March 24, 2025 • 37 mins
This Female Founder Built an AI Tool That’s Revolutionizing Sales – Here’s HowIn this episode of Beyond The Wealth, we're thrilled to welcome Lauren Gadell, founder of Zinnia, a SaaS tool designed specifically for account executives. Host Andres Sanchez dives deep into Lauren's journey from corporate roles at giants like Microsoft and Salesforce to becoming a bold entrepreneur. Lauren shares her candid experiences of 'oopsying' her way into sales, the challenges of leaving a lucrative corporate career, and the resilience needed to succeed in the fast-paced world of startups. Discover the valuable insights she gained from pitching to investors, the importance of having a supportive cofounder, and the innovative solutions Zinnia offers to streamline sales processes. Whether you're a budding entrepreneur or a seasoned sales professional, Lauren's story will inspire you to embrace challenges and pursue your passion with determination. Don't miss this compelling conversation that highlights the power of resilience and innovation in transforming ideas into reality.If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to like, comment, and subscribe!! -------------------------------------------- Connect with Lauren: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-goodell/ Website: https://www.getzinnia.ai/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Maybe this is a tough question to answer, but why do you think she wanted
to bet on you? My career has not always been easy. My life has not
always been super easy, and I've kind of said, you know what? I don't care
what happened. I'm gonna keep pushing forward. And that's something that they say they look
for in people that failure or roadblocks
don't get in the way of success. A good friend of mine and I always
joke that go deals go to die in your inbox. And how many times have
(00:22):
you been at end of quarter and you're like, oh, no. I need to bring
in another hundred k. And you're, like, digging through emails that you should have been
replying to or, like, oh, maybe I could reunite this one deal. And
that's kind of where next best action is. It's, like, not letting those things flip
through the cracks. It's a scary journey, but I wouldn't look back and change a
thing. Welcome back to another episode episode of the Beyond the Wealth podcast.
I'm your host, Andres Sanchez. And today, I have Lauren Gadell,
(00:45):
the founder of Zinnia, a SaaS tool for AEs.
For everybody here, you know this hits home for me. This is
where I work outside of this podcast and the newsletter.
I'm really excited to dive in and be curious and understand what this
tool is, and hopefully people listening and watching will get the chance to understand
it and then potentially start to leverage it. Lauren, thank you so much for being
(01:08):
here. Thanks so much for having me. Always love chatting sales. Yeah. Of
course. So I wanna give you the floor here right at the beginning of the
conversation to give us a little bit of an intro on who Lauren is and
what a little bit about your journey. Yeah. So,
I have been in sales for over a decade. I started
my career in corporate. So I was Microsoft, Salesforce, and LG
(01:31):
as an enterprise account executive, tons of different kind of sales roles,
and decided to build something that I wish I had as an account
executive. That's amazing. And I feel like that's
where a lot of, good companies come from. It's
a need, and then somebody actually goes and builds it. It's crazy.
You think that these big corporate conglomerates would be
(01:54):
really innovative and quick to release things, but I at least from
my experience, and maybe it's the same for you, it's really clunky,
old school, and there's always a ton of room for innovation.
But I wanna cater to some of the younger audience that's with us.
What was that early part in your career like? Why did you choose sales?
Talk to us about that. I always joke that I oopsied my way into
(02:18):
sales, and it's so true because that wasn't my degree. That wasn't my intention.
When I went when I was an undergrad, I went to Nebraska, and, I
had an internship where I was leading marketing efforts for
Microsoft on campus. And, my senior year of
college, they were like, hey. Do you wanna interview at Microsoft corporate for
a marketing role? It's like, sure. So I interviewed, and they said, we actually think
(02:41):
you'd be really good at sales. And it was nothing that I ever really considered.
And I was like, you know, I don't know. Sales seems like a dirty word.
Like, everything I've ever heard is it's like, you know, used car salesman.
And then I saw the offer for sales versus marketing and was like, yeah. I'll
take the sales job. I oopsied my way into it, but
then I realized it's not dirty and it's fun, and it's just an opportunity to
(03:04):
solve people's problems using technology. It's awesome.
Yeah. I feel I mean, one, that's awesome. It's
funny how most people have that similar
thought about sales, but then see the the pay band for it. And
they're like, I think I think I'm willing to give this a try, especially
at a company like Microsoft. Obviously,
(03:27):
I feel like you downplayed it a little bit. Like, getting a job at Microsoft
right at a college is an amazing feat. What were some of
the characteristics and traits that you
brought to the table that you think made them want you to be in the
sales side versus the marketing side? Yeah.
I, frankly, now looking back, I think I'm not great at
marketing, so that's one thing. But no.
(03:51):
One one of the things was they said you shouldn't be behind a computer.
You should be talking to people. I'm such a people person and extrovert. I
love figuring out what I might have in common with somebody, building relationships,
and I like that translates really well into sales. But
also just being able to manage a business. And I think sales and
entrepreneurship is goes hand in hand. It's Mhmm. Managing a business top to
(04:14):
bottom, start to finish of, you know, honestly doing your own marketing
and doing your own research and and all of that kinda stuff. So,
yeah. Yeah. And that was a perfect segue into my follow-up question
is sales and entrepreneurship are really
like, when I decided to go into corporate sales, I had
founded a few companies in college. Unfortunately, they went belly up in
(04:37):
COVID, and I was looking for what was going to
give me that same dopamine hit of,
like, running a business, having risk.
And when I understood corporate sales, I said, hey. This is a
pretty derisked startup here. You get a book of business. You you
have somebody backing you. You have a name behind you. So for you, what
(04:59):
are some of the similarities you saw from the corporate sales world to
running a book of business or to actually running a company? And
what things did you take away from your corporate life that helped you be successful
as a founder? It's so funny you say this because one of my
investors, one of my very favorite investors, is a partner at Atlanta Ventures, and
she, commonly posts about how she thinks that tech
(05:22):
sales reps make the best founders and CEOs.
And it's a lot of it comes down to exactly what you said is, like,
you're running your own territory as if it's your own business. So you're
identifying your target market. You're identifying your marketing
channels, how to reach out to them. You are fitting your product or
solution into their story, into their initiatives and their problems.
(05:44):
And so all of it is really pretty similar. You're pitching your
product to, you know, your customers as a sales rep, but you're pitching
your company to investors as a founder. So it really is
tangential. It's everything in life really does come back down to sales.
Yeah. It's I've interviewed now over a hundred people,
and I would say nine out of 10 of the people I've interviewed,
(06:06):
sales is the number one skill that they would recommend younger people
learn. Obviously, not everybody is built for sales. But if you
think that you have the inkling, if it's somewhat interesting to you,
I always recommend to people in their early twenties, even right out
of college, try sales. Mhmm. Go and join a sales club.
Go and try and sell things. Like, go and look for a job that allows
(06:29):
you to sell, whether that's in retail or or something entry level
because sales is really an amazing avenue into being able to
do almost anything. Like, I can't think of a job that allows you to pivot
harder than sales, relative to some of these other
industries. Obviously, you worked at Salesforce. You worked at
Microsoft, like, some of the biggest companies in the world. What did it look
(06:51):
like when you were going to walk away from that really
high quality income to go and take a huge
risk? Yeah. My last year at Salesforce, it was,
I think, my tenth year. So I, when I was in college, started full time
with LG while finishing my degree and then went to Microsoft straight
out of after I graduated. And so it was my tenth
(07:13):
year, and it was like, okay. I can't imagine doing this
same thing forever, and I'm not learning anymore. I'm not growing anymore.
And so I had a couple goals. I wanted to close the biggest deal in,
you know, my org for the year. I wanted to make 7 figures in commission.
I wanted to do all these little things. And I did those things, and then
I was like, I'm no more fulfilled. I'm no more satisfied, and I just
(07:35):
closed the biggest deal of my entire career while playing Candy Crush on my phone.
And so for me, it was like, okay. What's important to me
today? And I'm comfortable. I can pay my mortgage, you know,
for for a couple years if I need to. What can I do now?
And, I'm not super motivated by cash
flow. I'm more motivated by learning and growth and, challenge.
(07:58):
And so for me, it was like, okay. What can I do to continue to
learn every single day? So walking away was a bit scary, though.
