Shownotes
Solomon Thimothy
Bio
Solomon Thimothy is a serial entrepreneur, growth strategist and CEO of five growth-driven companies, OneIMS, ClickX, IMS, Lingostarts, and LeadX AI — all built with one mission: to help businesses grow smarter, faster and more sustainably.
With nearly 20 years of hands-on experience, Solomon has helped hundreds of B2B companies escape flatlined growth by implementing systems that scale. He’s the creator of the 10X Framework, a proven methodology that empowers businesses to double leads, revenue, and results, without burnout or constant guesswork.
Solomon’s journey began when he launched his first agency straight out of college. Since then, he’s remained obsessed with helping founders simplify the path to scale through clarity, strategic alignment, and automation. Whether it’s leveraging AI for lead generation or showing business owners how to grow without an MBA, Solomon delivers practical, high-impact insights with zero fluff, just value.
Intro
In the discourse with Solomon Thimothy, we delve into the paramount principle of expunging superfluous elements from one's business framework, which is essential for achieving substantial growth. Solomon elucidates the significance of identifying and severing ties with clients and services that do not contribute meaningfully to one's overarching objectives, thus enabling an entrepreneur to concentrate on avenues that genuinely foster advancement. He posits that the essence of successful entrepreneurship lies not merely in diversification, but in the strategic elimination of distractions that hinder progress. This conversation underscores the profound impact of adopting a focused approach, particularly through the integration of artificial intelligence as a catalyst for optimizing business operations and enhancing marketing efficacy. Moreover, we explore the critical nature of self-awareness in entrepreneurship, as Solomon shares his personal journey and the lessons learned from navigating the complexities of business ownership.
Conversation
The conversation between Jothy Rosenberg and Solomon Thimothy unveils the intricate dynamics of entrepreneurship, particularly the often-overlooked importance of self-awareness in decision-making. Thimothy reflects on his personal journey, revealing how his upbringing fostered an innate desire to pursue his own path, free from the constraints of conventional expectations. He articulates a profound understanding of the entrepreneurial landscape, advocating for the ruthless elimination of clients and products that do not contribute to a company's core objectives. This perspective is rooted in the belief that true growth arises from a concentrated effort on the facets of a business that promise the greatest returns. Thimothy’s insights resonate with the challenges faced by many entrepreneurs, who frequently find themselves overwhelmed by the demands of their ventures. The discussion further delves into the transformative potential of leveraging artificial intelligence as a tool for optimizing business operations and marketing strategies, thereby reinforcing the idea that the most significant insights often lie within a company’s existing framework rather than external sources.
Takeaways
- The importance of eliminating clients that do not contribute to growth cannot be overstated; instead, focus on those who align with your vision.
- Self-awareness as an entrepreneur is crucial; understanding one's strengths and weaknesses leads to more effective decision-making in business.
- Utilizing artificial intelligence effectively can streamline operations and reveal valuable insights previously overlooked within a business.
- A successful business model often requires shedding old products or services that no longer serve the company's core mission.
- The 'who not how' philosophy encourages entrepreneurs to delegate responsibilities, allowing them to concentrate on strategic initiatives that drive growth.
- Achieving 10x growth necessitates a relentless focus on specialization rather than attempting to be a generalist in every market.
Transcripts
Hello.
Speaker A:Please meet today's guest, Solomon Timothy.
Speaker B:I think there is even more fundamental, which is honestly getting rid of the clients that will never get you there, or getting rid of the products or services.
Speaker B:They'll never get you that there's stuff like mailing your niche, you know, just like some basics.
Speaker B:And then we have to find the product or the services or whatever it is that they may even have to create because they never have the time to invest in it.
Speaker B:That will truly accelerate their growth.
Speaker A:And here's Solomon.
Speaker A:So good to see you.
Speaker B:Thank you, Jodi.
Speaker B:Thanks for having me so excited.
Speaker A:Start off, if you would, by telling us where are you originally from and where do you live now?
Speaker B:Originally from Chicago.
Speaker B:Deep dish pizza, all things Chicago.
Speaker B:I still feel like that's who I am.
Speaker B:But currently in Florida, Southwest Florida, hot and humid every day.
Speaker A:You don't like the cold weather of Chicago, right?
Speaker B:That is correct.
Speaker B:If it's, if it's anything to do with cold.
Speaker B:And believe it or not, when I left Chicago, I was thinking about moving to just another house because I didn't, I was traveling too long to get to work.
Speaker B:And I would come to Florida every winter, like every weekend.
Speaker B:And so my family said, why are you just going from house A to house B?
Speaker B:Why don't you just go to where you really want to go?
Speaker B:And so I had no idea that I was going to Florida.
Speaker B:When I packed up all the stuff and then when we unloaded everything maybe five months later in Florida, I had shovels and big Timberland boots and it was, it was crazy.
Speaker B:I didn't think that I was, if I was packing for Florida, I would have left all those things there.
Speaker B:We didn't think we would come here.
Speaker B:It's just that it would, it would have been a big decision.
Speaker B:And they're like, you sold your house.
Speaker B:You're like the best time to get out of town.
Speaker B:Why you, why you want to stay here?
Speaker B:I was like, you're right.
Speaker B:I was going to move to downtown.
Speaker B:Believe it or not, if I'd done that, I would have never been here.
