How to Sell to Enterprise Without a Sales Team (The Partner Strategy)

Sean Weisbrot: Why do middle managers need to be disrupted by ai?

Dima Syrotkin: Because while it is the best solution we have right now, it's very far from perfect.

Dima Syrotkin: I mean, if you look at any company that is on the stock market right now, it's like, unless it's a tech company or Elon Musk gets involved, they're all struggling to innovate and they're all stagnating.

Dima Syrotkin: And I would claim that a lot of that is about coordination problems.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, if you look at like, how big companies are right now, many, many people talk about like AI shrinking companies, where, you know, a lot of things will be automated, but I wonder if some companies would actually become bigger because coordination will not be as painful and people would not, you know, when you ask them like, where do you work?

Dima Syrotkin: They would not be answering like, ah, big company. And there's this like, heavy sigh of like, yeah, you know, it's terrible.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, so it, you know, I, I think, I think it doesn't have to be like that.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, and I think, you know, what's interesting to me is once we fix that coordination, could companies actually be even more impactful and grow in, even bigger in size

Sean Weisbrot: than they are right now

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Sean Weisbrot: Why is the solution using AI though? Why not just fire people and, and let just there be less people?

Sean Weisbrot: Why? Why do you have to apply AI to this solution?

Dima Syrotkin: I actually studied, um, i, I worked on a PhD on that exact topic, uh, what's called self-managing Organizations.

Dima Syrotkin: One of the famous articles, um, that a one like management guru published on this topic was like, why, why don't we just fire all the managers?

Dima Syrotkin: And I guess the answer is like, it's just not so easy.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, like, uh, Zappos, maybe some people have heard of it. Mm.

Dima Syrotkin: There was a cool book, I forget the name, by, um, the CEO, Tony Shea. Um, I think it's.

Dima Syrotkin: Something that has happened is in the title, but it is basically a lot about like their customer success and how they really went, um, above and beyond there.

Dima Syrotkin: So that company that sold to Amazon, they tried to.

Dima Syrotkin: Become more self-managing and apply what's called holacracy. And long story short, it, it was a shit show and they, they ended up then like reverting back.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, I, I think at the end of the day, like, you know, we looked at like many examples and it's just, it's just super hard.

Dima Syrotkin: There's some like very rare occurrences when it does work.

Dima Syrotkin: Like, there's a company in the Netherlands that has 18,000 employees, and they're all divided into teams of 12, and they actually don't have middle management.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, but it's, it's like a nursing kind of service organization where every team works on their own, like small pocket of a city.

Dima Syrotkin: So it's kind of easy to subdivide them and they don't have to collaborate that much.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, so it might be a bit more of a, you know, um, of a, um, sort of exception.

Dima Syrotkin: Not the rule. And if you look at ai, I actually think this is one of the things it's best at, it's actually best at, you know, becoming more of a glue.

Dima Syrotkin: And one, um, one book I recommend everyone to read is called Reshuffle.

Dima Syrotkin: I think it's like number one AI book right now, uh, on like Amazon.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, that basically talks about the fact that like rather thinking of AI as like the super intelligence right now, we might be better off thinking of it as this like coordination mechanism that allows us to.

Dima Syrotkin: You know, um, coordinate between people and, and, uh, serve as, as this like completely new mechanism of, of coordination.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. How do you get companies to trust you that this is a solution they should try out, especially when they're probably going to have to fire their humans in order to do it.

Sean Weisbrot: And you might have to get buy-ins from humans to let it even start.

Dima Syrotkin: So I think it's, it's actually like, you know, it, it's gonna start as augmentation for sure.

Dima Syrotkin: And even for myself, like it's not co completely clear, you know, will we actually end up firing a ton of people or will it just that they, you know, would end up going and doing more productive things.

Dima Syrotkin: Was there time, um, because it's like, you know, when, when demand for electricity kind of went, went down, sorry, when, when supply supply of electricity kind of went up and, and the prices went down.

Dima Syrotkin: The demand actually increased rather than like decreased and like the, the whole profits of, of, of theistic companies.

Dima Syrotkin: So I think it might be something similar, uh, here as well.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, I think what also helps us is, uh, just focusing on concrete problems.