There's you know, you don't have the security, and it's scary to be like, what
if I fail very publicly in front of everybody that I know?
So it's a it's a scary journey, but I wouldn't look back and change a
thing. Yeah. And and how have you been managing that? Obviously,
(08:19):
like, I think that is the the hardest part about
it is failing publicly in front of all of your peers
that you worked with. Because, obviously, working at those companies, you have a huge network
of people who are now interested in why did she leave? Why did
she walk away from this amazing salary, especially after being so
successful? How have you been able to handle that?
(08:41):
I I would say that when I left Salesforce, I actually was
I remember calling my boss to tell him I was leaving crying because I loved
him so dearly, and I love my team so dearly, and we were all close.
We still have a group text years later, but, they were like, you're crazy.
Why are you giving this up and walking away to make $0 a year, you
know, in the beginning? And, what I've
(09:02):
learned is that every successful entrepreneur I know, a lot of mentors of mine
that have, you know, sold billion dollar plus companies have had
five, six failures before they were ever successful. And that's just the
reality of startups is knowing that the odds are against you. It's over
90% of startups fail. I think it's like 96% of startups fail.
So it's like, you know, failure has become less and less
(09:25):
scary the further into it I've gotten. And we're I'm pretty
public about our failures too. Like, hey. We launched this product. It flat. It didn't
work. We thought that we our customers were asking for this, but really, they were
asking for this. And people have been pretty receptive to it. So
it's helpful to be really authentic and open. Yeah. And I
love that point there about you have to have some
(09:46):
failures before you see that big success. Very,
very, very rarely does somebody just launch a company
and have it become a big win. I like that.
It's a it's this meme of somebody
throwing darts, and it's like the average person throws one dart, doesn't
hit the dartboard, and they walk away. The regular person
(10:09):
goes up and throws three, four darts. They don't hit the middle. They walk away.
And then the last one is, like, the founder entrepreneur that throws a 50
darts, and then the hundred and forty ninth one hits the middle, and it's the
big win. But it really is I mean, entrepreneurship
startups really are the ability to weather the failures
knowing that there's gonna be potentially luck on your
(10:32):
side and a few other factors that you will eventually find
something that works and you're gonna be able to run with it. Unfortunately, most
people just can't get through some of those failures because it really is challenging
to to fail, especially when you were successful in
previous careers because I think about my life in sports. I think
about my life in sales now. And I've had some I've had startups that
(10:54):
failed. Those were really the first times in my life that I
was unsuccessful. And that is hard to swallow,
especially when you're surrounded by people you know. And being
able to turn the page and move on and take whatever you learn from that
and jump into the next one is really the biggest
catalyst, in my opinion, to have to being a successful founder.
(11:17):
Yeah. No. Absolutely. There's a I think that that's the other thing with
with sales and foundership is sales were we get
used to being told no, and we're like, no. It's just a you know, it's
a roadblock for us. Right? It's like, how can we work around it? How can
we continue to push through? And that's that's startup world too. It's like you get
told no every single day. And how do you continue to to thrive
(11:37):
and be motivated? Yeah. So you
you leave the corporate world. You start a a company. It's
not the company that you've started right now that you're focused on. Talk to
me about that time in your life, and and what that looked
like. Yeah. So my last company was with an engineer
from Salesforce, actually, actually, that I had worked with. And we were doing stuff
(12:00):
in the crypto world, hence why I was based in Miami, you
know, Web three, DAO governance, NFT white listing, crazy stuff.
And I learned so, so, so much. It was incredible.
Learned a lot about pitching. I had never raised
capital before, and I think I pitched to
70 investors before we got our first term sheet. And I remember the first one,
(12:22):
they're like, how much money are raising? I'm like, 10,000,000. I don't know. We had
no idea what we were doing. Both of us were were, you know, corporate backed
and, had never done startup before. And by the end, it
was like, okay. I learned what a data room was. I learned how to, you
know, create a good pitch deck. I learned how to make a use of funds.
All of these little things, nuances that you never really think about in the corporate
(12:42):
world. I learned all the basics there, and we were lucky to,
have a a partner that we were partner company that we were working with that
ended up, acquiring that company. So from there, I had an
awesome investor at Atlanta Ventures that was like, hey. Let's build something new together,
and that's where we built India. That's awesome. And
(13:02):
talk to me a little bit about the pitch decks
and and talking to investors because I feel like that's one of the
scarier and more daunting things for some of these younger founders.
They're worried that these investors won't take them
seriously. They're worried that they don't know what the investors are looking for. And,
obviously, raising capital is a huge part of building
(13:24):
most successful businesses. It's getting rarer and rarer that a
bootstrap business becomes extremely successful. So I'd love for you
to share some insights and and some advice for founders listening right now
that are working on their pitch decks or starting to pitch investors.
Yeah. I mean, what I will say is, like, when I first started pitching investors
as, like, VCs are scary. They're these big powerful beings that are, are, you know,
(13:47):
like, out of arms reach. And what I really realized is that
investors are people too. You know? They have kids. They go to the grocery
store. They, you know, they are the same humans that we are.
And most of them I will say most of them really do just wanna be
helpful. So my biggest advice I ever give is talk to
investors as early as possible, and your first call should never
(14:09):
be asking for money. So what I mean by that is, like, you don't
ever want to marry somebody without dating them. And getting
into a partnership with an investor is that means you're probably gonna
be talking to them every week, every month. You're gonna be answering to them.
So you need to make sure that you like them. And so I always take
the approach of reaching out to investors that are investing in
(14:32):
my space, in sales tech and AI, are passionate about kind of the
things that I'm focused on. And I'll say, like, hey. We will be raising in
six months, eight months, whatever it may be. But I have some questions. Like, what
are you looking for? What milestone should I be reaching? You know,
what what competitors do you see in this space? What questions do I need to
have answered? And so it kind of opens a line of communication
(14:54):
before. And so you can kinda get to know each other before you're ever asking
for money. So the first call to somebody is like, hey. Can you give me
$10,000,000? And be like, who are you? And and, no. I won't. So
it kinda makes it a little bit less scary too. Yeah. I think
that's amazing advice because
most younger entrepreneurs are
(15:16):
fixated on the capital and how much money they want and all of these
things and aren't aware of how many roadblocks that can
actually bring you if you go and get in a relationship that doesn't make
sense. So I love the thought of dating before you marry them.
Once you get that check, they are now part of your everyday
life and are directly involved in what you're doing.
(15:38):
And you can look up stories like the Uber story and
different things like that where founders are literally pushed out of big businesses
because they took capital from people that
maybe wanted to see the different things from these companies and have a different
vision for it. So it is very important. And I will say for the entrepreneurs
listening and watching right now, it is very important to
(16:00):
think about who you're working with, who you're
raising capital from because they are going to be directly involved in
your business that is now not just your business. It is now
everybody in your investor's business. So thank you so
much for that advice. I think that's really helpful for the people listening.
Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. They are going to become a part of your everyday
(16:22):
life. It's so true. Yeah. So you
you you launch this business in the web three space. It gets
acquired, which is fantastic. When did
you start thinking about the next play, which we're gonna dive into, which is what
you're working on right now? Immediately.
No. I, I remember calling up actually, that same
(16:44):
investor that I mentioned, before, I I called her up and said, you know,
I don't know what I want to do next. Do I go back to corporate
and take a really healthy cush job? Do I start
something else? Do I do a consulting company? You know, I've always done a little
bit of sales consulting on the side. So, like, you know, what what's the right
path forward? I'm just trying to get you know, figure this out. And she said,
come down to Atlanta tomorrow, and let's let's have lunch and chat. So
(17:08):
I drove down there, and she said, you're meeting my entire team
of investors and, all the partners.
And, Atlanta Ventures has a studio. So if you're
familiar with Calendly or SalesLoft or Terminus, all of those
are companies that went through the Atlanta Venture Studio, and we're the fifth one to
go through, behind them. And,
(17:30):
yeah. So they said, let's build something together. And the way that it works is
they just choose an entrepreneur that they really like. Happens to be a lot of
them have been in sales, but they say, okay. Let's take a couple months
for ideation and figure out an area, a market, that
you're passionate about, that we believe in. And then once we land on a on
an idea and do customer discovery, let's launch that business, and we'll fund it.
