Bio

Caity Craver has spent nearly 30 years empowering nonprofit organizations through innovative software solutions that blend art, analytics, and artificial intelligence. Her career has been dedicated to amplifying the impact of nonprofits by centralizing marketing success and simplifying the fundraising process.

As the founder of DonorTrends, a pioneering analytics company, Caity revolutionized how organizations target donors with precision. Now, with the launch of the Impact Hub, she is bringing together decades of expertise into one comprehensive platform. The Impact Hub integrates marketing campaign management, creative and asset management, analytics, and success showcasing, all tailored exclusively for nonprofit organizations and their supporting agencies and vendors. Caity's goal is to help nonprofits "Do Less, Better. Do More Good.”

Summary

In this conversation, Jothy and Caity discuss the 9 lessons learned from her first SAAS exit that are now shaping her approach to building a more resilient and impactful second SaaS venture. From embracing the power of just starting to understanding that you don't need to boil the ocean, these insights will provide aspiring founders with practical, hard-earned advice on navigating the complex world of SaaS development. Tune in to discover how these experiences can help you build better, smarter, and more successful startups.

9 Lessons learned

1. Just Start
2. You don’t need to boil the ocean; you just need to warm the pond. 
3. You’re not alone
4. Retention over Acquisition
5. Customer-Centric Development: Build What They Need, Not What You Think They Want
6. Set your systems up to sell
7. Build a Strong Team: Surround Yourself with the Right People
8. Embrace Failure: Learn Fast and Pivot When Necessary
9. Be Prepared for the Long Haul

Takeaways

• Caity Craver is a solo bootstrapped founder developing the Impact Hub software.
• Nonprofit marketing requires a unique approach to fundraising and donor engagement.
• Lessons learned from previous ventures are crucial for current success.
• Retention of customers is as important as acquisition, especially in the nonprofit sector.
• Building what customers need rather than what you think they want is essential.
• Setting up systems for potential exit is important for future success.
• Embracing failure as a learning opportunity is vital for growth.
• Grit and determination are key traits for entrepreneurs.
• The nonprofit sector faces unique challenges due to tight budgets and high demand.
• Collaboration and support from peers can help navigate the entrepreneurial journey.

Sound Bites

"It's a marathon, not a sprint."

"Just start, just get it up."

"You don't need to boil the ocean."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background

02:59 Nonprofit Marketing Insights

06:00 Building and Selling Donor Trends

10:06 Developing the Impact Hub Software

18:53 Lessons Learned from Previous Ventures

32:02 Retention Over Acquisition

40:03 Embracing Failure and Grit

Hello, I'm Jaffe Rosenberg, the host of designing successful startups, where today's guest is Katie Kraber.

You know when you're getting a male, you know, from habitat for humidity or heifer, you know, or you're seeing commercials with really sad looking dogs and Sarah McGlockliff sitting in the background asking you for $19 a month, or the St.

Jude, that is a particular kind of marketing.

And those nonprofit direct response marketers in the agency that serve them, they're a tiny but mighty group.

If we look think just about charitable giving in the United States.

It's a half a trillion dollar.

Katie has spent nearly 30 years empowering nonprofit organizations through innovative software solutions that blend arthem analytics and artificial intelligence.

Her career has been dedicated to amplifying the impact of nonprofits by centralizing marketing success and simplifying the fundraising process.

As the founder of Donor Trends, a pioneering analytics company, Katie revolutionized how organizations target donors with precision.

Now, with the launch of the impact hub, she is bringing together decades of expertise into one comprehensive platform.

Katie's goal is to help nonprofits do less better, do more good.

And here is Katie.

Hi, Katie.

Hey there.

How's it going?

Good.

Glad to finally have this come together.

It's been a little bit of time in the planning.

Yes.

Thank you so much for having me.

And for those that are listening, thank them for their time.

It's great to see your face.

So I always like to set context and ask people, where are you originally from and where do you live now?

I am originally from right outside DC in Arlington, Virginia.

So I don't know if you're familiar with the northern Virginia area, but that's where I grew up.

So I'm in Charlotte, North Carolina right now, but originally from DC.

Okay.

So I haven't had a guest on so far who's from the nonprofit space.

So that's, so you're, you've got a first there.

And, and you did want to start.

You run a nonprofit?

You know, I do.