Dima Syrotkin: So we don't really come to companies and say, Hey, you know, we're gonna.

Dima Syrotkin: Sort of augment your middle management. Here's a new way of leading your company.

Dima Syrotkin: Now that's a bit too like, um, sci-fi ivory tower pitch.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, what means that say is, look, you know, here is a digital transformation or change management program, or like AI adoption problem that you, you have, and the official statistic is that most of them fail.

Dima Syrotkin: You're gonna spend billions of dollars and, and probably, you know, it's gonna take a lot longer.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, why don't we try something new here because you know that it's not working. You have a contribu problem.

Dima Syrotkin: What if we can help, help and, and, and solve, solve it for you there.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, the last thing that I would say is we collaborate a lot with consulting firms and that really helps to build the trust because they, um.

Dima Syrotkin: You know, they, they've built really long-term relationships and so when, and the consulting firms are somehow more prone to seeing the future, and maybe that's their job, I don't know, but they've been a lot more receptive.

Dima Syrotkin: And, and then when they come to the client and when they come, not just like, you know, kind of like, oh, it's a weird startup, but they sort of pitch it during the golf session, you know, in their native language.

Dima Syrotkin: Uh, and they've had a relationship for decades like that.

Dima Syrotkin: That also, uh, changes the stance of the clients where they're like, okay, like maybe I'll try it.

Sean Weisbrot: So you're heavily reliant on Referers for sales?

Dima Syrotkin: Yes. I think in this industry, I mean, that's basically how it runs, right?

Dima Syrotkin: Like in, in consulting it's like, you know, you, you call, you call your, you know, partner in McKinsey, Joe that you've known for like 20 years and you've been through, you know, hell and fire with, and maybe you've even worked in McKinsey yourself.

Dima Syrotkin: And so you've, you know, um, have a lot of experience with them. And, and so I think like.

Dima Syrotkin: If we want to disrupt the industry, that's sort of the best ways from the inside.

Dima Syrotkin: It works so far really well for us because for them as well, there's a lot of incentives because they want to, um, be able to differentiate themselves.

Dima Syrotkin: And AI is one, one way to differentiate themselves. Right now.

Dima Syrotkin: They also want to, um, use our data to understand their clients better, to be able to serve them better, right?

Dima Syrotkin: Because they can come back and say, look, you know, based on TRON data, we see that besides this thing you hired us for, there's also a problem X, Y, and z.

Dima Syrotkin: Guess what? We have thousands of consultants that can help with that too.

Dima Syrotkin: And then lastly, many people think that, you know, consultants would be afraid of us, like disrupting their industry.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, but they actually, you know, if we can increase their margins, they're like all for it.

Dima Syrotkin: Like, they're not in the business of selling people.

Dima Syrotkin: They're in the business of making money effectively and like increasing their profits.

Dima Syrotkin: And so if, um, you know, if they can start, sell, um, recurring sauce, like, you know, on only, only the better.

Sean Weisbrot: It's a really great model. Because I, I did this before.

Sean Weisbrot: I had a consulting business a long time ago, and I was a hundred percent referral.

Sean Weisbrot: And the commissions were so large that the people referring were very excited to send me as many clients as they could, as fast as they could, because the, the time to close was sometimes, you know, an hour, like just a single call.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. All right. Let's do it. Yeah. Yeah. So because they knew I could deliver and because they knew the commissions were good and they knew that I sent them the commissions, as soon as I got the money, which was sometimes the same day as we signed the agreement, they were highly incentivized to keep going.

Sean Weisbrot: So if you have something that makes them happy and as you said, possibly feeds them data so that they can do better, then it sounds like a no brainer.

Sean Weisbrot: Is there a point at which this stops being scalable for not, not for the software, but for the referral model?

Dima Syrotkin: I think it's not so much about like the scalability, but more like maybe conflicts of interest, like some features we are planning for is that when we give the data to the csuite.

Dima Syrotkin: And we say, Hey, you have certain problems. We wanna be able to have like a one button that says like, deploy a task force.

Dima Syrotkin: And you know, they would press the button and we'll find the best people both within the organization and also outside the organization that could solve a particular problem.

