May 4, 2025 • 53 mins
Why do so many promising startup ideas fail before they even reach the market? In this episode of Starter Girlz, we sit down with David Hirschfeld, a 35-year software expert and founder of Tekyz Corp. David has helped over 90 startups launch smarter using his proven Launch First methodology.
If you're a startup founder, entrepreneur, or dreamer with a big idea, this conversation is essential. David shares powerful insights into startup launch strategy, pre-sales validation, and how to test your concept before writing a single line of code. You'll learn why the traditional MVP process often falls short—and how to validate your idea with real customers and generate revenue early on.
This episode is part of our ongoing series on entrepreneur motivation, real-world experiences, and startup journeysthat shape today’s business landscape.
In this episode, we discuss:
- How to apply market validation effectively
- Smarter go-to-market strategies for SaaS and product-based startups
- Why narrowing your niche can accelerate growth
- Inspiring success stories from over 90 startup founders
- Common mistakes early-stage entrepreneurs make—and how to avoid them
David’s startup marketing strategy is practical, proven, and refreshingly simple. Whether you're launching your first product or pivoting an existing business, this episode challenges conventional thinking and offers a smarter way forward.
Learn more about David Hirschfeld at www.tekyze.com.
Subscribe for more episodes that explore the stories behind startup success, innovation, and entrepreneurial growth.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
David Hirschfeld (00:00):
Serial entrepreneurs who are successful
multiple times usually arefounders who have a natural love
for the problems and want tospend all their time talking
with customers.
Those are the, but founders whocommonly fail are ones that
love their product and believein their vision and never step
back far enough to recognizethat the product they're
(00:22):
building and the vision theyhave are all built on
assumptions.
Jennifer Loehding (00:26):
Welcome to the Starter Girlz Podcast, your
ultimate source of inspirationand empowerment.
We're here to help womensucceed in every area of their
lives career, money,relationships, and health and
well-being while celebrating theremarkable journeys of
individuals from all walks oflife who've achieved amazing
things.
Whether you're looking tosupercharge your career, build
(00:48):
financial independence, nurturemeaningful relationships or
enhance your overall well-being,the Starter Girlz podcast is
here to guide you.
Join us as we explore thejourneys of those who dare to
dream big and achieve greatness.
I'm your host, jenniferLoehding, and welcome to this
episode.
Welcome to another episode ofthe Starter Girlz podcast.
(01:11):
I'm your host, jenniferLoehding, and wherever you are
tuning in today, we are sothrilled to have you, so I want
to open up with this.
Today.
Every journey has its twistsand turns, moments of growth and
experiences that shape who weare.
Today, we're diving into ajourney that spans over three
decades, one that's been builton curiosity, innovation and
(01:33):
resilience.
A journey of a leader who'snavigated some of the biggest
names in tech, transitioned intoentrepreneurship and now
empowers others to scale theirbusinesses with fresh,
innovative solutions.
And so you guys are going toget to hear from him in just a
few minutes, but before we dothat.
We need to do that.
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(02:38):
There you can pick up on anyepisodes that you have missed.
You can sign up for ourcommunity news, and we have a
new thing on there.
Now we have a fun quiz that youhave missed.
You can sign up for ourcommunity news, and we have a
new thing on there.
Now we have a fun quiz that youcan take if you're a business
owner and you want to find outwhat your number one
subconscious block.
I say success block because Ihate subconscious success block
that may be keeping you stuckright now.
You can take the two-minutequiz and it will give you some
(02:58):
insight into that.
So be sure you head on over tostartergirlscom and take care of
business over there.
All right, we want to welcomeour guest on today.
So my guest today is DavidHirschfeld.
With over 35 years ofexperience in software
development, david's journey hastaken him from roles at top
tech companies like Intel andMotorola to launching a
(03:19):
successful startup that spanned22 countries.
Now, as the founder of TekyzInc, he helps startups
accelerate their growth withAI-driven solutions and the
launch-first method.
So, david, we want to welcomeyou to the show today.
So excited to have you here.
David Hirschfeld (03:35):
Thanks, jennifer, I'm really excited to
be here.
Jennifer Loehding (03:37):
This is going to be fun.
And you know why this is goingto be so much fun?
Because I hardly ever get techpeople on here, because I know
very little about tech, so thisis probably going to be just as
enlightening for me today as itis for my audience.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
So we're glad to have you Okay.
Jennifer Loehding (03:55):
So I want to open this up.
I want to talk a little bitabout we're going to get to your
journey in just a minute, but Iwant to talk a little bit about
your company, so you can tellus a little bit about what
Techies is and what you're doingwith your clients and give us
some insight on that.
David Hirschfeld (04:07):
Sure.
So I founded Techies 18 yearsago with the idea that we were
going to do custom softwaredevelopment, and I can give you
the genesis of that maybe alittle bit later, but we've been
developing software forstartups and scale-ups and
mid-sized companies for the last18 years.
I worked with over 90 startupsduring that period of time, a
(04:33):
few of them very successful, butthe vast majority failed.
They all failed for the samereason they lacked product
market fit, because they waitway too long to validate product
market fit through sales.
So I developed a methodologycalled Launch First to help
founders go from concept to cashflow in just a few months as a
way of proving product marketfit through pre-launch sales and
(04:57):
make it very quick and easy topivot if they're not able to do
it, but really nail down whothat early adopter is, and this
reduces the risk dramaticallyfor startups and also helps them
fund their development throughpre-launch sales instead of from
investors.
Jennifer Loehding (05:13):
Okay.
So let me make sure Iunderstand this, because I told
you I'm not savvy in all thisparts of the things.
So you're helping them withthese pre-launch sales so they
can make sure that the productis fitting for the market and
then they can pivot if it isn't.
Is that correct?
Yeah, that's correct, okay, Ijust want to make sure I
understood what you were saying.
No, and I like it because toback that up and talk to, I
guess, basically to prove yourpoint.
So I worked I would say Iworked with a mentor.
(05:35):
I've worked with a lot ofmentors, but I had a really
awesome mentor that I workedwith for two years that had gone
from building a brick andmortar business to moving into
the on, you know, the onlinespace and he was trying to teach
us how to do that, because thiswas during COVID and he went
through this whole thing.
On that whole maybe not thepre-sell, but that whole product
(05:55):
mark out, you know finding your, who your market is and making
sure you're targeting that group.
And you know cause we, asbusiness owners, when you say
fail.
I'm sitting here thinkingbecause a lot of times you know
because we, as business owners,when you say fail, I'm sitting
here thinking because a lot oftimes you know you're talking
about credit market, but also wewant to sell to everybody like
right, we want to have everyclient and sometimes that's not
an ideal situation.
David Hirschfeld (06:13):
Yeah, actually it's rarely an ideal situation,
because the broader your market, the lower you have to make
your price and the lower yourclosing ratio is for sales.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Oh, my God.
David Hirschfeld (06:25):
And the opposite is also true.
The tighter you can get yourniche, then the cleaner that you
can make your messaging to whoyou're selling to, the more you
can charge and the higher yourclosing ratio for your sales.
So when you're starting out,that's what you need.
You need to know a veryspecific niche that you're
selling to.
(06:45):
They need to be an earlyadopter and you need to be able
to charge them a valueproposition that's fitting for
an early adopter, which is a lotmore than if you're selling to
a broad market.
Yeah, and so that's what we do.
The first thing we do in LaunchFirst is really nail down who
(07:05):
that early adopter niche is, andthen we put together a
marketing and sales strategy todo pre-launch sales.
We create a high fidelityprototype which is a design
prototype.
It's not real software.
Think you've already built it,even though you're telling them
it's a design prototype and thefirst version won't have all
(07:28):
these features and it won't beavailable for a few months.
They don't hear that becausewhat they're looking at is so
realistic.
And then you offer them somehigh value proposition that they
don't want to miss out on earlyon and they'll buy in enough
numbers if you've targeted theright customer with the right
messaging.
Jennifer Loehding (07:42):
That's good, and I have two things to say
that, and then you're going tolaugh at one of these.
Okay, so Rover or not?
Rover, roomba, roomba, thevacuum.
Okay, they have the new mod,this new big model that came out
.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
It's like just launched out, like recently that
has like the mop and the broom.
Jennifer Loehding (07:58):
I mean they had smaller, but this is like
you know, it's like a 1400.
So they're very clever.
What do they do?
They send out the campaign Likeyou can't even really see the
model yet.
They're just like something'scoming Right.
And then they send out thispromo for us, because I buy
Roombas, that we get it for 50%off.
With this like video.
You can't even find all thelike features.
In the beginning you don't evenknow, because they got me all
hyped up looking at this stupidRoomba thing.
(08:21):
I bought the Roomba, by the way, because I got it for 50% off.
They know who their people are,right.
So, to your point, yes, I cansee how that is all, how that
all works in the flow.
But I was going to say somethingelse to you.
Oh, something else youmentioned that really stuck with
me that when you tighten it up,the price is different than
when you have it broader.
Right, because this is nodifferent in what you're talking
about.
Also in the creator space, inour space, because I go around
(08:44):
and around with clients on thisthing.
They want to sell cheapproducts.
Well then, if you're going todo that, you're going to be
selling to a lot of people,right?
You're going to have a lowerprice product going to a lot of
people.
If you're trying to get a coregroup of people, then yes,
elevating your price is the wayto do this.
And the reason I'm bringingthis up is because when I had
initially built out this program, I built out a high ticket and
(09:06):
then I had two different takeson that.
I had one.
Obviously you got to tighten itup, get that tight market, and
then another person saying no,you need to put that to side and
do this lower budget, you knowprogram so that you can get the
masses.
Well, I didn't really want themasses, david, I want the tight,
the certain people that wantthat product Right.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
So I thought I had to go in the middle.
I had to figure out the middleof this thing, because I was
like those are the people that Iwant, but how do I get those
people from here to there?
You know what I mean.
So what you're saying all pointon, and I think that it spans
across many business sectors.
It's not just the tech space,it's also in our creative space
as creators.
So thank you for saying that.
David Hirschfeld (09:48):
Yeah.
So if you want to do something,if you think about it from a
mass market perspective, youthink of Kickstarter and people
like that.
Right, because you're selling aproduct to a very broad market
and you're trying to get a bunchof people to fund your product
by doing pre-launch sales.
If you're thinking of B2Bsoftware in the same kind of
vein, then you're thinking ofsomething like AppSumo, if
(10:08):
you're familiar with that, wherethey're selling usually
lifetime licenses for some kindof new cool marketing app
component, but they're goingafter very broad market people
that are AppSumo followers.
But if you're looking at highvalue B2B, then that's so we're
so it's.
There's lots of proof that thisworks.
(10:28):
This pre-launch sale thingworks, or the mass market kind
of help fund your productthrough this the, the sale of
your product instead of frominvestors works, but we're.
If you're going after a highvalue ticket, a high value item
and a high ticket customer, thenyou just have to target it
properly and there's a way to dothat and you can do it.
(10:50):
And the problem is moststartups don't do that.
What they do is they figure outthat this is what they're
building.
They fall in love with theirproduct, they build the MVP.
They create a pitch deck andthey go out and they try to
raise money and then they findout nobody will give them money.
And so then they try to sellthe product and they find out
nobody wants to buy it becausethey're not sure who the early
adopter is.
And they haven't done all thereally hard work up front, which
(11:12):
is that niche analysis pieceand then nailing down that high
value proposition.
Jennifer Loehding (11:17):
Yeah, I had a guy on here I actually just
released this podcast today DrGerard Ibarra.
He just launched a like a it'scalled Keep it Saved, which is
an app and it basically storesdocuments is what it does it
puts everything in a place foryou.
And he was talking about youknow the funding and putting all
this together.