I do.

You've done one.

And one of the things you wrote to me about was you learned a lot.

We all make quite a number of mistakes when we do these things.

There isn't a playbook for exactly how to handle every single possible thing that could come at you.

That's right.

And so I think you're doing a really good thing of trying to think through what are the things that I learned?

And I'm sure that if there are things that you learned, then conveying what you learned to other people could be very beneficial.

And you're trying to absorb all this in what you're doing for number two.

Exactly, yes.

Yeah.

So, as you said, I'm trying to remember these lessons that I learned.

And I feel like today I'll probably be like a therapy session with you as we're really deep in development, ready to launch over the next four to five weeks.

And so it's like I had to remind myself of some of these lessons learned the first time around.

So you sold the other one and then you took a break and then you're starting one now.

Yes.

So donor trends just kind of back up where my world that I come from for the beginning of my career, and really the family that I was born into, my parents in the seventies, eighties, nineties, had an agency that was focused on helping nonprofit organizations with their direct response strategies and execution.

So when you're getting a male from habitat for humidity or heifer, or you're seeing commercials with really sad looking dogs and Sarah McLaughlin singing in the background, asking you for $19 a month, or the St.

Jude, that is a particular kind of marketing.

And those nonprofit direct response marketers and the agency that serves them, they're a tiny but mighty group.

If we look think just about charitable giving.

In the United States, it's a half a trillion dollars, $567 billion is generated from charitable gifts.

About 70% of that is coming from individual giving in the United States to motivate not only individuals to give, but corporations and foundations, all of that takes a really serious marketing machine to persuade and motivate people to give, and that is done.

We don't usually think about that in the world of marketing.

We think about big commercial now, digital marketing and global brands.

But someone like a habitat for Humanity or a red cross or a St.

Jude, they're raising hundreds of millions of dollars and doing incredible things for people and animals and the planet everywhere.

And, you know, your organization does incredible things.

So in that space, because budgets are really, really tight, resources are very tight.

Even though there's so much demand, there's more and more things that need mission towards them.

Raising that money is really challenging.

And so the first company that we built called donor trends, used predictive science to look at the transactional behavior of a donor you gave to Habitat for Humanity this year, and you've given two gifts in the past.

How likely are you to give again, and what will that gift be?

So we applied predictive intelligence to help fundraisers manage their marketing and list selections more efficiently.

So instead of mailing a half a million, if we can mail 300,000, we save a lot of money and get the same results.

So donor Trends was an analytics business that helped nonprofits target their files more efficiently.

And then I had an employment agreement with the company and our intelligence got merged into a CRM, which is so exciting to have it part of a software solution.

And then now I'm back at it, where my goal with the impact hub is to bring a fuse, the art of marketing with the science of marketing.

And we can talk about that more, but certainly building donor trends.

The first company I learned a lot, which I'm trying to apply to this.

Next solution, and you've mentioned that you're in the process, you and your team are in the process of developing this new software.

How involved are you in that?

Are you the designer of it?

Are you doing some of the implementation?

Yeah, that's a great question.

So this time around, I am a solo bootstrapped founder.

So in donut trends, I had an incredible partner, Ben Miller, who is the company that bought ours, and then it became merged with another big merger thing.

He's the SVP of analytics over at the big company still.

So he's still working for that company.

This time around, I'm just on my own, so it's just me right now.

And then the developers, I've outsourced the development.

So I don't have a CTO who's in this with me, so it's just me right now.

Have you outsourced to a team that you can interact with pretty easily, or are they halfway around the world?

No, that's a great question.

So the way that I went about doing the, in fact, the impact hub is like it was originally called creative keeper, then marketing manager.

So we're now on the third and kind of final name for now.

But the way I had an idea where in just to talk a little bit about what marketers have to go through, and specifically in this kind of nonprofit fundraising space, we think about marketing.

There's more and more marketing, there's more and more channels.

When I first started this business, there was like mail, phone, face to face.

Then there's like the Internet came to be a thing.

So now we have all this digital content and podcasts, so there's tons more channels than there used to be.

Content is almost developed hourly these days.

And the way that all of that gets connected together is chaotic.

So we have file storage systems where imagery and our PDF set, we have analytics sitting somewhere else.

We have in the market that I'm building for because a lot of them use like a sharepoint.