Speaker B:So I just took that opportunity.
Speaker B:I said, oh, you guys are okay with this?
Speaker B:See you later.
Speaker B:And here I am.
Speaker A:Are you able to get the Chicago style pizza where you are?
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:There is the lots of restaurants that claim it.
Speaker B:I don't think it's the same.
Speaker B:Believe it or not, the pizza's pizza over there.
Speaker B:I think it's just everything about Chicago, you need to go there and you need to feel it.
Speaker B:It's different.
Speaker A:How about the Chicago hot dogs.
Speaker A:Those are the best, too.
Speaker B:I joke around with my friends, but they're very health nuts.
Speaker B:They would need it.
Speaker B:I'm like, you guys have no idea.
Speaker B:It's just so good.
Speaker B:It's like boiled or whatever it is, or, you know, it was like grill and this and that.
Speaker B:I cannot sell the linen.
Speaker B:I'm like, you got to try it.
Speaker B:But my wife would only get that.
Speaker B:That is the only thing she would get.
Speaker B:Certain restaurants.
Speaker B:And so that just goes to tell you how popular it is.
Speaker B:Doesn't matter what's on the menu.
Speaker B:That's what she wants, believe it or not.
Speaker B:They're really good, if you like.
Speaker A:So one of the things I learned in our first discussion is you early on decided not to take a traditional path, and you didn't get an mba.
Speaker A:You didn't join a big firm.
Speaker A:What drove you to make that sort of a decision early on?
Speaker B:Great question, Jodi.
Speaker B:So I think one of the gifts that we have as entrepreneurs is knowing yourself, right?
Speaker B:That self awareness.
Speaker B:And I've always been the type of employee in jobs that I've ever had where I wanted to learn more than what I was given.
Speaker B:I was curious.
Speaker B:So I would do things I wasn't supposed to do, and then I would get in trouble for doing things I wasn't supposed to do.
Speaker B:And I'm like, well, what if I just wanted to learn?
Speaker B:You know, I want to be a good cashier.
Speaker B:You know, I want to learn how to do this or I want to do that.
Speaker B:And so I call.
Speaker B:I. I like to say that I was coloring outside the lights.
Speaker B:And most jobs, they don't want you to do that.
Speaker B:It's wanting to do whatever it is you're supposed to do.
Speaker B:And so I realized, like, yeah, I don't think I fit, you know, in traditional environment.
Speaker B:I think I'm just not the guy.
Speaker B:And so where I join and excel is, you know, I was meeting an entrepreneur this morning.
Speaker B:I said, hey, you have two choices.
Speaker B:You can go work for somebody.
Speaker B:If you don't want to build the infrastructure to build your own business, because that's the hardest thing.
Speaker B:It's building the building person, the accountant, the customer success person.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:But if you're willing to do that, and there's no reason why you should have been doing things on your own.
Speaker B:But since I enjoyed all of those things, right?
Speaker B:I enjoyed setting up the infrastructure, and I enjoy doing things I didn't know how to do, automation, whatever else, it didn't make sense for me to go put myself in a Box.
Speaker B:And that realization was like 17 years old, 18 years old.
Speaker B:So I never really had a real job.
Speaker A:So what was the first business you built?
Speaker B:Yeah, it was.
Speaker B:I learned how to code websites which by the way didn't have AI.
Speaker B:Jody, we're just talking about AI.
Speaker B:It was just like pure HTML and it didn't even have any much CSS because at the time you're having like Net Scheme Navigator, everything looked like black and white on a white screen.
Speaker B:Anyway, I don't know if you remember these days, the links were really, really blue and underlined.
Speaker B:It was really hideous.
Speaker B:Like it was the worst looking UI ever.
Speaker B:But at that time I knew how to do that.
Speaker B:So I built those sites and I was selling them for, for these, you know, small business owners who didn't have a website.
Speaker B:And so I was just, you know, altavista was a search engine.
Speaker B:I don't know if you remember any of this but like it was a very different time and so of course I remember this.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'm like it's like really, really ugly websites and it was pretty interesting right?
Speaker B:Like so.
Speaker B:But yeah, so that's my first business.
Speaker B:It was just building websites.
Speaker B:Not very aesthetic by any means.
Speaker B:I'm not that good of a designer.
Speaker B:But that led us to hiring some designers and developers and things like that.
Speaker B:That was a very, very, very beginning of me just being all into web architect.
Speaker A:Hey, we should do a quiz of all the listeners and the viewers right now.
Speaker A:What is the name of the company who owned, created AltaVista will give you three seconds to shout it into your radios or your, or your screen.
Speaker A:The answer is actually Digital Equipment Corporation.
Speaker B:Ah, I wouldn't have come up with that deck.
Speaker A:Yeah, so it's a, it's a, you know, a company that came from right around me just outside of Boston and they, they, they were sort of sitting there kind of fat, dumb and happy.
Speaker A:Altavista was the leading search engine and boy, I mean within such a short amount of time of Google coming out.
Speaker A:It's true, we all, everyone just mass exodus away from AltaVista to Google.
Speaker A:It happened so fast.
Speaker B:Can't believe that Google wasn't even the first one.
Speaker B:They were Lycos.
Speaker B:This, that so many different names that I don't remember msn, they just, Microsoft was big at the time.