Dima Syrotkin: And then they could like confirm and then two weeks later they get a report on their table saying, Hey.

Dima Syrotkin: Here's, you know, what this problem is about and here's what you should do.

Dima Syrotkin: And, you know, here's a result of our investigation. Um, and that's something that they called their friend Joe and McKinsey about right now.

Dima Syrotkin: And so I think at some point, you know, once we start kind of piling up those features that automate some of the consulting workflow, it becomes a question of like, okay, uh, do we become competitive right now?

Dima Syrotkin: Neither us nor them really worry about that too much because we're super small. We're not a threat to them.

Dima Syrotkin: At some point it could become. The case. And so we, we would need to think like, okay, at that point do we sort of then need to decouple and sort of sell directly, uh, only or you know, how to manage that or, or maybe they invest in us.

Dima Syrotkin: So the incentives are aligned because they would then be like, okay, well if Panda John succeeds, then well, we own a piece of the company.

Dima Syrotkin: So like, whatever, it doesn't really harm us. Um, so, so there might be ways to, to sort of bypass that.

Dima Syrotkin: But that's, um, you know, and, and potentially we also wanna go into strategy, uh, uh, creation, which is like the biggest part of their business because if we have internal data, we could then, you know, also start, um, creating the strategy for them, not just, uh, working on the execution part.

Dima Syrotkin: And that could be really disruptive.

Sean Weisbrot: So wouldn't it make sense for you to focus more on building an alternative channel for sales, like direct sales now to prevent yourself from having this potential problem later?

Sean Weisbrot: Because you could, for example, get to 50 million a RR, you know, if, if you keep building these referrals correctly, you might hit that in 18 months.

Sean Weisbrot: Yep. And. By 12 months, they might already start being skeptical.

Sean Weisbrot: And let's say you finish this round in March or April, and let's say September of 2027, you're what?

Sean Weisbrot: Deep into spending that money deep into growing your revenue. But the companies are starting to cut you off.

Sean Weisbrot: And while you may retain their clients, they may convince their clients to walk away from you.

Sean Weisbrot: So if you don't have your own direct sales program that you're starting to incubate, like let's say summer of next year, um, summer 26, do you have a year to kind of figure out how to get your direct sales channel going using profit from these companies?

Dima Syrotkin: Uh, we already have it ongoing, so I think currently maybe 25% of sales comes direct.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, and that is mostly through conferences. We sponsor, we speak. I think the limitation factor is the brand.

Dima Syrotkin: But I do think that, you know, once we become a threat, that also automatically means that our brand has become quite big already.

Dima Syrotkin: Because, you know, we're probably making quite a bit of revenue. We already have like, uh, a few big clients.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, so I think like there it should be, you know, um, it should be kind of like.

Dima Syrotkin: Possible to, to, to have that as a smooth transition.

Dima Syrotkin: Because, because of the time when we do need to make it, uh, we also kind of in, in a way stronger, stronger position right now.

Dima Syrotkin: Uh, we are definitely like investing there. Um, but it's just like, because we're so small, um, it's just so much easier for us to go through, through channel partners, um, than going direct.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, yeah,

Sean Weisbrot: it's, I'd say it's 25% is a pretty good starting point.

Sean Weisbrot: Like it's, I'd say it's pretty good already where you are.

Sean Weisbrot: Um, if you said you had zero and you hadn't started, then I would be a little bit more worried for you.

Sean Weisbrot: But that's good because if you have 25%, then it, it tells you that you already have something that's working.

Sean Weisbrot: But you said that it, it mostly comes from conferences.

Sean Weisbrot: So do you have a method to do like a, like paid ads or do you think that's not gonna be able to reach the right people from an organization?

Dima Syrotkin: We're definitely experimenting. Um, but it's, what we found out is that it's hard to go from even like sea level minus three because like they might buy, but then even if they're happy, then there's like so much kind of resistance they have to face when they go up and they have to, like, they cannot really upsell to sea level directly.

Dima Syrotkin: They have to, you know, upsell to the level above them, and then that level has to upsell the level above them.

Dima Syrotkin: So just like. It's hard, um, but we're definitely experimenting with it anyway.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, I do think that the product itself also has to be very addictive for the users.