They can't really, certain people can't access files certain ways.

So it's a chaotic environment for marketers.

And the goal is to bring everything into one place instead of using more and more software solutions.

Let's keep our files together in a way that we're using AI to visually search that those images and extract whatever we're looking for.

So if you need to find a green envelope through AI visual search, you'll be able to look at all of your different content and find your green envelopes.

When you're going to try to find a case study to respond to an RFP, everything will be organized in a way where you can share it and where we're bringing the data, the outcomes of your marketing into view.

So right now, if you're sending out a marketing campaign and you want to show your boss or your board how well this campaign is doing for the organization, you have to go to each individual PDF of artwork, take a thumbnail of that, drop it onto a slide, go to somebody else who has the outcome or data of the campaign, find that, paste it somewhere else.

So it's tens, if not hundreds of hours of just manually piecing together the marketing story.

And the impact hub brings all of that together.

I think we got all used that in just our daily lives, not just when you're doing.

I mean, I can't tell you how many times I'm searching on our Dropbox for where did we put this?

Right, right.

And what was it called?

What was it called?

And so much of what agencies are hired to do is just for that institutional knowledge, because turnovers and this, I'm just so familiar, my expertise is in the nonprofit and agency space.

So perhaps it's like this in all industries, but turnover is pretty high.

People are shifting jobs usually every 2.1 years.

And so it's like the knowledge, it's even file structure.

So when we're searching just using keywords or text within documents, as marketers, I want something that has the.

The goose on it.

I want, you know, marketers are looking for different images to use in different campaigns.

And so my kind of mantra with the impact hub is do less better.

So whatever we can do to minimize, we want to do less better so we can do more good with these tiny but mighty teams.

If we can bring everything into one central location, it just saves them so much time and frustration.

So that's my goal here, is just to empower those marketers to do less better so they can do more good.

So it sounds like you're the designer of this new software, you're directing the team, but in order to do that, and you don't view yourself as a coder, you're not a.

Well, no, no, no.

Definitely no, no, no.

Definitely not.

And I'm sorry, don't think I answered your ask me about whether it was halfway around the globe or locally.

So the way I went about, I had the idea for the impact hub.

Like we need to have the central location for this stuff.

I built a prototype first with a development company that I used with the donor trends analytics business.

And they're mainly in Macedonia.

They have team members kind of all around the globe, but they're in Macedonia and so it's a much, at the time it was a better price than what we could get.

Now pricing for development has kind of stabilized in certain regions.

So I went back to them and what we did was basically just a clickable kind of figma file, but along with that also a requirements document.

So here's the bigger idea.

Let me take this prototype.

And then I went out and I talked to 80 prospective customers and I've been in this industry for a long time, so I felt so grateful that these contacts that I've had for a long time are willing to meet on screen and go through this idea.

And I got great feedback.

As you can imagine, with every conversation there's going to be, wait, this was here and that was here.

But sometimes you'll find those common denominators.

And that's after I heard a piece of feedback for the fourth or fifth time, I knew, okay, we have to really think about this.

Enough functionality.

I'll give you an example.

Early on it was called Creative Keeper was the first name, which really just sounds like a place where you would put your yarn or something.

But the creative keeper, I did not want to get into project management because there's Asana and Monday.com.

that project management space is so saturated.

The last thing I wanted to do was try to rebuild an asana, but it became clear in terms of what technology solutions a lot of these marketing teams were just trying to solve for right now was those workflows and tasks and to dos across multiple teams and entities.

And so while we're not setting out to rebuild a complicated tool like Asana, we did add into it wasn't there, the original prototype.

But in what we're building in the MVP, we do have workflows and tasks and the ability to get content approved through the system because I learned that during that prototype.

So I used the same company, itlabs, to help build the prototype and write the requirements document.

But ultimately I moved to a different team that's based here in the US.

And the main reason I shifted, I was very impressed by their AI knowledge and how they could immediately, even in the MVP stack, integrate some AI tools into MVP and version one and the timing and the language barrier.

Sometimes with marketing as we know, there's phrases and catchphrase.

It was a better fit for me.

So it started out Macedonia.

It is now us based.

Short answer.

I just have to stop and commend you for 80 customers is very impressive in anybody doing any kind of product development.

I actually say in my book, you ought to try to speak to 40.

