July 11, 2023 • 23 mins
EPISODE SUMMARY
Technical founders are born for a software business. After all, their very nature is a perfect fit for the software industry itself. However, even all the technical talent in the world will only be enough to keep your company financially afloat if you can’t connect with others.
In this episode of Scale Your SaaS, Full Cycle Executive Coach Eric Weiss talks about the importance of cultivating your technical workers to become story-driven with Host and B2B SaaS Sales coach Matt Wolach. He also shared the steps to the whole cycle process along with a fantastic meditation hack for leadership. Succeed in your SaaS by enhancing your technical skills with care-centered growth techniques!
PODCAST-AT-A-GLANCE
Podcast: Scale Your SaaS with Matt Wolach
Episode: Episode No. 272, "How Technical Founders Can Win in the Software Business - with Eric Weiss"
Host: Matt Wolach, a B2B SaaS sales coach, Entrepreneur, and Investor
Guest: Eric Weiss, Executive Coach at Full Cycle Executive Coaching
TOP TIPS FROM THIS EPISODE
- Help Your Engineers Connect to Customers
- Experience a Different Role to Gain Perspective
- Lock Your Company in Improvement Cycles
- Focus on Strengths Then Gradually Orchestrate
- Lead with Confidence Instead of Fear
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
- Engineers are Not Robots
- Leadership Turns Others Into Champions
- Coaching Transfers Ownership
TOP QUOTES
Eric Weiss
[2:29] "I always found that I got the best out of people when I didn't make it about me, but really made it about them."
[4:52] "Engineers are not robots. They're humans. And they actually care about the work that they're doing and the impact that they're having in the world."
[19:58] "Don't worry about the money. Don't worry about the product. Focus on the people that you're serving."
Matt Wolach
[6:19] "Figuring out how they're improving, how they're making impact, how they're helping people out there is critical… And I think it's important for engineering to hear that people absolutely love it."
LEARN MORE
To learn more about Full Cycle Executive Coaching, visit: https://www.fullcycleproduct.com/
You can also find Eric Weiss on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericmweiss/
For more about how host Matt Wolach helps software companies achieve maximum growth, visit https://mattwolach.com/
Get even more tips by following Matt elsewhere:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt Wolach (00:10):
If you're a technical founder, how do you
know how to achieve productmarket fit? How do you know how
to manage your team? How do youknow how to do anything within
your business, they don't trainyou that in engineering school.
Fortunately, Eric Weiss here,he's a coach to technical
founders, he helps themunderstand how to manage those
processes within the businessside of their company, and also
how to achieve Product MarketFit amongst a bunch of other
(00:33):
things. He came in and shared atotal mass of wisdom with us,
you're gonna really enjoy thisone.
Intro/ Outro (00:41):
Welcome to Scale Your SaaS, the podcast that
gives you proven techniques andformulas for boosting your
revenue and achieving your dreamexit, brought to you by a guy
who's done just that multipletimes. Here's your host, Matt
Wolach,
Matt Wolach (00:57):
and welcome to Scale Your SaaS very happy to
have you here. Thank you verymuch for being here. And taking
time, our goal is to help yougrow your software company. So
today, I'm really excited tohave Eric Weiss with me. I was
on Eric show a few months ago.
And now he has an opportunity tocome on to our show, because I
just love this guy. He's doingsome great stuff, Eric, thanks
for coming on the show.
Eric Weiss (01:18):
Thank you so much, Matt. I appreciate it. Happy to
be here. And I hope I can matchyour incredible energy.
Matt Wolach (01:24):
I'm sure you can.
I'm sure you can, my friend. Letme tell everybody about you,
Eric. So Eric is an executivecoach at fullcycle. Executive
Coaching Eric works withtechnical founder, CTO, CEOs and
VPs of engineering and productto intentionally mature with the
needs of their business. Hehelps really develop strong
leadership and and overcomegrowing pains that people face
(01:44):
when they're in that growthstage. He helps executives
discover their critical areasfor growth, create clear
intentions, and an actionableplan and hold them accountable
to achieve their goals. He'salso the host at chaos to
clarity podcast, definitely somegreat stuff on that podcast, go
check out his show chaos toclarity right now. Once again,
Eric, thanks for coming.
Eric Weiss (02:06):
Appreciate it. Thank you, man.
Matt Wolach (02:08):
Absolutely. So tell me what's going on with you
lately.
Eric Weiss (02:12):
Oh, my gosh, well, you know, the life of an
entrepreneur, several differentirons in the fire. But as you
mentioned, you know, I've beenbeen been loving and enjoying
doing the podcast having you onthe show recently was a was a
real treat. But being able totalk to some incredible SAS
executives and thought leaders,we just had the CEO of Envision
on the show, the CEO of Gong,and some pretty incredible ones
(02:36):
coming up that I don't think Iwant to spoil just yet. But some
big names that momentum isgrowing. And and again, it's
just been a lot of fun. And thenalso, I have a obviously I'm an
executive coach. And I also havea startup accelerator called
chaos to clarity as well, achaos clarity accelerator, and
I'm working with some reallygreat early growth stage
(02:57):
founders, helping them findproduct market fit, build really
incredible teams and get toscale.
Matt Wolach (03:04):
Super cool stuff you're doing. I just love it. So
tell me why did you choose tobecome an executive coach?
Eric Weiss (03:10):
Well, it's really, it's actually just sort of, in
my DNA, it's always been myleadership philosophy or my
leadership style. You know, Igrew up obviously, as an
engineer, I was an engineeringleader and a CTO. And I always
just found that I got the bestout of people, when I didn't
make it about me, but reallymade it about them. And helping
(03:30):
them realize their potential andrealizing their goals, through
the vehicle of our of my teamand our company. So it's just
something I've always done evenas a sort of a side business
throughout my career. And aboutfive years ago, I started by my
own executive coaching business.