(17:52):
That's awesome. And I use Calendly for this business. I've used
SalesLoft in my career as well, so both very familiar companies.
And maybe this is a tough question to answer, but why do you
think she wanted to bet on you? That's a
great question. The one thing that I will say is,
(18:13):
she has told me and, you know, I've heard from this specific
investor about resilience being really important to them. And,
I my career has not always been easy. My life has not always been super
easy, and I've kind of said, you know what? I don't care what happened. I'm
gonna keep pushing forward, and that's something that they say they look for in people
that failure or roadblocks don't get in the way of
(18:35):
success. Awesome. So, obviously,
the the elephant in the room here, Zinnia is the company that you're currently
building, that you've launched with them. I'd love for you to give
us, the elevator pitch, and then we can dive into more about the
product, who uses it, and different things like that. Yeah.
So, Zinnia is really focused on what I always joke
(18:58):
is, like, an AE's best friend. So what are all the manual things that I
didn't have time to do or I did, but they were at 10PM the
night before? Because there's never enough time in a day for sales reps to do
everything that they should do to be a really good sales rep. And so we
started and launched the platform focused on research and discovery. So
who the heck are the people that you're meeting and what's important to them?
(19:20):
And what I mean by that is I used to go research
on, LinkedIn, on the company website, maybe listen to any
podcast they would be on, but then I would even go to social media. Do
they have kids? What's their personality type look like? Because if someone looks really
serious and buttoned up, I'm gonna take a very different approach than someone who is
goofy and playful. And so I'd really try to get that holistic view of the
(19:41):
human, but then also the company. So reading, you know, the company's 10 k
or listening to the earnings call, the annual report, things like that. And
that's really time consuming. You know, 10 k's are what? A 80 pages? 200
pages? Yeah. So, what we have, launched live in the
market today is doing all of that research for you, but taking a
specific lens of the product or service you're selling. So instead of just
(20:03):
saying the Microsoft's ten k says that they're focused on sustainability,
it's okay. Well, the Microsoft ten k is focused on sustainability, and so
we are allowing you to use less compute power because we're, you
know, doing optimizing AI or, you know,
it's actually putting the lens on of what a seller
should be doing of what they're they're focused on selling. Yeah. And
(20:26):
I think that's definitely needed because as somebody who's in that world
right now, I feel like 10% of the job
is the sales. The 90% of the job is admin work.
And for most people, that's not very exciting, and it's not
really what you sign up for, but it is what it is right now. I
have talked to people that are in the similar space and are launching companies that
(20:49):
are around, in different areas of
the business, but I do feel like we're headed towards a world where it's gonna
be less admin y because we're gonna have AI agents and different things like that.
So for you, who's the target audience for this? Who are you trying to sell
to? I would imagine it's corporations, but I'm I'm interested to
hear. Yeah. So we launched, in June, late
(21:11):
June, and, our goal was just to focus on account executives.
And from there, you know, we have a a hundred plus, businesses
now on the platform, but we were really focused on
understanding who gets the most value, who's using it every single day. And
what it looks like is anybody that has a named account list is really
our, like, primary target market. And we integrate into
(21:34):
CRM. We integrate into your inbox, and your calendar to be able to
give you the next best action you should take every single day. So what we
have is, you know, hey. Prepare for this meeting, with
Joe, and here's everything that's important. Here's the context of the emails,
so you can have that quick, you know, five minute prep before that meeting. But
then also taking the call recording and writing the follow-up email for
(21:56):
you or replying in a smart way to any emails that may be
inbound of, does your product or service do this? What's the next step for
this? So we actually will draft the first draft of of kind of all of
your interactions with your customer. Oh, okay. That that's amazing.
I feel like I I need to reach out to the people at my side
of the business and say, hey. I could really use this tool. We should look
(22:17):
into it. Obviously, you just
launched in June. It is still very fresh. Mhmm.
What is the next twelve months look like? What are some of the goals and
initiatives that you all are launching, and and what would be, like,
an amazing twelve months in your eyes? Yeah. So we are
launching next best action, GA in the next couple
(22:39):
months. And that's really where that's saying, you know, a good
friend of mine and I always joke that go deals go to die in your
inbox. And how many times have you been at end of quarter and you're like,
oh, no. I need to bring in another hundred k, and you're, like, digging through
emails that you should have been replying to or, like, oh, maybe I can reignite
this one deal. And that's kind of where next best action is is, like, not
letting those things flip through the cracks. And, you know,
(23:03):
if one of your prospects goes dark on you instead of being like, hey,
Joe. Have you read this? Do you have anything to think about it? It's like,
hey. By the way, saw this article about the Minnesota Vikings, given our
last conversation, thought that you'd find this interesting. And it's really just, like,
value add personalized touches that good sales reps do, but nobody actually
has time to do. So, that's getting ready to launch. A
(23:25):
good next twelve months is that people love it, and we take over
the world. It's great. That's very exciting. I saw on
your LinkedIn that, on the company LinkedIn that that you had
won a a pitch competition or or a competition like that, and you're holding the
big hundred k check. I'd love to hear about that. I know
for for for founders, events like that are huge. Like, a hundred
(23:47):
k is is, like, life changing for some founders in the early
stages. What was it like entering that, and why do you
think they picked you as the winner? Oh, I'm so excited about partnering
with Hearst. So Hearst Media, if you're familiar, is one of the biggest, if not
the the biggest media company in The US. They own, like, Cosmopolitan
and A and E and, part of ESPN, and they're
(24:09):
just this huge conglomerate. They also have health care companies, all these other
things. They're awesome, and they have the Hearst Lab,
which, is super hands on and gives resources to
founders, that are early stage. So, actually, one of
my current investors reached out to me and was like, hey. There's this competition. I
think that you'd be really good for it. I think that it could be a
(24:30):
really good partnership. And we weren't really raising, but Hearst
has a bunch of companies that would be perfect customers for us. Also, we
need help with marketing, and that's what they are really, really good at.
So we went through the competition. I think they said over 400 companies
applied and then, you know, had to go through a series of interviews and
pitching, and it came down to five of us. And, actually, two of us end
(24:52):
up winning the competition, which was great. They don't normally do that, but they're like,
we couldn't choose. And they said, you know, we chose you
because, one, we can see a really, really natural application of,
AI here, and, it feels really useful.
But, two, we actually think this could be useful for a lot of our own
brands and our own companies, and so we think we can be really helpful.
(25:13):
And they have been wildly helpful and amazing, so we're so excited to
be partnering with them. That's amazing. And I think it's a
you mentioned something about marketing. Marketing is, I would say,
the hardest part of any startup. It is I mean, at the end of the
day, in the world we live in now, eyeballs are dollars. Distribution
is everything. What are some of the
(25:36):
challenges you face from obviously, sales, you've got it
covered. Being an image of the company, you have it covered. I mean, even
in this conversation, you're very well spoken, very professional.
There's obviously tons of other hats you need to wear as a founder. What
are some of those challenges that you've had to deal with since the launch of
this company? Because I always like to highlight these moments because
(25:58):
sometimes I watch podcasts and it's all positive. But we, as a
founder, we we know we know it's not all sunshine and
roses. Like, there are plenty of hurdles, plenty of challenges. What
are some of the hard parts of what you're doing right now? Oh, all of
it. If it was easy, everybody would do it. Right? But,
no. I I always joke that as a founder and a CEO,
(26:20):
my job is to do sales and marketing and operations, but I'm
also the office janitor and the social committee
and HR and everything else. So you really do have
to wear so so many hats. And, transparently,
it's been really, really hard lately because we're kind of in this
inflection point between we've launched and actually a %
(26:42):
of our sales have been inbound, which is great. But I have over, I would
say, probably 40 to 50 meetings a week on average. And that doesn't give
me a lot of time to do my day job. Right? Like, these are
this is great because we have inbound customers, and we're learning and we're growing. But
we're actually not quite at the point to hire more people to take on
some of this stuff yet. And I need to learn what what feedback that
(27:05):
we're getting from customers, why they're moving forward, or why they're not, and I need
to hear that firsthand. So being a founder is really hard. I am working
hundred hour weeks, and it's exhausting. And it can feel really
lonely sometimes for sure. It's it's not an easy path, but,
you know, I'm very lucky that my cofounder, Marco, he's my
CTO, is rock star. We just we support each other really well
(27:27):
and can kind of, you know, push each other through it. And he's like, I
don't understand sales, but I got you. I'm like, I don't understand
coding, but I got you. That's awesome.