And I consider 40 to be a lot.

40 is a lot and most people have a lot of, and it's really helpful if you have been in an industry and you know, a lot of people, and it sounds like you had not a short conversation with each one, you had to show them your mock up and you had to explain how it works and what were the goals.

And I bet each of each conversation was at least an hour.

It was at least an hour and a lot of it because Covid has, you know, it was a few years ago, I hadn't, we got acquired and then six months later Covid hit.

So I hadn't really been back kind of on the scene.

This is a very small, and maybe a lot of markets are like this, but it's a very niche community.

You know, it's, or tight knit.

There's not a ton of us.

And so a lot of it too is like reconnecting with people.

So I was so grateful for the time, but I also recognize that I'm old.

So when you can get 80 people or 40 people to want to jump on screen with you to discuss something, you've been around for a long time.

If there are people joining today's conversation that haven't been, you know, it's like when you've been somewhere for decades, hopefully you can get that many people on screen and they were just so gracious with their time.

Yeah, some people I went back to you know, multiple, because I want to make the times and then some, you know, you have to save, because when you think about your rollout strategy, it's like you can't target everybody either, you know, but I wanted to ensure that the features and functionality, I feel like if they had some say so on how we built the product, then it's certainly a great way for me to, like, go back to them and say, hey, remember when you told me that this would be great to have, like, you know, we incorporated it and now it's time to buy it.

Okay, so you, you've told me that you've got maybe lots more, but you've distilled down the lessons that you feel like you learned from number one to a core set of nine things.

Yes, yes.

And how are you, we can talk about what those are, but how are you trying to use those in what you're doing?

Do you read the list every morning and say, okay, you know, I'm not going to do these things or I am going to do some of the ones that tell me, you know, what I should be doing.

What's the deal?

Some of them, yes.

And I'm, but I'm one of those cheesy quote people.

Not necessarily the posters with, like, the eagle soaring or anything, but I do have, like, before you walk out the door, I do have, like, you know, check yourself before you wreck yourself.

You know, there's certain things that I tell my kids, like, so one of my lessons from the first to now is just start.

You know, just start.

I guess Nike says, just do it.

So I guess it's not that, you know, because I'm stealing from Nike here.

But just, no, no.

If you just, if you have a two word thing and you've used one word that they've used, I don't think that's stealing.

I didn't think of Nike when I saw that.

I just thought, do you have that sign somewhere in your house?

I'll have a Martin Luther King quote that says, you just see the first step and not the whole staircase.

And then to me, that's the same thing as just start.

So sometimes those quotes.

But I always think, just do it.

Sometimes you wait for the best.

Whatever.

I'll come up right now building my new website.

I had one up for the creative keeper.

Now I need to launch the impact hub, but I don't want it to be, here's the features and functionality.

You know, I want it to be something better than that.

So.

But right now, because we're launching in five weeks.

Like, just start.

Just get it up.

Stop.

You know?

So I even write today.

I have to look at, like, so some of it is a list.

I do have a list of nine right here.

I'll have some quotes in the other room, just as constant reminders, because you've done this so many more times than I have.

But, you know, it's when you're in the thick of it, sometimes you forget these, like, these lessons that you've learned, and they can really help you out where you are today.

I actually feel like I need to read my own book again soon because I finished writing it back in December of last year, and I feel like when I look in it, it's like, wow, I should read this again.

Maybe you should read it to me.

Maybe we should have, like, turn the podcast into a weekly chapter or something.

Because clearly, like, every morning that I sit down, I have this wonder woman thing that I push.

Sometimes you have to take a stand, you know?

So maybe we need, like, a version of you giving, like, quotes from your book that I can also push every morning and get me straight.

Okay.

But just so you know, you are getting a copy of it for being on my podcast.

Thank you very much.

And I will buy a copy as well, because I'm sure there's, like, some great knowledge in there.

Hi.

The podcast you are listening to is a companion to my recent book, tech startup how to launch strong and exit big.

This is the book I wish I'd had as I was founding and running eight startups over 35 years.

It's like a memoir of my entrepreneurial journey.

I tell the unvarnished truth about what went right, and especially about what went wrong.

It's for the founder, the CEO, and wannabe founders of tech and non tech startups.

You could get it from all the usual booksellers and also from the publisher@manning.com.

i hope you like it.