But one of the things he talkedabout he was talking about how
(11:38):
I think he said like so manyhours it was a lot, I can't
remember the number, but puttingin so many hours of just doing
your research and finding outwho you're, you're, you know
doing who your clients are andstuff, because you're right, so
many people they get and I I seeit too with the clients I work.
They'll come to me and they gota good idea and I'm like I'm
not even sure what you'reselling.
Who's your audience?
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Who are we targeting?
Like, we need to figure thatout because I can't help you,
even get you know I'm not doingexactly what you're doing, but I
can't even help you.
Jennifer Loehding (12:03):
Come up with a title name for this business.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
We don't even know what we got and who we're
targeting, you know.
Jennifer Loehding (12:07):
So what you're saying is all point on,
you know.
I don't know exactly what yourmethod is, but what you're
saying is is is yeah, and thenyou want to step back even one
more step.
David Hirschfeld (12:17):
What problem are you solving?
Jennifer Loehding (12:19):
Exactly, you know, because they don't.
David Hirschfeld (12:21):
And it's funny when I'll ask founders, what's
the problem?
Statement here that you're sayoh, and then they say, well, it
does it, it does this, this ishow you do that.
And they say, well, that's afeature you know that's great.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
I liked it.
There's a feature, but what'sthe problem?
Jennifer Loehding (13:02):
no-transcript , like what is my actual
mechanism?
But what and what problem isthis unique mechanism addressing
?
So I had to go back and likeiron all and it was so hard I
had to like sit down.
David Hirschfeld (13:16):
It is hard hard.
Jennifer Loehding (13:19):
I had to like sit down.
It is hard, yeah, and I use Iactually.
You know what I did.
You're going to probably lovethis.
What I did is I went into chat,gpt, and I started typing in
this is what I'm trying, this iswhat I'm doing.
This is what I'm doing who, whoam I?
What am I trying to solve here?
And then it started spittingout ideas, which actually helped
me kind of figure all of thatout.
But it was not an overnightthing, I'm not.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
I'm telling you, it took me a little while to kind
of navigate through.
And then when I got it, I waslike, oh my goodness, like what
have I been doing?
Because if I'd have had this along time ago things would have
been a lot simpler.
David Hirschfeld (13:49):
Yeah, a lot simpler.
You might like this and you mayhave heard this.
Have you ever heard of the fivewhys or the three whys?
It depends on who you talk to.
Jennifer Loehding (13:56):
I don't know if I've heard it quite that way,
but yeah, tell us.
David Hirschfeld (13:59):
If somebody finally does say, well, it
solves this problem.
This is a problem that thisperson has and it's usually
something generic, like peopledon't have the information they
need to make good decisions, Isay, okay, fine, why does that
matter?
Right?
Speaker 3 (14:20):
And then you ask why?
David Hirschfeld (14:21):
because that's a high-level problem statement
and you can't sell anythingbased on a high-level problem
statement.
You have to get to a root-levelproblem statement.
It usually means standing inthe shoes of a particular
stakeholder in a particularniche and talking about why that
problem is a threat to theirexistence, both financially and
(14:41):
from a perception perspective,and those are two independent
things we measure.
So how much does this personperceive that problem statement
impacts them and why, and howmuch is it actually costing them
?
And we measure those separatelyand you know you're at a root
level problem statement.
When the problem statementbegins with I hate that or I'm
(15:03):
afraid of that or that's goingto ruin me, because if I don't
solve this problem, then thisoutcome is going to happen,
which is bad, yeah, that's aroot level.
Anything short of that is not aroot level problem statement no
, it's great you're saying that.
Jennifer Loehding (15:20):
It's great that you're saying that because
I just in the work that I, thething that I built out, the
course I built out, I talk a lotabout root level problems in,
but in a different space.
And it's funny because it saidyou know, you hit a root level
problem in this particular spacewhen it starts crossing over
into different boundaries andaffecting things, and so it's a
different scenario.
But I understand what you'resaying when you say root level,
(15:42):
because a lot of people whenthey're looking at like, in this
particular case, this courseI'm building is talking about
finances and not putting yourenergy in the right places Right
, and a lot of times it'sbecause people are looking at
surface level things and notgetting to the root problem of
why they're doing what they'redoing or not doing, what they're
not making the phone call ornot doing the follow-up or
whatever that is.
(16:03):
So it's completely different,but I get what you're saying is
what I'm saying about it beingyou know, it has to be a real
problem or real tangible.
You can't just say somethinglike you know, like you're gonna
have better personal growth.
Nobody really knows what thatis on the surface level, but if
you start talking about itaffecting their cashflow, you
know things that are real andyou're going to have better
personal growth as a benefit,not a problem.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Yes, Right.
Jennifer Loehding (16:27):
But if you just say that they're like okay,
great, I'm going to havepersonal benefit.
You know like I had to get downto like what are we talking
about?
Your finances, things that arereally impacting business owners
.
You know that in their shoes,like their time management, we
all want more money and we wantto work less, right?
We want to talk.
David Hirschfeld (16:43):
So then you're getting to the problem I don't
have enough money or I'm workingtoo much, which are two
different problem statements,right, and so why does that
matter?
It's still that's like, yeah,so does everybody, cause you can
have um, and the reason it hasto have that high impact where
you feel threatened by itbecause I may have a problem
that costs a lot, yeah, Right,but I work in a company where we
(17:04):
have these other initiativesand I'm never going to get buy
in, so it doesn't.
Doesn't threaten me the factthat it costs a lot, because,
you know, or everybody in myindustry struggles with the same
problem I struggle with.
So it's you know.
So what, right?
So that you're not going tosell that person very easily.
(17:24):
You're not going to get theirattention because they don't
feel personally threatened bythat problem, whereas you might
have somebody that hates aproblem and feels threatened by
it, but then doesn't actuallycost them very much, and so you
can't charge a lot for it.
So you got to measure those twothings independently and find
the one that has both hot.
Both of them are high yeah.
Jennifer Loehding (17:39):
And that's good.
Thanks for sharing all of that.
I love it.
And I think it's important.
I think this is a is a struggle, especially for people.
I think that you're in mysector, kind of the creative
space, because and I guess maybeit does mean cause I network a
lot and talk to get people toshow up and buy.
And they're always trying tolearn little hacks.
(18:02):
And I've had so many people onhere that have come back and
we've talked about things likethis, about your niche and about
I had a guy on here named JamesBond that he competed in the
you remember the egg commercialwhere they did this is your
brain, this is your brain ondrugs, and it was the egg that
would go in the frying pan.
He actually competed with that.
Whoever that group was orindividual was that did that,
(18:29):
and so he talks a lot about youknow how do you target that
right audience, but also makingthose things stick like catchy
phrases and things like that,and so there's a lot to this.
I feel like you know, but Ithink like you said it's the
biggest thing is getting thatproduct to market and not get
hung up on your ideas, like yougot to get off being hung up on
your ideas you know, and that'sa fatal flaw that founders have,
and it's just sort of an.
David Hirschfeld (18:52):
it's very hard to break yourself from this.
So founders who serialentrepreneurs who are successful
multiple times, usually arefounders who have a natural love
for the problems and want tospend all their time talking
with customers.
Those are the but founders whocommonly fail are ones that love
(19:12):
their product and believe intheir vision and never, step
back far enough to recognizethat their pro, the product
they're building and the visionthey have are all built on
assumptions and they're notthinking about the.
You know they may have beenoriginally solving a problem and
they came up with a great ideaand they forgot all about the
problem.
Jennifer Loehding (19:30):
Yeah, and they got all focused on
delivering this idea networkingand you get into a space where
somebody just comes in and theythey get in.
All they do is start vomitingtheir stuff on you, right, and
they don't even know what yourproblem is.
They don't even know what theyhave meets your problem, cause
they never asked the question.
That's what I'm like.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
That's what I'm feeling like when you're saying
this to me and people do it.
I'm sure yeah.
David Hirschfeld (19:54):
Yeah, and founders can learn to love the
problem when they realize theimportance of it.
Yeah, and you know that you'restruggling with loving the
problem versus loving theproduct when every time you
start talking about the problemand you talk with a potential
customer about it, you startgoing into features.
You start talking about yourfeatures, and wouldn't this be
(20:16):
helpful?
As soon as you do that, you'velost the whole focus of the
problem.
So really smart are foundersthat have a really good instinct
for this or have taughtthemselves to do this never talk
about their product or features.
They only talk to the like.
When they're doing theirresearch and trying to
understand the customer, theyjust spend all the time talking
about the problem and that andhow, that person.
(20:38):
How have you solved thisproblem in the past?
Have you tried tools to solvethis problem?
How did that work out?
What did work?
Or you know how much does thisproblem cost you?
How long have you been livingwith this problem?
What other problems are likethis that you're struggling with
?
You know that's a founderthat's going to figure out how
to solve the problem becausethey'll understand it so well.
(21:00):
And you talk to lots ofpotential clients that have that
, that have a similar kind ofproblem or in a similar position
, and you start to triangulateand really understand what the
market needs, not just what eachcustomer needs, but what the
market really needs.
Then the solution is just thenatural mitigation of the
problem, not the thing to be inlove with, right right, it's
making me think of the book, notthe thing to be in love with,
right right.
Jennifer Loehding (21:20):
It's making me think of the book Spend
Selling.
Have you read that one, spendSelling?
David Hirschfeld (21:25):
I've heard of that.
I've not read that.
Jennifer Loehding (21:27):
It's an old book but interestingly enough,
because you're kind of gettinginto the people side of things
right, like where we're gettingto get to figure out what that
problem is that the client has.
You're not going to know thatunless you ask good questions.
But in that book they talkabout how to.
You've kind of said this inseveral conversations about
finding the pain points rightand addressing those.
It talks about that, like whenyou're selling like higher
ticket items or bigger things,you know, and how do you?
(21:51):
You've got to figure out, likeyou're asked the question to
find out where the problem iswith the client and then, okay,
what is that costing you tocontinue doing it that way, you
know?
David Hirschfeld (22:06):
so sort of getting into the shoes of the
other person without reallydoing the product so much until
you have to do that right, andwhat's the political will for
addressing that problem and whatis their budget money that
people will use to spend?
It depends on who you'remarketing, right, if it's a
owner of a company versussomebody inside of a larger
company.
There's a book that talks justabout this issue, called the Mom
Test.
(22:26):
It's my favorite business bookbecause it really gets you into
the mom test.
Jennifer Loehding (22:34):
I like it.
David Hirschfeld (22:36):
Yeah, and the reason it's called that is
because if you come up with abusiness idea and you ask your
mom what she thinks about it andthis assumes you have a good
relationship with your mom,right?
You ask her what she thinksabout your business idea, she's
going to say oh honey, I knowyou're going to be successful,
you're so smart, it's abrilliant idea, right?
You're not going to get ananswer of any kind of value from
(22:56):
her.
That that's truthful, right?
So the question is how do youask questions about this
business you want to pursue fromyour mom and get valuable,
honest responses?
That's why it's called the momtest and it's so well done.
This book is so well done.
It talks about all these things.
Jennifer Loehding (23:13):
I like the title.
I think the title is good whenyou say mom, test.
you're like what's that?
You know the person that didthat was clever on that.
It's important.
So no, this is all good.
So I want to back this upbecause you've been in this
space for a really long time.
So I want to talk a little bitabout your journey and kind of
what led to the formation I knowyou mentioned in the beginning
(23:37):
space for a while and you'veworked for some well-known
companies and then kind of movedinto that entrepreneurship
space.
So kind of talk to us give us alittle bit about that.
David Hirschfeld (23:46):
Yeah, so I started out in the late 80s.