And again, been able to workwith some incredible companies.
You know, open AI, as anexample, was a was a client of
(03:53):
mine, a couple years ago and hada lot of fun before they went
and broke the world. You know,and big companies, small
companies, everything inbetween, but I love helping tech
leaders, become better leadersbuild better products and
actually have some fun whilethey're doing it.
Matt Wolach (04:14):
Super cool. I think that's really what it's all
about making sure you have fun.
I know that there's a lot ofstresses that come with running
a business, of course, but youknow, when I look back at some
of my early stage companies, Ijust think about all the fun
that we had and the good times,isn't that right?
Eric Weiss (04:28):
Yeah, absolutely.
There's a there's a there'sactually a Buddhist quote that I
like to use. That is, life is ajourney, and the destination is
death. So you might as wellenjoy the ride, right?
Matt Wolach (04:41):
So true. I love that. I think I've heard that
when she said it. I remember it.
But man, that's so true. And Ithink it is all about that
destination. I want to ask youworking with technical founders.
What do you feel are some of thedifferences in how they approach
tasks versus you know, someonewho have more of a business side
background?
Eric Weiss (04:58):
Yeah, well, yes. Uh, you know, working with CTOs a
lot, they're definitely a bitmore. Well, I would say
sometimes detail oriented,process driven data driven, and
which is, you know, a blessingand a curse. So they can provide
some structure and some rigor tomaybe the more flighty or
(05:19):
impulsive, CEO counterparts. Butthat also does become a
challenge when maybe they lacksome of the vision and the story
behind what they're doing. So Iactually coach a lot of CTOs to
be more story, story driven, andcustomer focused so that they
can actually inspire the folkson their team because, you know,
(05:43):
against traditional wisdom,engineers are not robots,
they're humans. And theyactually care about the work
that they're doing and theimpact that they're having in
the world. And many engineeringleaders don't do enough to
really connect their work to thecustomer in the meeting.
Matt Wolach (06:01):
I do believe that for the engineers that I've
worked with, I think back tosome of my CTOs. And I feel like
they really do care that theproduct is helping, and it's so
cool to see and, you know, maybecoming in not being an engineer
myself, I might have had adifferent perception, but I've
just really enjoyed my workingrelationship with them and how
they approach what they'redoing.
Eric Weiss (06:22):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think we all are
looking for meaning andinspiration in our work. And
unfortunately, engineering is alittle bit downstream are sort
of down the assembly line. Andthey tend to get really
disconnected from the customer.
And really from the from themission. And so I'm always
coaching, you know, CEOs, CTOs,engineering leaders, etc. find
(06:42):
compelling stories, with everyfeature with every task that you
release, say, what, what, whatdoes, what impact is this thing
making in the world.
Matt Wolach (06:55):
I love that I think that's so important too, because
you're right, engineering gets abit disconnected from the rest
of, or at least from thecustomer base, right. And they
don't really have that feel likecustomer success might like
sales does, of course. And sofiguring out how they're
improving how they're makingimpact how they're helping
(07:15):
people out there, I think iscritical. One of the things I
did was I would have each memberof that team sit with our sales
team once a month, or sorry,once a quarter, it was not once
a month, but that would havebeen a bit too long. But they
would sit and listen to a salescall. And they would hear some
of the things that the market isgoing through. And they would
hear, you know, what people arefacing out there and what
(07:36):
they're thinking about and whatthey're trying to accomplish and
what they need within a softwareproduct. But they would also
hear how much they love it whenthey see the product and sales
shows them this and walks themthrough this. They're like, Wow,
that's so cool. And I think it'simportant for engineering to
hear that people absolutely loveit. Right?
Eric Weiss (07:54):
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, of course,
we, you know, we're builders,right. And we wanted to see that
what we're building, people areexcited about right, that we're
not just a cog in the machine.
So I love that I also with myown teams, would have them do a
shift on customer success. Soyou, you want to get the kind of
unvarnished view of how peopleare seeing your product, if
especially when it pertains toquality. So especially
(08:17):
engineering teams that are maybedisconnected from QA or don't
really feel don't really feelthe impact of all those bugs
sitting in their queue, havethem go do a shift on QA and
have to actually make excusesfor and, and atone for the
quality issues in your product.
Not only does it you know, helpthem be more voting motivated
(08:39):
around quality, but it alsoagain, helps them connect with
and care more about thecustomers
Matt Wolach (08:45):
love it, I definitely think that they're
gonna see a lot of things thatthey're gonna want to improve.
Because I know sitting on someof those customer success calls
myself, it gets a little nerveracking, when the system doesn't
do quite what you're hoping itwould do.
Eric Weiss (08:57):
I did it myself, several times. And so this
company I was working at, we hadthese these customer success,
like personas, like you weren'tjust talking to one person, your
ticket might actually get passedaround. So I was Kelly, I was a
20 something active, you know,person that was that was very
(09:18):
bubbly and cheerful and reallyloved making customers happy.
And we had our whole personaaround that. And acting as Kelly
I had to work with a verydisgruntled Marine, who was very
mad about the quality issues inour product and was just cussing
at us and just saying thenastiest things, but forcing
(09:38):
myself into that persona, andhelping them through that
through that issue. He actuallycame back and said, You know
what, I'm so sorry. I didn'teven think you were real people.
I didn't I was just sort ofyelling into the void. And you
know what, I'm so grateful thatyou took the time and you helped
me with my issue and actuallybecame a fan and left us like a
five star review on the on theApp Store. So it was, it was a
(10:01):
big challenge for me personallyto get over some of my normal
maybe curmudgeonly ways around,you know, as the quality, it's
just it's the user problem,right? Or yeah, customer
problem, but it was actually agood opportunity for me to, to
make a connection. And again,take pride in our work.