It's a true labor of love.

Now back to the show.

Well, okay, so just start that.

That one is very self explanatory.

That was very probably the hardest one for me to do.

Just get it.

You know, just.

Just start another important one.

And I've highlighted it a few times today, but that you don't need to boil the ocean.

You just need to warm the pond.

I think the actual saying is a little bit more crass than that, but you just need to warm the pond and.

You mean.

You mean it's crass and it's just supposed to pee in the pond?

Yes.

Yeah, exactly.

Oh, my God, that's funny.

And so I think about that in the way that I look at vertical SaaS development.

So I've mentioned, like, the nonprofit space a number of times.

So it doesn't have the greatest tam, the total available market.

While there are a lot of registered nonprofits, there's almost 2 million registered nonprofits of that population.

Those that have buying power for a technical solution is maybe 275,000.

But I choose to build tools in this space because I know the market so well that when you're starting to build something out, be the best of something for a specific target, then once you capture that market, then we can expand out of.

So when I think about this, when I'm like, oh, my gosh.

Well, commercial marketers have, like, so much more budget spend than these nonprofits.

What am I doing this again?

In this space, nonprofits are stuck.

It's challenging because once they lock in their budget number for the year, it's not like they have some disposable fund that they can unlimited money somewhere.

It's a nonprofit.

So their accounting compliance is different than other b, two b types of sales.

So it's like, I have to remember I'm building in this space for a reason.

And the reason is because I know these people really well.

It's like I'm doing this second as a passion.

Like, I know this tool is going to help change the way they do business.

And so.

But I just have to, like, you know, warm the.

Warm the pond.

Don't have to boil the ocean.

You know, the reason that jumped out at me is because you may have heard of Walden Pond.

It was from, you know, Henry David Thoreau wrote about it.

It's up here in Concord.

It's about 5 miles from my house.

Okay.

And it's where I work out all summer.

Oh, nice.

But they came out with an article in the Boston Globe earlier this year, and they said they sort of were admonishing people, please stop peeing in Walden Pond.

And it's like, well, it's a big pond, okay?

So it's half a mile long and about a third of a mile wide.

And it's a hundred feet deep.

So very deep pond.

But they can measure.

So so many people are in it, and they could.

And it has no inflow or outflow.

It's.

It's.

It's got no streams.

So it's like, well, so when you wrote, you just need to warm the pond, I'm thinking, well, no, not this pond, please.

No.

I wouldn't even know it.

Like, ps, fish, don't read.

You know, I don't know, like, that's funny.

Wow.

Huh?

What's the next one that you've learned?

Romeroll, please.

We're on number three of nine.

You are not alone.

So maybe that's more just for affirmation, especially this time around for me because it's am solo founder, the last venture I had my partner, Ben.

So leaning on people like you, your incredible podcast, your bulk, just know that that's reaching people like me that are doing this somewhat isolated and knowing that I have these resources that I can tap into.

So I appreciate all that you do to put this podcast out and the time that you spent writing your book, because it is helpful for entrepreneurs like me.

Is Ben going to stay over there or might Ben come back and rejoin you?

I think Ben will probably stay over there.

I haven't connected with him in a couple of months, but I think his skillset is so incredible over there, then maybe.

I think dreams will retire one day, but I know that he'll always be there if I need business help or I especially being in that kind of corporate space, he sees a lot of m and a coming and going.

I think as the market starts to shift and we build this thing up for exit, I'm hoping he's helpful down the road.

What does retention over acquisition mean?

So I think especially for startups where we're so focused on new business, new business, new business.

Acquiring, acquiring, acquiring.

And of course we are because we're trying to build revenue.

I think it's also important.

It's also important with the nonprofits that I counsel, I'm always talking about donor retention, holding onto your donors.

Same thing when you're building a business is that, yes, it's important that we acquire more and more, but you have to pay equal attention, if not more, to those existing customers.

And that means that welcoming or that onboarding strategy.

Be thoughtful before you land your first customer.

What that journey.

I don't love the word journey, but what that journey will look like.

And when we exited from donor trends, retention, obviously insurance is a big metric that people are looking at in acquisition and so we were proud of our retention rate.

But it's just a constant reminder when I'm building something, whether it's developing the software or when I'm thinking about launch, it is how am I going to give those customers the best experience?