It's been quite a long timeworking for computer associates
and then Texas Instruments, andthen I became an independent
consultant and I ran as aproject manager for Allied
Signal, arizona Public Service,intel, motorola, and then
(24:06):
founded my first softwarecompany in logistics route
distribution inventorymanagement A very niche kind of
product, I thought it would.
Windows 3.1 had just come outand that was the first version
of Windows.
For anybody who remembers thisor knows this, that was usable,
right, and that started to makeWindows take off, and so we made
(24:27):
a Windows product for smallbusinesses to handle logistics
throughout distributioninventory management.
And it took off, surprisinglytook off, and so my partner and
I ended up growing this over thenext eight years to 800
customers in 22 countries andsold it to a publicly traded
(24:50):
firm and I ended up VP ofproducts for that company that
acquired us for the next severalyears.
So I thought, okay, I know whatI'm doing with Stardust right.
Then I cast out again andstarted another software company
in 2005.
And this one was a tradingnetwork for wholesale auto
(25:10):
dealers, which could have beenvery successful, but I didn't
follow the same playbook as myfirst company and it failed.
I tried to basically getcritical mass, build up this
network, then raise money frominvestors, and I did get offered
money from an investor veryearly in that process.
I was looking for $1.2 millionand I got that, but they wanted
(25:33):
what I thought was way too muchequity.
I never got another offer ofinvestment ran out of the money
that I was willing to invest inthis business, and so now I've
had a success, I've had afailure.
I wasn't sure why this onefailed versus the other one that
succeeded, and so I thoughtwell, what I know how to do is
build software, so I startedTechies and out of the ashes of
(25:57):
that and then, because I knewhow to build software and market
it to startups and existingcompanies that needed workflow
automation.
We've been doing that eversince, and now I'm starting to
come out with some SaaS productsthis year.
So I'm back.
I'll be back in out with someSaaS products this year.
So I'm back.
I'll be back in the softwarebusiness from my own sense as a
(26:18):
still be doing the developingsoftware for other people as
well.
But you know, we basicallybuilding products because we had
our own need internally forsome products and so we decided
let's build these and automatethis part of our own business,
and we can turn this intosomething that can be a SaaS
product, which usually makes thebest SaaS products.
Jennifer Loehding (26:38):
Yeah, yeah, well, and you lean back into
your strengths too, which Ithink it happens, I think, so
often.
We get sort of like we're like,oh, I'm going to try something
different, or I'm bored, I'mgoing to do something different.
Then we realize we sort ofmigrate back into where our
skillset is, right, you know,and we thrive because that's
where we're naturally talented.
I mean, even I feel like in myjourney, you know, I've, I've, I
was 22 years in Mary Kay, so Iwas kind of in a space where I
(27:00):
was doing presentations andbuilding teams and leadership,
and I've always mine.
I always tell me like I'm kindof the forward facing person,
I'm the salesperson, I can bethe person up in the front.
They can get people to dothings, have those conversations
, find out what people need toknow.
You put me in the back endwhere I have to do like in.
You know, engineering.
Oddly enough, I was, I'mmarried to, a chemical engineer,
which is kind of funny becausehe's that the back person the
(27:23):
quiet doesn't talk.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
You know, I'm the forward.
I tell him you don't sell.
I'm not doing that because Ican't do it, you know.
So I think yeah.
David Hirschfeld (27:29):
Opposites attract.
Right yeah, Opposites attract.
Jennifer Loehding (27:33):
I guess, I think we just sort of kind of
lean into our talents.
And, you know, every time Ithink maybe I should do
something, you know, maybe Ishould do this, I'm like no, I
know what's going to happen if Itry to do that.
We need to stay where we'regifted at, you know.
So I love it.
David Hirschfeld (27:54):
I think and you know clearly you guys are
doing something well if you'vebeen in this space, at least
with TechEase, for this long andit's still thriving.
Yeah, Thank you, I appreciatethat.
And then Launch First just cameout of the watching so many
companies fail and then havingthis epiphany why my company
failed versus the one that I wassuccessful with.
And then I just started to putthe methodology together.
Jennifer Loehding (28:11):
Yeah, yeah, it's good, I just started to put
the methodology together.
Yeah, yeah, that's good.
I'd love to know, becausesomebody listening to this and
these are my fun questions,where I really like to get into
the heads of people Somebodylistening to this is going to go
okay, this guy, he's beensuccessful.
He was successful all the wayup.
Clearly, nothing's everhappened.
But this company let's talkabout TechEase.
What were maybe some of thechallenges in the beginning that
(28:31):
you had, if you can rememberthem, as an entrepreneur trying
to get this thing up and running?
David Hirschfeld (28:46):
Well, the challenges were how to build
know people needed softwaredevelopment and if you have 20
plus years experience then yousound like you know what you're
doing when you talk to people,so you know that was much easier
Then.
What was really hard waslearning how to build a really
(29:07):
top team in a contracting rolewith other companies, and it
took us years it took me yearsto figure out some of the
formula for that and then toreally build all the procedures
and protocols and systemsinternally so that our team just
continues to get better andbetter and grow.
So if you go to the techiescomspelled T-E-K-Y-Z for anybody
(29:31):
looking for it you'll see at thevery top of the page of the
homepage it says hyperexceptional software development
team.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
And.
David Hirschfeld (29:41):
I don't expect anybody to believe me when yes,
because I say it and it says itat the top of my webpage but if
you run in an exceptionalmanner, you produce certain
artifacts that typical teamsdon't produce in terms of the
level of detail, the amount oftracking, the transparency, the
(30:05):
accuracy in terms of estimatesand the level, things like that.
And I have lots of evidence toshow people, because I don't
expect anybody to say believe mejust because I say something.
That's sort of like somebodysays trust me.
That's code for don't you can'ttrust me, right?
So, anyway, it took me years tofigure that out and then many
(30:28):
years of hiring the right people.
So one of my philosophies abouthiring is I can only hire
somebody if I believe they'resmarter than I am.
And then the ball.
So the balls rolls up.
The ball rolls uphill in mycompany and my job as well as,
like my director of operationsjob.
Our jobs are to sweep out allthe things out of the way of our
(30:50):
team so that they can producebetter value, and more value
because they're smarter than weare in the thing that they're
trying to do and deliver and asopposed to us having to drive
them and manage them tightlyright.
So to the degree that we needto do any kind of management, we
try to build automation andscaffolding in our systems so
that the management happens as anatural course of just doing
(31:12):
their work and in terms of liketime tracking, accountability,
things like that, and that'swhat we spend our energy doing
just continuing to improve oursystems.
Now, ai is a huge part of that.
So we just took our estimationmethodology, which took us years
to develop, and we're veryaccurate in our estimates.
(31:32):
We like to be within 10% of theestimate for an entire project
and we're really good atestimating where we're usually
within 10% of that estimate.
Most teams are good.
Teams are within 30%, but anaverage software development
shop would be 2x or 3x of whatthey estimate and that's very
(31:54):
common and we're not.
That doesn't hold water with us, but it's really hard to get
there and it's a lot of effortand time to build these
estimates with that much detailin a brand new project.
So we built an AI model for ourestimation tool.
We just released the firstversion internally.
So now we have an AI tool that'sbuilding out our estimates for
(32:16):
us, with us supervising makingsure it's doing a really good
job with that and that will keepgetting better and better and
eventually that's going to go tomarket as a SaaS product.
That's one of them and we'llbasically make it available to
other shops and in the processof doing that, we're going to do
launch first.
So right now we built it aroundGoogle Sheets.
(32:40):
That's our user interface,because that's how we've been
doing our estimates for years.
We use Google Sheets as ourtool for publishing the
estimates.
So this first version is aroundGoogle Sheets.
Then we'll go out and do apre-launch sale.
We designed the SaaS front endas a really nice user experience
for people once we do build thesoftware.
(33:01):
But we're not going to buildthat until we can see that we've
got product market fit and thatwe're selling the product to
other software development shopsin decent numbers and then
we'll build that front end.
So we're, you know, followingour, you know, basically eating
our own cooking.
Yeah, in a sense right.
Jennifer Loehding (33:19):
No, it's good .
It's good Something I wanted to.
You said a lot of really goodthings there, but I do want to
point out you know that youmentioned about hiring people
that are smarter than you,because I think those are real.
I think that's a greatcharacteristic of leadership,
because I think a lot of times,you know, leaders get into
positions where they want to,and I say this sincerely because
(33:40):
I probably did a lot of this inthe beginning when I was
building teams, and it was adifferent product, but we were
still building teams and tryingto get things out there.
And so, you know, oftentimes Ifeel like leaders get threatened
to hire people that are smarterthan them because they want to
manage, they want to and tryingto get things out there, and so
oftentimes I feel like leadersget threatened to hire people
that are smarter than thembecause they want to manage,
they want to be in thatmicromanaging role and keep
people under control, and reallythat's not what we want.
We want to let people shine,and when you hire people that
(34:03):
are greater than you, you'regoing to have more potential for
growth, because you're bringingin different dynamics,
different conversations.
You're just adding to the pool.
Of greatness is the way I seeit, so it's really a dumb thing
if you're not doing that.
David Hirschfeld (34:19):
So smart on you for recognizing that.
Oh, thank you.
And it takes a little while tobuild that culture right, when
everybody recognizes that theydon't want to bring other people
in that aren't really smart andexperienced.
Experience and smart are twodifferent things, right.
I mean, we want both.
We don't hire people if theydon't have a lot of experience,
(34:41):
because it's too hard when theyhaven't worked in teams and
worked in large projects andmultiple of them.
They don't have enoughexperience to bring in to solve
problems in the right way, inthe best way.
Right.
But so we have to have both.
But once they get the hang ofit and they realize the value of
this, they become ruthless toprotect their team, because you
want that right.
(35:02):
So if we accidentally hiresomebody by mistake that isn't
as smart as we thought they were, or they somehow got around our
recruiting process which almostnever happens, but it used to
happen occasionally and we wouldlet them go right away and not
try to keep them and bring themalong, because you can't fix IQ,
(35:23):
you can fix other things.
Even integrity is something youcan work on.
If somebody's not a compulsiveliar, right, you can even work
on integrity when they realizethere's something really worth
investing in in terms of peopleand trust and all that.
You can work on that to somedegree.
You can't work.
You can work on work ethic.
Even you cannot work on IQ.
(35:45):
That's just something you'reborn with.
So if you've hired somebody andjust not smart enough or somehow
they lied on the interviewprocess and you've found out
that we let them go immediatelybecause we're not helping them
in their career, if we carrythem for six months only to let
them go, then and it took awhile for my team to realize
(36:06):
that this is important becauseyou want to send the message to
your team that you care aboutthem enough to not pollute the
team with people that aren't agood fit for the team.
So it's our mistake.
Jennifer Loehding (36:18):
Yeah, I know, and I'm thinking about a lot of
things because we hear we talkabout culture a lot, right, like
culture and companies and stuff.
And there's a I don't know ifyou've read the book the Five
Dysfunctions of a Team.
It's like a really good book.
There's a I don't know what thetype of company that they were
all working for, but they weretalking about the different
players in there.
And there's like one player inthere, this particular one.
She was a high performanceplayer but she was kind of a
(36:41):
cancer within the group, likeshe just was not a team player,
not, you know, very individuallone wolf kind of thing, and I
don't remember all the specificsof it, but it's a really good
book to speak to that about howyou want to create that dynamic
that you want with your team,right, like what you're looking
for in a group, and part of myprogram that I built out I talk
(37:03):
a lot about that because ofcoming from Mary Kay.
Mary Kay is big on culture anda lot of those people stay in
there Go back to what you saidin the very beginning about the
money.
might not be making a lot, butthe culture is right or whatever
(37:25):
.
There were a lot of people inthere that were probably not
making money group and they canproduce the work and do the
things they need to do and youknow cause when you don't.
