vs images vs video - Where are we with generative AI across data types

(33:47) How will AI impact interviews, art

(39:23) Natural language interfaces and how work will evolve

(45:17) Dynamic content - video games and sales

(49:16) Cool AI companies

Chris Gibson - Founder of Wavelength

(00:00) Intro 

(00:50) Feedback from listeners

(03:00) Podcast starts - intro to Alfie's journey

(06:00) Three takeaways 

(06:30) Customer Development vs Acquisition Go-To-Market motions

(14:00) Who to send abroad for international expansions

(16:00) Speed of feedback

(18:15) Identifying whether you're lacking PMF vs Go-To-Market fit

(20:00) The email we used to get our first 50 customers

(21:45) Leveraging your strengths to finding your first customers

(24:00) The PSP framework to pivots: Product / Segmentation /Positioning 

(27:50) How to know which pivots you need to make

(29:00) The flaws of A/B testing

(33:00) Framework for learning: 70% doing 20% self-directed 10% asking others

(34:50) The cook vs chef dynamic

(37:00) Why Chris disagrees with the 70/20/10 learning framework

(40:00) Context of advice is more important than the advice itself

(42:00) Customer development process in more detail

(43:00) Three key takeaways of the pod 

(43:30) Links to newsletters and where to find us

In today's episode we discuss tech layoffs:

(01:33) Layoffs.fyi database on who's laying people off

(02:50) Why tech layoffs are happening - inflation, interest rates, covid, war 

(06:00) Interest rates impact on investors 

(07:00) Net Present Value of future cash flows

(08:00) Powerball lottery example

(10:25) How tech startups dealt with the changing landscape

(11:20) Extending runway

(13:00) Good & bad examples of layoffs

(14:15) Stripe's memo on laying off staff

(16:13) Should CEOs have been able to predict the market and prevent over hiring

(20:40) The financial decision behind joining a startup

(23:00) How joining a startup now could make you rich

(24:15) Is Elon the new Steve Jobs

(27:30) Impact of layoffs for H1-B visa holders

(30:35) Tips for finding a new job

Alfie Marsh - Head of US Go-To-Market at Spendesk

(LinkedIn) https://www.linkedin.com/in/alfie-marsh-0a435a69/

(Newsletter) http://www.rocketgtm.co/

Chris Gibson - Founder of Wavelength

(LinkedIn) https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisgibson14/

(Twitter) https://twitter.com/chggib

(Newsletter) https://chrisgibson.substack.com/

The Search For Growth website

www.thesearchforgrowth.com

In today's episode, we interview Evan Gelfand.

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