So they'll want to stay after year one.

And because I am solo right now, that means for year one, I can't really take on more than ten accounts to ensure that they're getting the best experience and we're getting them into the tool and using the tool again so they don't leave.

Yeah, and so it's again going to be a SaaS application.

Will it be a big installation integration process or does it have a.

A lighter touch?

It depends on it has a lighter touch.

I really will have more information after the first year.

I want to see how people engage with the tool because this integrates file storage with analytics, there's a lot of different users that plug into the same campaign or the same project.

So we'll submit a the goal is that on the enterprise level, for the first year, I'll give away the service for free, but the contracts will be structured where they'll be paying a cloud based fee and then also a service fee.

That service fee for initial customers will be zeroed out, but I imagine kind of a $2,500 flat service fee to help those enterprise clients onboard and get the system customized in a way that makes sense for their marketing operations.

This software takes a level of change management, which isn't easy.

And so I won't have, I don't think, a good system set up until I really have seven to ten people using it to see how they're interacting and how we need to improve onboarding in years, too.

When you launch the product, will you hire some people to help?

That will be helping the customers acquire the product and get it working?

Yes.

In fact, in my projections, I changed.

Initially I had sales coming in as the first person was, the first hire I would make would be sales.

But I changed that to customer success for this very reason.

Retention over acquisition.

I know that I need somebody to come in, not only know the system to help back in with testing, but to ensure that those accounts are running as smoothly as possible and then to start bringing in another customer success in years.

I think I have them right now, like two years, seven months for a second customer success person.

But obviously, all of that ties into the pricing, that level of handholding.

You're not selling a product that's $100 a month.

So this type of solution needs to be priced.

And again, we're talking about nonprofits.

So it's one thing if it's $99 a month, but a lot of heuristics come into play when you're talking a couple grand per month, because if it's $2,500 a month, they haven't baked that in to their current fiscal year budget.

But with that level of service and handholding, pricing obviously needs to, to match that human interaction.

Your next one is near and dear to my heart because.

And it's the part that says, build what they need, not what you think they want.

Because it is so common for a good engineering team to say, well, I know they're going to need this.

And one of the things that I always try to get people to do is say, you don't need to architect this for the 20 year timeframe.

You just need to make sure that it's got what they need and have confidence in yourself that you can refactor it as we want to add features and capabilities, but otherwise you're spending money on something that they're not going to use, and then you've wasted it.

Right.

Time and money.

And I think right now, if my development team was like back here, they'd be like, amen, keep telling you.

Because I think that we're at that point in development where I know what they want to be saying is like, we don't need that right now.

And in my mind, because I've already, like, painted this, like, grand vision of what this thing should be right now, you know, so it's meeting those expectations.

So I'm sure I'm driving the team insane right now.

So hopefully, once they listen to this, we'll already be past all that stuff.

We'll see.

But, you know, that's, that's.

I'm trying to remind myself this is like a lesson that I'm currently in right now, and I'm trying to remind myself of this every day.

What's number six?

Set your systems up to sell.

And what I meant instead of sell, maybe exit is a better word.

So it's not necessarily selling the product.

But I learned a lot when we sold donor trends, and part of that is simple admin, housekeeping stuff.

I'm very fortunate to have had a business partner the way that we kept from the very beginning, contracts and NDAs and, you know, all of our accounting.

Like, we were very thorough with how we kept things.

But I know I've talked to people that have sold where they've lost a lot of money because these records were not kept.

So it's learning those lessons, especially around contracts and ensuring your books are really tight.

I.

That those were important lessons during due diligence, you know, it was myself and Ben and on the other side for due diligence, like we had just like 32 people alone on the due diligence team from Deloitte.

It's like, whoa.

You know, like, whoa.

It was a lot of like resources.

And so going through that due diligence process was intense.

You know, I mean, I was really proud that we had kept such meticulous records because it helped to facilitate the process.

I could imagine if people had to be digging through things and looking for things and who do we work with?

It helped that our team was tiny, but that's what I mean, set your systems up.

To sell or to exit is like, I think about that.

My file system now is triplicated and the contracts are all saved a certain way.

Have you experienced that in any of the exits?

Absolutely.

And in fact, one of the things in the book that's kind of didactic is actually I go ahead and lay out what a data room should look like and I mean, everybody's is going to be a little bit different.