Yeah, I know, and I speak tothat, not in that space but I
can speak when we've had bad.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
When I had bad people in my team, they were a cancer.
David Hirschfeld (37:43):
I mean they literally were like a cancer in
there because they bringeverybody down.
Jennifer Loehding (37:46):
Yeah, and you would have got this back and
forth and just so I might.
And it's funny because I evenyou know, when I do my work now,
like I feel like I have allthese processes for the types of
clients that I want, the typesof guests I want to bring on my
podcast, and I do.
I have all these little likeyou talk about.
They get through.
Like I had very few people theyget three of on my podcast that
(38:06):
I don't air out because I havesuch a.
I have a filtering processbecause I'm looking for things
I'm looking for, you know, likethat communication.
I'm looking for the thingsthey're saying to me, how
they're communicating, you know,and even like, when you guys
come in, I get a lot of theseagents that reach out to me to
get their people on here and Ireally want to talk to you guys.
Like I want people contactingme directly, because then I know
(38:29):
where they're at, I knowthey've researched, I know
they've looked at the stuff.
They're not just havingsomebody go out and filter for
them and find it, you know,because then I then I'm having
to go through and get them toanswer questions and they're not
, so I don't even know who I'mtalking to.
Sometimes you know what I mean.
So we all have to have processesfor how we want to build our
teams, because it reflects inour work and it goes back to
what you said a while ago whenthe team is right, the work
(38:51):
shows up good.
David Hirschfeld (38:53):
Yeah, exactly, and then and if the team is
right and the culture's there,they're going to prevent other
people from coming in thataren't good fits.
So you know, we always haveeverybody, everybody that's a
stakeholder in the, in theposition that's being hired for.
They get involved in theinterview process.
But we always start like I said, it's gotta be IQ for that
(39:17):
position.
And then there's apsychographic profile.
We wanna make sure it fits thejob, because that's a really
important thing that a friend ofmine who's in human capital
business taught me that if youknow, if you've got 20 different
people that have done a jobreally exceptionally well and
(39:38):
you know their psychographicprofile of the of those people,
then that's the first thing youshould hire for, because because
they'll naturally have theability to deliver, to perform
on that job Now and at the levelthat you want.
You still need the IQ right andthe experience, but yeah,
that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
That's really good information for anybody that's
out there right now talkingabout you know, building your
team and stuff.
I think that was great, sothank you for sharing all of
that good stuff.
Jennifer Loehding (40:08):
I don't have any build teams right now.
I did it for so long.
It's weird because I'm notreally doing that right now, but
I still.
You know, I have to collaboratewith people to do things that
you know jobs and stuff likethat and so I think all of these
are really good skills.
We've talked about, you know,team building and building your
culture and all of those things.
So all important good stuff.
So I want to ask you a coupleof questions, kind of from the
your perspective, and I I'mlooking on here cause I have
(40:30):
them down on my notes so I don'tforget what to tell you, but I
want to ask you personally, asan entrepreneur and as a as a
leader, what, what is one beliefthat you feel like has shaped
your success?
I'm sure there are many, butgive us maybe one that you feel
like has been the big thing.
David Hirschfeld (40:44):
Well, I think I've been sort of dribbling them
out throughout the interview,right?
So only hire people if they'resmarter than I am.
Basically create playbooks.
So as we start to get processes, we know that work.
Then we document thoseprocesses in terms of playbooks
(41:05):
and we have a whole library ofplaybooks.
That way we can bring newpeople in and they're not going
to suck the life out of theperson who has to mentor them,
because that's the only personwith the tribal knowledge, which
is a problem for companies thathave all of their expertise
stuck in tribal knowledge, right, because then it requires the
(41:28):
best people to have to stop whatthey're doing to train new
people coming on.
Yeah, there's always going tobe a little bit of that, but we
want as little as possible sothat new people coming in have
some place that they can referto and also that they can read
in advance to learn how to dothat job, because there's
playbooks that have beendocumented.
(41:48):
So that's important and thoseplaybooks become intellectual
property and increase the valueof your company.
The more you document thesethings, we automate everything
we can.
So, like I said, we'reautomating our estimation
process shop and we'reautomating our daily standup
(42:15):
meetings with an AI agent tohelp our everybody on our team
do that.
For anybody who's a softwaredeveloper, they'll know what
that means.
They won't know what having anAI agent do that means, but but
it's a big deal.
We're automating how weinteract with our project
management system.
We're like crazy about beingdetailed in project management
and tracking from build to buildand release to release, you
know, so that we can accuratelyestimate, estimate and always
(42:38):
give our clients, you know,up-to-date information about
anything.
But it requires a lot of tediumin terms of having to record
bugs and record feature requestsand then between each version
of our product, of a productthat we're delivering, the same
feature request or the same buggets reported multiple times,
(43:00):
not always the same way.
So you end up with all theseduplicates that somebody has to
go through at the end of everymajor release and try to clean
out all the pollution out of thetracking system.
And then if a customer asksabout when there was a bug that
was reported a couple of weeksago, do you know when that's
coming out, trying to figure outwhat release it's planned for
(43:21):
and which bug they're referringto because of how it was entered
.
Anyway.
So we're building an AI modelfor this.
That, basically, is going to beour voice interface of the
project management system.
So our clients can say I've gotto have an app and they just
tap on the microphone and say Ifound a bug on this screen and
maybe the AI will askclarification questions about
(43:43):
what screen and then it sayswhat's the bug and the person
will say what the bug is.
And then it can look and say Ifound two other bugs that look
similar to this one.
And then it reads them to them,or either of these similar, the
same bug or similar and theysay, yeah, the first one is
similar, so, okay, should Iupdate that with the differences
?
And then they say, yeah, pleasedo that.
(44:03):
And it updates the existing bug, doesn't create a new one.
And then it says that'sscheduled to be put into a build
604, which is coming out inthree weeks, and the person can
say, well, increase the priority, because I'd like that fixed
sooner.
And they say, okay, I'll moveit up to a new build.
Now development has been takenout of the conversation.
(44:27):
Development can use it for thesame thing, qa can use it in the
same way and the client has areal-time interface that gets
them the information that theyneed on a real-time basis about
the project.
Really way more satisfyingexperience to do this.
This is something that's indevelopment right now.
Jennifer Loehding (44:49):
Very good, very good Awesome.
David Hirschfeld (44:50):
Things like that.
So we're always trying to findbetter ways of making the
experience better for ourdevelopers, for our testers, for
our project managers, for ourclients.
Jennifer Loehding (45:00):
Very good, very good, all right, and what
is the?
We all have kind of our morningroutine.
I love this question.
So what is the one morningthing that you feel like you do
every day that kind of gets yourday going?
David Hirschfeld (45:14):
Well, that I should do every day.
I try to do it every day, andthat's my morning affirmations,
affirmations, not affirmations,affirmations, right?
So they're grouped into fivesections and each one has four
bullets in it, with the ideathat I say them out loud, I read
them out loud and I think abouteach one as I'm saying it, with
(45:37):
the idea that, you know,there's actually science around
this, about sort ofreprogramming your mind to
express yourself in a way thatmakes these affirmations
actually happen, whether it's onhealth or finance or
(45:57):
relationships or friendships orwhatever it is.
If you say them out loud everyday, you actually start to
create that, those realities inyour life.
Jennifer Loehding (46:05):
Yeah, no, I just did a.
I was on somebody's show acouple of weeks ago and I talked
a little bit about that.
You know, I said it's not thecure all for everything, but it
certainly isn't going to hurtyou and it does help.
And I was actually talkingabout how, when I first started
doing them because I was in kindof a bad place and so every day
I would get up and I had thesame affirmation I would just
write something amazing is goingto happen.
(46:27):
Today I did that every day forlike a year, every single day
for like a year, and I don't dothem as much now because I kind
of just do them in my head now.
So you know, I kind of I'm inthis space a lot, so I feel like
I'm doing these like all thetime with people, but there was
a time when I didn't.
I had to write it down everysingle day and read it out loud
until I could get that kind ofin my, in that, my mind, in that
(46:49):
space.
But there's a lot to that.
So I do, I tell people, youknow it's, it's, it's not going
to hurt you not to do it.
That's the thing, it's not goodon you.
David Hirschfeld (46:58):
And the voicing it out loud is really
important because it triggersyour brain in a different way
when you're saying it out loudas opposed to just reading it
quietly to yourself.
So it's a reprogramming process, yeah, and if you say that,
like what you said, you start torecognize the things that are
amazing, right, and then yourenergy goes into making those
(47:19):
things happen.
Even if nothing changes, you'llactually start creating amazing
things by just pulling out theamazing things every day and
then building on those, one ofthe coaching certifications I'm
program or certified in.
Jennifer Loehding (47:35):
She was talking all about that, how it's
scientific in the brain, likewhen you do this, because
naturally, when you put yourenergy into something that you
want, you're subconsciouslygoing to do things that draw you
in that path.
So if it's negative, you'regoing to go, you're going to do
things in that, and if it'spositive, it's going to go.
So I had to work really hard atthe positive, because I didn't
(48:00):
come from a space where I wasfeeling good about myself and
what was happening and all ofthese things, and so I had to
really shift some patterns andso that's why I did that.
And then now I'm at it.
It's funny because I don'treally have to gratitude journal
, do all that.
I was telling somebody on theshow right before this one today
that you know, most of days,even on a bad day, I can find
something to be grateful for.
I can find where there wassomething good that happened in
the day and I just I've trainedmyself to do that.
(48:22):
I call it now it's like anunconscious, competent thing,
kind of like driving your carbrushing your teeth.
I just naturally, if I'm notdoing that, david, I'm in a
really bad place.
David Hirschfeld (48:32):
You better run because I'm in a bad place if
I'm not, you know.
Well, it's amazing to me thatbecause you must have worked
really hard at this, because youseem like such a positive
person.
Jennifer Loehding (48:43):
Yeah, I did.
David Hirschfeld (48:44):
That's all right People.
Jennifer Loehding (48:46):
When I tell my story, people that know me
now, I always joke about that,because people that know me now
that don't know my story ordon't know me before this time
it's a very different dynamic ordon't know me before, this time
it's a very different dynamic?
It really is.
I have been in this.
I had a health crisis in 2012,that kind of started this, and
then it was in about 2017 or 18when I started going a lot into
(49:08):
this, and so I've been workingon it for a long time.
Speaker 3 (49:10):
And back it up that I was in Mary Kay for 22 years, I
told somebody one day, like Iwas in that company for 17 years
hearing affirmations and theywent in one ear and out the
other.
Jennifer Loehding (49:20):
It wasn't until like I had a real reason
that I needed to do that, that Iactually started doing it.
David Hirschfeld (49:27):
So you know when the Well, good for you, I'm
impressed.
Jennifer Loehding (49:31):
Thank you.
When the student's ready toreceive, the teacher arrives
right.
That's how it is.
David Hirschfeld (49:35):
Yeah, that's right, all right, one last thing
.
Jennifer Loehding (49:38):
I want to ask you what is the best piece of
advice you've ever received?
David Hirschfeld (49:43):
Okay, the best piece I've ever received.
I'm sure you got more than one,but Boy, nothing is coming to
mind, like I got into the whole.
All the things I've said arethings I've heard, so you pick.
I mean they're all really goodthings.
All the things I talked abouttoday, I don't think any of them
(50:06):
are original, except maybe theonly hire people that are
smarter than me that one I'veheard other people say it since,
but that one I just came upwith on my own.
But all the rest, like focusingon the problem and the customer
, these are things I've heardand recognized the truth in them
.
That's probably the mostimportant is focusing on, is
(50:29):
recognizing that you have to bein love with the problem.
Yeah, so for best advice.
And also the morning aphor, themorning affirmations.