Dima Syrotkin: And so then that backs the question of like, could there be some sort of product led growth approach where we provide, um, something for the, um, for the white collar employees.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, where they, they also use that and, and enjoy the tool, and then they, they kind of come to their, to their managers to buy it.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, but, um, still pretty, pretty early. So conferences work the best for us because there, we, we can meet actual sea level.

Dima Syrotkin: Uh, so for example, like, uh, world Economic Forum in Davos and Switzerland, like we're going there in a few weeks.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, that's been like a really good conference for us. Like brings a lot of sea level. Um.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, but we're definitely experimenting with all, all kinds of different, different channels.

Dima Syrotkin: I think now we are, we're fundraising, um, like our seed round.

Dima Syrotkin: I think after that, like one of my early hires is gonna be the CMO and then we would definitely wanna like, um, look at more channels.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, right now we're just not really kind of like, don't have enough resources to, to look into everything.

Sean Weisbrot: That makes sense. A really close friend of mine's had a SaaS business for 14 years, and they're on track to do 10 million a RR next year.

Sean Weisbrot: They're fully, fully self-funded, so they've, they've never taken investor money and, and they got the majority of their clients from going to conferences, a number of conferences every year for many years, to the point that they now steal from their, um, their competitors because their product is better.

Dima Syrotkin: Yeah, it works in enterprise. Yeah, it's, it's magical.

Dima Syrotkin: Like the, the, the power of face-to-face is crazy. Maybe because, you know, the decision makers are a bit like older, so like, it, it's a bit harder to get, uh, get them online and, and probably because everyone bombards them with everything already.

Dima Syrotkin: So.

Sean Weisbrot: Well they do, uh, they serve ho like hotels, but they're serving more boutique hotels.

Sean Weisbrot: So it might be a single owner of like a 10 unit or a 15, 20 unit hotel.

Sean Weisbrot: Um, some of them go up to a hundred units, but um, a lot of them, they just went to the hotels, knocked on the door and said, hi, I am here.

Sean Weisbrot: What's up? Um, a lot of it was, that

Dima Syrotkin: makes

Sean Weisbrot: sense.

Dima Syrotkin: I mean, hotels seem to be like this, very physical businesses, right?

Dima Syrotkin: Like you're literally hosting people in this, you know, building like.

Dima Syrotkin: It makes sense that you would also like, get them face to face more than you would get them online.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. Uh, but now they can have, you know, they have other people that go to the conferences and do those sales and they have, you know, advertising and other sources that make it easier, um, on the founders to not have to do a lot of that hard work.

Sean Weisbrot: So what has been one of the most challenging things for you about doing this business?

Dima Syrotkin: In the beginning, it took us a while to really build that, uh, you know, that demand generation, right?

Dima Syrotkin: Like going to the first conferences, getting the first interest, like when you have zero, right?

Dima Syrotkin: Uh, 'cause then you, you go to this like giant corporations and then, uh, getting our first reseller initially, uh, like a small.

Dima Syrotkin: 20 million Revenue consulting firm. Um, and then they brought us some big clients like Panasonic Mitsubishi.

Dima Syrotkin: And then that brought us enough credibility to then get our first like mid-tier reseller.

Dima Syrotkin: And then that brought us the first like 8 million a year, uh, dollar deal in the pipeline now with Marriott.

Dima Syrotkin: So there, you know, that, that is, um, that, that all took time and, and we had to kind of build, build up to it.

Dima Syrotkin: Uh, so if you show up to, to enterprise, you know, it's, um.

Dima Syrotkin: Uh, it, it's hard unless you really have like strong connections.

Dima Syrotkin: And then the other thing I would say is on the product, which is also similar, I think enterprise is also challenging in terms of the product because the expectations are very high.

Dima Syrotkin: You know, everything has to work perfectly. Um, especially like we work internationally and for example, Japanese have like crazy high standards.

Dima Syrotkin: Uh, like they hate any kinds of bugs or anything like that.

Dima Syrotkin: It's like, you know, it's just unacceptable, you know, here. Here, here is the, the katana go performs a pku.

Dima Syrotkin: If, if there was a bug, this is totally, totally unacceptable.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, and then, um, joking, of course, but still, um, and then also like security requirements, right?