Matt Wolach (10:21):
That's so cool.
That's, that's one of the bestexperiences. If you're helping
somebody and supporters, they'rereally upset and then turn them
into a raving fan is like agold, right?
Eric Weiss (10:30):
Yeah, exactly. And it just takes man, it just takes
care. Right? When customersuccess, especially when it's
just a numbers game, probablythe same thing in sales, when
you're just trying to crankthrough deals or churn through
tickets, and you lose thatcustomer connection. quality
suffers, and customers areimpacted. And, and you have to
ask yourself, What's worth thetrade off? cranking through a
(10:51):
few extra deals, maybe hiring anextra support person or to or
the churn that comes with?
Losing a customer?
Matt Wolach (11:00):
For sure. Yeah, exactly. That's good way to
think about it. What are some ofthe challenges that these
leaders are facing that you'reworking with? And and how do you
help them overcome thesechallenges?
Eric Weiss (11:10):
Yeah, well, you know, in my, in my startup
accelerator, we focus on a fewkey areas here, mainly around
people process and product,right. So how do you build a
really strong team that isaligned with the mission that is
talented and motivated? How dowe align those teams towards a
common goal, and give them thestructure and the process to
(11:32):
execute and get the job done?
And then how do we createincredible customer experiences,
build great products and solvereally important problems. And
obviously, all of thisculminates in, you know, product
market fit, really great teamculture, scalable process. And
then ultimately, that turns intorunaway growth and scale and
easy fundraising and easy salesand great retention, and great
(11:56):
reviews and great sentiment andvirality, and all the fun stuff
that we're looking for. And onthe other side of that is
stalling burning money, losingpeople, overhead managing teams
that aren't performing sloppyprocess quality issues, and
ultimately, the death spiral.
(12:16):
Right. So it all kind of comesdown to those, those few key
pillars. And that's what we'refocusing on every month in the
accelerator.
Matt Wolach (12:24):
I love it. And are you able to tailor your coaching
approach is something I thinkabout with with our group as
well with our members? Are youtailoring your coaching approach
to kind of meet the specificneeds of each client? How's that
work?
Eric Weiss (12:36):
Yeah, I'm not exactly each each client, but I
definitely crowdsource. So Ilike to say it's, this is not a
typical, this isn't your yourdad's accelerator program. It
isn't a course that you kind ofjump into, and you run through a
structure and there's a demo dayand you graduate, and we take a
chunk of equity. This is a anAgile process. I'm an agile
(12:57):
evangelist, I always have been,I use it heavily in my coaching,
that's actually where the namefull cycle came from, is I'm
always looking at feedback loopsand continuous improvement
cycles. And so the same thing inthe accelerator. Every few
months, I pull my members andgauge what are the biggest
challenges that they're dealingwith at the time. And then I
(13:17):
craft custom customize thecurriculum towards those
challenges. So for example, thisquarter, there's a lot of focus
around fundraising. Everyone'strying to go out and raise money
right now. It's reallydifficult. And so I'm having a
really great expert onfundraising, come and do a
workshop. And then we're goingto do some challenges and some,
some exercises around gettingour story straight, getting our
(13:41):
pitch really dialed in doing ourmarket research and, and landing
that that series a
Matt Wolach (13:47):
super cool, I love that. It's the ability to be
able to take the feedback andtake what people need and what's
happening right now and turn itaround and get them their their
answers is so cool. So well donewith that. That's really cool.
How do you when you're workingwith somebody, how do you are
you able to kind of draw fromyour own experience and what
you've done to be able to helpothers kind of leverage their
(14:09):
strengths and really maximizetheir potential?
Eric Weiss (14:11):
Yeah. Yeah, in some cases, I try not to I try not to
rely on my own personal careerexperience, I really rely more
on the perspective that I haveworking with so many different
companies. You know, as, as anexecutive coach, I work with
about a dozen companies at atime and in my accelerator, I
have about a dozen clients, youknow, coming by, so anywhere
(14:34):
from, you know, 10 to 20companies at a time I'm seeing
the patterns, I'm seeing thechallenges that they're working
with seeing what's working andwhat isn't working. And I hate
to say you know, experimentingwith some of them seeing let's
try this over here. Ooh, thatworked really well. Let me
leverage that in my otherclients and we tried that didn't
work. Okay, not going to do thatagain. So I try to rely more on
(14:55):
their experience than my own.
Except when it comes to coachingObviously coaching as a
leadership style, obviously, I'man expert in that. And so I, I
lean in pretty heavily in mycoaching experience trying to
turn these executives intocoaches themselves. Because
that's really what it takes todelegate effectively. And that's
what scaling up a team is allabout, is being able to delegate
(15:17):
effectively. It's not aboutmanage, you know, management is
about getting the task done,right. But coaching is about is
about getting the ownership ortransferring the ownership and
the accountability of not justthat task, but the entire role.
And so that's really what itcomes down to. It's just another
feedback loop. Right? Coachingis a way of saying, Okay, go do
(15:38):
a thing. Let me give youfeedback, let me give you some
guidance. Why don't you trythis? Why don't we give you some
tools and some frameworks tohelp you put it in perspective
and continually improve? And I'mhere for you when you need me,
but you're the one in thedriver's seat.
Matt Wolach (15:54):
That's, that's phenomenal. I love it. What are
some of the biggest mistakesyou're seeing that new leaders
are making out there?