That's really important If youwant to reprogram yourself into
a different direction.
Say them every day, and theyshould be grouped.
(50:50):
You have a group of them thatare health-related, a group of
them that are finance-related.
A group of them are healthrelated, a group of them that
are finance related, a group ofthem.
And they should be very general, high level things, not
specific, like not I'm going tomake an investment today or
something.
Well, unless you want, unlessyour thing is to make an
investment, new investment everysingle day.
Right, more like I'm just I'mgoing to.
(51:12):
My investments will continuallygrow.
You know that's a kind of aaffirmation right, finance?
You know being successfulfinancially is easy for me.
That's a good affirmation.
Yeah, and there should besomething altruistic about your
(51:34):
affirmations too.
Yeah, it shouldn't just be allabout you.
There should be some that arealtruistic in there, because
giving back to the world,there's something that creates
more value in people's liveswhen they give back.
Jennifer Loehding (51:49):
Yeah, I would agree with you on that too.
So it's huge.
I think that it's hard to findfulfillment when you haven't
figured that piece out, david,this has all been good.
So yeah, and I'm sure somebodylistening to this is going to
want to catch up with you orcheck out techies or you know.
So where do we want to sendthem so that they can find out
more about you and the company?
David Hirschfeld (52:17):
T-E-K-Y-Z and you can email me directly.
I don't put this link in theshow notes, but if somebody made
it to the end of the show thenit's simple.
David at tekyz.
com, I'd love to hear from youabout your ideas, or we can just
chat about startups in generalor about software or tech in
general, and I'm easy to find onLinkedIn.
Jennifer Loehding (52:34):
Very good, very good.
Yeah, we'll make sure we getthe website in the show notes.
We won't put the email in there.
They listen, they stick in hereand listen all the way through.
Then they know how to get you.
That's a special moment here.
You stuck it through the end,right?
Good stuff, David.
Well, we appreciate your timeand your knowledge and wisdom
and all the good stuff and andI'm glad we got to get you on
here and do all that have thisconversation.
David Hirschfeld (52:55):
Yeah, thanks, Jennifer.
I really appreciate theopportunity.
Jennifer Loehding (52:58):
Absolutely, of course, to our audience.
We appreciate you.
We hope that you found thisepisode both inspiring and
informative and, of course,reach out to David if you have
questions or need help with.
You know startup, the launchfirst method, any of those
things, and you know what to doon our end.
So you need to share, likecomment, do all the things so we
can keep sharing all thisamazing content and getting
these awesome people on the show.
(53:19):
And I'm going to leave you withthe final thought that I always
say in order to live theextraordinary, you must start,
and every start begins with adecision.
You guys, take care, be safe,be kind to one another and we
will see you next time.
Serial entrepreneurs who are successful
multiple times usually arefounders who have a natural love
for the problems and want tospend all their time talking
with customers.
Those are the, but founders whocommonly fail are ones that
love their product and believein their vision and never step
back far enough to recognizethat the product they're
(00:22):
building and the vision theyhave are all built on
assumptions.
Jennifer Loehding (00:26):
Welcome to the Starter Girlz Podcast, your
ultimate source of inspirationand empowerment.
We're here to help womensucceed in every area of their
lives career, money,relationships, and health and
well-being while celebrating theremarkable journeys of
individuals from all walks oflife who've achieved amazing
things.
Whether you're looking tosupercharge your career, build
(00:48):
financial independence, nurturemeaningful relationships or
enhance your overall well-being,the Starter Girlz podcast is
here to guide you.
Join us as we explore thejourneys of those who dare to
dream big and achieve greatness.
I'm your host, jenniferLoehding, and welcome to this
episode.
Welcome to another episode ofthe Starter Girlz podcast.
(01:11):
I'm your host, jenniferLoehding, and wherever you are
tuning in today, we are sothrilled to have you, so I want
to open up with this.
Today.
Every journey has its twistsand turns, moments of growth and
experiences that shape who weare.
Today, we're diving into ajourney that spans over three
decades, one that's been builton curiosity, innovation and
(01:33):
resilience.
A journey of a leader who'snavigated some of the biggest
names in tech, transitioned intoentrepreneurship and now
empowers others to scale theirbusinesses with fresh,
innovative solutions.
And so you guys are going toget to hear from him in just a
few minutes, but before we dothat.
We need to do that.
Shout out for our sponsor.
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(02:38):
There you can pick up on anyepisodes that you have missed.
You can sign up for ourcommunity news, and we have a
new thing on there.
Now we have a fun quiz that youhave missed.
You can sign up for ourcommunity news, and we have a
new thing on there.
Now we have a fun quiz that youcan take if you're a business
owner and you want to find outwhat your number one
subconscious block.
I say success block because Ihate subconscious success block
that may be keeping you stuckright now.
You can take the two-minutequiz and it will give you some
(02:58):
insight into that.
So be sure you head on over tostartergirlscom and take care of
business over there.
All right, we want to welcomeour guest on today.
So my guest today is DavidHirschfeld.
With over 35 years ofexperience in software
development, david's journey hastaken him from roles at top
tech companies like Intel andMotorola to launching a
(03:19):
successful startup that spanned22 countries.
Now, as the founder of TekyzInc, he helps startups
accelerate their growth withAI-driven solutions and the
launch-first method.
So, david, we want to welcomeyou to the show today.
So excited to have you here.
David Hirschfeld (03:35):
Thanks, jennifer, I'm really excited to
be here.
Jennifer Loehding (03:37):
This is going to be fun.
And you know why this is goingto be so much fun?
Because I hardly ever get techpeople on here, because I know
very little about tech, so thisis probably going to be just as
enlightening for me today as itis for my audience.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
So we're glad to have you Okay.
Jennifer Loehding (03:55):
So I want to open this up.
I want to talk a little bitabout we're going to get to your
journey in just a minute, but Iwant to talk a little bit about
your company, so you can tellus a little bit about what
Techies is and what you're doingwith your clients and give us
some insight on that.
David Hirschfeld (04:07):
Sure.
So I founded Techies 18 yearsago with the idea that we were
going to do custom softwaredevelopment, and I can give you
the genesis of that maybe alittle bit later, but we've been
developing software forstartups and scale-ups and
mid-sized companies for the last18 years.
I worked with over 90 startupsduring that period of time, a
(04:33):
few of them very successful, butthe vast majority failed.
They all failed for the samereason they lacked product
market fit, because they waitway too long to validate product
market fit through sales.
So I developed a methodologycalled Launch First to help
founders go from concept to cashflow in just a few months as a
way of proving product marketfit through pre-launch sales and
(04:57):
make it very quick and easy topivot if they're not able to do
it, but really nail down whothat early adopter is, and this
reduces the risk dramaticallyfor startups and also helps them
fund their development throughpre-launch sales instead of from
investors.
Jennifer Loehding (05:13):
Okay.
So let me make sure Iunderstand this, because I told
you I'm not savvy in all thisparts of the things.
So you're helping them withthese pre-launch sales so they
can make sure that the productis fitting for the market and
then they can pivot if it isn't.
Is that correct?
Yeah, that's correct, okay, Ijust want to make sure I
understood what you were saying.
No, and I like it because toback that up and talk to, I
guess, basically to prove yourpoint.
So I worked I would say Iworked with a mentor.
(05:35):
I've worked with a lot ofmentors, but I had a really
awesome mentor that I workedwith for two years that had gone
from building a brick andmortar business to moving into
the on, you know, the onlinespace and he was trying to teach
us how to do that, because thiswas during COVID and he went
through this whole thing.
On that whole maybe not thepre-sell, but that whole product
(05:55):
mark out, you know finding your, who your market is and making
sure you're targeting that group.
And you know cause we, asbusiness owners, when you say
fail.
I'm sitting here thinkingbecause a lot of times you know
because we, as business owners,when you say fail, I'm sitting
here thinking because a lot oftimes you know you're talking
about credit market, but also wewant to sell to everybody like
right, we want to have everyclient and sometimes that's not
an ideal situation.
David Hirschfeld (06:13):
Yeah, actually it's rarely an ideal situation,
because the broader your market, the lower you have to make
your price and the lower yourclosing ratio is for sales.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Oh, my God.
David Hirschfeld (06:25):
And the opposite is also true.
The tighter you can get yourniche, then the cleaner that you
can make your messaging to whoyou're selling to, the more you
can charge and the higher yourclosing ratio for your sales.
So when you're starting out,that's what you need.
You need to know a veryspecific niche that you're
selling to.
(06:45):
They need to be an earlyadopter and you need to be able
to charge them a valueproposition that's fitting for
an early adopter, which is a lotmore than if you're selling to
a broad market.
Yeah, and so that's what we do.
The first thing we do in LaunchFirst is really nail down who
(07:05):
that early adopter niche is, andthen we put together a
marketing and sales strategy todo pre-launch sales.
We create a high fidelityprototype which is a design
prototype.
It's not real software.
Think you've already built it,even though you're telling them
it's a design prototype and thefirst version won't have all
(07:28):
these features and it won't beavailable for a few months.
They don't hear that becausewhat they're looking at is so
realistic.
And then you offer them somehigh value proposition that they
don't want to miss out on earlyon and they'll buy in enough
numbers if you've targeted theright customer with the right
messaging.
Jennifer Loehding (07:42):
That's good, and I have two things to say
that, and then you're going tolaugh at one of these.
Okay, so Rover or not?
Rover, roomba, roomba, thevacuum.
Okay, they have the new mod,this new big model that came out
.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
It's like just launched out, like recently that
has like the mop and the broom.
Jennifer Loehding (07:58):
I mean they had smaller, but this is like
you know, it's like a 1400.
So they're very clever.
What do they do?
They send out the campaign Likeyou can't even really see the
model yet.
They're just like something'scoming Right.
And then they send out thispromo for us, because I buy
Roombas, that we get it for 50%off.
With this like video.
You can't even find all thelike features.
In the beginning you don't evenknow, because they got me all
hyped up looking at this stupidRoomba thing.
(08:21):
I bought the Roomba, by the way, because I got it for 50% off.
They know who their people are,right.
So, to your point, yes, I cansee how that is all, how that
all works in the flow.
But I was going to say somethingelse to you.
Oh, something else youmentioned that really stuck with
me that when you tighten it up,the price is different than
when you have it broader.
Right, because this is nodifferent in what you're talking
about.
Also in the creator space, inour space, because I go around
(08:44):
and around with clients on thisthing.
They want to sell cheapproducts.
Well then, if you're going todo that, you're going to be
selling to a lot of people,right?
You're going to have a lowerprice product going to a lot of
people.
If you're trying to get a coregroup of people, then yes,
elevating your price is the wayto do this.
And the reason I'm bringingthis up is because when I had
initially built out this program, I built out a high ticket and
(09:06):
then I had two different takeson that.
I had one.
Obviously you got to tighten itup, get that tight market, and
then another person saying no,you need to put that to side and
do this lower budget, you knowprogram so that you can get the
masses.
Well, I didn't really want themasses, david, I want the tight,
the certain people that wantthat product Right.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
So I thought I had to go in the middle.
I had to figure out the middleof this thing, because I was
like those are the people that Iwant, but how do I get those
people from here to there?
You know what I mean.
So what you're saying all pointon, and I think that it spans
across many business sectors.
It's not just the tech space,it's also in our creative space
as creators.
So thank you for saying that.
David Hirschfeld (09:48):
Yeah.
So if you want to do something,if you think about it from a
mass market perspective, youthink of Kickstarter and people
like that.
Right, because you're selling aproduct to a very broad market
and you're trying to get a bunchof people to fund your product
by doing pre-launch sales.
