6 Pivots to $5M ARR | Finding Product-Market Fit | Building Global Teams | AI in sales: The Warmly Story - with Maximus Greenwald, Warmly.ai

00:00:00:

00:00:21: How close were you to quitting?

00:00:46: Imagine joining a zoom call with someone you never met but instantly knowing who the person is, their background mutual connections and a nice breaker.

00:00:56: That's the world Max Greenwald and the team from Warmly set out to build To make everyday business meetings an opportunity for high value relationship opportunities.

00:01:10: max A Forbes thirty under thirty honoree co-founded warmly after years at Google seeing and experiencing how important relationships are in business success.

00:01:24: And especially realizing, How technology can help bridge the gap?

00:01:28: Today, Warmly's AI-powered meeting intelligence platform gives professionals insights on people they're talking to helps sales teams close deals faster and leaders build stronger networks.

00:01:42: In this episode, moderated by serial founder and angel investor Mike Malco Max pulls back the curtain.

00:01:49: And gives hands-on advice... ...and also real insights in building warmly from scrappy startup experiments to raising millions of funding From building a product in crowded sales landscape To finding the exact problem worth solving.

00:02:10: You'll hear how Max approaches founder decision-making, why timing in the market matters more than most people think and The hard lessons he learned about team culture product focus And the mental game of entrepreneurship.

00:02:26: If you've ever wondered How we can take a simple idea?

00:02:30: And build a venture backed company out of it Which product is actually used.

00:02:36: they're going to get a masterclass.

00:02:38: today You're listening to Unicorn Bakery, my name is Fabianthausch.

00:02:42: And now Shine Light for Mike Malco and Max Greenwald talking about building warmly.

00:02:51: Hey, Max!

00:02:52: How

00:02:53: are you?

00:02:53: I'm doing well.

00:02:54: It's good to see you.

00:02:55: Why don't just tell us a little bit about yourself Just like thirty seconds one minute intro of why what do?

00:03:02: Yeah, so my name is Max Greenwald.

00:03:04: I'm the CEO and founder of Warmly.ai which builds AI sales and marketing agents to help you get more warm leads.

00:03:11: Warmly...warm leads!

00:03:14: And been building this business for about six years now and after a couple of years living in Europe i've just moved to San Francisco to build our first office ever.

00:03:24: Oh wow tell me more about that.

00:03:25: how like- How many employees do you have?

00:03:27: So we have sixty employees globally, and there's probably about thirty in the

00:03:31: U.S.,

00:03:32: And then with SF office to start it'll be eight or nine.

00:03:35: We'd love that folks move in person but it is difficult being a remote first company.

00:03:40: But since we've been growing a lot now just crossing five million of ARRs... ...we are really excited to kind-of start physical and personal presence.. ..We never thought would do this as COVID era company.

00:03:53: I mean The first summer was in Hawaii on the beach during Y Combinator.

00:03:59: And so, you know we've been traveling around for a long time and now it's time to build roots.

00:04:07: So, our head of engineering and one co-founder was already in San Francisco.

00:04:18: And then two of the remaining co-founders myself included moved to San Francisco... ...and so we're kind developing a core leadership in one place but at least for now are totally fine with rest of our folks being remote across

00:04:31: U.S.,

00:04:31: I mean we have twenty North Macedonia ten Brazil five Pakistan four Philippines three Israel all over

00:04:41: Interesting.

00:04:41: How do you manage that?

00:04:42: I mean, it's one of the questions like everyone is talking about right how to work with a remote workforce.

00:04:47: are there any specific things have worked really well for you?

00:04:51: Well, first I'll say that it's a ten to fifteen percent haircut on the success of.

00:04:58: I think just like drive fast alignment leads to, I think about a ten-to-fifteen percent drop in company quality.

00:05:19: But it comes... you know maybe its worth it.

00:05:22: and then we started off that way or maybe didn't know?

00:05:23: And thats kind of our company which is like We Didn't Know For Better First!

00:05:26: We Just Were In COVID And Went Remote To Start And Kept It That Way.

00:05:30: So given the fact that i do believe today now five and half for six years in it has slight drop.

00:05:37: these are ability for the company to be successful or just like an outcome from a company.

00:05:41: We've obviously done the best we can try and make up that deficit, making it really strong.

00:05:47: remote culture.

00:05:48: One of things we tried in deep dupes COVID was virtual office And so like a Lego video game, you could use your arrow keys and walk up to people.

00:05:57: Jump into group chats all that kind of stuff.

00:05:59: Which one did he used?

00:05:59: Did he just gather or

00:06:00: what was it?

00:06:01: Yeah I gathered exactly.

00:06:02: yeah.

00:06:03: Nice!

00:06:03: It failed...I mean..it was cute idea but wasn't really sticky.

00:06:07: At the end we lived where then eat slack.

00:06:10: The main things have worked for us are very clear slack guidelines As to when can and cant post.

00:06:16: How do you use things like snoozing?

00:06:18: So they're aware peoples time zones.

00:06:20: How to use urgency around set saying this is urgent, this important.

00:06:24: This can be done next week stuff like that.

00:06:27: and then we really make use of huddles.

00:06:29: so it's very encouraged to be huddling people all day long.

00:06:33: not even necessarily get something done but let us work side by side.

00:06:40: How

00:06:40: well do a huddle's work for you?

00:06:42: Because like, huddles are one of the few things where like the reliability to me in terms which mic it picks or there is always something wrong with my huddles.

00:06:50: But I don't know if i'm just the person that- No its

00:06:54: throughout the company and theres always couple people who struggle with like huddles.

00:06:57: It must be some poor reliability within feature but whatever Its good enough.

00:07:03: And think for my company works ninety seven percent.

00:07:05: The other thing that I think you could normalize is, if you see co-workers in the huddle and don't want to join them because they're talking.