And a lot of companies are founded with a a technical
partner or a cofounder. We talked a little bit about
it when it comes to investors, but
(27:51):
I've seen a lot of businesses go to die in relationships with cofounders
and picking the wrong cofounder. What is some advice you could give?
Obviously, you are now in the trenches with a cofounder right
now. What is some advice you could give to founders looking to
pick a cofounder, get into a business with a cofounder? Because that
is one of the biggest challenges when it comes to having a
(28:13):
successful company, and you're doing it right now. This is something
I am actually super, super passionate about, and you are completely correct.
There's a statistic. I think it's over, for the companies that
fail, like, over 30% of them fail because of cofounder
differences of them not getting along, not working together well, whatever it may
be. So we brought Marco
(28:35):
in in about a year ago, so way after
we started the company, and that's because we went through the studio. So, you know,
had the support of Atlanta Ventures. But, my biggest
advice is First Round Capital has this,
50 questions you should ask before going to business with somebody. And Marco
and I sat down for two full days. It was a Saturday and a Sunday,
(28:57):
and we whiteboarded all day. And we sat down and went through this questionnaire. And
it's everything from, like, what's your exit goal? Do you wanna build a billion dollar
company, or do you want to build a $10,000,000 company
and, you know, kind of coast? Those are wildly different paths, and you have to
make sure you're on the same page. But some of them are also like, do
you work on weekends? What What do you do when you're hungry and you have
(29:18):
a deadline? Do you pause to eat or do you push through? And it's silly,
but those things are so important to talk about before it becomes an issue.
So Marco and I sat down and he said, you know what? Why don't I
work with you for the next couple months? Don't pay me. And let me just
do this for a couple months. And if at the end of it, you're you
think that I've done good work and you enjoy working with me, like, bring me
(29:38):
on as your cofounder. And by the end of the first month, I was like,
I'm obsessed with him. He's amazing. He's wonderful. He's exactly what the business
needs, and, like, please join. So
That's awesome. And and shout out to Marco for being able
to bet on himself. Most people and I also I think
it is a red flag when you have somebody who's like, pay
(30:01):
me up front. I need to do this, this, and that. And, obviously, you
can't imagine that everybody's going to work
for free, but that's a a a big green flag knowing
that he's willing to bet on himself, saw the vision, wanted to jump in,
and allow you to kind of evaluate. I've my best
hires in my businesses have been the people that
(30:23):
hustle first and then ask for funds and and different
things like that. And I I just wrote a newsletter yesterday about it because I'm
about to hire a brand new editor. I get probably
35 to 40 editors in my inbox every other day.
I'm not gonna hire them. This kid went way out of his
way to make me a video, post it on Twitter, tag me, get my
(30:46):
attention. He looked through multiple of my tweets,
saw that I didn't wanna focus on short form, and I wanted to focus
on long long form. Already had a big draft of things he
would improve on my YouTube. And I I I was like, hey. Let's jump on
a call right now. Like, you deserve to get this next call, and I'm probably
gonna end up hiring this person. And he bet on himself.
(31:08):
He took time to make the video. He took time to make the report about
my YouTube. He took time to get on that call knowing that there was
potentially no financial gain from this, but he separated
himself from the 50 other people that apply every week to work with
us. So I love that that is and and that is a message that
I say. Obviously, value your time and at the right price,
(31:29):
but don't be shy from doing things for free.
Like, add value before you want people to give you
money. You want people to let you get involved. And I love that point
because that's Marco did it at the biggest scale. He's now involved in a
huge company, and and so it's it's really amazing. Yeah.
No. It it's so true. It's like taking a bit on yourself. He knew he
(31:51):
knew his value. And, I mean, even to the extent of we had previously talked
about what the equity split would be if it make if it made sense after
the couple months. And he was I was like, I want you on. I wanna
give you more equity than you asked for because I I want you to be
my partner. So That's amazing.
Right now, you're obviously in that phase of testing and
(32:13):
trialing with customers, trying to understand what people
want. A lot of founders get
stuck on, like, their vision and what they think the
product should be. And and we've it's funny. We've just been a little bit
of a theme here. We've talked about things that derail some of these startups.
What is it like for you to think that this is the perfect idea,
(32:36):
this is the product, and then roll it out and have people say, no. I
don't want that. I want this, and have to go and reiterate on it and
change it? Because I know that's challenging for founders. Yeah. I mean, it
can be pretty exhausting for sure. And what I've learned is that when
you ask somebody what they want, most of the time, customers don't
know exactly what they want. They'll tell you one thing but mean another thing.
(32:58):
And, it's simply just because, you know, you don't know what
exists. You don't know what's possible. It's like, oh, what's the old
thing like asking for a horse, but they really wanted a car if they didn't
know cars existed. Right? So, yeah, I
mean, what what's been interesting for us is we
decided that we would choose a market and not a product. So
(33:20):
we wanted to choose the market of sales of particularly
named accountless, you know, corporate sales. And
we wanted to create a product that served AEs well.
And, you know, I knew that some of the biggest issues were things like
researching and showing up to meetings prepared, knowing who the heck you're selling to, giving
a personalized journey. And then, you know, it's kind
(33:42):
of expanded into more tactical things of, like, okay. We have all that information now,
but what do we do with it? So I think choosing the
market and the audience versus a specific solution
is the best thing you could do because you're gonna have micro pivots and
micro, you know, direction changes along the way. I love
it. This has been an amazing conversation,
(34:04):
and I've learned a bunch. I hope people listening and watching have
learned a lot about Zinnia and and what you're launching, and we have tons
of CEOs and founders that watch the show. If you have AEs,
you have salespeople, and a lot of the stuff we talked about is applicable
to your business, make sure to take some notes and reach out.
I always ask the same question before we end the interview, and it is about
(34:27):
you. It's one of those cliche questions, but it always leads to some good
answers. You've had an amazing career. If you could go back to the
18 year old you and give yourself a piece of advice, what would that
be?
Nobody knows what they're doing, so just go for
(34:48):
it. Just go for it. Don't be afraid of failure because you will fail over
and over, and that's okay because failure is just learning. Just
do it, in the words of Nike. I love it. And I
actually really, really, really love that point.
One of the things that I've learned and has been the most eye opening
to me is almost everybody does doesn't
(35:10):
really know what's going on. People are good. People are smart and can
figure it out. But most people, if they're genuine
and open, will tell you that they're also just figuring
it out along the way even at the highest levels. And most
people cut themselves short or sell themselves short because they
think the person they're meeting with is an expert or they think the person they're
(35:32):
talking to is a genius. They're very much in the same
place you are at their level, just figuring things
out along the way. So don't ever shy away from
getting yourself in rooms, getting in front of certain people because you think that they're
smarter than you or you think that they're better than you in certain ways.
(35:52):
Everybody's on the same level. Everybody's learning along the way.
If somebody is giving you those traits, it's probably not somebody you wanna talk to
anyways. If you meet a genuine person at the highest level like, I've talked to
CEOs that are like, every day I wake up and I am just
throwing shit at the wall, and I'm trying to figure it out. And that's just
the way this works. And it's nice to hear that because
(36:14):
even at the lowest level, when you're starting out right at a college, you don't
know what the heck's going on. You're just trying to figure it out. So I
think that is actually a fantastic answer, and I've gotten I've asked that question over
a hundred times. And this is one of the answers that I actually really like
the most because I think it's so true. Well, thank you. Yeah. I
mean, we're all in this together. We're all faking it. So
(36:36):
Yeah. Of course. I wanna make sure anybody that's still with us now,
can go and connect with you. What platforms would they be would be good for
them to reach out to you on? And, for companies that might
be listening or founders, CEOs that might be listening, where's the best place to get
in touch with Zinnia? Yeah. So if you wanna get in touch with me, LinkedIn
is always the best avenue. So, again, my name is Lauren Goodell. But if you
(36:59):
wanna check out Zinnia, it's getzinnia.ai. So you can check us out
there. Amazing. And all of Lauren's information
will be listed in the description below of wherever you're watching or listening to
this. And Zinnia's information will be listed below as well.