Speaker B:Like they would have stuff just.
Speaker B:Yeah, I get it.
Speaker B:I think the simplicity of Google is what got everybody to Google.
Speaker B:Kind of like how simple chat GPT is today.
Speaker B:Their interface has not changed a lot.
Speaker B:It's always been an empty Page with a search bar, if you know what I mean.
Speaker B:It was just, it's this thing today.
Speaker B:It is a thing that attracted people, whereas everybody else was trying to create a homepage with a search on top.
Speaker B:You know, like, like how, how Elon describes everybody else is trying to build hybrid cars when he's like, screw that, let's make one, don't want to build two.
Speaker B:He got rid of everything and he just says, I'm going to go with one.
Speaker B:So I think that was the same kind of strategy.
Speaker B:Less, more.
Speaker B:I'm sure it's a new course.
Speaker A:Okay, so you told us what the first one was and you were still in your teens.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:And what's the most.
Speaker A:And then go all the way to the other end.
Speaker A:What's the most recent one you built?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So right now, our business, and we touched on this a little bit earlier in our conversation, is how do we leverage AI, which is the latest thing that's, that is in development is how do I go to a business and I archive everything that they have with their customers, their client communications, their sales calls, their support tickets, and then using that as feedback loop to optimize their marketing function.
Speaker B:So we take all of the sales conversations, even with people that did not close, to find out the common objection that they're having.
Speaker B:And we would update the website with those being addressed earlier so that they don't get on sales conversations and lose the deal.
Speaker B:We're also leveraging that to answer questions that their customers are having from a social media perspective.
Speaker B:So that is the content component, which is your top of funnel.
Speaker B:And we're also training the salespeople on what the market is asking for so that they can close back.
Speaker B:So it's a complete AI feedback loop system.
Speaker B:It helps your marketing, helps your sales, it helps your nurture sequence, but all the insights that you need to grow your business is inside your business.
Speaker B:Most people are looking outside, Jody, trying to figure out what I need to bring to my business.
Speaker B:And they're completely ignoring the signals that they're creating internally.
Speaker B:And so AI is the best tool to find out the, you know, the consistent, the parallels.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:In your business that you, you might have.
Speaker B:Here's the top objections, here's the top questions, here's the top.
Speaker B:You can study it, archive it, train it and tell you.
Speaker B:And all we have to do is this business owner just listen and just execute.
Speaker B:So it's going really, really well.
Speaker A:So of all the businesses, from websites programming to using AI to help improve and automate sales in all of those and all the ones in between, I mean, what's been the biggest setback you've ever had, the biggest problem that you've had, Whether it's a complete setback or just, you know, you, you couldn't.
Speaker B:You.
Speaker A:You felt stuck.
Speaker B:Yeah, great question.
Speaker B:I think for me, it was some.
Speaker B:It's a concept that I've learned today that I didn't know then.
Speaker B:It's from Dan Sullivan.
Speaker B:If you've known Dan, he writes a lot of really good books.
Speaker B:It's the who, not how concept.
Speaker B:So being a, you know, individual, you know, like doing everything by yourself.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So this is like, oh, I can do that too.
Speaker B:And I could do this.
Speaker B:I could design it.
Speaker B:Like, this is what happens to entrepreneurs.
Speaker B:We get felt trapped and.
Speaker B:And we don't find the right people to go and fix the thing that you're not good at.
Speaker B:And we wouldn't admit it that we're bad at something.
Speaker B:We just think we can learn another thing and then to just like, pile ourselves up.
Speaker B:So I've done that firsthand.
Speaker B:I know it.
Speaker B:I've done it too many times.
Speaker B:I would become the CTO of the software we're building.
Speaker B:At the same time, I'm still the sales guy and like some other guy, the tech support, because we feel like, you know, rugged individualism is what he calls it.
Speaker B:And that's oftentimes is the thing that we shouldn't do.
Speaker B:We ought to stop doing that.
Speaker B:But when you're a small business, you feel like you have to do everything.
Speaker B:And this is a.
Speaker B:This is a problem.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Entrepreneurs face.
Speaker B:And I would say that was the toughest one because there were.
Speaker B:There should have been times I should have delegated more and got out of the way.
Speaker B:Today, I don't try to do all of that.
Speaker B:If I can get out of one more thing, I would get out.
Speaker B:I can get one half of things I would get out.
Speaker B:I want the 99% done.
Speaker B:And I just approve.
Speaker B:I don't want to do any of it.
Speaker B:And so my day is like, how little can I do and how much impact can my little do for the business?
Speaker B:And not how many more things I.
Speaker A:Could climb to list the framework that you talk about, you.
Speaker A:You call it the 10x framework, I think.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Love.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:I. I implement it for businesses.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So that's.
Speaker A:So that's what you are.
Speaker A:Are you were describing a few minutes ago.
Speaker A:That's, that's this, this approach, it's accelerated by AI.
Speaker B:Agreed.
Speaker A:And when did you first see the dramatic results of that happen.
Speaker B:First of all, I love growth oriented, ambitious entrepreneurs because I think, you know, when you're in marketing, there's people that believe marketing is good for you.
Speaker B:There's people that don't want to do any marketing, and there's people like, I need to market to grow my business, right, Jody?
Speaker B:There's these, there's these people like, hey, I got, I gotta get out there.