00:07:12: But when thinking about a normal office... If i talk with someone else then im just going to barge into it and get involved.

00:07:19: And we also like to encourage that They'll kick ya out if they dont wanna talk just to make sure you're successful.

00:07:30: And so we've normalized.

00:07:31: that.

00:07:31: one interesting exception, which maybe could make remote work better is that if your always in person You find the sales and CS team will just interrupt Your engineering Team all The time?

00:07:40: So now We have like slack guidelines of like.

00:07:43: engineers need deep Work.

00:07:44: don't interrupt them.

00:07:45: let Them crush code and then you know Maybe leave huddling To the top Of the hour or look at their schedule to see when they are next In a meeting and then hold on five minutes before Five minutes after.

00:07:56: That is a very, very important point.

00:07:58: We were like pre-COVID in person.

00:08:01: during COVID remote and then mostly in-person company again basically forced to just make changes as many companies have been forced through during COVID.

00:08:14: And one of the main things that we always try to protect engineering focus time because it's It's such a valuable resource, right?

00:08:22: If you want to build great software.

00:08:24: So one of the constant conversations my co-founder who was a CTO and me as CEO were always having is how can we ensure To protect engineering focus time but at the same Time still get this like vibrant communication flowing because We believe that better product Is being built if people actually talk.

00:08:43: And so it's this constant back and forth.

00:08:44: It doesn't matter where.

00:08:45: remote in person, like its always important.

00:08:48: One thing that you said earlier is one of the things I found basically almost the most impressive about your journey at Warmly.

00:08:58: You've been honored for a long time right?

00:09:00: If you literally just look into your metrics now Like five million ARRs are going up i see post these charts every now then Everything looks pretty rosy.

00:09:10: But it wasn't always like that, right?

00:09:11: You had a very... I just used the word rough beginning.

00:09:16: Repositioned a couple of times to tell us more about early days and then how you persisted through all this adversity.

00:09:24: so for now at least come out on top.

00:09:27: Yeah well may look rosy but man there's hardship everywhere.

00:09:31: in every business is a slog.

00:09:32: So yeah its interesting because Didn't realize all of the problems and difficulties Of business building when I set out to create this which is my first startup.

00:09:47: And if i knew everything that, I knew now.

00:09:49: And going All the way back and I was at My cushy job At google making pretty good money not working That hard?

00:10:04: hiring and firing, and raising.

00:10:06: And losing in winning in SaaS contracts and mid-market enterprise is all sorts of great skills.

00:10:12: I wouldn't trade that for the world But i didn't...I never would have thought it'd take us three years to start finding the semblance a product market fit.

00:10:21: It's funny because ninety nine percent every email Every talk and conversation was worthless Which is like crazy!

00:10:31: Only one on hundred things really taught me something that actually moved me closer to finding success.

00:10:37: And so yeah, we pivoted six times before we found product market fit over three years.

00:10:42: I think i'm pretty decent at fundraising which is why got lucky and that we basically were able to raise enough money to keep going through those pivots.

00:10:49: uh...and that's the only reason that we're able to survive that long.

00:10:53: most founders kind of have to pivot a few times then you know they run out of money or something.

00:10:58: But yeah, I think it was a combination of perseverance.

00:11:02: A combination of dumb luck.

00:11:03: The combination just sitting there long enough in our space to really deeply understand and recognizing that we were mercenary... You know the mercenary versus missionary?

00:11:14: kind of saying, right?

00:11:15: Where it's like there are two kinds of founders.

00:11:16: There is the missionaries who want to just see one problem solved no matter what.

00:11:20: and then there were the mercenaries that drop into any space having zero knowledge in that space and they're going try a bunch things and see pivot around on.

00:11:27: who cares if you wanna build big business?

00:11:29: my co-founders are mercenary and we were sort of dropped in this world sales marketing technology horizontal broadly And we didn't know jack shit about Sales and marketing people.

00:11:42: I mean, i was such a fucking idiot because i came from google where at google maps Where i worked there wasn't sales in marketing?

00:11:48: People.

00:11:49: we had a billion two billion users.

00:11:50: it Was like why do you need sales and marketing And so i didn't understand how difficult It was to be a sass salesperson or assas marketing person.

00:11:58: A glorious job nonetheless.

00:12:00: i mean a fun one for sure but very Difficult and So it took me probably two years To deeply Understand who these users are What they Do And it was a benefit that I as an outsider, because I was able to bring in this sort of idea.

00:12:15: why can't we use technology?

00:12:16: Why can't they use AI to solve all out of this.

00:12:18: But the downside is that I had been there for long time before I qualified to be able to slice through my space fast enough To find product market fit and then launch from there.

00:12:28: Yeah That reminds me little bit about sales experience at Stripe.

00:12:31: When i worked with Stripe ,I did like All kinds different tasks One them also direct sales Because team were very small back than when I was there, especially in Europe where spent most of my time.

00:12:44: And selling Stripe is a fundamentally different experience than selling most other products because Stripe it's just so much better that the competitors' product right?

00:12:54: So like selling felt more like... It was actually helping them to implement versus convincing them to sell.

00:13:01: and as you know very well usually sales isn't that straightforward And Google Maps is an even better example of where you already had all the users, right?

00:13:10: What are they using.

00:13:11: I can use Apple Maps or Google Maps.

00:13:13: maybe I'll use Waze but there's not that much competition on the market.

00:13:18: so things a bit different.

00:13:20: One other thing i would like to dive deeper in.

00:13:27: Let start at the rough times early on.

00:13:30: I mean bidding and startup was always rough The most successful times.

00:13:35: How close were you to quitting back then?

00:13:37: Like, was it ever a conversation that you had away just like in terms of the founding team where you're always believing to continue or whatever on the table?