Eric Weiss (16:00):
Yeah, well, you know, the, the time honored
tradition of of wearing too manyhats, doing trying to do too
many different things, and notdelegating effectively, because
we feel like we're so great ateverything that nobody can do it
as well as we can. Usually,that's wrong, we tend to maybe
inflate our ego a little bitabout how good we are at doing
(16:23):
something. But also, we might bethe best at a particular task,
when we can focus on it. When wewere an individual contributor,
like, Yes, I was the best coderon my team, when that's all I
was doing. But when I'm doing 17different jobs, I'm actually a
pretty terrible coder, because Ican't focus on it. So not only
(16:43):
delegating the stuff that wedon't like. But delegating the
stuff that we do like or thinkwe're really good at, is a
really, really common pitfallthat that many founders deal
with. So not delegating earlyenough or not hiring early
enough for those really criticalroles. And, and not focusing
across the business and reallyunderstanding the big picture of
(17:06):
the business. So I talk aboutthe mind, the model that I use
is thinking like a founderversus thinking like an
executive. So a lot of foundersin the early stages, they're
either really focused on productreally focused on sales,
typically. But that's not enoughto build a business. So thinking
like an executive is thinkingabout, what are the
(17:27):
ramifications of this decision,or of this process, or of this
product across the entirebusiness? And how do we work
together? How do we collaborateand coordinate, you know, it's
not enough to build a reallygreat product, we have to be
able to sell it, we have to beable to market it, right? We
have to be able to create abusiness model that that's
profitable, or a pricing modelthat fits the market, and so on
(17:50):
and so forth. So, you know, it'snot just about wearing 17
different hats, but it's beingan orchestrator of all of these
different functions into acohesive whole. And that's
something that takes a lot ofmaturity.
Matt Wolach (18:03):
Yeah, I totally agree. I definitely take
maturity, I'm glad that theyhave you helping them with it,
then what would you say are someof the qualities and skills that
successful executives possess?
Eric Weiss (18:15):
Well, certainly, you know, humility, is probably the
number one thing is just selfawareness, of understanding what
our strengths are and what ourweaknesses are, not to the
extent that it creates selfdoubt, or that it creates
hesitation, because we also haveto act decisively, even if we
don't have all the informationor all the skills, but just that
(18:37):
self awareness that even ifthings are going incredibly well
for us, there is luck involved.
And there are other people thatare that are helping us get
there. So I would say is the thenumber one thing. The other one
would be, I would say aresiliency or almost a buoyancy,
if you will, that thatchallenges are going to come,
you're going to take knocksyou're going to take hits, and
(18:58):
you got to be able to continueto push forward without letting
it you know, get you down or, orI call it acting or leading out
of confidence versus leading outof fear. So some of us when we
get knocked, we get fearful,right? We're afraid we don't
want it that hurt. We don't wantto get hit like that again. So
(19:18):
when we hesitate, we pontificatewe get stuck in analysis
paralysis. Instead, we have tolead out of confidence. It's
actually one of the things I dois I actually do a kind of a
meditation exercise, where Ihave my clients, you know, close
their eyes, take a few deepbreaths and think about that
thing that was really scary forthem. It could be you know, when
(19:40):
when we lost a big client or Ihad to fire a bunch of people or
we didn't make that fundraisingor we were almost at a we didn't
make payroll. Okay, where do youfeel that in your body it's
usually down in your gutsomewhere? It's like a gut
feeling it right now it's kindof this like tingling, right?
Yeah, right that tingly, cracklyfeel feeling down in your gut.
Okay, now think about a timewhere you were really confident
(20:03):
when you when things wereflowing when you were, you know,
at the top of your game, and howdoes that feel? Okay? I'm
feeling like a chills up, likeup in my shoulders. I'm feeling
right now, right? So now whenI'm faced with a challenge, or
faced with a big decision, takea moment and say, What am I
feeling right now? Am I feelingthat crunch down in my gut? Or
am I feeling that tingle up inmy shoulders? That tells me am I
(20:24):
leading out of confidence orleading out of fear? And
depending on what I'm doing, ifI'm feeling that fear, I gotta
reset, I got to challenge myassumptions, challenge my
decision, and get to a placewhere I can feel some
confidence.
Matt Wolach (20:40):
That's next level.
That's amazing stuff. Eric, Ilove it. So, you know, as we
wrap up here, what advice wouldyou have for early stage
software leaders?
Eric Weiss (20:47):
Yeah. You know, first and foremost, I would say,
don't worry about the money,don't worry about the product,
focus on the people that you'reserving, I call it find your
tribe. So focus on a group ofpeople who you want to make a
difference in their lives andtheir world. And there will be
an overabundance of problems,and an over abundant abundance
(21:10):
of solutions and potentialproducts you can build. So don't
get tied to the product, don'teven get tied to the problem.
But become incredibly passionateand obsessed with your
customers. Build that empathy,build that connection with them,
that's going to be the thingthat's going to get you to stand
up and dust yourself off andkeep going. When times get
(21:31):
tough. That's going to be thething that's going to create
raving fans and loyal, you know,loyal advocates for you. Because
you're really putting them youknow, first and foremost, and
then do the same thing for yourteam as well. Right? Make sure
that you're hiring people, notjust because they can do a task
or do a job. But because they'reI call them your Avengers,
(21:52):
right? They're your superheroes,they're all unique. They all
have complementary skills. Andyou know, become that coach that
they need to realize their fullpotential, and they're going to
do great things for you.
Matt Wolach (22:04):
Phenomenal advice I love it couldn't have said it
better myself. This has beenawesome. Eric, I really
appreciate you coming on andsharing all your wisdom with us.
How can our audience learn moreabout what you're doing?
Eric Weiss (22:14):
Yeah, definitely.
Well, so check me out at chaosto clarity.io. You can find my
podcast there as well as linksto my accelerator and various
free tools and things that Ioffer there. You can also go to
full cycle product.com, which ismore of my sort of coaching and
consulting business. Basically,either of those websites, you
can also find me on LinkedIn.
(22:36):
And I'm sure we can share allthose links in the show notes.