Speaker B:Whether it's organic or some sort of marketing.
Speaker B:So we've always been attracted by the, by the growth oriented, ambitious entrepreneurs that want to grow their business.
Speaker B:So if I'm saying something like 10x, it is only interesting to those people that believe that they can 10x their business.
Speaker B:It's usually not the ones that say, you know, I don't want a 20% increase year over here.
Speaker B:I'm gonna be okay.
Speaker B:Those people aren't interested.
Speaker B:Does that make sense?
Speaker B:These are like real crazy entrepreneurs that want to change the world.
Speaker B:So what we found out in all of our, all of the research and all the things that we do for clients is that there's these individuals, these entrepreneurs, they're okay getting rid of so many things in their business to focus on a few things that they're using good at.
Speaker B:And so my job is to find all the inefficiencies in their marketing or their sales or their product lines or profitability and say, hey, you have a clear winner here if you get rid of all of these noise because you're known as the IT company or this thing or that thing, and you have some legacy business you're still trying to run.
Speaker B:None of which if you add up and double the customer base going to get you to 10.
Speaker B:No, like nothing.
Speaker B:Your people are still generalists.
Speaker B:They're not specialists.
Speaker B:You're not that big in the marketplace.
Speaker B:You don't have the marketing dollars to grow it.
Speaker B:So you kind of are running a discount right from a valuation perspective because you're kind of a generalist, not a specialist.
Speaker B:So our team got really good at doing strategic work to find where their pocket of growth.
Speaker B:And then we try to put all of our energy into that thing so we can help propel the business in the right direction.
Speaker B:And that has been a game changer for so many entrepreneurs because most consultants and agencies that you may meet are basically, yes, ma'.
Speaker B:Am.
Speaker B:Jodi says, run my marketing.
Speaker B:They say yes.
Speaker B:So it says, I want Facebook ads.
Speaker B:They say yes.
Speaker B:They say, I want to do some SEO or whatever it is.
Speaker B:The challenge is most of them aren't willing to question, to say Jovi, why are you doing this?
Speaker B:What are we trying to do?
Speaker B:What is the ultimate goal?
Speaker B:What's your exit strategy, how much money you're trying to make, why you need to make this money.
Speaker B:And our team will not touch a company unless we have these hard questions answered.
Speaker B:And then we look at what you're doing and you say your goals are to go this direction and all of your energy and time is invested and your team is working on this thing they themselves don't even see.
Speaker B:Because most people aren't engaged in those strategic conversations internally.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Or aligning the team to be a silver.
Speaker B:So we use that 10x model to help them see what they don't see.
Speaker B:And then all of us are pulling the business in the right direction.
Speaker B:And you'll like clearly see a path to 10x in the business.
Speaker B:Literally not 2x or 3x or 4x.
Speaker B:And I don't care how they get there.
Speaker B:I'm not going to be doing every little work they are.
Speaker B:But it's really, really interesting to see that in businesses.
Speaker B:We see it in our own company, we see it our clients situations.
Speaker B:It's just six sided.
Speaker B:Just excited to be part of that growth.
Speaker A:Hi there.
Speaker A:I hope you're enjoying the show.
Speaker A:In addition to the podcast, you might also be interested in the online program I have created for startup founders called who says you can't startup in it?
Speaker A:I've tried to capture everything I've learned in the course of founding and running nine startups over 37 years with no constraints like there were with my book Tech Startup Toolkit.
Speaker A:The program has four courses, each one about 15 video lessons plus over 30 high value downloadable resources.
Speaker A:Each course individually is only $375.
Speaker A:The QR code will take you where you can learn more.
Speaker A:Now back to the podcast.
Speaker A:Is is shedding the extraneous stuff, is that your guiding philosophy or is there something else that you would say is really kind of even, even more fundamental than that?
Speaker A:10x for the 10x I should say.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:I think there is even more fundamental which is honestly getting rid of the clients that will never get you there, or getting rid of the products or services they'll never get you.
Speaker B:There's stuff like mailing your niche just like some basics and then we have to find the product or the services or whatever it is that they may even have to create because they never have the time to invest in it that will truly accelerate their growth.
Speaker B:Sometimes it's like the fear of saying no.
Speaker B:And I think a lot of entrepreneurs says well it's like 20% of our business.
Speaker B:I don't want to lose that.
Speaker B:Well, I'm sorry, but you're losing, I don't know, $100 million, you know, by, by trying to keep your, your, this.
Speaker B:Yeah, you should like get rid of that or give it to somebody else to run.
Speaker B:Right, don't worry about that because you should be focused on the thing that truly will get you to where you're trying to go.
Speaker A:I'll tell you a quick story.
Speaker A:I made this mistake in sort of, I guess, an extreme way.
Speaker A:So it was my first time being CEO and unfortunately I'd agreed to be CEO of a venture backed turnaround, which is for my first time, which is a big mistake.
Speaker A:It was a company that, well, I was kind of roped into it basically by an investor who I'd, I'd gotten to like.
Speaker A:And then he said, you know, I really could use your help, you know, turning this company around.
Speaker A:So I agreed to do it.
Speaker A:But I, you know, I discovered that basically they were in a declining market.
Speaker A:The declining market was document management, and they were fourth in a declining market.
Speaker A:So my first job was to get them the hell out of that market.