00:13:47: how did these conversations go after you've just pivoted for the fifth time and still didn't work?

00:13:51: Maybe the closest we got from quitting is between Pivot Five & Six when I told my co-founders I only have one more big pivot left than me And really at that point, it was just a function of like.

00:14:05: we were deluded from the cap table.

00:14:07: We had spent all good amount money.

00:14:10: I would have kept starting more businesses but wanted to try and fresh clean cap table new business.

00:14:15: That's what worked out.

00:14:16: so i'm very happy with that.

00:14:19: Don't think could've quit because tied up my ego self-worth reputation into success in company.

00:14:28: Everyone around me in Silicon Valley back in twenty, twenty was putting their jobs to start a startup.

00:14:35: It's like the cool thing to do and you know I'd be lying if i said it wasn't bit of sheep.

00:14:40: just wanted follow what everyone else did.

00:14:42: try myself could seem more glorious than working for Google which is really sleepy.

00:14:48: so when i did that remember telling all my friends family im gonna go started a startup.

00:14:53: then had this great idea at time almost call it pivot Negative one.

00:14:59: it was like before.

00:14:59: I even got my co-founders together and i thought this is the best idea in The whole fucking world.

00:15:03: That, was convinced.

00:15:04: It's Like This Is a Billion Dollar Business.

00:15:06: And it Was not it?

00:15:06: Was the worst Idea In The Whole World.

00:15:08: but i didn't know that at the

00:15:10: time.

00:15:10: What idea what idea was it?

00:15:12: oh Mike you're Gonna love this.

00:15:13: it was a

00:15:14: very excited.

00:15:15: it was

00:15:15: tinder for Co-Founders.

00:15:18: Oh Okay yeah.

00:15:19: so

00:15:19: the idea was i want to start A business But i can find a co-founder.

00:15:22: help me out And YC ended up coming out with like co-founder mashing or whatever down the road, but it's not a business.

00:15:28: I mean The final problem there from a psychology perspective is that in dating you want to date somebody better than you?

00:15:35: And men and women, assuming heterosexual couples want different things so they can match.

00:15:40: There's a band of overlap where you both feel like your winning but in matching to find the co-founder each one somebody smarter or better than you?

00:15:48: So it is very hard often to meet with someone.

00:15:51: then go yeah!

00:15:51: They are smarter and better that me.

00:15:53: Then why would I wanna talk about them like they're on a hunt to find somebody better.

00:15:56: And also learned that the best co-founders are people you've known for a long time and you can trust.

00:16:01: because it's such big thing, this sort of

00:16:02: company.".

00:16:02: So that went down in two but at the time told everybody was going be next billion dollar company.

00:16:08: I'm so convinced about it That i told myself im gonna do this and put my job started then two weeks ago.

00:16:14: oh shit nobody wants this.

00:16:17: literally no one would sign up And I think it spent ten thousand dollars on my own money, you know building the app through a friend was just so janky.

00:16:25: Um and i remember that was low for sure but i was kind of like dang.

00:16:32: everyone will think ima loser if go back to google with my tail between my legs having failed like this?

00:16:37: So i have to keep going!

00:16:38: So i think That Was Low But It Definitely Didn't Mean That I Was Gonna Walk Away.

00:16:43: Got us yeah...I Think This Is One Of The Issues.

00:16:46: what like founders in general often have, is that so much of the ego has been tied up into success for a company.

00:16:54: And it can be very good to persevere and just keep going but doesn't work out for everyone right?

00:17:02: Most startups fail.

00:17:03: I think you said earlier as well if your company fails then build next one.

00:17:11: If you're real entrepreneur at heart.

00:17:13: That's part of journey.

00:17:15: Perseverance is important And some people quit too early, but I definitely know some who quit to late.

00:17:22: Where it's very obvious that they are just grinding on their physical and mental health... ...and would be better for everyone if they literally just quit into something else?

00:17:33: However sometimes difficult like- Who would have known your sixth pivot actually works right?

00:17:39: Ultimately no one really knows!

00:17:42: But let us talk about this a little bit.

00:17:44: What is the thing you?

00:17:45: You deliver warm leads that you said earlier.

00:17:47: By the way, I never made a connection between warm leads and warmly until earlier today.

00:17:53: but what was the actual pivot?

00:17:55: So what are building now?

00:17:56: What is it then like finally made at

00:17:58: work?".

00:17:59: Yeah so we've been playing around in sales of marketing space for those main five pivots And uh... We were trying kind-of different go to market models and we're trying different wedges into this base.

00:18:10: And throughout each pivot, we honestly learned a couple of key skills that kept us in the game and made it easier and better and faster for the next pivot.

00:18:19: So I think there's only one graph that has to go up into the right on your founding journey, and its learning.

00:18:25: If you take time on one axis and learning on another, learning should be up-and-to-the-right.

00:18:30: Every pivot even though revenue would spike up down or product direction will spike up and down user base will spike back up and Broadly speaking, our first pivot nobody wanted to buy or use.

00:18:46: Second one, Nobody wanted to Buy it but some people would Use It.

00:18:50: Third one, a lot of people wanted to use it but nobody wanted to buy.

00:18:52: And along the way as we're getting closer and closer We were learning how to scrape LinkedIn at scale?

00:19:12: buy data and clean that data.

00:19:15: We were learning in building, honestly forging relationships with people who would then become our customers down the road and they'd tell us we like you're fun people but we don't want to buy your stupid

00:19:24: software.".

00:19:25: And I came back two years later.

00:19:27: hopefully i'm still fine.

00:19:28: here's real software.

00:19:29: We were building our brand, we're building SEO.

00:19:32: So we are compounding skills such that it was that much faster when we hit the ground... I mean a lot of people will say to us oh my god you went zero million on ARR in one year.