If you're thinking of B2Bsoftware in the same kind of
vein, then you're thinking ofsomething like AppSumo, if
(10:08):
you're familiar with that, wherethey're selling usually
lifetime licenses for some kindof new cool marketing app
component, but they're goingafter very broad market people
that are AppSumo followers.
But if you're looking at highvalue B2B, then that's so we're
so it's.
There's lots of proof that thisworks.
(10:28):
This pre-launch sale thingworks, or the mass market kind
of help fund your productthrough this the, the sale of
your product instead of frominvestors works, but we're.
If you're going after a highvalue ticket, a high value item
and a high ticket customer, thenyou just have to target it
properly and there's a way to dothat and you can do it.
(10:50):
And the problem is moststartups don't do that.
What they do is they figure outthat this is what they're
building.
They fall in love with theirproduct, they build the MVP.
They create a pitch deck andthey go out and they try to
raise money and then they findout nobody will give them money.
And so then they try to sellthe product and they find out
nobody wants to buy it becausethey're not sure who the early
adopter is.
And they haven't done all thereally hard work up front, which
(11:12):
is that niche analysis pieceand then nailing down that high
value proposition.
Jennifer Loehding (11:17):
Yeah, I had a guy on here I actually just
released this podcast today DrGerard Ibarra.
He just launched a like a it'scalled Keep it Saved, which is
an app and it basically storesdocuments is what it does it
puts everything in a place foryou.
And he was talking about youknow the funding and putting all
this together.
But one of the things he talkedabout he was talking about how
(11:38):
I think he said like so manyhours it was a lot, I can't
remember the number, but puttingin so many hours of just doing
your research and finding outwho you're, you're, you know
doing who your clients are andstuff, because you're right, so
many people they get and I I seeit too with the clients I work.
They'll come to me and they gota good idea and I'm like I'm
not even sure what you'reselling.
Who's your audience?
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Who are we targeting?
Like, we need to figure thatout because I can't help you,
even get you know I'm not doingexactly what you're doing, but I
can't even help you.
Jennifer Loehding (12:03):
Come up with a title name for this business.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
We don't even know what we got and who we're
targeting, you know.
Jennifer Loehding (12:07):
So what you're saying is all point on,
you know.
I don't know exactly what yourmethod is, but what you're
saying is is is yeah, and thenyou want to step back even one
more step.
David Hirschfeld (12:17):
What problem are you solving?
Jennifer Loehding (12:19):
Exactly, you know, because they don't.
David Hirschfeld (12:21):
And it's funny when I'll ask founders, what's
the problem?
Statement here that you're sayoh, and then they say, well, it
does it, it does this, this ishow you do that.
And they say, well, that's afeature you know that's great.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
I liked it.
There's a feature, but what'sthe problem?
Jennifer Loehding (13:02):
no-transcript , like what is my actual
mechanism?
But what and what problem isthis unique mechanism addressing
?
So I had to go back and likeiron all and it was so hard I
had to like sit down.
David Hirschfeld (13:16):
It is hard hard.
Jennifer Loehding (13:19):
I had to like sit down.
It is hard, yeah, and I use Iactually.
You know what I did.
You're going to probably lovethis.
What I did is I went into chat,gpt, and I started typing in
this is what I'm trying, this iswhat I'm doing.
This is what I'm doing who, whoam I?
What am I trying to solve here?
And then it started spittingout ideas, which actually helped
me kind of figure all of thatout.
But it was not an overnightthing, I'm not.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
I'm telling you, it took me a little while to kind
of navigate through.
And then when I got it, I waslike, oh my goodness, like what
have I been doing?
Because if I'd have had this along time ago things would have
been a lot simpler.
David Hirschfeld (13:49):
Yeah, a lot simpler.
You might like this and you mayhave heard this.
Have you ever heard of the fivewhys or the three whys?
It depends on who you talk to.
Jennifer Loehding (13:56):
I don't know if I've heard it quite that way,
but yeah, tell us.
David Hirschfeld (13:59):
If somebody finally does say, well, it
solves this problem.
This is a problem that thisperson has and it's usually
something generic, like peopledon't have the information they
need to make good decisions, Isay, okay, fine, why does that
matter?
Right?
Speaker 3 (14:20):
And then you ask why?
David Hirschfeld (14:21):
because that's a high-level problem statement
and you can't sell anythingbased on a high-level problem
statement.
You have to get to a root-levelproblem statement.
It usually means standing inthe shoes of a particular
stakeholder in a particularniche and talking about why that
problem is a threat to theirexistence, both financially and
(14:41):
from a perception perspective,and those are two independent
things we measure.
So how much does this personperceive that problem statement
impacts them and why, and howmuch is it actually costing them
?
And we measure those separatelyand you know you're at a root
level problem statement.
When the problem statementbegins with I hate that or I'm
(15:03):
afraid of that or that's goingto ruin me, because if I don't
solve this problem, then thisoutcome is going to happen,
which is bad, yeah, that's aroot level.
Anything short of that is not aroot level problem statement no
, it's great you're saying that.
Jennifer Loehding (15:20):
It's great that you're saying that because
I just in the work that I, thething that I built out, the
course I built out, I talk a lotabout root level problems in,
but in a different space.
And it's funny because it saidyou know, you hit a root level
problem in this particular spacewhen it starts crossing over
into different boundaries andaffecting things, and so it's a
different scenario.
But I understand what you'resaying when you say root level,
(15:42):
because a lot of people whenthey're looking at like, in this
particular case, this courseI'm building is talking about
finances and not putting yourenergy in the right places Right
, and a lot of times it'sbecause people are looking at
surface level things and notgetting to the root problem of
why they're doing what they'redoing or not doing, what they're
not making the phone call ornot doing the follow-up or
whatever that is.
(16:03):
So it's completely different,but I get what you're saying is
what I'm saying about it beingyou know, it has to be a real
problem or real tangible.
You can't just say somethinglike you know, like you're gonna
have better personal growth.
Nobody really knows what thatis on the surface level, but if
you start talking about itaffecting their cashflow, you
know things that are real andyou're going to have better
personal growth as a benefit,not a problem.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Yes, Right.
Jennifer Loehding (16:27):
But if you just say that they're like okay,
great, I'm going to havepersonal benefit.
You know like I had to get downto like what are we talking
about?
Your finances, things that arereally impacting business owners
.
You know that in their shoes,like their time management, we
all want more money and we wantto work less, right?
We want to talk.
David Hirschfeld (16:43):
So then you're getting to the problem I don't
have enough money or I'm workingtoo much, which are two
different problem statements,right, and so why does that
matter?
It's still that's like, yeah,so does everybody, cause you can
have um, and the reason it hasto have that high impact where
you feel threatened by itbecause I may have a problem
that costs a lot, yeah, Right,but I work in a company where we
(17:04):
have these other initiativesand I'm never going to get buy
in, so it doesn't.
Doesn't threaten me the factthat it costs a lot, because,
you know, or everybody in myindustry struggles with the same
problem I struggle with.
So it's you know.
So what, right?
So that you're not going tosell that person very easily.
(17:24):
You're not going to get theirattention because they don't
feel personally threatened bythat problem, whereas you might
have somebody that hates aproblem and feels threatened by
it, but then doesn't actuallycost them very much, and so you
can't charge a lot for it.
So you got to measure those twothings independently and find
the one that has both hot.
Both of them are high yeah.
Jennifer Loehding (17:39):
And that's good.
Thanks for sharing all of that.
I love it.
And I think it's important.
I think this is a is a struggle, especially for people.
I think that you're in mysector, kind of the creative
space, because and I guess maybeit does mean cause I network a
lot and talk to get people toshow up and buy.
And they're always trying tolearn little hacks.
(18:02):
And I've had so many people onhere that have come back and
we've talked about things likethis, about your niche and about
I had a guy on here named JamesBond that he competed in the
you remember the egg commercialwhere they did this is your
brain, this is your brain ondrugs, and it was the egg that
would go in the frying pan.
He actually competed with that.
Whoever that group was orindividual was that did that,
(18:29):
and so he talks a lot about youknow how do you target that
right audience, but also makingthose things stick like catchy
phrases and things like that,and so there's a lot to this.
I feel like you know, but Ithink like you said it's the
biggest thing is getting thatproduct to market and not get
hung up on your ideas, like yougot to get off being hung up on
your ideas you know, and that'sa fatal flaw that founders have,
and it's just sort of an.
David Hirschfeld (18:52):
it's very hard to break yourself from this.
So founders who serialentrepreneurs who are successful
multiple times, usually arefounders who have a natural love
for the problems and want tospend all their time talking
with customers.
Those are the but founders whocommonly fail are ones that love
(19:12):
their product and believe intheir vision and never, step
back far enough to recognizethat their pro, the product
they're building and the visionthey have are all built on
assumptions and they're notthinking about the.
You know they may have beenoriginally solving a problem and
they came up with a great ideaand they forgot all about the
problem.
Jennifer Loehding (19:30):
Yeah, and they got all focused on
delivering this idea networkingand you get into a space where
somebody just comes in and theythey get in.
All they do is start vomitingtheir stuff on you, right, and
they don't even know what yourproblem is.
They don't even know what theyhave meets your problem, cause
they never asked the question.
That's what I'm like.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
That's what I'm feeling like when you're saying
this to me and people do it.
I'm sure yeah.
David Hirschfeld (19:54):
Yeah, and founders can learn to love the
problem when they realize theimportance of it.
Yeah, and you know that you'restruggling with loving the
problem versus loving theproduct when every time you
start talking about the problemand you talk with a potential
customer about it, you startgoing into features.
You start talking about yourfeatures, and wouldn't this be
(20:16):
helpful?
As soon as you do that, you'velost the whole focus of the
problem.
So really smart are foundersthat have a really good instinct
for this or have taughtthemselves to do this never talk
about their product or features.
They only talk to the like.
When they're doing theirresearch and trying to
understand the customer, theyjust spend all the time talking
about the problem and that andhow, that person.
(20:38):
How have you solved thisproblem in the past?
Have you tried tools to solvethis problem?
How did that work out?
What did work?
Or you know how much does thisproblem cost you?
How long have you been livingwith this problem?
What other problems are likethis that you're struggling with
?
You know that's a founderthat's going to figure out how
to solve the problem becausethey'll understand it so well.
(21:00):
And you talk to lots ofpotential clients that have that
, that have a similar kind ofproblem or in a similar position
, and you start to triangulateand really understand what the
market needs, not just what eachcustomer needs, but what the
market really needs.
Then the solution is just thenatural mitigation of the
problem, not the thing to be inlove with, right right, it's
making me think of the book, notthe thing to be in love with,
right right.
Jennifer Loehding (21:20):
It's making me think of the book Spend
Selling.
Have you read that one, spendSelling?
David Hirschfeld (21:25):
I've heard of that.
I've not read that.
Jennifer Loehding (21:27):
It's an old book but interestingly enough,
because you're kind of gettinginto the people side of things
right, like where we're gettingto get to figure out what that
problem is that the client has.
You're not going to know thatunless you ask good questions.
But in that book they talkabout how to.
You've kind of said this inseveral conversations about
finding the pain points rightand addressing those.
It talks about that, like whenyou're selling like higher
ticket items or bigger things,you know, and how do you?
(21:51):
You've got to figure out, likeyou're asked the question to
find out where the problem iswith the client and then, okay,
what is that costing you tocontinue doing it that way, you
know?
David Hirschfeld (22:06):
so sort of getting into the shoes of the
other person without reallydoing the product so much until
you have to do that right, andwhat's the political will for
addressing that problem and whatis their budget money that
people will use to spend?
It depends on who you'remarketing, right, if it's a
owner of a company versussomebody inside of a larger
company.
There's a book that talks justabout this issue, called the Mom
Test.
(22:26):
It's my favorite business bookbecause it really gets you into
the mom test.