Speaker B:Okay, it's true.
Speaker A:So I had to cut the company in, you know, half.
Speaker A:I had to let half the, the people go because I, I couldn't live with the expenses.
Speaker A:I had a marketing guy who had a brilliant idea which was, look, document management is.
Speaker A:Well, it's about documents.
Speaker A:And that's not where the world is anymore.
Speaker A:The world is thinking about things in terms of content, meaning it's on the Internet.
Speaker A:It's, it's digital, it's, it's web.
Speaker A:But all the same principles still apply.
Speaker A:The things that you had to do with documents, you also have to do with content.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker A:So we have this great plan.
Speaker A:Meanwhile, I had a sales guy who was still trying to bring in revenues on the old thing.
Speaker A:And they came to me one day and they said, we can't work together anymore.
Speaker A:And I said, oh, really?
Speaker A:What?
Speaker A:Why?
Speaker A:The sales guy says, well, because I need marketing in order to be successful at sales, but he won't help me anymore.
Speaker A:And the marketing guy looked at me and said, if I help him, then I'm not helping us get into a new market.
Speaker A:And that's where the future is.
Speaker A:And you got to make a decision because we can't stand each other anymore.
Speaker A:I said, I'll think about it for 24 hours and I'll let you know.
Speaker A:And the next day I came back and I made the worst decision of my career.
Speaker A:I actually told the sales guy, we got to keep you because we need to keep generating revenue.
Speaker A:And the marketing guy, you know, well, he, he, he had to leave.
Speaker A:Well, that was exactly the wrong thing to do.
Speaker A:And that is exactly what you're talking about, is identifying that and making the tough decision.
Speaker A:And I would have had to go to the board and say, guess what?
Speaker A:We're not going to make any revenue for at least six months and maybe 12.
Speaker A:But we're going to get into a new market, and we can prove to you why this market will work for us.
Speaker A:I didn't do that.
Speaker A:I should have, but I didn't do that.
Speaker B:And like I said, sometimes internally, companies aren't aligned.
Speaker B:The CEO has a certain vision.
Speaker B:Maybe he shared it and expressed it, but the people are still running a legacy business.
Speaker B:So oftentimes we see this quite a lot, drilling businesses.
Speaker B:It's hard to motivate and encourage and get your people to do the certain things.
Speaker B:If you don't really.
Speaker B:I don't know this, this has to be the theme song.
Speaker B:Every day.
Speaker B:We're going to be the best web, you know, content company.
Speaker B:Then you're like, no, we're not.
Speaker B:We're a document company.
Speaker B:We're like, no, no, no.
Speaker B:That's who we are today.
Speaker B:But this is where we're headed.
Speaker B:Unless you hear that like, every day by the leadership team and everyone else, and everybody's task starts to change.
Speaker B:It's really hard because there will be those salespeople that sits there, complain that I don't have any.
Speaker B:Any brochures about documents anymore.
Speaker B:I don't have.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:I don't have a pocket folder.
Speaker B:Why?
Speaker B:Because they don't know.
Speaker B:They don't know what we're just doing.
Speaker B:And it's.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's really hard.
Speaker B:It slows down.
Speaker B:Significant.
Speaker A:Well, it was, you know, there was so much proof in front of us that this was going to work because just.
Speaker A:Just me and the marketing guy were able to land our first three customers with this new approach, new regime.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:With.
Speaker A:With GM3M and Fiat.
Speaker A:Those were our first three customers.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker A:Like I said, I made the wrong decision.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Don't beat yourself up.
Speaker B:I think we all learn from our mistakes.
Speaker A:Oh, I beat myself up a lot before.
Speaker A:I'm fine now.
Speaker B:Yeah, make, make, you know, sort of decisions, and that's what defiance is.
Speaker B:And, and you wouldn't have been able to tell us the story, and a lot of people wouldn't, you know, learn from your experience and I am open with my mistakes as well.
Speaker B:So it is what it is.
Speaker B:And I think oftentimes we don't realize that.
Speaker B:It's those past experiences is what we need to learn from so that we can make a better future and a bigger future.
Speaker B:Most of the people are just willing to ignore the past and what happened.
Speaker B:I think that's what propels us.
Speaker B:And today like I don't want to do just lead gen.
Speaker B:I want to do things that's going to help somebody 10x their business because lead gen could still put their business at a slower growth rate or not realize their potential because we're just generating leads for document management.
Speaker B:It could be a decline market.
Speaker B:You see what I'm saying?
Speaker B:It's like we're just doing yes man work.
Speaker B:But I want to get you 3m and GM and then he has a 10x potential and look at the impact I can bring to that organization.
Speaker B:And I wouldn't be commoditized.
Speaker B:It's the real, that's the reality, isn't it?
Speaker B:Like I definitely don't want to be commoditized.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:And there are so many examples by the way of what you're talking about, of, of, of looking at things hard.
Speaker A:You know, another example is a lot of people who are getting their startup started bring in a salesperson early.
Speaker A:That was another thing I had to learn the hard way.
Speaker A:If you do that and you haven't proven product market fit you, you don't have, you know, a, a proven model for how to find a customer, how to close a customer, you know, how to, how to do all the basic funnel maintenance of that.
Speaker A:Every sales process has to go through.