00:19:41: then you went one two three point one million next year.

00:19:44: You know you guys are wizards like you guys going really fast.

00:19:46: and i'd said yeah I'm very grateful and proud of it but recognize that we had three years of zero more or less.

00:19:54: That taught how to be like fifth time founders.

00:19:57: And so when we were finally ready to kind of explode, We had all the pieces and the battle scars in the wounds and the tactics on that.

00:20:05: you know.

00:20:05: good lawyer bad lawyer a good marketer bad luck market or goods salesperson bad sales person Good engineer Bad engineer I mean every sort of role which would have worked out All the kinks?

00:20:15: And i'll never forget this.

00:20:16: my board member James courier at nfx told me That he was giving Me My seed round and I Was Of course ecstatic instead of you going to business school.

00:20:28: And I was like, what do you mean?

00:20:29: He's like, I'm gonna give this money and you will burn every single cent of it all my money!

00:20:36: And i am solely doing so that your co-founders learn.

00:20:40: Yeah but he wants us build a billion dollar business right?

00:20:41: But sure... You're not smart enough yet.. You need to cut your teeth in building several iterations and pivots getting better faster everytime.

00:20:50: So im paying for the start up at our business school.

00:20:53: then make me one billion dollars And I think that came out to be true.

00:20:56: This is why James was one of the best in the game, he's just special and many ways.

00:21:04: Interesting great!

00:21:06: Explain a little more.

00:21:07: what does the current warmly do?

00:21:09: What are you actually...what's so soft with it?

00:21:10: people all of sudden finally wanted to use?

00:21:13: By the way like as quick interlude before we do that.

00:21:15: It's very interesting.

00:21:17: You can get your friends to use almost everything for a little bit, right?

00:21:22: But you immediately notice even if you know them well like what really excites them.

00:21:28: And when that... You just noticed Even with previous contacts What actually sticks and doesn't.

00:21:34: There's fundamental difference And sometimes the software has to be completely different.

00:21:39: Sometimes it's just like little tweaks.

00:21:40: that really depends, but its usually very obvious especially if you've pivoted quite a number of times or launched lots of products what actually seems working and doesn't.

00:21:50: But It is difficult for us not have experience yet.

00:21:54: This something you mentioned as well.

00:21:57: So What does Warmly do?

00:21:58: Right now.

00:22:00: Well, I'll get into what we do in a second and the main thing is that while your first ten customers can be warm introductions to people on your investor's network or your net work just kind of get some testers.

00:22:16: you have not even close to approved repeatable market motion until I don't think you earn the right to have warm leads and warm warm introduction leads until You're able to cold email, cold call or cold LinkedIn message And get maybe ten customers because you need to find somebody who doesn't give a shit about you.

00:22:39: I mean, you know Mike your friend if he were to message me anytime i want warmly To use my new product?

00:22:43: I'd say yes as uh-as A favor to you but probably wouldn't stick around.

00:22:47: it probably would buy unless It was like actually valuable then Maybe I would.

00:22:50: But

00:22:51: To reach out cold, I mean to someone you don't know and get them to be like that.

00:22:55: You've broken the noise.

00:22:56: your value prop is so legit That i'm down to actually pay for this thing?

00:23:00: That's gold even if you had to fight for it.

00:23:02: And so yeah Get your first ten customers through warm introductions But get your next ten through completely cold sales and only once you've done that go back to a kind of founder-led sales motion Of warm leads etc.

00:23:13: So that's what my coach founders.

00:23:16: Yeah, I think It was great idea.

00:23:17: This Is What really shows that you've built something but people actually want to use it.

00:23:21: Right?

00:23:22: Yeah, those something people wants a helpful if they People don't know you and not your cousins or your good friends whatever.

00:23:28: And all that being said once you do when she were ready for warm leads instead of cold leads because I converted at higher rate You can use warming and what we do today which is an evolution of our but We built on the last couple years.

00:23:39: But essentially we find you Warm leads That are exhibiting signals that there in the market to buy They may have searched very competitor.

00:23:48: They may have posted on LinkedIn about a problem they're facing related to what you do.

00:23:52: They may've visited your website, compared you versus another tool on G-II Crowd so their exhibiting these signals that might be ready to buy and then we help automatically segment those into hot warm cold leads and retarget them at scale.

00:24:12: So for the Hot Leads We let you automatically across all of your sales team message them on LinkedIn email them, and then give you their phone number so that we can call them immediately.

00:24:24: Those are the hot ones to go for right away in real time next hour otherwise your gonna lose them.

00:24:29: For the warm leads We help our customers reach out by ads So they can retarget on ads And by e-mail They say hey listen You might not be ready just yet but here's more information about us Cause with more touch points put infront of that prospect The more likely there will finally take a demo.

00:24:45: And by the way, we just work for BDB companies.

00:24:47: Then finally for your call leads you give me two options.

00:24:50: one We help you ignore them because of that biggest cost to a sales team in terms Of making revenue is working deals That are never going to convert into first place.

00:24:59: so they can help You ignore them or?

00:25:01: We could use an AI chatbot Or an AI system To engage those leads and warm them up.

00:25:06: maybe also push Them to ads saying who you are until They're finally ready to buy.

00:25:11: yeah I think you said something that is also very difficult to gauge, especially at the beginning.

00:25:19: Who will actually convert and who won't?

00:25:22: Because initially as a founder you're just very excited about anyone who takes a meeting with you And then oh my god I gave like five demos this week etc.

00:25:32: Even once you scale and have sales team You mention it A lot of budget.

00:25:39: waste it if they talk to people who will never convert, right?

00:25:42: So having a good indication of Who you should go after.

00:25:48: I would love that.

00:25:49: yeah That sounds very helpful To me.