But I'm hoping that when they see this one, which has helped with like eleven financings and or acquisition, which are roughly the same kind of due diligence, a major investment from a venture capitalist, so it's kind of the same.

And, and then they might, they might see something that needs to be added or maybe I have something that they don't need, but at least it's going to get them to think about.

This is a pretty significant list.

It's like, I think it's like 42 top level folders.

Wow, that's great.

Even just seeing what those are, is going to be educate so many people.

Like, oh, I never thought, you know, like, I wonder what that's, that's amazing.

I can't wait to get my hands on this book.

Okay, well, we'll fix that.

Yeah.

Okay.

So strong team.

Yeah.

So build up on a team.

You know, I think that that's just, that's part of life.

I don't think that that's a big, not just from selling the business, I learned that, but I just.

The team again, we were a small team at donor trends, but just so dedicated and it was like the right people around.

So I think that it's just a reminder this time and I feel like for the impact hub that I have like been surrounding myself by incredible people and I'm grateful for that.

Well, you're all by yourself, so you better hope that you're surrounded by the right people.

Thank God I'm with you.

And hopefully your books do, you know, be me and yourself.

So it is a special feeling, and it's unique to a startup.

You're not going to see this at a big company that when all the people you have, everybody is trusting each other, everything's clicking is fantastic.

And, yeah, when you have a team within a big company, you can have that, but of course, you still have to interact with the rest of the company.

And I've had challenges with that the times that I have worked at a big company.

So it's amazing how great things are.

And one of the ways I've always gotten there is that I have a rule that we will hire no strangers in the first 25 people.

Oh, I like that.

And that means it's either people you know and.

Or have worked with before or somebody else on your team has.

And so as you start to add to the team that you use, the circle that you can include in that no strangers is getting larger.

So it's not like they all have to be your, you know, immediate contact.

Right.

It still is.

It's a.

It's a good philosophy, I think.

Right.

And then who hired this fool?

You know, at least we could just.

Yeah, no, I love that.

I love that rule.

And then there's some familiarity and someone's like, you know, I like that a lot.

I like that you still can make mistakes.

And hiring is not a science, it's art.

No, that's what.

Yeah.

And the corollary, or the rule that goes with that is to hire slowly and fire quickly.

The second part of that is the.

Most important I can see, especially, like, in sales, you know, like I.

Right.

I think that that's so true.

And knowing and not keeping people around for too long.

If they're not working out, then they can start to really drag the whole rest of the team down because like we just said, you know, they're all really trusting each other and everybody's working, you know, very efficiently and communicating.

And then if somebody kind of is, you know, the wrench in the, in the cogs of the machine, then.

And you and somebody make sure you are aware of that, then it behooves you to do something about it quickly so that your team isn't when we.

Start to build out.

I think that's another great lesson.

I need to put that on my wall.

I think that's really smart to be aware of how much time goes by in assessing whether it's a fit or not.

The shorthand for that was that within the team, they would say, the bozo bit has been flipped.

And that means that this person is a bozo.

And once the switch is flicked, unfortunately, they have to go right.

And I don't, like, you know, say, oh, well, the hiring manager needs to take care of that.

I feel like it's my responsibility to act quickly, to take care of it, to ask that person if they would go ahead and leave, come back on Saturday, get their stuff, and then you rally the team and you say, this is what just happened, and here's why.

And now we're all moving forward.

Yeah, that's a great way to handle it.

Okay, so let's talk about embracing failure.

I think that I've always been, I guess to say, like, I don't love to fail, but I do think learning from your failures and not being too scared to fail has always been a big part of who I am since my kids have been little, like, we'll talk about, like, how did you fail today?

Which they always would find such a strange, like, why are you promoting this, like, failure?

But I do think so much.

That's the first thing you said when I got home from school, I would.

Talk about how I failed.

I would come home and be like, guess who?

Like, let's talk about how I failed today, only to remove the.

So I feel like, so what?

Like, humans are really held back in life by, like, being like, I guess it'll be embarrassment.

You know, is what we, what holds us back, because we're just, you know, we're too scared to be embarrassed.

Then that would be failure.

But I think learning from, let's not be too scared to fail.

It's, you know, again, just, just start, which was number one, just start.

And then if we do fail, what do we learn?

And then turn those into lessons.