Dima Syrotkin: Like, you know, you absolutely cannot sell unless you have like really strong security and that ends up being like.

Dima Syrotkin: One third of your like tech team basic working on like privacy and security and that That's like a huge expense that like if we were just a consumer startup or we were sending to SMB, we could have like put those resources somewhere else.

Sean Weisbrot: So when you're talking to these prospects, are they telling you, we need you to have this thing or this thing?

Sean Weisbrot: 'cause I, I built a, a SaaS by myself. If I coded a SaaS, that was a financial service.

Sean Weisbrot: And the only API that we really needed was from QuickBooks. QuickBooks required us to have this.

Sean Weisbrot: There's this four page, oh, this's just me there.

Sean Weisbrot: There was a four page document with all of their security requirements for them to allow us to allow me to use a production API.

Sean Weisbrot: And so I had to say to Claude, Hey, hey, Claude, review this document.

Sean Weisbrot: Tell me what we have, what we don't have, and then implemented for me.

Sean Weisbrot: But then I had to go back several times and make sure that it actually did the things it said that it was going to do because it didn't.

Sean Weisbrot: And I caught it lying to me several times. Um.

Sean Weisbrot: But, but once I got it all done, then I was able to do it.

Sean Weisbrot: So do you, do you have any things like that where the client's like, look, I wanna work with you, but I need to see that you've implemented this specific security thing first.

Dima Syrotkin: I think like likely the good thing is that in security there are standards.

Dima Syrotkin: So once we got certifications, um, things got a lot easier.

Dima Syrotkin: So like ISO SOC two, those are more or less like the golden standards.

Dima Syrotkin: And then like, you know, GDPR if you are like working in Europe.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, and, but, but like to your point, you said four pages.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, we've, we've gotten like, hit with like, uh, 300 questions, like, I don't know how many.

Dima Syrotkin: Uh, you know, pages that was, and it's not uncommon like in, in corporate setting.

Dima Syrotkin: It's, it's, but then the good thing is that if you have a certification like that probably covers like 290 of those 300 questions.

Dima Syrotkin: Uh, but yeah, our like, trust page is like insanely long with all the, all the documents.

Dima Syrotkin: Like, I don't, I don't know.

Dima Syrotkin: It must be more than a thousand pages, uh, which is not uncommon. Um, but, uh, yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: Um. Can't you take that document and put it into like Claude, for example, and say, look at my code base, look at this document and help me answer all the questions that you can answer.

Sean Weisbrot: And if you can't answer it, tell me. So I know you're not just like bullshitting.

Dima Syrotkin: I mean, we do that to some extent.

Dima Syrotkin: I mean, luckily, like sometimes it's like easier for our CTO just to answer directly.

Dima Syrotkin: Like he doesn't even need to ask Claude 'cause he just like knows the answer. Right.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, and, and then the good thing is that with like certifications, you basically like, you know, 95% is already answered.

Dima Syrotkin: So that makes it like very, very easy. And then, uh, nowadays some clients don't even ask anything.

Dima Syrotkin: They're just like, okay, you have like ISO and SOC two. Like, that's fine, you're good. You know?

Dima Syrotkin: So, so, you know, but, but the getting, there was a bunch of work and you have to, of course, like keep it updated and, you know, so I, as I said, like I think one third of our team is on like security and privacy.

Dima Syrotkin: Some of it is security, but then also the other part is privacy, right? With ai.

Dima Syrotkin: So they, they wanna know that like, um, we, for example, have a module that like.

Dima Syrotkin: Uh, removes personal identifiable information before passing it to the LLMs.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, so that's like one, one example of like something we had to do that was like custom.

Dima Syrotkin: Um,

Sean Weisbrot: was it complicated to get those certifications and like, did you need to have clients before the certifiers would recognize you?

Sean Weisbrot: Or like, did you have a chicken and egg problem at all?

Dima Syrotkin: Oh, no, no. Um, then you know, it, it's all about the product, so you don't have to have any clients before getting certifications.

Dima Syrotkin: To be frank, we though we did already have clients and, and we like, saw their demands and we were answering this 300 question documents and we're like, okay, we really need to get certified.