Speaker A:Yeah, if you, if you bring somebody in early, they're not going to be happy, they're not going to be productive.
Speaker A:You're not going to be happy because you're not getting what you are investing, you know, in a salesperson for.
Speaker A:A very good friend of mine was the CEO of a, of a company.
Speaker A:He'd been brought in.
Speaker A:It wasn't his startup, but he came in pretty early.
Speaker A:He wasn't happy with how their funnel was working.
Speaker A:Their closing deals was really, really slow and their growth was slow and their revenue was, was flatlined and, and, and they were actually having some customers leave, which is really, really bad.
Speaker A:He started spending a lot of time, he was a former sales guy, so he kind of knew what do I have to go do to figure out what the problem is?
Speaker A:And he found out that they really had never proven product market fit.
Speaker A:So he immediately laid off all sales and marketing, retrenched completely, and went back to basic principles and started interviewing customers and having product management people work really closely between engineering and customers.
Speaker A:And they went all the way back and they finally made significant changes.
Speaker A:They went back out into the market.
Speaker A:They now proved product market fit.
Speaker A:He personally closed five deals or so, and then they went.
Speaker A:They went back, you know, and hired sales and marketing back.
Speaker A:Well, they took off and it took another four or five years, but he sold that company for $2 billion.
Speaker A:That company was, was carbon black.
Speaker A:They were bought by VMware for $2 billion.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:This is what I'm saying.
Speaker B:I bet you if they hadn't done that, they wouldn't have sold it for 2 billion.
Speaker A:No, they would.
Speaker A:They would.
Speaker A:They probably wouldn't have made it.
Speaker B:I know, and that's this.
Speaker B:This is so true.
Speaker B:And I've lived it like I've lived it with these entrepreneurs that we're trying to help when we're trying to pursue all things, which is an entrepreneurial syndrome that we have, that we think we can go after everything and we want to do it every market, every industry, every possible product line.
Speaker B:We've become really bad at everything.
Speaker B:It's just a.
Speaker B:It's just a nature of the beast.
Speaker B:But because we're so optimistic that we can do it, we try.
Speaker B:Does that make sense?
Speaker B:All we're doing is wasting time and energy.
Speaker A:We're all so optimistic.
Speaker B:That's one thing about entrepreneurs, is that we think extremely everything's going to work out yet.
Speaker B:However, if we just would be more strategic and say, look, I have one shot at this game of 10xing or growing this like such rapid pace.
Speaker B:If that was my goal, of course, and not diversify, just sit happy with a 10% year over year, then we ought to get rid of horses.
Speaker B:We couldn't possibly scale everything, especially smaller teams.
Speaker B:And I think jolie, it is also really interesting to say that AI is probably the thing that's going to help individuals running companies at $100 million run rate than a team of 50 or 100 or 200.
Speaker B:Because it is the most like, it's the one thing I see can drive exponential growth than anything else I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker B:Anything else.
Speaker B:And I hope, like we're going to hear those stories of some kid at 18 years old running $100 million company with him and an AI whatever you built like that's going to come out.
Speaker B:I hope to be one of those guys.
Speaker B:But you know what?
Speaker B:I'm Saying it's like, it's like I'm too late to the game because guess what?
Speaker B:Like there's so much development happening.
Speaker A:You're complaining because you're already 40?
Speaker A:Is that what you're complaining about?
Speaker B:Just, I'm just saying because you know how it is, right.
Speaker B:It's always a kid in a basement building something that we're too busy.
Speaker B:We don't see it like he's like, you know, coding something or he's just adding AI code.
Speaker B:I have, it's kind of crazy.
Speaker B:Like you talked about svg.
Speaker B:I, I have a feeling that this, this is, this is what we're up against as startups, especially as your audience, small startups.
Speaker B:I'm like, you want a 10x, you can say no to about 90% of the things that you think that you want to do and focus out those few things that you can leverage.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:No time or whatever, tools and other people's time or energy, money, whatever it is, and just go, go nuts.
Speaker A:You know, the, the, the really interesting dichotomy which we just, you know, touched on for a second.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Is, is that yes, to survive as a, as an entrepreneur, as an early stage company type entrepreneur, you, you can't afford not to be optimistic because otherwise you would just like bad things would happen and you kind of give up.
Speaker A:But on the other hand, you can't just be an idealist.
Speaker A:You have to then be really pragmatic.
Speaker A:Because you know why?
Speaker A:Because your cash is trickling down the drain and you know, you can only, it'll only last you so long.
Speaker A:And if you haven't proven the right things.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Before it runs out, then it's going to be game over.
Speaker A:And that's why 8 out of 10 startups fail.
Speaker A:And so in order for that to be true, you've got to have this great idea that'll change the world.
Speaker A:And then you got to get really serious about, and this is where you come in that you got to be really serious about.
Speaker A:What do I have to do and what do I have to not do in order to pull this off?
Speaker A:And, and, and, and the kid, one of the kids in the, in the business school class I spoke at yesterday asked me was well, how do you know when you should pivot?
Speaker A:And I said this, that is a really tough question because you, you, you're not going to, you know, you don't want to just willy nilly pivot, but you don't want to wait too long if something's not working and then you're going to have to pivot pretty quickly.
Speaker A:And the best way to do it is to have.
Speaker A:Before you get anywhere close to needing to pivot, you need to have, well here's what I need to accomplish by so and so and then this is what I will do next.