But connect with me, follow medownload my tools freestyle, I
love to give stuff away tofounders and help them any way
that I can.
Matt Wolach (22:47):
That's phenomenal.
We'll put all that into the shownotes. Make sure everybody has
that. So click in there if youheard that and want some of that
action. Eric, this has beenawesome. Thanks for coming on
the show. Really appreciate it.
Eric Weiss (22:57):
Likewise, Matt, it's really a pleasure. Great to see
you again.
Matt Wolach (23:00):
Very cool, likewise. So everybody out
there, thanks for being here.
Really appreciate it. Make surethat you subscribe to the show.
You don't want to miss up any ofthe people that we have coming
up here. Now we've got somegreat guests and I want to make
sure that you see them and hearthem. So get that subscription
in there. Also we are lookingfor reviews. So if you think
this show is helpful for you, ifyou're learning how to get
better at your company,definitely give us a review. I'd
(23:21):
love to see it and make surethat we're getting you what you
want. So thank you for beinghere. Take care. Bye bye.
Intro/ Outro (23:31):
Thanks for listening to Scale Your SaaS for
more help on finding great leadsand closing more deals. Go to
Mattwolach.com
If you're a technical founder, how do you
know how to achieve productmarket fit? How do you know how
to manage your team? How do youknow how to do anything within
your business, they don't trainyou that in engineering school.
Fortunately, Eric Weiss here,he's a coach to technical
founders, he helps themunderstand how to manage those
processes within the businessside of their company, and also
how to achieve Product MarketFit amongst a bunch of other
(00:33):
things. He came in and shared atotal mass of wisdom with us,
you're gonna really enjoy thisone.
Intro/ Outro (00:41):
Welcome to Scale Your SaaS, the podcast that
gives you proven techniques andformulas for boosting your
revenue and achieving your dreamexit, brought to you by a guy
who's done just that multipletimes. Here's your host, Matt
Wolach,
Matt Wolach (00:57):
and welcome to Scale Your SaaS very happy to
have you here. Thank you verymuch for being here. And taking
time, our goal is to help yougrow your software company. So
today, I'm really excited tohave Eric Weiss with me. I was
on Eric show a few months ago.
And now he has an opportunity tocome on to our show, because I
just love this guy. He's doingsome great stuff, Eric, thanks
for coming on the show.
Eric Weiss (01:18):
Thank you so much, Matt. I appreciate it. Happy to
be here. And I hope I can matchyour incredible energy.
Matt Wolach (01:24):
I'm sure you can.
I'm sure you can, my friend. Letme tell everybody about you,
Eric. So Eric is an executivecoach at fullcycle. Executive
Coaching Eric works withtechnical founder, CTO, CEOs and
VPs of engineering and productto intentionally mature with the
needs of their business. Hehelps really develop strong
leadership and and overcomegrowing pains that people face
(01:44):
when they're in that growthstage. He helps executives
discover their critical areasfor growth, create clear
intentions, and an actionableplan and hold them accountable
to achieve their goals. He'salso the host at chaos to
clarity podcast, definitely somegreat stuff on that podcast, go
check out his show chaos toclarity right now. Once again,
Eric, thanks for coming.
Eric Weiss (02:06):
Appreciate it. Thank you, man.
Matt Wolach (02:08):
Absolutely. So tell me what's going on with you
lately.
Eric Weiss (02:12):
Oh, my gosh, well, you know, the life of an
entrepreneur, several differentirons in the fire. But as you
mentioned, you know, I've beenbeen been loving and enjoying
doing the podcast having you onthe show recently was a was a
real treat. But being able totalk to some incredible SAS
executives and thought leaders,we just had the CEO of Envision
on the show, the CEO of Gong,and some pretty incredible ones
(02:36):
coming up that I don't think Iwant to spoil just yet. But some
big names that momentum isgrowing. And and again, it's
just been a lot of fun. And thenalso, I have a obviously I'm an
executive coach. And I also havea startup accelerator called
chaos to clarity as well, achaos clarity accelerator, and
I'm working with some reallygreat early growth stage
(02:57):
founders, helping them findproduct market fit, build really
incredible teams and get toscale.
Matt Wolach (03:04):
Super cool stuff you're doing. I just love it. So
tell me why did you choose tobecome an executive coach?
Eric Weiss (03:10):
Well, it's really, it's actually just sort of, in
my DNA, it's always been myleadership philosophy or my
leadership style. You know, Igrew up obviously, as an
engineer, I was an engineeringleader and a CTO. And I always
just found that I got the bestout of people, when I didn't
make it about me, but reallymade it about them. And helping
(03:30):
them realize their potential andrealizing their goals, through
the vehicle of our of my teamand our company. So it's just
something I've always done evenas a sort of a side business
throughout my career. And aboutfive years ago, I started by my
own executive coaching business.
And again, been able to workwith some incredible companies.
You know, open AI, as anexample, was a was a client of
(03:53):
mine, a couple years ago and hada lot of fun before they went
and broke the world. You know,and big companies, small
companies, everything inbetween, but I love helping tech
leaders, become better leadersbuild better products and
actually have some fun whilethey're doing it.
Matt Wolach (04:14):
Super cool. I think that's really what it's all
about making sure you have fun.
I know that there's a lot ofstresses that come with running
a business, of course, but youknow, when I look back at some
of my early stage companies, Ijust think about all the fun
that we had and the good times,isn't that right?
Eric Weiss (04:28):
Yeah, absolutely.
There's a there's a there'sactually a Buddhist quote that I
like to use. That is, life is ajourney, and the destination is
death. So you might as wellenjoy the ride, right?
Matt Wolach (04:41):
So true. I love that. I think I've heard that
when she said it. I remember it.
But man, that's so true. And Ithink it is all about that
destination. I want to ask youworking with technical founders.