00:25:51: let

00:25:51: me give an example for the lot Of our European customers use with us obviously because of privacy regulation We have to be careful With website de-analyzation which is where we take your anonymous website traffic and resolve It too might Be on Your site.

00:26:04: Thanks to being GDPR compliant, of course we can still actually get you the name of a company who has visited your site which is going be very valuable in B-to-B perspective.

00:26:13: And then find people at that company who live in same city as those visiting their website.

00:26:20: so they are most likely to visit it without guaranteeing for security and privacy reasons.

00:26:26: but a lot of our European customers will spend money on ads or send traffic And then they'll look at the de-analyzation of those leads and be like, what the hell?

00:26:36: I spent twenty thousand dollars on Meta or Google to send.

00:26:40: What they told me was five thousand leads to my site.

00:26:44: but from that five thousand lead only one percent converted with the heck when i looked behind scenes realize a lot in traffic is junk not actually sending my true ICP ideal customer persona to my website.

00:26:58: so yeah you might get a lot clicks But all that matters is book demos and B to B. And so Warmly can help you segment your traffic by ad campaign, To see which ads are performing the best not at driving most traffic to a website but at driving the most ICP traffic on your web site.

00:27:15: Yeah very important difference.

00:27:20: A couple path we could follow.

00:27:21: One I would like start with how it does... You already mentioned get some customers too warm introductions, then try some cold.

00:27:32: But how does sales evolve over time?

00:27:36: Because right now when you're doing like five million ARR even at a company that is very good at... Like sales and marketing.

00:27:43: Well, you can use your own tool right for to start and then like beyond that.

00:27:47: How does it evolve over time?

00:27:49: Right like.

00:27:50: I think one of the breaking points always likes switching from like founder.

00:27:53: let's sales two Employee yet led sales.

00:27:56: but are there any other like important like shifts that you've gone through?

00:28:00: maybe Let's start with a first and then work yourself upwards.

00:28:03: Well, for founders listening in my favorite piece that I've ever written.

00:28:06: I've written two pieces for Kyle Poyard's growth unhinged and maybe you can include these on the show notes.

00:28:12: but The first piece is called zero to a hundred paying customers how i move from founder led sales to seller lead sales.

00:28:20: And then the piece, this part two is one hundred to three hundred paying customers.

00:28:26: How I moved from sales led sales to marketing lead sales as sort of my next evolution and a breakdown quarter by quarter.

00:28:32: every tool that I used in the hypotheses and questions that are asked an answer.

00:28:35: it could be able to grow on the next phase company.

00:28:38: so i think i can be valuable for founders out there.

00:28:40: once you start to hit five million rr i think he realized at the only way to scale exponentially to continue a growth path of like, ten percent month-over-month growth is to unlock series marketing channels and build great marketing work.

00:28:55: I've been mostly sales led... And again, caveats here are on mid market, mid ACV BDB SaaS kind of like down the middle.

00:29:04: so we have both an inbound and outbound motion meaning that we use both sales at our marketing team.

00:29:08: So there's other caveats from types businesses where it makes sense only do sales or doing marketing.

00:29:13: We're one of those that's a mix work, but we need to lean heavier on our marketing org than ever before.

00:29:18: Cause I don't think I can reach ten million in ARR and the speed that I want too unless I unlocked exponential growth from my marketing team which means finding an unfair distribution advantage.

00:29:28: And so uh... One of the big shifts that i've seen across our customer base That is actually really empowering marketers Is that Marketing is taking over and owning All at top of funnel.

00:29:38: So Marketing owns Finding uh, the leads and getting them to book a demo.

00:29:42: And then sales owns from first demo.

00:29:44: to close it used to be that SDR teams which are different way they generate pipeline through an outbound sales motion would be reporting up to sales teams.

00:29:55: The reason was because those junior sales people were future account executives for their business.

00:30:00: so you'd want train in-house near the sales executive.

00:30:06: But as we've seen the rise of the career SDR, As well as a realignment in terms where pipeline is actually driven.

00:30:13: It's really cool to watch A lot of SDR orgs now report into marketing and then that way Marketing can have more objective unified view Of their entire pipeline And be responsible for bringing them up over time.

00:30:24: So More nuance there.

00:30:25: but I would say That big shift driving more success with newer Orgs.

00:30:30: Yeah it also seems easier if like The orgs just own specific KPIs, right?

00:30:35: Then you know who to blame or who tell that they have done a good job.

00:30:40: Otherwise there like I've seen lot of not necessarily conflict but disagreements in terms.

00:30:45: all these leads are actually provided by marketing and then the STR's will disagree etc.

00:30:51: so it seems very interesting realignment for me.

00:30:54: one other thing is I assume you are talking about a lot.

00:30:58: If i talk about marketing or sales to my tech and fauna friends, one of the things that inevitably comes up is The rise of all the AI marketing tools AISDRs etc.

00:31:10: On the sales side?

00:31:10: I haven't really seen anything like works super well

00:31:14: Yeah

00:31:14: on that front.

00:31:16: but maybe tell us a little more About.

00:31:18: Like this...I assumed the tools Are changing That people using.

00:31:22: that's just My assumption.

00:31:23: thats at least true for me Like, how quick are they changing?

00:31:27: and what you're seeing is different now than maybe like a year or two ago?

00:31:31: Yeah.

00:31:32: So first off it used to be back in the day that you try piece of software.

00:31:35: if doesn't work he'd never come back because we were so annoyed.

00:31:37: but these days with this speed of shipping an adjustments have modern products especially AI product as well as the speed improvements models.

00:31:44: I wouldn't write-off tools that you tried once and didn't work out at me open to read.

00:31:50: I guess recommend that you re-evaluate those tools on every six month basis.