Speaker A:And, and then, and then, and then and, and, and so yeah, that's not necessarily going to survive.
Speaker A:You know, once you, when you have a plan and you, and you basically shove it out into the market, it's not going to survive intact.
Speaker A:But it's better than no plan.
Speaker A:And, and you're going to want to follow it.
Speaker A:And when it, and, and basically in your plan it's going to say now if this and this and this have not happened by this point in time, I'm down to 12 months of Runway.
Speaker A:I have to pivot right then I have to pivot.
Speaker B:You know, I think that's a good strategy.
Speaker B:Sometimes we wait too long.
Speaker B:It's difficult.
Speaker B:Kind of like the document management company that you mentioned.
Speaker B:It's already too late.
Speaker B:And then you're trying to do things fast and of course, course you're bound to make mistakes because you're not thinking logically.
Speaker B:Taught emotional decisions, you know what I'm saying?
Speaker B:You don't have any data to back you up because you have to make decisions so fast.
Speaker B:I agree.
Speaker B:Very few people can see things like the way you just mentioned it.
Speaker B:They're often obviously too optimistic.
Speaker B:So they think things will work itself out, which I think we would rather see.
Speaker B:Look, we have to pivot.
Speaker B:You know, I had to do some changes in our business as well.
Speaker B:We were growing with doing lead generation for clients.
Speaker B:And the challenge that we've had was we didn't have any tech, we didn't build any tech of our own.
Speaker B:We were just buying off the shelf software to manage our business.
Speaker B:And we had to become a software driven service company that we built for ourselves.
Speaker B:And to change from a service company which is built building kind of a purely hourly to having all of the people look at our internal dashboard and figuring out like Starbucks says, you have 30 seconds to make this drink and you know, give it to them at the drive through.
Speaker B:We didn't have any of that.
Speaker B:So we made automation so you can remove the manual reporting, download things from their website, so we can look at how many leads are generated.
Speaker B:So we automatically ought to needed it.
Speaker B:So we didn't make a decision to be a tech company versus a pure service company.
Speaker B:Well, the problem was it's one is unscalable and one is skill.
Speaker B:But, but we didn't have a software background.
Speaker B:I'm not a cto.
Speaker B:Like, you know, I don't have anybody.
Speaker B:I didn't raise funds for a service company.
Speaker B:And so we dumped all of our money into it.
Speaker B:A software project hired these really, really expensive developers, not knowing if it's going to pay off.
Speaker B:But had we not done that, we would have never been able to scale.
Speaker B:And today AI makes a software.
Speaker B:Back then, I'd have made tens of thousands of dollars to some guy to code one little thing.
Speaker B:And so we just say, look, we're not a tech company.
Speaker B:We're not going to go race fund.
Speaker B:But we're going to need to build a lot of this for client onboarding, client offboarding, client, that's client, that client update, client reporting.
Speaker B:And so we took all this manual administrative work off of our teams to time so they can do more client work.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:It was, it was a pivot.
Speaker B:And once we did that, we were able to grow again and our employees were happy and we had a systematic way of growing our company.
Speaker B:Meaning it was not driven by somebody's, you know, checklist.
Speaker B:It was all like, every first of the month, emails go out, all the reports, every, you know what I mean, 15 days, very good.
Speaker B:It's like, whoa, you know, we can go from 20 clients to 100 clients, way easier.
Speaker B:We can go down 100 to 200.
Speaker B:Very easy.
Speaker B:And so that was the, that was kind of like our change.
Speaker B:And let me tell you, if you looked at our income, we wouldn't have.
Speaker B:We couldn't say that, that that was the right thing to do because every CPA would be like, that's too much money.
Speaker B:They're gonna have like a bad year or, you know what I mean, they're gonna make logical decision.
Speaker B:I'm like, no, I gotta invest.
Speaker B:I got, I may have to go spend more money.
Speaker B:I put my own money in.
Speaker B:But I know once I do this, it's kind of like going into the web.
Speaker B:Content versus document management.
Speaker B:Either I'm never going to be able to scale to the level I want or just have a bad year, but you're going to have 10 great years.
Speaker A:Well, there's a, there's a. I mean, I love the model of starting off as a service company and methodically, you know, becoming a product company, because what, what happens if you can pull that off?
Speaker A:Is that a.
Speaker A:It's self funding at the beginning because you're getting services revenue, right?
Speaker A:But your margins are only at best 35%.
Speaker A:And if you're acquired.
Speaker A:You're acquired for one times revenues.
Speaker A:If you can transition, you can, you can get there without getting outside funding.
Speaker B:Perhaps.
Speaker A:Most likely you go, you, you go to a, a margin, you can get margins of 80 plus percent as a, as a software company.
Speaker A:And now an acquisition is at least 5x revenues.
Speaker A:Hey, I want to, I want to ask you one because we're, we're, we're on a good timescale here.
Speaker A:I want to, I want to ask you one more question.
Speaker A:You, like all startup founders I've ever known, have a lot of, exhibit a lot of grit and I would like to know your grit story.
Speaker A:Where does yours come from?
Speaker B:That's a great question.
Speaker B:I think I mentioned it to even a friend today.