What do you feel are some of thedifferences in how they approach
tasks versus you know, someonewho have more of a business side
background?
Eric Weiss (04:58):
Yeah, well, yes. Uh, you know, working with CTOs a
lot, they're definitely a bitmore. Well, I would say
sometimes detail oriented,process driven data driven, and
which is, you know, a blessingand a curse. So they can provide
some structure and some rigor tomaybe the more flighty or
(05:19):
impulsive, CEO counterparts. Butthat also does become a
challenge when maybe they lacksome of the vision and the story
behind what they're doing. So Iactually coach a lot of CTOs to
be more story, story driven, andcustomer focused so that they
can actually inspire the folkson their team because, you know,
(05:43):
against traditional wisdom,engineers are not robots,
they're humans. And theyactually care about the work
that they're doing and theimpact that they're having in
the world. And many engineeringleaders don't do enough to
really connect their work to thecustomer in the meeting.
Matt Wolach (06:01):
I do believe that for the engineers that I've
worked with, I think back tosome of my CTOs. And I feel like
they really do care that theproduct is helping, and it's so
cool to see and, you know, maybecoming in not being an engineer
myself, I might have had adifferent perception, but I've
just really enjoyed my workingrelationship with them and how
they approach what they'redoing.
Eric Weiss (06:22):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think we all are
looking for meaning andinspiration in our work. And
unfortunately, engineering is alittle bit downstream are sort
of down the assembly line. Andthey tend to get really
disconnected from the customer.
And really from the from themission. And so I'm always
coaching, you know, CEOs, CTOs,engineering leaders, etc. find
(06:42):
compelling stories, with everyfeature with every task that you
release, say, what, what, whatdoes, what impact is this thing
making in the world.
Matt Wolach (06:55):
I love that I think that's so important too, because
you're right, engineering gets abit disconnected from the rest
of, or at least from thecustomer base, right. And they
don't really have that feel likecustomer success might like
sales does, of course. And sofiguring out how they're
improving how they're makingimpact how they're helping
(07:15):
people out there, I think iscritical. One of the things I
did was I would have each memberof that team sit with our sales
team once a month, or sorry,once a quarter, it was not once
a month, but that would havebeen a bit too long. But they
would sit and listen to a salescall. And they would hear some
of the things that the market isgoing through. And they would
hear, you know, what people arefacing out there and what
(07:36):
they're thinking about and whatthey're trying to accomplish and
what they need within a softwareproduct. But they would also
hear how much they love it whenthey see the product and sales
shows them this and walks themthrough this. They're like, Wow,
that's so cool. And I think it'simportant for engineering to
hear that people absolutely loveit. Right?
Eric Weiss (07:54):
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, of course,
we, you know, we're builders,right. And we wanted to see that
what we're building, people areexcited about right, that we're
not just a cog in the machine.
So I love that I also with myown teams, would have them do a
shift on customer success. Soyou, you want to get the kind of
unvarnished view of how peopleare seeing your product, if
especially when it pertains toquality. So especially
(08:17):
engineering teams that are maybedisconnected from QA or don't
really feel don't really feelthe impact of all those bugs
sitting in their queue, havethem go do a shift on QA and
have to actually make excusesfor and, and atone for the
quality issues in your product.
Not only does it you know, helpthem be more voting motivated
(08:39):
around quality, but it alsoagain, helps them connect with
and care more about thecustomers
Matt Wolach (08:45):
love it, I definitely think that they're
gonna see a lot of things thatthey're gonna want to improve.
Because I know sitting on someof those customer success calls
myself, it gets a little nerveracking, when the system doesn't
do quite what you're hoping itwould do.
Eric Weiss (08:57):
I did it myself, several times. And so this
company I was working at, we hadthese these customer success,
like personas, like you weren'tjust talking to one person, your
ticket might actually get passedaround. So I was Kelly, I was a
20 something active, you know,person that was that was very
(09:18):
bubbly and cheerful and reallyloved making customers happy.
And we had our whole personaaround that. And acting as Kelly
I had to work with a verydisgruntled Marine, who was very
mad about the quality issues inour product and was just cussing
at us and just saying thenastiest things, but forcing
(09:38):
myself into that persona, andhelping them through that
through that issue. He actuallycame back and said, You know
what, I'm so sorry. I didn'teven think you were real people.
I didn't I was just sort ofyelling into the void. And you
know what, I'm so grateful thatyou took the time and you helped
me with my issue and actuallybecame a fan and left us like a
five star review on the on theApp Store. So it was, it was a
(10:01):
big challenge for me personallyto get over some of my normal
maybe curmudgeonly ways around,you know, as the quality, it's
just it's the user problem,right? Or yeah, customer
problem, but it was actually agood opportunity for me to, to
make a connection. And again,take pride in our work.
Matt Wolach (10:21):
That's so cool.
That's, that's one of the bestexperiences. If you're helping
somebody and supporters, they'rereally upset and then turn them
into a raving fan is like agold, right?
Eric Weiss (10:30):
Yeah, exactly. And it just takes man, it just takes
care. Right? When customersuccess, especially when it's
just a numbers game, probablythe same thing in sales, when
you're just trying to crankthrough deals or churn through
tickets, and you lose thatcustomer connection. quality
suffers, and customers areimpacted. And, and you have to
ask yourself, What's worth thetrade off? cranking through a
(10:51):
few extra deals, maybe hiring anextra support person or to or
the churn that comes with?
Losing a customer?
Matt Wolach (11:00):
For sure. Yeah, exactly. That's good way to
think about it. What are some ofthe challenges that these
leaders are facing that you'reworking with? And and how do you
help them overcome thesechallenges?