Dima Syrotkin: 'cause like, this is, this is not, not working. This is clearly not the way you should do it.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, but then we were very lucky.

Dima Syrotkin: I mean, I can plug them here. Uh, we were really, um, happy with the provider called One Lead.

Dima Syrotkin: So it's kind of like, I would say it's like a Vanta competitor.

Dima Syrotkin: Like I think everyone knows Vanta by now. Um, but they're like a ton more expensive.

Dima Syrotkin: I haven't worked with Vanta, so they must be really good.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, but like one lead basically was like a ton cheaper.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, it's, you know, kind of you could say a startup that is trying to like, make it.

Dima Syrotkin: A lot more affordable, a lot better. And they were great, kind of like every step of the way.

Dima Syrotkin: So honestly it was pretty smooth sailing. And I mean we also got like quite good people on security 'cause we knew that it was important so we reinvested there as well.

Dima Syrotkin: But all in all, I would say the challenge was just more recognizing that that's a need and then actually then like picking the right partner and then like consciously investing in that, uh, on the team side as well.

Dima Syrotkin: Uh, but it's all doable.

Sean Weisbrot: So this company consulted you through the application process to get certified?

Dima Syrotkin: Exactly. They're kind of consulting and they also have a platform.

Dima Syrotkin: So for example, our trust center, like they host it, um, so they have an actual product as well that helps with every step of the way, uh, with some AI features as well there, et cetera.

Dima Syrotkin: It's like very, very good product. Honestly, I think they raised their series A recently, and I, I understand why.

Sean Weisbrot: So in those earlier days. You were getting these giant documents, but did any of them just say, Hey, or are you certified?

Dima Syrotkin: Yeah. All of them asked, uh, are you certified?

Dima Syrotkin: And we were like, uh, no, but we are definitely compliant. You know, we can answer all your questions.

Dima Syrotkin: And then in the back of our minds we're like, shit, we, we definitely need to get certified SAP.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, so yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: So how long did it actually take to get certified?

Dima Syrotkin: I would say, um, half a year.

Dima Syrotkin: And I mean that depends on your, on the size of your product.

Dima Syrotkin: So we already had quite a bit built, like if, if your product is like, if you're just starting up, right?

Dima Syrotkin: Like you could probably do it in like one or two months.

Dima Syrotkin: I mean, it's pretty, like pretty fast. But like in theory you can't, if you don't have much, right?

Dima Syrotkin: So there's not much to certify and it's very easy to like, you know, plug all the holes, et cetera.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, but because our product does have like quite a bit, I think there's like.

Dima Syrotkin: Already more than 15, like diverse services that like work together.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, it's, um, yeah, it's a heavier lift.

Sean Weisbrot: Hmm. And what was the approximate cost of being able to get certified?

Sean Weisbrot: Just for the people out there that are thinking about this?

Dima Syrotkin: Uh, it was 20 K, which I like, expected a lot more.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, but I think maybe because of, you know, this company again is like up and coming.

Dima Syrotkin: And I think their general logic is like they're trying to make these things affordable.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, but yeah, it was basically 20 K for ISO SOC two and GDPR, so it was kind of like a whole package.

Sean Weisbrot: What are you looking forward to for 2026?

Dima Syrotkin: So we are, you know, super close to hitting a million a RR, which is an exciting, um, exciting milestone.

Dima Syrotkin: We also have a couple of super good people joining the team that have been chasing for a while to join the team.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, one of them, uh, he sold his, uh, design agency. I think they had like. 900 designers.

Dima Syrotkin: He sold it to Capgemini, um, I believe it was a $300 million exit.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, so quite, quite a large exit. Um, and, you know, he was Angel investing and supporting startups, and I convinced him that what we have is, you know.

Dima Syrotkin: Worth, worth, um, investing in and supporting, and he doesn't wanna miss it.

Dima Syrotkin: And, uh, he will bring also his top designer from that firm called Adian that they sold to Capgemini.

Dima Syrotkin: So they're gonna join us in January. Um, that's super exciting.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, I'm, you know, always so happy when like, I kind of manage to secure some really, like top talent.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, I also, um, the guy who basically built Google Cloud, like he was the COO of Google Cloud.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, I also, he will join us as an advisor, so he will be kind of my coach.