Jennifer Loehding (22:34):
I like it.
David Hirschfeld (22:36):
Yeah, and the reason it's called that is
because if you come up with abusiness idea and you ask your
mom what she thinks about it andthis assumes you have a good
relationship with your mom,right?
You ask her what she thinksabout your business idea, she's
going to say oh honey, I knowyou're going to be successful,
you're so smart, it's abrilliant idea, right?
You're not going to get ananswer of any kind of value from
(22:56):
her.
That that's truthful, right?
So the question is how do youask questions about this
business you want to pursue fromyour mom and get valuable,
honest responses?
That's why it's called the momtest and it's so well done.
This book is so well done.
It talks about all these things.
Jennifer Loehding (23:13):
I like the title.
I think the title is good whenyou say mom, test.
you're like what's that?
You know the person that didthat was clever on that.
It's important.
So no, this is all good.
So I want to back this upbecause you've been in this
space for a really long time.
So I want to talk a little bitabout your journey and kind of
what led to the formation I knowyou mentioned in the beginning
(23:37):
space for a while and you'veworked for some well-known
companies and then kind of movedinto that entrepreneurship
space.
So kind of talk to us give us alittle bit about that.
David Hirschfeld (23:46):
Yeah, so I started out in the late 80s.
It's been quite a long timeworking for computer associates
and then Texas Instruments, andthen I became an independent
consultant and I ran as aproject manager for Allied
Signal, arizona Public Service,intel, motorola, and then
(24:06):
founded my first softwarecompany in logistics route
distribution inventorymanagement A very niche kind of
product, I thought it would.
Windows 3.1 had just come outand that was the first version
of Windows.
For anybody who remembers thisor knows this, that was usable,
right, and that started to makeWindows take off, and so we made
(24:27):
a Windows product for smallbusinesses to handle logistics
throughout distributioninventory management.
And it took off, surprisinglytook off, and so my partner and
I ended up growing this over thenext eight years to 800
customers in 22 countries andsold it to a publicly traded
(24:50):
firm and I ended up VP ofproducts for that company that
acquired us for the next severalyears.
So I thought, okay, I know whatI'm doing with Stardust right.
Then I cast out again andstarted another software company
in 2005.
And this one was a tradingnetwork for wholesale auto
(25:10):
dealers, which could have beenvery successful, but I didn't
follow the same playbook as myfirst company and it failed.
I tried to basically getcritical mass, build up this
network, then raise money frominvestors, and I did get offered
money from an investor veryearly in that process.
I was looking for $1.2 millionand I got that, but they wanted
(25:33):
what I thought was way too muchequity.
I never got another offer ofinvestment ran out of the money
that I was willing to invest inthis business, and so now I've
had a success, I've had afailure.
I wasn't sure why this onefailed versus the other one that
succeeded, and so I thoughtwell, what I know how to do is
build software, so I startedTechies and out of the ashes of
(25:57):
that and then, because I knewhow to build software and market
it to startups and existingcompanies that needed workflow
automation.
We've been doing that eversince, and now I'm starting to
come out with some SaaS productsthis year.
So I'm back.
I'll be back in out with someSaaS products this year.
So I'm back.
I'll be back in the softwarebusiness from my own sense as a
(26:18):
still be doing the developingsoftware for other people as
well.
But you know, we basicallybuilding products because we had
our own need internally forsome products and so we decided
let's build these and automatethis part of our own business,
and we can turn this intosomething that can be a SaaS
product, which usually makes thebest SaaS products.
Jennifer Loehding (26:38):
Yeah, yeah, well, and you lean back into
your strengths too, which Ithink it happens, I think, so
often.
We get sort of like we're like,oh, I'm going to try something
different, or I'm bored, I'mgoing to do something different.
Then we realize we sort ofmigrate back into where our
skillset is, right, you know,and we thrive because that's
where we're naturally talented.
I mean, even I feel like in myjourney, you know, I've, I've, I
was 22 years in Mary Kay, so Iwas kind of in a space where I
(27:00):
was doing presentations andbuilding teams and leadership,
and I've always mine.
I always tell me like I'm kindof the forward facing person,
I'm the salesperson, I can bethe person up in the front.
They can get people to dothings, have those conversations
, find out what people need toknow.
You put me in the back endwhere I have to do like in.
You know, engineering.
Oddly enough, I was, I'mmarried to, a chemical engineer,
which is kind of funny becausehe's that the back person the
(27:23):
quiet doesn't talk.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
You know, I'm the forward.
I tell him you don't sell.
I'm not doing that because Ican't do it, you know.
So I think yeah.
David Hirschfeld (27:29):
Opposites attract.
Right yeah, Opposites attract.
Jennifer Loehding (27:33):
I guess, I think we just sort of kind of
lean into our talents.
And, you know, every time Ithink maybe I should do
something, you know, maybe Ishould do this, I'm like no, I
know what's going to happen if Itry to do that.
We need to stay where we'regifted at, you know.
So I love it.
David Hirschfeld (27:54):
I think and you know clearly you guys are
doing something well if you'vebeen in this space, at least
with TechEase, for this long andit's still thriving.
Yeah, Thank you, I appreciatethat.
And then Launch First just cameout of the watching so many
companies fail and then havingthis epiphany why my company
failed versus the one that I wassuccessful with.
And then I just started to putthe methodology together.
Jennifer Loehding (28:11):
Yeah, yeah, it's good, I just started to put
the methodology together.
Yeah, yeah, that's good.
I'd love to know, becausesomebody listening to this and
these are my fun questions,where I really like to get into
the heads of people Somebodylistening to this is going to go
okay, this guy, he's beensuccessful.
He was successful all the wayup.
Clearly, nothing's everhappened.
But this company let's talkabout TechEase.
What were maybe some of thechallenges in the beginning that
(28:31):
you had, if you can rememberthem, as an entrepreneur trying
to get this thing up and running?
David Hirschfeld (28:46):
Well, the challenges were how to build
know people needed softwaredevelopment and if you have 20
plus years experience then yousound like you know what you're
doing when you talk to people,so you know that was much easier
Then.
What was really hard waslearning how to build a really
(29:07):
top team in a contracting rolewith other companies, and it
took us years it took me yearsto figure out some of the
formula for that and then toreally build all the procedures
and protocols and systemsinternally so that our team just
continues to get better andbetter and grow.
So if you go to the techiescomspelled T-E-K-Y-Z for anybody
(29:31):
looking for it you'll see at thevery top of the page of the
homepage it says hyperexceptional software development
team.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
And.
David Hirschfeld (29:41):
I don't expect anybody to believe me when yes,
because I say it and it says itat the top of my webpage but if
you run in an exceptionalmanner, you produce certain
artifacts that typical teamsdon't produce in terms of the
level of detail, the amount oftracking, the transparency, the
(30:05):
accuracy in terms of estimatesand the level, things like that.
And I have lots of evidence toshow people, because I don't
expect anybody to say believe mejust because I say something.
That's sort of like somebodysays trust me.
That's code for don't you can'ttrust me, right?
So, anyway, it took me years tofigure that out and then many
(30:28):
years of hiring the right people.
So one of my philosophies abouthiring is I can only hire
somebody if I believe they'resmarter than I am.
And then the ball.
So the balls rolls up.
The ball rolls uphill in mycompany and my job as well as,
like my director of operationsjob.
Our jobs are to sweep out allthe things out of the way of our
(30:50):
team so that they can producebetter value, and more value
because they're smarter than weare in the thing that they're
trying to do and deliver and asopposed to us having to drive
them and manage them tightlyright.
So to the degree that we needto do any kind of management, we
try to build automation andscaffolding in our systems so
that the management happens as anatural course of just doing
(31:12):
their work and in terms of liketime tracking, accountability,
things like that, and that'swhat we spend our energy doing
just continuing to improve oursystems.
Now, ai is a huge part of that.
So we just took our estimationmethodology, which took us years
to develop, and we're veryaccurate in our estimates.
(31:32):
We like to be within 10% of theestimate for an entire project
and we're really good atestimating where we're usually
within 10% of that estimate.
Most teams are good.
Teams are within 30%, but anaverage software development
shop would be 2x or 3x of whatthey estimate and that's very
(31:54):
common and we're not.
That doesn't hold water with us, but it's really hard to get
there and it's a lot of effortand time to build these
estimates with that much detailin a brand new project.
So we built an AI model for ourestimation tool.
We just released the firstversion internally.
So now we have an AI tool that'sbuilding out our estimates for
(32:16):
us, with us supervising makingsure it's doing a really good
job with that and that will keepgetting better and better and
eventually that's going to go tomarket as a SaaS product.
That's one of them and we'llbasically make it available to
other shops and in the processof doing that, we're going to do
launch first.
So right now we built it aroundGoogle Sheets.
(32:40):
That's our user interface,because that's how we've been
doing our estimates for years.
We use Google Sheets as ourtool for publishing the
estimates.
So this first version is aroundGoogle Sheets.
Then we'll go out and do apre-launch sale.
We designed the SaaS front endas a really nice user experience
for people once we do build thesoftware.
(33:01):
But we're not going to buildthat until we can see that we've
got product market fit and thatwe're selling the product to
other software development shopsin decent numbers and then
we'll build that front end.
So we're, you know, followingour, you know, basically eating
our own cooking.
Yeah, in a sense right.
Jennifer Loehding (33:19):
No, it's good .
It's good Something I wanted to.
You said a lot of really goodthings there, but I do want to
point out you know that youmentioned about hiring people
that are smarter than you,because I think those are real.
I think that's a greatcharacteristic of leadership,
because I think a lot of times,you know, leaders get into
positions where they want to,and I say this sincerely because
(33:40):
I probably did a lot of this inthe beginning when I was
building teams, and it was adifferent product, but we were
still building teams and tryingto get things out there.
And so, you know, oftentimes Ifeel like leaders get threatened
to hire people that are smarterthan them because they want to
manage, they want to and tryingto get things out there, and so
oftentimes I feel like leadersget threatened to hire people
that are smarter than thembecause they want to manage,
they want to be in thatmicromanaging role and keep
people under control, and reallythat's not what we want.
We want to let people shine,and when you hire people that
(34:03):
are greater than you, you'regoing to have more potential for
growth, because you're bringingin different dynamics,
different conversations.
You're just adding to the pool.
Of greatness is the way I seeit, so it's really a dumb thing
if you're not doing that.
David Hirschfeld (34:19):
So smart on you for recognizing that.
Oh, thank you.
And it takes a little while tobuild that culture right, when
everybody recognizes that theydon't want to bring other people
in that aren't really smart andexperienced.
Experience and smart are twodifferent things, right.
I mean, we want both.
We don't hire people if theydon't have a lot of experience,
(34:41):
because it's too hard when theyhaven't worked in teams and
worked in large projects andmultiple of them.
They don't have enoughexperience to bring in to solve
problems in the right way, inthe best way.
Right.
But so we have to have both.
But once they get the hang ofit and they realize the value of
this, they become ruthless toprotect their team, because you
want that right.
(35:02):
So if we accidentally hiresomebody by mistake that isn't
as smart as we thought they were, or they somehow got around our
recruiting process which almostnever happens, but it used to
happen occasionally and we wouldlet them go right away and not
try to keep them and bring themalong, because you can't fix IQ,
(35:23):
you can fix other things.
Even integrity is something youcan work on.
If somebody's not a compulsiveliar, right, you can even work
on integrity when they realizethere's something really worth
investing in in terms of peopleand trust and all that.
You can work on that to somedegree.
You can't work.
You can work on work ethic.
Even you cannot work on IQ.
(35:45):
That's just something you'reborn with.