Eric Weiss (11:10):
Yeah, well, you know, in my, in my startup
accelerator, we focus on a fewkey areas here, mainly around
people process and product,right. So how do you build a
really strong team that isaligned with the mission that is
talented and motivated? How dowe align those teams towards a
common goal, and give them thestructure and the process to
(11:32):
execute and get the job done?
And then how do we createincredible customer experiences,
build great products and solvereally important problems. And
obviously, all of thisculminates in, you know, product
market fit, really great teamculture, scalable process. And
then ultimately, that turns intorunaway growth and scale and
easy fundraising and easy salesand great retention, and great
(11:56):
reviews and great sentiment andvirality, and all the fun stuff
that we're looking for. And onthe other side of that is
stalling burning money, losingpeople, overhead managing teams
that aren't performing sloppyprocess quality issues, and
ultimately, the death spiral.
(12:16):
Right. So it all kind of comesdown to those, those few key
pillars. And that's what we'refocusing on every month in the
accelerator.
Matt Wolach (12:24):
I love it. And are you able to tailor your coaching
approach is something I thinkabout with with our group as
well with our members? Are youtailoring your coaching approach
to kind of meet the specificneeds of each client? How's that
work?
Eric Weiss (12:36):
Yeah, I'm not exactly each each client, but I
definitely crowdsource. So Ilike to say it's, this is not a
typical, this isn't your yourdad's accelerator program. It
isn't a course that you kind ofjump into, and you run through a
structure and there's a demo dayand you graduate, and we take a
chunk of equity. This is a anAgile process. I'm an agile
(12:57):
evangelist, I always have been,I use it heavily in my coaching,
that's actually where the namefull cycle came from, is I'm
always looking at feedback loopsand continuous improvement
cycles. And so the same thing inthe accelerator. Every few
months, I pull my members andgauge what are the biggest
challenges that they're dealingwith at the time. And then I
(13:17):
craft custom customize thecurriculum towards those
challenges. So for example, thisquarter, there's a lot of focus
around fundraising. Everyone'strying to go out and raise money
right now. It's reallydifficult. And so I'm having a
really great expert onfundraising, come and do a
workshop. And then we're goingto do some challenges and some,
some exercises around gettingour story straight, getting our
(13:41):
pitch really dialed in doing ourmarket research and, and landing
that that series a
Matt Wolach (13:47):
super cool, I love that. It's the ability to be
able to take the feedback andtake what people need and what's
happening right now and turn itaround and get them their their
answers is so cool. So well donewith that. That's really cool.
How do you when you're workingwith somebody, how do you are
you able to kind of draw fromyour own experience and what
you've done to be able to helpothers kind of leverage their
(14:09):
strengths and really maximizetheir potential?
Eric Weiss (14:11):
Yeah. Yeah, in some cases, I try not to I try not to
rely on my own personal careerexperience, I really rely more
on the perspective that I haveworking with so many different
companies. You know, as, as anexecutive coach, I work with
about a dozen companies at atime and in my accelerator, I
have about a dozen clients, youknow, coming by, so anywhere
(14:34):
from, you know, 10 to 20companies at a time I'm seeing
the patterns, I'm seeing thechallenges that they're working
with seeing what's working andwhat isn't working. And I hate
to say you know, experimentingwith some of them seeing let's
try this over here. Ooh, thatworked really well. Let me
leverage that in my otherclients and we tried that didn't
work. Okay, not going to do thatagain. So I try to rely more on
(14:55):
their experience than my own.
Except when it comes to coachingObviously coaching as a
leadership style, obviously, I'man expert in that. And so I, I
lean in pretty heavily in mycoaching experience trying to
turn these executives intocoaches themselves. Because
that's really what it takes todelegate effectively. And that's
what scaling up a team is allabout, is being able to delegate
(15:17):
effectively. It's not aboutmanage, you know, management is
about getting the task done,right. But coaching is about is
about getting the ownership ortransferring the ownership and
the accountability of not justthat task, but the entire role.
And so that's really what itcomes down to. It's just another
feedback loop. Right? Coachingis a way of saying, Okay, go do
(15:38):
a thing. Let me give youfeedback, let me give you some
guidance. Why don't you trythis? Why don't we give you some
tools and some frameworks tohelp you put it in perspective
and continually improve? And I'mhere for you when you need me,
but you're the one in thedriver's seat.
Matt Wolach (15:54):
That's, that's phenomenal. I love it. What are
some of the biggest mistakesyou're seeing that new leaders
are making out there?
Eric Weiss (16:00):
Yeah, well, you know, the, the time honored
tradition of of wearing too manyhats, doing trying to do too
many different things, and notdelegating effectively, because
we feel like we're so great ateverything that nobody can do it
as well as we can. Usually,that's wrong, we tend to maybe
inflate our ego a little bitabout how good we are at doing
(16:23):
something. But also, we might bethe best at a particular task,
when we can focus on it. When wewere an individual contributor,
like, Yes, I was the best coderon my team, when that's all I
was doing. But when I'm doing 17different jobs, I'm actually a
pretty terrible coder, because Ican't focus on it. So not only
(16:43):
delegating the stuff that wedon't like. But delegating the
stuff that we do like or thinkwe're really good at, is a
really, really common pitfallthat that many founders deal
with. So not delegating earlyenough or not hiring early
enough for those really criticalroles. And, and not focusing
across the business and reallyunderstanding the big picture of
(17:06):
the business. So I talk aboutthe mind, the model that I use
is thinking like a founderversus thinking like an
executive. So a lot of foundersin the early stages, they're
either really focused on productreally focused on sales,
typically. But that's not enoughto build a business. So thinking
like an executive is thinkingabout, what are the
(17:27):
ramifications of this decision,or of this process, or of this
product across the entirebusiness? And how do we work
together? How do we collaborateand coordinate, you know, it's
not enough to build a reallygreat product, we have to be
able to sell it, we have to beable to market it, right? We
have to be able to create abusiness model that that's
profitable, or a pricing modelthat fits the market, and so on
(17:50):
and so forth. So, you know, it'snot just about wearing 17
different hats, but it's beingan orchestrator of all of these
different functions into acohesive whole. And that's
something that takes a lot ofmaturity.