Lauren, thank you so much for the conversation. This has been an absolute
pleasure, and I look forward to seeing you to seeing
(37:21):
you continue to succeed, and I can't wait to see what the company turns
into. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah. Everybody, thank you
for listening, and we will see you on the next episode.
Maybe this is a tough question to answer, but why do you think she wanted
to bet on you? My career has not always been easy. My life has not
always been super easy, and I've kind of said, you know what? I don't care
what happened. I'm gonna keep pushing forward. And that's something that they say they look
for in people that failure or roadblocks
don't get in the way of success. A good friend of mine and I always
joke that go deals go to die in your inbox. And how many times have
(00:22):
you been at end of quarter and you're like, oh, no. I need to bring
in another hundred k. And you're, like, digging through emails that you should have been
replying to or, like, oh, maybe I could reunite this one deal. And
that's kind of where next best action is. It's, like, not letting those things flip
through the cracks. It's a scary journey, but I wouldn't look back and change a
thing. Welcome back to another episode episode of the Beyond the Wealth podcast.
I'm your host, Andres Sanchez. And today, I have Lauren Gadell,
(00:45):
the founder of Zinnia, a SaaS tool for AEs.
For everybody here, you know this hits home for me. This is
where I work outside of this podcast and the newsletter.
I'm really excited to dive in and be curious and understand what this
tool is, and hopefully people listening and watching will get the chance to understand
it and then potentially start to leverage it. Lauren, thank you so much for being
(01:08):
here. Thanks so much for having me. Always love chatting sales. Yeah. Of
course. So I wanna give you the floor here right at the beginning of the
conversation to give us a little bit of an intro on who Lauren is and
what a little bit about your journey. Yeah. So,
I have been in sales for over a decade. I started
my career in corporate. So I was Microsoft, Salesforce, and LG
(01:31):
as an enterprise account executive, tons of different kind of sales roles,
and decided to build something that I wish I had as an account
executive. That's amazing. And I feel like that's
where a lot of, good companies come from. It's
a need, and then somebody actually goes and builds it. It's crazy.
You think that these big corporate conglomerates would be
(01:54):
really innovative and quick to release things, but I at least from
my experience, and maybe it's the same for you, it's really clunky,
old school, and there's always a ton of room for innovation.
But I wanna cater to some of the younger audience that's with us.
What was that early part in your career like? Why did you choose sales?
Talk to us about that. I always joke that I oopsied my way into
(02:18):
sales, and it's so true because that wasn't my degree. That wasn't my intention.
When I went when I was an undergrad, I went to Nebraska, and, I
had an internship where I was leading marketing efforts for
Microsoft on campus. And, my senior year of
college, they were like, hey. Do you wanna interview at Microsoft corporate for
a marketing role? It's like, sure. So I interviewed, and they said, we actually think
(02:41):
you'd be really good at sales. And it was nothing that I ever really considered.
And I was like, you know, I don't know. Sales seems like a dirty word.
Like, everything I've ever heard is it's like, you know, used car salesman.
And then I saw the offer for sales versus marketing and was like, yeah. I'll
take the sales job. I oopsied my way into it, but
then I realized it's not dirty and it's fun, and it's just an opportunity to
(03:04):
solve people's problems using technology. It's awesome.
Yeah. I feel I mean, one, that's awesome. It's
funny how most people have that similar
thought about sales, but then see the the pay band for it. And
they're like, I think I think I'm willing to give this a try, especially
at a company like Microsoft. Obviously,
(03:27):
I feel like you downplayed it a little bit. Like, getting a job at Microsoft
right at a college is an amazing feat. What were some of
the characteristics and traits that you
brought to the table that you think made them want you to be in the
sales side versus the marketing side? Yeah.
I, frankly, now looking back, I think I'm not great at
marketing, so that's one thing. But no.
(03:51):
One one of the things was they said you shouldn't be behind a computer.
You should be talking to people. I'm such a people person and extrovert. I
love figuring out what I might have in common with somebody, building relationships,
and I like that translates really well into sales. But
also just being able to manage a business. And I think sales and
entrepreneurship is goes hand in hand. It's Mhmm. Managing a business top to
(04:14):
bottom, start to finish of, you know, honestly doing your own marketing
and doing your own research and and all of that kinda stuff. So,
yeah. Yeah. And that was a perfect segue into my follow-up question
is sales and entrepreneurship are really
like, when I decided to go into corporate sales, I had
founded a few companies in college. Unfortunately, they went belly up in
(04:37):
COVID, and I was looking for what was going to
give me that same dopamine hit of,
like, running a business, having risk.
And when I understood corporate sales, I said, hey. This is a
pretty derisked startup here. You get a book of business. You you
have somebody backing you. You have a name behind you. So for you, what
(04:59):
are some of the similarities you saw from the corporate sales world to
running a book of business or to actually running a company? And
what things did you take away from your corporate life that helped you be successful
as a founder? It's so funny you say this because one of my
investors, one of my very favorite investors, is a partner at Atlanta Ventures, and
she, commonly posts about how she thinks that tech
(05:22):
sales reps make the best founders and CEOs.
And it's a lot of it comes down to exactly what you said is, like,
you're running your own territory as if it's your own business. So you're
identifying your target market. You're identifying your marketing
channels, how to reach out to them. You are fitting your product or
solution into their story, into their initiatives and their problems.
(05:44):
And so all of it is really pretty similar. You're pitching your
product to, you know, your customers as a sales rep, but you're pitching
your company to investors as a founder. So it really is
tangential. It's everything in life really does come back down to sales.
Yeah. It's I've interviewed now over a hundred people,
and I would say nine out of 10 of the people I've interviewed,
(06:06):
sales is the number one skill that they would recommend younger people
learn. Obviously, not everybody is built for sales. But if you
think that you have the inkling, if it's somewhat interesting to you,
I always recommend to people in their early twenties, even right out
of college, try sales. Mhmm. Go and join a sales club.
Go and try and sell things. Like, go and look for a job that allows
(06:29):
you to sell, whether that's in retail or or something entry level
because sales is really an amazing avenue into being able to
do almost anything. Like, I can't think of a job that allows you to pivot
harder than sales, relative to some of these other
industries. Obviously, you worked at Salesforce. You worked at
Microsoft, like, some of the biggest companies in the world. What did it look
(06:51):
like when you were going to walk away from that really
high quality income to go and take a huge
risk? Yeah. My last year at Salesforce, it was,
I think, my tenth year. So I, when I was in college, started full time
with LG while finishing my degree and then went to Microsoft straight
out of after I graduated. And so it was my tenth
(07:13):
year, and it was like, okay. I can't imagine doing this
same thing forever, and I'm not learning anymore. I'm not growing anymore.
And so I had a couple goals. I wanted to close the biggest deal in,
you know, my org for the year. I wanted to make 7 figures in commission.
I wanted to do all these little things. And I did those things, and then
I was like, I'm no more fulfilled. I'm no more satisfied, and I just
(07:35):
closed the biggest deal of my entire career while playing Candy Crush on my phone.
And so for me, it was like, okay. What's important to me
today? And I'm comfortable. I can pay my mortgage, you know,
for for a couple years if I need to. What can I do now?
And, I'm not super motivated by cash
flow. I'm more motivated by learning and growth and, challenge.
(07:58):
And so for me, it was like, okay. What can I do to continue to
learn every single day? So walking away was a bit scary, though.
There's you know, you don't have the security, and it's scary to be like, what
if I fail very publicly in front of everybody that I know?
So it's a it's a scary journey, but I wouldn't look back and change a
thing. Yeah. And and how have you been managing that? Obviously,
(08:19):
like, I think that is the the hardest part about
it is failing publicly in front of all of your peers
that you worked with. Because, obviously, working at those companies, you have a huge network
of people who are now interested in why did she leave? Why did
she walk away from this amazing salary, especially after being so
successful? How have you been able to handle that?