00:31:56: Even warmly ourselves tried an AISDR tool, it didn't work for us.

00:31:59: and now we're trying again eight months later.

00:32:03: So in general with the state of sales and marketing technology is a lot.

00:32:08: these agents don't actually worked.

00:32:09: yet There are building blocks led to this era where we have easy access contact data workflow automation software and API integrators that allow us to connect tools together very seamlessly, and match those with data.

00:32:26: Because at the end of day sales marketing is a game of take data make the data here about you turn on people who hear about you into meetings which are in sales.

00:32:35: And so while we have a lot of these tools in place now I think slapping an AI agent on top like do it for you Is a fine v one but he's not going to win long term until either the model gets a thousand times better, or you add more clever wrappers and use cases on top of how AI is interacting with your kind-of like dumb software.

00:32:59: All it I think that the AISDR companies, the AI marketing companies, agent companies they're getting there but are not perfect yet.

00:33:08: And we warmly.

00:33:09: actually as we've been building out our sales and marketing agents Are focusing first and foremost on one particular area That We Think is going to be very Very valuable and useful which Is lead scoring.

00:33:18: uh...We think that The AI Marketing Agents ARE ready for that due To like back waiting in kind of regression testing and Like other analysis that Actually really does shift around sort of very technical problem, which leads to go after.

00:33:32: And I do think that with the models catching up we're going find in a couple months an analysis called by Jan first twenty-six.

00:33:40: these agents will be good enough to solve real human tasks and thus you'll find more success from sales marketing perspective.

00:33:49: Everything's getting more crowded.

00:33:51: Everybody is discovering, you know sequencers and everyone's discovering phone calls and stuff And so there is a general decline in reply rate across the board.

00:34:00: regardless of what?

00:34:01: Organization or what AI software use.

00:34:04: yeah I am very interested to see what the world looks like a few years from now Specifically in this space.

00:34:10: i mean obviously Like so many things will change right.

00:34:12: we could do another podcast series just about how The World Looks like five Years From Now but specifically In like.

00:34:19: I just can't imagine that cold outbound and the way you reach people doesn't fundamentally change.

00:34:24: Because, yeah... I don't know about your inbox but my inbox is already like even though i have some decent filters in there.

00:34:33: definitely a lot of noise in there.

00:34:35: Let me check my phone for number of calls today Say like

00:34:49: I just stopped answering any single number, which is sometimes very inconvenient.

00:34:52: if yeah Like anyone who actually needs to reach you wants to reach.

00:34:55: You but yeah basically what?

00:34:57: whenever i talk To anyone whether it's like a new dentist or someone will Actually try calling me always tell them Please, please put it in the notes and caps and bold.

00:35:07: that sent me an email.

00:35:09: Even a text potentially but I will not answer my phone.

00:35:13: And actually surprisingly enough In fifty percent of cases It actually works.

00:35:18: They send me actual emails.

00:35:19: So like general life tip If you want to still talk To your dentist or whoever Getting back sales at marketing From General Life Advice.

00:35:32: One other thing becomes very interesting now that like things are moving very fast and all kinds of different areas.

00:35:38: And software, there's always all this.

00:35:41: talk about software commoditizing right?

00:35:44: So they're.

00:35:45: There is some degree Of truth to that because you can just ship that much faster Right?

00:35:51: so how I?

00:35:52: How are you thinking About positioning yourself for the future in terms of ensuring that You have some degree of defensibility, not even against your competitors necessarily but against like new entrants overall.

00:36:05: I don't believe in defensibility.

00:36:06: um i actually think it's a really fucking annoying word that vcs throw on all the time to get you try and make some bullshit up.

00:36:12: There is no defensibility.

00:36:14: It's about speedy shipping And delightful brand.

00:36:17: So if u have best brands Think about luxury goods.

00:36:21: Let take handbags.

00:36:24: there's going to be exact same material, exactsame leather handbags for forty bucks or those are gonna like the Gucci Handbag.

00:36:31: And maybe Gucci doesn't make handbags.

00:36:32: I don't know luxury brands but assuming they do you can...you know the Gucci brand means Luxury and High Class in high status.

00:36:40: so you want to associate yourself with that.

00:36:42: So thats kind of a shitty work around.

00:36:45: answer To the core which is just i dont believe in defensibility remotes and i dont try build one.

00:36:50: Im trying to build as fast as i can and smarter than other people.

00:36:54: Yeah, throwback to one of James your board members article where he talks about speed being like one of them Like only advantages that you can have mm-hmm.

00:37:02: He's I think he still believes in defensibility To some degree at least.

00:37:06: the network effects.

00:37:07: right

00:37:08: yeah, but

00:37:09: Beyond that I agree like speed is the best way to make sure That their company actually keeps going.

00:37:15: let's talk about speed a little bit.

00:37:16: How do you ensure speed?

00:37:18: At The Company and how did it change?

00:37:21: Once you actually scale up to more employees, more revenue.

00:37:24: More things that become more complex.

00:37:27: Yeah As a first time founder I think try and lead in the beginning by just doing more than everybody else.

00:37:32: You try kind of like lead-by example And it comes from a noble place but its fundamentally bad way To lead.

00:37:39: Over last couple years there have been more people manager and then manager managers Is i've seen.

00:37:47: leading by example robs your employees of the ability to get credit for and be proud of their work.

00:37:54: And so, the relationship between a manager in there reports should very much be.

00:37:58: here's some problems that I'm facing.

00:37:59: can you solve them for me?

00:38:01: That is not burdensome right it isn't saying like oh you better solve em or you're fired.

00:38:04: It's honestly an inspirational thing.

00:38:06: if i am struggling You have the power to be hero and surprise me really crush on this project but you are not doing that.

00:38:14: So Get your shit together.

00:38:15: Um, and so yeah.