Matt Wolach (18:03):
Yeah, I totally agree. I definitely take
maturity, I'm glad that theyhave you helping them with it,
then what would you say are someof the qualities and skills that
successful executives possess?
Eric Weiss (18:15):
Well, certainly, you know, humility, is probably the
number one thing is just selfawareness, of understanding what
our strengths are and what ourweaknesses are, not to the
extent that it creates selfdoubt, or that it creates
hesitation, because we also haveto act decisively, even if we
don't have all the informationor all the skills, but just that
(18:37):
self awareness that even ifthings are going incredibly well
for us, there is luck involved.
And there are other people thatare that are helping us get
there. So I would say is the thenumber one thing. The other one
would be, I would say aresiliency or almost a buoyancy,
if you will, that thatchallenges are going to come,
you're going to take knocksyou're going to take hits, and
(18:58):
you got to be able to continueto push forward without letting
it you know, get you down or, orI call it acting or leading out
of confidence versus leading outof fear. So some of us when we
get knocked, we get fearful,right? We're afraid we don't
want it that hurt. We don't wantto get hit like that again. So
(19:18):
when we hesitate, we pontificatewe get stuck in analysis
paralysis. Instead, we have tolead out of confidence. It's
actually one of the things I dois I actually do a kind of a
meditation exercise, where Ihave my clients, you know, close
their eyes, take a few deepbreaths and think about that
thing that was really scary forthem. It could be you know, when
(19:40):
when we lost a big client or Ihad to fire a bunch of people or
we didn't make that fundraisingor we were almost at a we didn't
make payroll. Okay, where do youfeel that in your body it's
usually down in your gutsomewhere? It's like a gut
feeling it right now it's kindof this like tingling, right?
Yeah, right that tingly, cracklyfeel feeling down in your gut.
Okay, now think about a timewhere you were really confident
(20:03):
when you when things wereflowing when you were, you know,
at the top of your game, and howdoes that feel? Okay? I'm
feeling like a chills up, likeup in my shoulders. I'm feeling
right now, right? So now whenI'm faced with a challenge, or
faced with a big decision, takea moment and say, What am I
feeling right now? Am I feelingthat crunch down in my gut? Or
am I feeling that tingle up inmy shoulders? That tells me am I
(20:24):
leading out of confidence orleading out of fear? And
depending on what I'm doing, ifI'm feeling that fear, I gotta
reset, I got to challenge myassumptions, challenge my
decision, and get to a placewhere I can feel some
confidence.
Matt Wolach (20:40):
That's next level.
That's amazing stuff. Eric, Ilove it. So, you know, as we
wrap up here, what advice wouldyou have for early stage
software leaders?
Eric Weiss (20:47):
Yeah. You know, first and foremost, I would say,
don't worry about the money,don't worry about the product,
focus on the people that you'reserving, I call it find your
tribe. So focus on a group ofpeople who you want to make a
difference in their lives andtheir world. And there will be
an overabundance of problems,and an over abundant abundance
(21:10):
of solutions and potentialproducts you can build. So don't
get tied to the product, don'teven get tied to the problem.
But become incredibly passionateand obsessed with your
customers. Build that empathy,build that connection with them,
that's going to be the thingthat's going to get you to stand
up and dust yourself off andkeep going. When times get
(21:31):
tough. That's going to be thething that's going to create
raving fans and loyal, you know,loyal advocates for you. Because
you're really putting them youknow, first and foremost, and
then do the same thing for yourteam as well. Right? Make sure
that you're hiring people, notjust because they can do a task
or do a job. But because they'reI call them your Avengers,
(21:52):
right? They're your superheroes,they're all unique. They all
have complementary skills. Andyou know, become that coach that
they need to realize their fullpotential, and they're going to
do great things for you.
Matt Wolach (22:04):
Phenomenal advice I love it couldn't have said it
better myself. This has beenawesome. Eric, I really
appreciate you coming on andsharing all your wisdom with us.
How can our audience learn moreabout what you're doing?
Eric Weiss (22:14):
Yeah, definitely.
Well, so check me out at chaosto clarity.io. You can find my
podcast there as well as linksto my accelerator and various
free tools and things that Ioffer there. You can also go to
full cycle product.com, which ismore of my sort of coaching and
consulting business. Basically,either of those websites, you
can also find me on LinkedIn.
(22:36):
And I'm sure we can share allthose links in the show notes.
But connect with me, follow medownload my tools freestyle, I
love to give stuff away tofounders and help them any way
that I can.
Matt Wolach (22:47):
That's phenomenal.
We'll put all that into the shownotes. Make sure everybody has
that. So click in there if youheard that and want some of that
action. Eric, this has beenawesome. Thanks for coming on
the show. Really appreciate it.
Eric Weiss (22:57):
Likewise, Matt, it's really a pleasure. Great to see
you again.
Matt Wolach (23:00):
Very cool, likewise. So everybody out
there, thanks for being here.
Really appreciate it. Make surethat you subscribe to the show.
You don't want to miss up any ofthe people that we have coming
up here. Now we've got somegreat guests and I want to make
sure that you see them and hearthem. So get that subscription
in there. Also we are lookingfor reviews. So if you think
this show is helpful for you, ifyou're learning how to get
better at your company,definitely give us a review. I'd
(23:21):
love to see it and make surethat we're getting you what you
want. So thank you for beinghere. Take care. Bye bye.
Intro/ Outro (23:31):
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more help on finding great leadsand closing more deals. Go to
Mattwolach.com
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