Speaker B:One of my friends is, you know, we're talking about their kids and we got kids and how we tell our kids like, you got to do this, you got to do, got to be perfect at every little thing.
Speaker B:I said, you know, if I think about my life, my parents did not force me to be a doctor or, or, or a lawyer or an engineer.
Speaker B:They, they, they typically do.
Speaker B:My nationality is Indian.
Speaker B:If you're not any one of those things, you know, you're a loser.
Speaker B:And they didn't do that to me.
Speaker B:So my grit came from my parents saying, listen, you go do whatever you want to do with your life.
Speaker B:We are not going to tell you what to do.
Speaker B:And that gives you the craziest amount of motivation to pursue anything in life.
Speaker B:I pursued entrepreneurship, right?
Speaker B:But had they told me like you didn't do this, I probably would not have what I have because you may not enjoy what that is.
Speaker B:You're just doing it for somebody else.
Speaker B:Does that make sense?
Speaker B:It's just like you didn't love it.
Speaker B:And how many doctors I know that are miserable, how many engineers that I know don't love their jobs?
Speaker B:It's, it's because I don't know how they got into it.
Speaker B:They just got to do it because they.
Speaker B:Somebody said you can make money.
Speaker B:Well, I'm telling you, money doesn't make you all that happy because that for a while you don't enjoy.
Speaker B:You live a miserable life.
Speaker B:Everybody else around you is miserable because you don't love what you do.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Your family definitely knows that you're not happy.
Speaker B:But yesterday I had a webinar and I did two interviews like you're doing to me and I went home late and I felt like I didn't even work.
Speaker B:Like I was guilty.
Speaker B:Like I don't feel like I work today.
Speaker B:You know, I'm like, but.
Speaker B:But I'm doing all these strategic things that I know are helping our business and you can't even call it work.
Speaker B:And it's just like, it's that if you ask me, had I found the same grit in doing something, I probably wouldn't have.
Speaker B:It's the freedom, which I believe it's like the ultimate thing that you can put a price tag on that gets you all of these things.
Speaker B:It's like, hey, you can decide what you want to do, who you want to do it with, and not have, you know, know, any concerns about certain things.
Speaker B:Freedom of time, freedom of money, freedom of purpose, freedom of relationships.
Speaker B:That.
Speaker B:Why wouldn't you wake up extra early?
Speaker B:I mean, I get up at 4 something, I don't know what, 4 something extra early, and I start working.
Speaker B:I'm firing out more emails than that between four and five o' clock than most people.
Speaker B:It's just like the best sound.
Speaker A:Well, I'm not so sure that everyone, everyone's personality would have the same reaction to total freedom that yours.
Speaker A:So there is something else in your personality that may be even more fundamental to your grit than just the freedom.
Speaker A:I believe you.
Speaker A:I believe that that was critical to you and that your parents saw that and were kind of brilliant in not constraining you, but they probably saw something in your personality that may be this true source of grit.
Speaker B:Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker B:I'm still figuring that out.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I've spent thousands of dollars trying to figure myself out.
Speaker B:It's crazy.
Speaker B:And I think it's worth more as you get older, what you are, who you are, what you're like.
Speaker B:And I, I explained that to entrepreneurs because when they're trying to hire somebody, I mean, if you don't put these people through any sort of assessment, you're not, you're not really sure who you're hiring because what they say on the resume and what they're like in real world is very different.
Speaker B:So I'm like, I would do assessment if I'm dating somebody, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:If I was in the dating world, like, I didn't know who you are before.
Speaker B:And I say yes to you because I don't know you're going to pick up.
Speaker B:And so that's how important it is.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:So, yes, I'm still trying to figure myself out.
Speaker A:Thank you so much for this really fun conversation.
Speaker A:I had a blast right here.
Speaker B:Same here.
Speaker A:And here's your startup founder, toolkit number one, the 90% rule.
Speaker A:Before you add anything new to your business, ask yourself, what am I going to stop doing?
Speaker A:Solomon's research shows that true 10x growth requires eliminating 90% of what you currently do.
Speaker A:That client segment bringing in 20% of revenue but consuming 50% of your time.
Speaker A:Fire them.
Speaker A:That product line, that's pretty good.
Speaker A:Kill it.
Speaker A:Focus beats diversification every single time.
Speaker A:The strategic no Stop being a yes man business.
Speaker A:Before taking on any new project, client or initiative, ask these hard questions.
Speaker A:Does this align with our 10x goal?
Speaker A:Will this make us a specialist or keep us a generalist?
Speaker A:If the answer isn't an obvious yes, it's a no.
Speaker A:Remember, your competition is saying yes to everything, which is exactly why they'll never 10x.
Speaker A:And number three, the who not how mindset.
Speaker A:Stop trying to learn every skill yourself.
Speaker A:As Solomon learned from Dan Sullivan.
Speaker A:It's not about how you'll solve every problem, it's about who you can find to solve it for you.
Speaker A:Your job as a founder isn't to be the best at everything.
Speaker A:It's to find the best people for everything while you focus solely on what only you could do to drive X growth.
Speaker A:And that is our show with Solomon.
Speaker A:The show notes contain useful resources and links.
Speaker A:Please follow and rate us@podchaser.com designing successful startups.
Speaker A:Also, please share and like us on your social media channels.
Speaker A:This is Jothi Rosenberg saying TTFN Tata for now.