00:38:17: I don't know if that exactly answers your question but it's a bit about how i think about

00:38:21: It?

00:38:22: Basically what you're saying is to empower people To just become the best versions of themselves And like solve problems autonomously.

00:38:29: That automatically also increases speed Because You dont have to micromanage or anything.

00:38:35: If they are better at their actual jobs At least there would be very helpful.

00:38:43: One other speedup that we found valuable is, I've heard a lot of founder friends doing this.

00:38:47: We're tossing away our entire code base and rebuilding the whole thing from the ground up using AI And were going to go slower at first but the idea's that want set the baseline for us be able to code on top it in much more easy way Using AI Right now are old human code bases written by humans poor humans.

00:39:05: So i think re-building will give us kind like flexibility That need to build right things.

00:39:11: Yeah, that is the debate I've had.

00:39:14: It was a part of couple times in last few weeks and there's very strong proponents on both sides.

00:39:19: so let's put it like this.

00:39:21: one other interesting thing i definitely want to talk about your whole LinkedIn persona everything you're doing today actually what are main things wrote down for conversation right here?

00:39:34: tell us little bit more how do use your own LinkedIn profile to your own advantage, because I think it's probably one of the best examples that i've seen out there.

00:39:51: Thank you!

00:39:56: subject matter experts, but we do put time money effort and energy behind myself Our head of revenue Keegan And our sales manager Melissa.

00:40:06: Then We also asked the long tail of SDRs to be posting commenting doing stuff every day.

00:40:11: So we built kind of a corporate LinkedIn strategy right now Which is to essentially have all the warriors in The company like Every employee post something everyday that has to do with warmly just To get more reach.

00:40:22: There's a series of other tactics and tips that I don't have to get too far into, but as a high level like... ...I hired a LinkedIn coach for couple months.

00:40:30: I wrote a GBT bot that looked at all the posts of my competitors in people that I admire or want to write like And use it to kind of draft posts from me

00:40:39: Then....

00:40:44: What else do we do on LinkedIn?

00:40:47: Oh!

00:40:47: I just used some automations and stuff That helped manage my LinkedIn inbox To help move faster.

00:40:51: How do you differentiate between what actually drives more engagement and just feels like it's noisy to people because you post so much, right?

00:41:00: The thing is that if I give credit... You probably have one of the highest quality in terms of average posts.

00:41:11: Is this increasing the quality barrier or...?

00:41:15: What are you doing to make sure that people aren't getting annoyed and always like Max again on LinkedIn?

00:41:20: Yeah, vulnerability in honesty is an important one.

00:41:24: Admitting failure as another one... And I was gonna say it's more of a phrase.

00:41:32: we keep our story about being the underdog against a good life helping the little guy, and that's how I want to be perceived until we pass six cents in terms

00:41:47: of revenue.

00:41:58: couldn't do it as easy.

00:41:59: Let's use Stripe, for example.

00:42:00: I'm a little biased but many people like Stripe so there would be more difficult to do what you're doing.

00:42:08: But you found out in good way.

00:42:10: Do your alter ego still exist on LinkedIn?

00:42:13: Yeah, so for those listening I have an alter ego named Minimus BlueWald and my name at least on LinkedIn is Maximus Greenwald.

00:42:20: So we're uttered MSEs opposite size of the spectrum.

00:42:23: he does cold ID warm And we use him as a bit or foil to kind of express to customers why going with a warm lead database will be better For them in long run.

00:42:32: yeah honestly i think that was one Of the hardest laughs i've had On linkedin because linkedins usually not that humorous right?

00:42:40: I still remember seeing that for the first time.

00:42:44: A little bit of a segue, do you still remember where we met in person?

00:42:49: We met in Palo Alto on my way to my YC interview and posted on Twitter open to giving YC Mock founder coaching sessions when they

00:43:02: reached out lived at that point, like not only live but it was also our office and on top of the swimming pool.

00:43:12: Like we had this office area where I met you and the rest of crew.

00:43:16: so... That's

00:43:17: great!

00:43:17: So i will always remember very fondly because there is a intense time right after our YC badge.

00:43:23: Oh

00:43:24: wow You said probably did interview twenty or thirty startups last week?

00:43:28: I did many mock interviews back then.

00:43:32: I still do quite number of YC mock interviews nowadays Not that many more.

00:43:36: I had a face where it was like, like fifteen on a Sunday when most of my Sundays back-to-back scheduled... Usually now friends are reaching out or people who read some content about them but i always liked because they need great people through.

00:43:52: you're the best example right?

00:43:54: Well I appreciate

00:43:54: that!

00:43:55: Honestly so.

00:43:55: many of my friends in life have come from my founder journey and one reason to start company is just make new friends

00:44:01: Like, it's the same for me.

00:44:03: I'm very biased to that but like some of my really good new friends have been other founders people who have met through their whole journey.

00:44:09: and The cool thing about is also if you-if You have other people who understand you on a deeper level right?

00:44:16: That makes It easier To trust yourself And just be vulnerable and build friendships A bit more quickly Just because you don't Have to bridge this gap that sometimes exists if someone doesn't understand the founder journey, so totally agree with it.

00:44:34: Maybe two or three more questions in the interest of time?

00:44:39: One thing I want to get back is now you're going to San Francisco and gearing up for next stage at the company.

00:44:48: what are your most anxious about when it comes?

00:44:50: I mean my goal probably with the

00:44:59: next worry is, or next milestone to raise our series B. So that'd be kind of like a worry in no way.

00:45:04: but The real thing...I'm just having this sinking feeling about AI taking over the world That i think alot of us are having.

00:45:11: Which was if it's things moving that fast into year What would its going do for two years?

00:45:17: And I guess be clear that warmly is a place where we hire humans, you know?