(08:41):
I I would say that when I left Salesforce, I actually was
I remember calling my boss to tell him I was leaving crying because I loved
him so dearly, and I love my team so dearly, and we were all close.
We still have a group text years later, but, they were like, you're crazy.
Why are you giving this up and walking away to make $0 a year, you
know, in the beginning? And, what I've
(09:02):
learned is that every successful entrepreneur I know, a lot of mentors of mine
that have, you know, sold billion dollar plus companies have had
five, six failures before they were ever successful. And that's just the
reality of startups is knowing that the odds are against you. It's over
90% of startups fail. I think it's like 96% of startups fail.
So it's like, you know, failure has become less and less
(09:25):
scary the further into it I've gotten. And we're I'm pretty
public about our failures too. Like, hey. We launched this product. It flat. It didn't
work. We thought that we our customers were asking for this, but really, they were
asking for this. And people have been pretty receptive to it. So
it's helpful to be really authentic and open. Yeah. And I
love that point there about you have to have some
(09:46):
failures before you see that big success. Very,
very, very rarely does somebody just launch a company
and have it become a big win. I like that.
It's a it's this meme of somebody
throwing darts, and it's like the average person throws one dart, doesn't
hit the dartboard, and they walk away. The regular person
(10:09):
goes up and throws three, four darts. They don't hit the middle. They walk away.
And then the last one is, like, the founder entrepreneur that throws a 50
darts, and then the hundred and forty ninth one hits the middle, and it's the
big win. But it really is I mean, entrepreneurship
startups really are the ability to weather the failures
knowing that there's gonna be potentially luck on your
(10:32):
side and a few other factors that you will eventually find
something that works and you're gonna be able to run with it. Unfortunately, most
people just can't get through some of those failures because it really is challenging
to to fail, especially when you were successful in
previous careers because I think about my life in sports. I think
about my life in sales now. And I've had some I've had startups that
(10:54):
failed. Those were really the first times in my life that I
was unsuccessful. And that is hard to swallow,
especially when you're surrounded by people you know. And being
able to turn the page and move on and take whatever you learn from that
and jump into the next one is really the biggest
catalyst, in my opinion, to have to being a successful founder.
(11:17):
Yeah. No. Absolutely. There's a I think that that's the other thing with
with sales and foundership is sales were we get
used to being told no, and we're like, no. It's just a you know, it's
a roadblock for us. Right? It's like, how can we work around it? How can
we continue to push through? And that's that's startup world too. It's like you get
told no every single day. And how do you continue to to thrive
(11:37):
and be motivated? Yeah. So you
you leave the corporate world. You start a a company. It's
not the company that you've started right now that you're focused on. Talk to
me about that time in your life, and and what that looked
like. Yeah. So my last company was with an engineer
from Salesforce, actually, actually, that I had worked with. And we were doing stuff
(12:00):
in the crypto world, hence why I was based in Miami, you
know, Web three, DAO governance, NFT white listing, crazy stuff.
And I learned so, so, so much. It was incredible.
Learned a lot about pitching. I had never raised
capital before, and I think I pitched to
70 investors before we got our first term sheet. And I remember the first one,
(12:22):
they're like, how much money are raising? I'm like, 10,000,000. I don't know. We had
no idea what we were doing. Both of us were were, you know, corporate backed
and, had never done startup before. And by the end, it
was like, okay. I learned what a data room was. I learned how to, you
know, create a good pitch deck. I learned how to make a use of funds.
All of these little things, nuances that you never really think about in the corporate
(12:42):
world. I learned all the basics there, and we were lucky to,
have a a partner that we were partner company that we were working with that
ended up, acquiring that company. So from there, I had an
awesome investor at Atlanta Ventures that was like, hey. Let's build something new together,
and that's where we built India. That's awesome. And
(13:02):
talk to me a little bit about the pitch decks
and and talking to investors because I feel like that's one of the
scarier and more daunting things for some of these younger founders.
They're worried that these investors won't take them
seriously. They're worried that they don't know what the investors are looking for. And,
obviously, raising capital is a huge part of building
(13:24):
most successful businesses. It's getting rarer and rarer that a
bootstrap business becomes extremely successful. So I'd love for you
to share some insights and and some advice for founders listening right now
that are working on their pitch decks or starting to pitch investors.
Yeah. I mean, what I will say is, like, when I first started pitching investors
as, like, VCs are scary. They're these big powerful beings that are, are, you know,
(13:47):
like, out of arms reach. And what I really realized is that
investors are people too. You know? They have kids. They go to the grocery
store. They, you know, they are the same humans that we are.
And most of them I will say most of them really do just wanna be
helpful. So my biggest advice I ever give is talk to
investors as early as possible, and your first call should never
(14:09):
be asking for money. So what I mean by that is, like, you don't
ever want to marry somebody without dating them. And getting
into a partnership with an investor is that means you're probably gonna
be talking to them every week, every month. You're gonna be answering to them.
So you need to make sure that you like them. And so I always take
the approach of reaching out to investors that are investing in
(14:32):
my space, in sales tech and AI, are passionate about kind of the
things that I'm focused on. And I'll say, like, hey. We will be raising in
six months, eight months, whatever it may be. But I have some questions. Like, what
are you looking for? What milestone should I be reaching? You know,
what what competitors do you see in this space? What questions do I need to
have answered? And so it kind of opens a line of communication
(14:54):
before. And so you can kinda get to know each other before you're ever asking
for money. So the first call to somebody is like, hey. Can you give me
$10,000,000? And be like, who are you? And and, no. I won't. So
it kinda makes it a little bit less scary too. Yeah. I think
that's amazing advice because
most younger entrepreneurs are
(15:16):
fixated on the capital and how much money they want and all of these
things and aren't aware of how many roadblocks that can
actually bring you if you go and get in a relationship that doesn't make
sense. So I love the thought of dating before you marry them.
Once you get that check, they are now part of your everyday
life and are directly involved in what you're doing.
(15:38):
And you can look up stories like the Uber story and
different things like that where founders are literally pushed out of big businesses
because they took capital from people that
maybe wanted to see the different things from these companies and have a different
vision for it. So it is very important. And I will say for the entrepreneurs
listening and watching right now, it is very important to
(16:00):
think about who you're working with, who you're
raising capital from because they are going to be directly involved in
your business that is now not just your business. It is now
everybody in your investor's business. So thank you so
much for that advice. I think that's really helpful for the people listening.
Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. They are going to become a part of your everyday
(16:22):
life. It's so true. Yeah. So you
you you launch this business in the web three space. It gets
acquired, which is fantastic. When did
you start thinking about the next play, which we're gonna dive into, which is what
you're working on right now? Immediately.
No. I, I remember calling up actually, that same
(16:44):
investor that I mentioned, before, I I called her up and said, you know,
I don't know what I want to do next. Do I go back to corporate
and take a really healthy cush job? Do I start
something else? Do I do a consulting company? You know, I've always done a little
bit of sales consulting on the side. So, like, you know, what what's the right
path forward? I'm just trying to get you know, figure this out. And she said,
come down to Atlanta tomorrow, and let's let's have lunch and chat. So
(17:08):
I drove down there, and she said, you're meeting my entire team
of investors and, all the partners.
And, Atlanta Ventures has a studio. So if you're
familiar with Calendly or SalesLoft or Terminus, all of those
are companies that went through the Atlanta Venture Studio, and we're the fifth one to
go through, behind them. And,
(17:30):
yeah. So they said, let's build something together. And the way that it works is
they just choose an entrepreneur that they really like. Happens to be a lot of
them have been in sales, but they say, okay. Let's take a couple months
for ideation and figure out an area, a market, that
you're passionate about, that we believe in. And then once we land on a on
an idea and do customer discovery, let's launch that business, and we'll fund it.
(17:52):
That's awesome. And I use Calendly for this business. I've used
SalesLoft in my career as well, so both very familiar companies.