And I think, like anybody in software, it's like, that's kind of what we do.

We iterate.

How did that, did that work?

Did that not work?

What do customers want?

So I think that's an important part of, like, what's in us.

But I also think people in marketing have the same attitude.

The idea of you try a campaign and then you measure it, and then you say, well, you know, that wasn't as good as I'd thought.

I wonder why.

And the other thing is that the cool thing about marketing is you could try five different versions of a campaign with five different segments of your target population.

So that's pretty similar.

Yeah.

And pivot when necessary.

And you were just talking about this with, with team members.

You know that if change is needed, let's, let's pivot quickly.

Let's not, you know, let's.

If something's not working, let's figure it out and keep it moving.

I think it's.

And at a startup or, you know, any kind of small organization, you can do that pretty quickly.

I've, I've watched some big companies where it's like turning an aircraft carrier.

It's just like analysis paralysis.

It really is.

I was shocked at.

I shouldn't have been like, shocked, but I guess going from startup environment to after acquisition, there's probably just whole podcasts around, just that kind of that limbo period.

How do we fit into this giant machine?

And we still need to hit numbers and all of this, but watching how something on such a large scale is created versus what our process for our platform was, it's like every decision and getting on the roadmap and all the meeting, you know, it's like, whoa, it was, it's just a totally different way of getting, you know, product developed.

Okay, last but not least, be prepared for the long haul.

This is true.

It's a marathon, not a sprint, right?

I think that's right.

Like, that's another way to say it.

Yeah.

Like, and I think that it's just like having, just being gritty is what I say.

You know, 1ft in front of the other, if we fall down seven times, whatever that energy is, that gets us up the 8th time, that's just keeping that in mind.

Just 1ft in front of the other, and we'll get there eventually, and it's not going to happen overnight.

And sometimes in this process, I'm still very, very, very early on, but even reflecting back of when this used to just be an idea, even thinking about what this idea is going to help marketers do, just remembering, it's like, I know I'm in.

It's like a marathon, and I just, you know, just left the start, but we'll get there.

Well, you used my favorite word just now, so you're obviously very gritty.

And where do you think your grit comes from?

I don't know where it comes from.

To me, there's like, it's an energy that, but it starts like, it starts with a need, like something to, a desire, like something to prove or that I have to fix.

There's an energy, and so I don't know where it comes from.

All I know is I'm so dedicated to changing something, and I think for everybody, that energy, that dedication to wanting something to change becomes a goal, and that grit is the accomplishment of that goal.

And so, but it doesn't.

I'm not gritty for everything, but for this, for the.

I'm so passionate about what this tool can do that I'm willing to, like I said, fall seven times, and that grit's going to get me up for the 8th time and the 9th time and the 27th time.

And so it does start with, like, just that, that notion that I know that there's this problem and I'm going to solve it.

What is your definition of grit or where do you think it comes from?

Well, for me, it came from what I had to go through as a kid, having cancer and losing my leg.

That just forces you to.

Or you give in, you just sort of cave in and you just, you know, but, um, solve a.

Solve a really big problem, uh, and build a company that can deliver on that.

That is something that takes grit.

And there's some people that are drawn to that.

Yeah, it's.

And I applaud those that are, that are doing it.

You know, it's.

You're right.

It does take great and delusion.

Maybe two tablespoons.

Insanity.

Four tablespoons grit.

Yeah, I'm sure there's a.

I'm sure there's a recipe.

How old are your kids?

17 and 18.

Oh, nice.

Nice.

Yeah, they're like, you know, big now, which is good.

Yeah, they're doing this with me this time, which is for, you know, so all the new business development.

And because this platform has meant, you know, where, where marketing is stored for almost two years, I've signed up for all kinds of marketing.

So they're in charge of scanning all the mail packages and organizing them by organization.

So they're the impact hub.

Interns.

Are they unpaid interns?

Correct.

Well, the wife, they get Wi Fi.

So they get Wi Fi and food.

Right.

They get Wi Fi, food, electricity.

I mean, that's this economy, you know, it's probably like $8,000 a month right there.

All right, well, fantastic.

Thank you so much.

Well, I appreciate you guys.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to join you today.

That's a wrap.

Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of the designing successful startups podcast.

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This is Jothi Rosenberg saying, tTFN, Tata for now.