00:45:23: And like... We want to basically bring in uh.. A consultative approach and high value customer success managers To leverage and use our AI solutions.

00:45:31: Um But yeah I think what's keeping me up at night Is the confusion around are going see the rapid collapse of um A large teams and big companies Because they'll have a lot of nimble speedy teams That're moving way faster than building different products.

00:45:47: So....that would one One concern I have.

00:45:50: Yeah, yeah...I can definitely agree with that and there's so many areas to be worried about when it comes to AI right?

00:45:58: And also extremely excited about it.

00:45:59: So its like basically pendulum that swings depending on the day.

00:46:03: as soon as same for you

00:46:04: i think exact same.

00:46:05: and is ai nihilism The world gonna end?

00:46:07: and then a i think boy which was oh my god this Is the best coolest thing ever.

00:46:10: It´s the Best time To build!

00:46:11: Its just hard to know what going really work.

00:46:15: Yeah, I want to disagree with that.

00:46:16: And this is also why speed becomes even more important right?

00:46:20: Because it always felt like startups had to move faster than big companies.

00:46:24: but with LLM specifically as an enabling technology the giants understood very quickly That they need to adopt this.

00:46:32: This wasn't a classic disruption Right

00:46:37: Like It was not gonna happen and its not going affect me

00:46:40: Exactly.

00:46:40: Big companies understand very quickly have distribution advantage throw a lot of money at very smart engineers, as we've seen recently.

00:46:50: And researchers obviously if you're on the foundation level.

00:46:52: but so basically everyone tries to move faster.

00:46:56: and this is like the first time where I really understood the generation that came before us.

00:47:02: they grew up without the internet then always told me how much faster things seem new millennia and like the internet, really expanding.

00:47:13: And then mobile coming for us it was just normal part of life.

00:47:19: but now with AI It almost feels things are moving so fast that its impossible to keep up everything because back when meaning three years ago or four years ago Back in my day If things if new developments came out Like most people knew about the next big thing, but nowadays there's so many new models and applications.

00:47:42: New things being launched that it is almost impossible to keep up with everything which is exciting because a lot of hopefully good innovation happening.

00:47:51: But I think what i want actually get across you need new systems To survive in this world just because old way working doesn't work well anymore.

00:48:03: And then I think two things that I usually like to do during the end is, Is there any specific book piece of content?

00:48:13: Anything that has informed your way on how you build companies.

00:48:19: It can be literally anything.

00:48:20: it could be a quote or a blog post.

00:48:23: Anything that would attribute some of your founder philosophy too.

00:48:32: Successful habits of visionary companies by Jim Collins.

00:48:36: I think it taught me a lot about management.

00:48:38: nice, that's the good one.

00:48:40: and then One of the other things I always like to do is Is there any question?

00:48:45: That I haven't asked?

00:48:46: that you think is really important to understand who You are as like a founder What warmly really encompasses if they anything that he would like to add

00:48:57: maybe something in the realm Of how do i divide and conquer the world of my co-founders.

00:49:04: That's a good one, let's do that!

00:49:05: So I think four co-finders is too many.

00:49:08: We had co-founder at start And now we're only three But two or three i think are the right call.

00:49:15: And I love to divide up responsibilities less around department and title Because all have co-founded titles.

00:49:21: so other co- founders just don't care about it More on what will move the business needle fastest.

00:49:28: And in doing that process and kind of back-and-forth, just figuring out okay like Karina.

00:49:32: Like you want to do customer success this quarter?

00:49:34: Oh Alan!

00:49:34: Do I wanna do marketing this

00:49:35: quarter??

00:49:36: Alan!!

00:49:36: Do product this

00:49:37: quarter?!

00:49:37: We've tried every different role for these other Tsukou founders... ...And they have done a great job with all it.

00:49:42: as we need new levels of scale everything breaks.

00:49:46: But i think what it teaches is ultra fast context fetching.

00:49:52: I think it shows you problems across the org that only you can uniquely solve.

00:49:58: And, It's just such a good example of low ego work which is like my co-founders and i are not in for money.

00:50:05: we do same thing if its free.

00:50:08: We want to be really really good at meticulous and so tossing a co-founder into department has been excellent.

00:50:16: our mental health as trio but also or the outcomes, I guess maybe more importantly of the actual teams are being dropped into.

00:50:24: And i feel very grateful that it can kind of toss my co-founders around to different parts of the org.

00:50:28: That is very helpful indeed.

00:50:30: and one of cool things about like switching things around as well Is A. It gives you more context with overall org.

00:50:38: So higher level conversations than what we have will be more informed.

00:50:44: Because usually what happens, and that's I think how most companies still operate is everyone has their own silo where they know everything.

00:50:51: And the co-founders maybe know a little bit.

00:50:53: but like this you have a little more cross functional knowledge and may be more understanding of actually works than doesn't work.

00:50:59: so it sounds very challenging and i don't every company can just repeat the same thing because we need to write kind people for them to actually work as my assumption.

00:51:08: But if your habit an it can work then something powerful.

00:51:11: We got lucky there for sure.

00:51:12: we have a weekly co-founder sync just to kind of check in with stuff and bring leadership coach too as well, make sure that's no tension between the three of us.

00:51:19: but it was something we lucked into because actually I didn't really know Alan before starting The Company.

00:51:24: i knew Karina cause we worked together at Google But It Was Kind Of A Guest Otherwise.

00:51:30: Well then you apparently made good guess And I think That Is Good Way To Close It Off.

00:51:34: Thank You So Much For All Your Time.

00:51:36: Thanks For The Inside And if people want to find your LinkedIn, it's Maximus Greenwald.

00:51:40: We just talked about that.

00:51:41: company is called Warmly and I hope you have a good rest of the week.

00:51:45: Thank You see Mike.