And maybe this is a tough question to answer, but why do you
think she wanted to bet on you? That's a
great question. The one thing that I will say is,
(18:13):
she has told me and, you know, I've heard from this specific
investor about resilience being really important to them. And,
I my career has not always been easy. My life has not always been super
easy, and I've kind of said, you know what? I don't care what happened. I'm
gonna keep pushing forward, and that's something that they say they look for in people
that failure or roadblocks don't get in the way of
(18:35):
success. Awesome. So, obviously,
the the elephant in the room here, Zinnia is the company that you're currently
building, that you've launched with them. I'd love for you to give
us, the elevator pitch, and then we can dive into more about the
product, who uses it, and different things like that. Yeah.
So, Zinnia is really focused on what I always joke
(18:58):
is, like, an AE's best friend. So what are all the manual things that I
didn't have time to do or I did, but they were at 10PM the
night before? Because there's never enough time in a day for sales reps to do
everything that they should do to be a really good sales rep. And so we
started and launched the platform focused on research and discovery. So
who the heck are the people that you're meeting and what's important to them?
(19:20):
And what I mean by that is I used to go research
on, LinkedIn, on the company website, maybe listen to any
podcast they would be on, but then I would even go to social media. Do
they have kids? What's their personality type look like? Because if someone looks really
serious and buttoned up, I'm gonna take a very different approach than someone who is
goofy and playful. And so I'd really try to get that holistic view of the
(19:41):
human, but then also the company. So reading, you know, the company's 10 k
or listening to the earnings call, the annual report, things like that. And
that's really time consuming. You know, 10 k's are what? A 80 pages? 200
pages? Yeah. So, what we have, launched live in the
market today is doing all of that research for you, but taking a
specific lens of the product or service you're selling. So instead of just
(20:03):
saying the Microsoft's ten k says that they're focused on sustainability,
it's okay. Well, the Microsoft ten k is focused on sustainability, and so
we are allowing you to use less compute power because we're, you
know, doing optimizing AI or, you know,
it's actually putting the lens on of what a seller
should be doing of what they're they're focused on selling. Yeah. And
(20:26):
I think that's definitely needed because as somebody who's in that world
right now, I feel like 10% of the job
is the sales. The 90% of the job is admin work.
And for most people, that's not very exciting, and it's not
really what you sign up for, but it is what it is right now. I
have talked to people that are in the similar space and are launching companies that
(20:49):
are around, in different areas of
the business, but I do feel like we're headed towards a world where it's gonna
be less admin y because we're gonna have AI agents and different things like that.
So for you, who's the target audience for this? Who are you trying to sell
to? I would imagine it's corporations, but I'm I'm interested to
hear. Yeah. So we launched, in June, late
(21:11):
June, and, our goal was just to focus on account executives.
And from there, you know, we have a a hundred plus, businesses
now on the platform, but we were really focused on
understanding who gets the most value, who's using it every single day. And
what it looks like is anybody that has a named account list is really
our, like, primary target market. And we integrate into
(21:34):
CRM. We integrate into your inbox, and your calendar to be able to
give you the next best action you should take every single day. So what we
have is, you know, hey. Prepare for this meeting, with
Joe, and here's everything that's important. Here's the context of the emails,
so you can have that quick, you know, five minute prep before that meeting. But
then also taking the call recording and writing the follow-up email for
(21:56):
you or replying in a smart way to any emails that may be
inbound of, does your product or service do this? What's the next step for
this? So we actually will draft the first draft of of kind of all of
your interactions with your customer. Oh, okay. That that's amazing.
I feel like I I need to reach out to the people at my side
of the business and say, hey. I could really use this tool. We should look
(22:17):
into it. Obviously, you just
launched in June. It is still very fresh. Mhmm.
What is the next twelve months look like? What are some of the goals and
initiatives that you all are launching, and and what would be, like,
an amazing twelve months in your eyes? Yeah. So we are
launching next best action, GA in the next couple
(22:39):
months. And that's really where that's saying, you know, a good
friend of mine and I always joke that go deals go to die in your
inbox. And how many times have you been at end of quarter and you're like,
oh, no. I need to bring in another hundred k, and you're, like, digging through
emails that you should have been replying to or, like, oh, maybe I can reignite
this one deal. And that's kind of where next best action is is, like, not
letting those things flip through the cracks. And, you know,
(23:03):
if one of your prospects goes dark on you instead of being like, hey,
Joe. Have you read this? Do you have anything to think about it? It's like,
hey. By the way, saw this article about the Minnesota Vikings, given our
last conversation, thought that you'd find this interesting. And it's really just, like,
value add personalized touches that good sales reps do, but nobody actually
has time to do. So, that's getting ready to launch. A
(23:25):
good next twelve months is that people love it, and we take over
the world. It's great. That's very exciting. I saw on
your LinkedIn that, on the company LinkedIn that that you had
won a a pitch competition or or a competition like that, and you're holding the
big hundred k check. I'd love to hear about that. I know
for for for founders, events like that are huge. Like, a hundred
(23:47):
k is is, like, life changing for some founders in the early
stages. What was it like entering that, and why do you
think they picked you as the winner? Oh, I'm so excited about partnering
with Hearst. So Hearst Media, if you're familiar, is one of the biggest, if not
the the biggest media company in The US. They own, like, Cosmopolitan
and A and E and, part of ESPN, and they're
(24:09):
just this huge conglomerate. They also have health care companies, all these other
things. They're awesome, and they have the Hearst Lab,
which, is super hands on and gives resources to
founders, that are early stage. So, actually, one of
my current investors reached out to me and was like, hey. There's this competition. I
think that you'd be really good for it. I think that it could be a
(24:30):
really good partnership. And we weren't really raising, but Hearst
has a bunch of companies that would be perfect customers for us. Also, we
need help with marketing, and that's what they are really, really good at.
So we went through the competition. I think they said over 400 companies
applied and then, you know, had to go through a series of interviews and
pitching, and it came down to five of us. And, actually, two of us end
(24:52):
up winning the competition, which was great. They don't normally do that, but they're like,
we couldn't choose. And they said, you know, we chose you
because, one, we can see a really, really natural application of,
AI here, and, it feels really useful.
But, two, we actually think this could be useful for a lot of our own
brands and our own companies, and so we think we can be really helpful.
(25:13):
And they have been wildly helpful and amazing, so we're so excited to
be partnering with them. That's amazing. And I think it's a
you mentioned something about marketing. Marketing is, I would say,
the hardest part of any startup. It is I mean, at the end of the
day, in the world we live in now, eyeballs are dollars. Distribution
is everything. What are some of the
(25:36):
challenges you face from obviously, sales, you've got it
covered. Being an image of the company, you have it covered. I mean, even
in this conversation, you're very well spoken, very professional.
There's obviously tons of other hats you need to wear as a founder. What
are some of those challenges that you've had to deal with since the launch of
this company? Because I always like to highlight these moments because
(25:58):
sometimes I watch podcasts and it's all positive. But we, as a
founder, we we know we know it's not all sunshine and
roses. Like, there are plenty of hurdles, plenty of challenges. What
are some of the hard parts of what you're doing right now? Oh, all of
it. If it was easy, everybody would do it. Right? But,
no. I I always joke that as a founder and a CEO,
(26:20):
my job is to do sales and marketing and operations, but I'm
also the office janitor and the social committee
and HR and everything else. So you really do have
to wear so so many hats. And, transparently,
it's been really, really hard lately because we're kind of in this
inflection point between we've launched and actually a %
(26:42):
of our sales have been inbound, which is great. But I have over, I would
say, probably 40 to 50 meetings a week on average. And that doesn't give
me a lot of time to do my day job. Right? Like, these are
this is great because we have inbound customers, and we're learning and we're growing. But
we're actually not quite at the point to hire more people to take on
some of this stuff yet. And I need to learn what what feedback that
(27:05):
we're getting from customers, why they're moving forward, or why they're not, and I need
to hear that firsthand. So being a founder is really hard. I am working
hundred hour weeks, and it's exhausting. And it can feel really
lonely sometimes for sure. It's it's not an easy path, but,
you know, I'm very lucky that my cofounder, Marco, he's my
CTO, is rock star. We just we support each other really well
(27:27):
and can kind of, you know, push each other through it. And he's like, I
don't understand sales, but I got you. I'm like, I don't understand
coding, but I got you. That's awesome.
And a lot of companies are founded with a a technical
partner or a cofounder. We talked a little bit about
it when it comes to investors, but
(27:51):
I've seen a lot of businesses go to die in relationships with cofounders
and picking the wrong cofounder. What is some advice you could give?