Dima Syrotkin: Uh, he invested himself and, uh, he's gonna join. So that's, um, that's pretty exciting. He's not, you know.

Dima Syrotkin: Not gonna be full-time or anything, but like, super experienced guy. And, uh, we'll see.

Dima Syrotkin: Maybe I'll potentially recruit him to, uh, to join full-time.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, but yeah, uh, we had really good chemistry and like he's done some really good stuff.

Dima Syrotkin: Uh, he was like part of Google, but then also part of like Palo Alto Networks. Um, yeah.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, very experienced. And then besides that. A lot of stuff on the product side that I'm excited about.

Dima Syrotkin: Uh, like we want to build, um, a ton of features, um, that we, you know, e every day I interview people and they're like, yeah, this thing is missing.

Dima Syrotkin: And I'm like, yes, I understand. And we are already building this and, you know, I'm hoping to have this soon, uh, one example that I didn't mention yet.

Dima Syrotkin: For example, uh, as you know, um, as an illustration.

Dima Syrotkin: We would like to connect the right people in the organization.

Dima Syrotkin: When you have a giant organization, many people feel like they're like, I don't know what other people are even working on.

Dima Syrotkin: So one, one feature we're thinking about is, um, to say like, Hey, you know, there's other 40 people working on the same problem as you in your company.

Dima Syrotkin: Do you wanna connect with them? And then we would open like an anonymized group chat and they could kind of diagnose the problem together or find out what other people have done before that actually worked for them, et cetera.

Dima Syrotkin: And when I was doing like a user research, uh, some features, like I was asking people, well, if you get an insight from our AI agent, do you wanna share it on LinkedIn?

Dima Syrotkin: And like 5% said yes. So pretty small. For this feature, it was like 85%.

Dima Syrotkin: I was like, wow, okay, we might have something here.

Dima Syrotkin: Uh, and many people like, yeah, I would love to have that because like often I hear afterwards like, oh, someone solved this problem already like three years ago, but I had no idea.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, basically, yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: What's the most important thing you've learned in doing this business?

Dima Syrotkin: Um, honestly, I feel like the most important is maybe more on the personal side.

Dima Syrotkin: I feel like I, um, I probably as many entrepreneurs, I want to, being very ambitious, I want to learn faster, and I recognize that the thing that actually prevents me from learning faster is the fact that.

Dima Syrotkin: Maybe at times too stubborn and don't listen enough and, um, get kind of defensive.

Dima Syrotkin: And I think I still do it to some extent, but now I've managed to recognize it a more, a lot more frequently where someone gives me feedback and then I like, sort of have this impulse to be like, well, they're probably wrong.

Dima Syrotkin: Or like, you know, I've thought about this before. And so instead I'm like, kind of, I, I pause and like, okay, but like.

Dima Syrotkin: What if they actually right, like, can they be right?

Dima Syrotkin: Like, is there a world where they actually correct and I'm wrong? Uh, and, and what does that mean?

Dima Syrotkin: And that probably means that I need to do a lot of work to change the things that, you know.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, I thought were correct, but maybe they aren't. Um, so that, that has been huge for me as the CEOI think.

Dima Syrotkin: Um, and particularly what helped with that was one of our angel investors joined full-time because sometimes as a, as a founder, you have all this advisors who kind of give you advice, but they're so like, you know, so removed and they've only.

Dima Syrotkin: Heard you for an hour, and then they feel like they have the best idea ever.

Dima Syrotkin: And you're like, well, I've been, you know, working in this for a while, but then when it's a guy who works with you full time as well, and he sees everything you do, then when he gives feedback, like it's just like a lot tougher for me to push back.

Dima Syrotkin: And I'm like, oh, damn. Like he, he's right. Yeah.

Dima Syrotkin: Like he notices the like, um, you know, uh, the worst things. And then he doesn't like bend down.

Dima Syrotkin: And then like, even if I was getting defensive, he was like, no, you're wrong. I'm like, okay.

Dima Syrotkin: Maybe you're right. I like I give up so that, that's been one of the massive things for me.

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