Obviously, you are now in the trenches with a cofounder right
now. What is some advice you could give to founders looking to
pick a cofounder, get into a business with a cofounder? Because that
is one of the biggest challenges when it comes to having a
(28:13):
successful company, and you're doing it right now. This is something
I am actually super, super passionate about, and you are completely correct.
There's a statistic. I think it's over, for the companies that
fail, like, over 30% of them fail because of cofounder
differences of them not getting along, not working together well, whatever it may
be. So we brought Marco
(28:35):
in in about a year ago, so way after
we started the company, and that's because we went through the studio. So, you know,
had the support of Atlanta Ventures. But, my biggest
advice is First Round Capital has this,
50 questions you should ask before going to business with somebody. And Marco
and I sat down for two full days. It was a Saturday and a Sunday,
(28:57):
and we whiteboarded all day. And we sat down and went through this questionnaire. And
it's everything from, like, what's your exit goal? Do you wanna build a billion dollar
company, or do you want to build a $10,000,000 company
and, you know, kind of coast? Those are wildly different paths, and you have to
make sure you're on the same page. But some of them are also like, do
you work on weekends? What What do you do when you're hungry and you have
(29:18):
a deadline? Do you pause to eat or do you push through? And it's silly,
but those things are so important to talk about before it becomes an issue.
So Marco and I sat down and he said, you know what? Why don't I
work with you for the next couple months? Don't pay me. And let me just
do this for a couple months. And if at the end of it, you're you
think that I've done good work and you enjoy working with me, like, bring me
(29:38):
on as your cofounder. And by the end of the first month, I was like,
I'm obsessed with him. He's amazing. He's wonderful. He's exactly what the business
needs, and, like, please join. So
That's awesome. And and shout out to Marco for being able
to bet on himself. Most people and I also I think
it is a red flag when you have somebody who's like, pay
(30:01):
me up front. I need to do this, this, and that. And, obviously, you
can't imagine that everybody's going to work
for free, but that's a a a big green flag knowing
that he's willing to bet on himself, saw the vision, wanted to jump in,
and allow you to kind of evaluate. I've my best
hires in my businesses have been the people that
(30:23):
hustle first and then ask for funds and and different
things like that. And I I just wrote a newsletter yesterday about it because I'm
about to hire a brand new editor. I get probably
35 to 40 editors in my inbox every other day.
I'm not gonna hire them. This kid went way out of his
way to make me a video, post it on Twitter, tag me, get my
(30:46):
attention. He looked through multiple of my tweets,
saw that I didn't wanna focus on short form, and I wanted to focus
on long long form. Already had a big draft of things he
would improve on my YouTube. And I I I was like, hey. Let's jump on
a call right now. Like, you deserve to get this next call, and I'm probably
gonna end up hiring this person. And he bet on himself.
(31:08):
He took time to make the video. He took time to make the report about
my YouTube. He took time to get on that call knowing that there was
potentially no financial gain from this, but he separated
himself from the 50 other people that apply every week to work with
us. So I love that that is and and that is a message that
I say. Obviously, value your time and at the right price,
(31:29):
but don't be shy from doing things for free.
Like, add value before you want people to give you
money. You want people to let you get involved. And I love that point
because that's Marco did it at the biggest scale. He's now involved in a
huge company, and and so it's it's really amazing. Yeah.
No. It it's so true. It's like taking a bit on yourself. He knew he
(31:51):
knew his value. And, I mean, even to the extent of we had previously talked
about what the equity split would be if it make if it made sense after
the couple months. And he was I was like, I want you on. I wanna
give you more equity than you asked for because I I want you to be
my partner. So That's amazing.
Right now, you're obviously in that phase of testing and
(32:13):
trialing with customers, trying to understand what people
want. A lot of founders get
stuck on, like, their vision and what they think the
product should be. And and we've it's funny. We've just been a little bit
of a theme here. We've talked about things that derail some of these startups.
What is it like for you to think that this is the perfect idea,
(32:36):
this is the product, and then roll it out and have people say, no. I
don't want that. I want this, and have to go and reiterate on it and
change it? Because I know that's challenging for founders. Yeah. I mean, it
can be pretty exhausting for sure. And what I've learned is that when
you ask somebody what they want, most of the time, customers don't
know exactly what they want. They'll tell you one thing but mean another thing.
(32:58):
And, it's simply just because, you know, you don't know what
exists. You don't know what's possible. It's like, oh, what's the old
thing like asking for a horse, but they really wanted a car if they didn't
know cars existed. Right? So, yeah, I
mean, what what's been interesting for us is we
decided that we would choose a market and not a product. So
(33:20):
we wanted to choose the market of sales of particularly
named accountless, you know, corporate sales. And
we wanted to create a product that served AEs well.
And, you know, I knew that some of the biggest issues were things like
researching and showing up to meetings prepared, knowing who the heck you're selling to, giving
a personalized journey. And then, you know, it's kind
(33:42):
of expanded into more tactical things of, like, okay. We have all that information now,
but what do we do with it? So I think choosing the
market and the audience versus a specific solution
is the best thing you could do because you're gonna have micro pivots and
micro, you know, direction changes along the way. I love
it. This has been an amazing conversation,
(34:04):
and I've learned a bunch. I hope people listening and watching have
learned a lot about Zinnia and and what you're launching, and we have tons
of CEOs and founders that watch the show. If you have AEs,
you have salespeople, and a lot of the stuff we talked about is applicable
to your business, make sure to take some notes and reach out.
I always ask the same question before we end the interview, and it is about
(34:27):
you. It's one of those cliche questions, but it always leads to some good
answers. You've had an amazing career. If you could go back to the
18 year old you and give yourself a piece of advice, what would that
be?
Nobody knows what they're doing, so just go for
(34:48):
it. Just go for it. Don't be afraid of failure because you will fail over
and over, and that's okay because failure is just learning. Just
do it, in the words of Nike. I love it. And I
actually really, really, really love that point.
One of the things that I've learned and has been the most eye opening
to me is almost everybody does doesn't
(35:10):
really know what's going on. People are good. People are smart and can
figure it out. But most people, if they're genuine
and open, will tell you that they're also just figuring
it out along the way even at the highest levels. And most
people cut themselves short or sell themselves short because they
think the person they're meeting with is an expert or they think the person they're
(35:32):
talking to is a genius. They're very much in the same
place you are at their level, just figuring things
out along the way. So don't ever shy away from
getting yourself in rooms, getting in front of certain people because you think that they're
smarter than you or you think that they're better than you in certain ways.
(35:52):
Everybody's on the same level. Everybody's learning along the way.
If somebody is giving you those traits, it's probably not somebody you wanna talk to
anyways. If you meet a genuine person at the highest level like, I've talked to
CEOs that are like, every day I wake up and I am just
throwing shit at the wall, and I'm trying to figure it out. And that's just
the way this works. And it's nice to hear that because
(36:14):
even at the lowest level, when you're starting out right at a college, you don't
know what the heck's going on. You're just trying to figure it out. So I
think that is actually a fantastic answer, and I've gotten I've asked that question over
a hundred times. And this is one of the answers that I actually really like
the most because I think it's so true. Well, thank you. Yeah. I
mean, we're all in this together. We're all faking it. So
(36:36):
Yeah. Of course. I wanna make sure anybody that's still with us now,
can go and connect with you. What platforms would they be would be good for
them to reach out to you on? And, for companies that might
be listening or founders, CEOs that might be listening, where's the best place to get
in touch with Zinnia? Yeah. So if you wanna get in touch with me, LinkedIn
is always the best avenue. So, again, my name is Lauren Goodell. But if you
(36:59):
wanna check out Zinnia, it's getzinnia.ai. So you can check us out
there. Amazing. And all of Lauren's information
will be listed in the description below of wherever you're watching or listening to
this. And Zinnia's information will be listed below as well.
Lauren, thank you so much for the conversation. This has been an absolute
pleasure, and I look forward to seeing you to seeing
(37:21):
you continue to succeed, and I can't wait to see what the company turns
into. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah. Everybody, thank you
for listening, and we will see you on the next episode.
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