So if you've hired somebody andjust not smart enough or somehow
they lied on the interviewprocess and you've found out
that we let them go immediatelybecause we're not helping them
in their career, if we carrythem for six months only to let
them go, then and it took awhile for my team to realize
(36:06):
that this is important becauseyou want to send the message to
your team that you care aboutthem enough to not pollute the
team with people that aren't agood fit for the team.
So it's our mistake.
Jennifer Loehding (36:18):
Yeah, I know, and I'm thinking about a lot of
things because we hear we talkabout culture a lot, right, like
culture and companies and stuff.
And there's a I don't know ifyou've read the book the Five
Dysfunctions of a Team.
It's like a really good book.
There's a I don't know what thetype of company that they were
all working for, but they weretalking about the different
players in there.
And there's like one player inthere, this particular one.
She was a high performanceplayer but she was kind of a
(36:41):
cancer within the group, likeshe just was not a team player,
not, you know, very individuallone wolf kind of thing, and I
don't remember all the specificsof it, but it's a really good
book to speak to that about howyou want to create that dynamic
that you want with your team,right, like what you're looking
for in a group, and part of myprogram that I built out I talk
(37:03):
a lot about that because ofcoming from Mary Kay.
Mary Kay is big on culture anda lot of those people stay in
there Go back to what you saidin the very beginning about the
money.
might not be making a lot, butthe culture is right or whatever
(37:25):
.
There were a lot of people inthere that were probably not
making money group and they canproduce the work and do the
things they need to do and youknow cause when you don't.
Yeah, I know, and I speak tothat, not in that space but I
can speak when we've had bad.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
When I had bad people in my team, they were a cancer.
David Hirschfeld (37:43):
I mean they literally were like a cancer in
there because they bringeverybody down.
Jennifer Loehding (37:46):
Yeah, and you would have got this back and
forth and just so I might.
And it's funny because I evenyou know, when I do my work now,
like I feel like I have allthese processes for the types of
clients that I want, the typesof guests I want to bring on my
podcast, and I do.
I have all these little likeyou talk about.
They get through.
Like I had very few people theyget three of on my podcast that
(38:06):
I don't air out because I havesuch a.
I have a filtering processbecause I'm looking for things
I'm looking for, you know, likethat communication.
I'm looking for the thingsthey're saying to me, how
they're communicating, you know,and even like, when you guys
come in, I get a lot of theseagents that reach out to me to
get their people on here and Ireally want to talk to you guys.
Like I want people contactingme directly, because then I know
(38:29):
where they're at, I knowthey've researched, I know
they've looked at the stuff.
They're not just havingsomebody go out and filter for
them and find it, you know,because then I then I'm having
to go through and get them toanswer questions and they're not
, so I don't even know who I'mtalking to.
Sometimes you know what I mean.
So we all have to have processesfor how we want to build our
teams, because it reflects inour work and it goes back to
what you said a while ago whenthe team is right, the work
(38:51):
shows up good.
David Hirschfeld (38:53):
Yeah, exactly, and then and if the team is
right and the culture's there,they're going to prevent other
people from coming in thataren't good fits.
So you know, we always haveeverybody, everybody that's a
stakeholder in the, in theposition that's being hired for.
They get involved in theinterview process.
But we always start like I said, it's gotta be IQ for that
(39:17):
position.
And then there's apsychographic profile.
We wanna make sure it fits thejob, because that's a really
important thing that a friend ofmine who's in human capital
business taught me that if youknow, if you've got 20 different
people that have done a jobreally exceptionally well and
(39:38):
you know their psychographicprofile of the of those people,
then that's the first thing youshould hire for, because because
they'll naturally have theability to deliver, to perform
on that job Now and at the levelthat you want.
You still need the IQ right andthe experience, but yeah,
that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
That's really good information for anybody that's
out there right now talkingabout you know, building your
team and stuff.
I think that was great, sothank you for sharing all of
that good stuff.
Jennifer Loehding (40:08):
I don't have any build teams right now.
I did it for so long.
It's weird because I'm notreally doing that right now, but
I still.
You know, I have to collaboratewith people to do things that
you know jobs and stuff likethat and so I think all of these
are really good skills.
We've talked about, you know,team building and building your
culture and all of those things.
So all important good stuff.
So I want to ask you a coupleof questions, kind of from the
your perspective, and I I'mlooking on here cause I have
(40:30):
them down on my notes so I don'tforget what to tell you, but I
want to ask you personally, asan entrepreneur and as a as a
leader, what, what is one beliefthat you feel like has shaped
your success?
I'm sure there are many, butgive us maybe one that you feel
like has been the big thing.
David Hirschfeld (40:44):
Well, I think I've been sort of dribbling them
out throughout the interview,right?
So only hire people if they'resmarter than I am.
Basically create playbooks.
So as we start to get processes, we know that work.
Then we document thoseprocesses in terms of playbooks
(41:05):
and we have a whole library ofplaybooks.
That way we can bring newpeople in and they're not going
to suck the life out of theperson who has to mentor them,
because that's the only personwith the tribal knowledge, which
is a problem for companies thathave all of their expertise
stuck in tribal knowledge, right, because then it requires the
(41:28):
best people to have to stop whatthey're doing to train new
people coming on.
Yeah, there's always going tobe a little bit of that, but we
want as little as possible sothat new people coming in have
some place that they can referto and also that they can read
in advance to learn how to dothat job, because there's
playbooks that have beendocumented.
(41:48):
So that's important and thoseplaybooks become intellectual
property and increase the valueof your company.
The more you document thesethings, we automate everything
we can.
So, like I said, we'reautomating our estimation
process shop and we'reautomating our daily standup
(42:15):
meetings with an AI agent tohelp our everybody on our team
do that.
For anybody who's a softwaredeveloper, they'll know what
that means.
They won't know what having anAI agent do that means, but but
it's a big deal.
We're automating how weinteract with our project
management system.
We're like crazy about beingdetailed in project management
and tracking from build to buildand release to release, you
know, so that we can accuratelyestimate, estimate and always
(42:38):
give our clients, you know,up-to-date information about
anything.
But it requires a lot of tediumin terms of having to record
bugs and record feature requestsand then between each version
of our product, of a productthat we're delivering, the same
feature request or the same buggets reported multiple times,
(43:00):
not always the same way.
So you end up with all theseduplicates that somebody has to
go through at the end of everymajor release and try to clean
out all the pollution out of thetracking system.
And then if a customer asksabout when there was a bug that
was reported a couple of weeksago, do you know when that's
coming out, trying to figure outwhat release it's planned for
(43:21):
and which bug they're referringto because of how it was entered
.
Anyway.
So we're building an AI modelfor this.
That, basically, is going to beour voice interface of the
project management system.
So our clients can say I've gotto have an app and they just
tap on the microphone and say Ifound a bug on this screen and
maybe the AI will askclarification questions about
(43:43):
what screen and then it sayswhat's the bug and the person
will say what the bug is.
And then it can look and say Ifound two other bugs that look
similar to this one.
And then it reads them to them,or either of these similar, the
same bug or similar and theysay, yeah, the first one is
similar, so, okay, should Iupdate that with the differences
?
And then they say, yeah, pleasedo that.
(44:03):
And it updates the existing bug, doesn't create a new one.
And then it says that'sscheduled to be put into a build
604, which is coming out inthree weeks, and the person can
say, well, increase the priority, because I'd like that fixed
sooner.
And they say, okay, I'll moveit up to a new build.
Now development has been takenout of the conversation.
(44:27):
Development can use it for thesame thing, qa can use it in the
same way and the client has areal-time interface that gets
them the information that theyneed on a real-time basis about
the project.
Really way more satisfyingexperience to do this.
This is something that's indevelopment right now.
Jennifer Loehding (44:49):
Very good, very good Awesome.
David Hirschfeld (44:50):
Things like that.
So we're always trying to findbetter ways of making the
experience better for ourdevelopers, for our testers, for
our project managers, for ourclients.
Jennifer Loehding (45:00):
Very good, very good, all right, and what
is the?
We all have kind of our morningroutine.
I love this question.
So what is the one morningthing that you feel like you do
every day that kind of gets yourday going?
David Hirschfeld (45:14):
Well, that I should do every day.
I try to do it every day, andthat's my morning affirmations,
affirmations, not affirmations,affirmations, right?
So they're grouped into fivesections and each one has four
bullets in it, with the ideathat I say them out loud, I read
them out loud and I think abouteach one as I'm saying it, with
(45:37):
the idea that, you know,there's actually science around
this, about sort ofreprogramming your mind to
express yourself in a way thatmakes these affirmations
actually happen, whether it's onhealth or finance or
(45:57):
relationships or friendships orwhatever it is.
If you say them out loud everyday, you actually start to
create that, those realities inyour life.
Jennifer Loehding (46:05):
Yeah, no, I just did a.
I was on somebody's show acouple of weeks ago and I talked
a little bit about that.
You know, I said it's not thecure all for everything, but it
certainly isn't going to hurtyou and it does help.
And I was actually talkingabout how, when I first started
doing them because I was in kindof a bad place and so every day
I would get up and I had thesame affirmation I would just
write something amazing is goingto happen.
(46:27):
Today I did that every day forlike a year, every single day
for like a year, and I don't dothem as much now because I kind
of just do them in my head now.
So you know, I kind of I'm inthis space a lot, so I feel like
I'm doing these like all thetime with people, but there was
a time when I didn't.
I had to write it down everysingle day and read it out loud
until I could get that kind ofin my, in that, my mind, in that
(46:49):
space.
But there's a lot to that.
So I do, I tell people, youknow it's, it's, it's not going
to hurt you not to do it.
That's the thing, it's not goodon you.
David Hirschfeld (46:58):
And the voicing it out loud is really
important because it triggersyour brain in a different way
when you're saying it out loudas opposed to just reading it
quietly to yourself.
So it's a reprogramming process, yeah, and if you say that,
like what you said, you start torecognize the things that are
amazing, right, and then yourenergy goes into making those
(47:19):
things happen.
Even if nothing changes, you'llactually start creating amazing
things by just pulling out theamazing things every day and
then building on those, one ofthe coaching certifications I'm
program or certified in.
Jennifer Loehding (47:35):
She was talking all about that, how it's
scientific in the brain, likewhen you do this, because
naturally, when you put yourenergy into something that you
want, you're subconsciouslygoing to do things that draw you
in that path.
So if it's negative, you'regoing to go, you're going to do
things in that, and if it'spositive, it's going to go.
So I had to work really hard atthe positive, because I didn't
(48:00):
come from a space where I wasfeeling good about myself and
what was happening and all ofthese things, and so I had to
really shift some patterns andso that's why I did that.
And then now I'm at it.
It's funny because I don'treally have to gratitude journal
, do all that.
I was telling somebody on theshow right before this one today
that you know, most of days,even on a bad day, I can find
something to be grateful for.
I can find where there wassomething good that happened in
the day and I just I've trainedmyself to do that.
(48:22):
I call it now it's like anunconscious, competent thing,
kind of like driving your carbrushing your teeth.
I just naturally, if I'm notdoing that, david, I'm in a
really bad place.
David Hirschfeld (48:32):
You better run because I'm in a bad place if
I'm not, you know.
Well, it's amazing to me thatbecause you must have worked
really hard at this, because youseem like such a positive
person.
Jennifer Loehding (48:43):
Yeah, I did.
David Hirschfeld (48:44):
That's all right People.
Jennifer Loehding (48:46):
When I tell my story, people that know me
now, I always joke about that,because people that know me now
that don't know my story ordon't know me before this time
it's a very different dynamic ordon't know me before, this time
it's a very different dynamic?
It really is.
I have been in this.
I had a health crisis in 2012,that kind of started this, and
then it was in about 2017 or 18when I started going a lot into
(49:08):
this, and so I've been workingon it for a long time.
Speaker 3 (49:10):
And back it up that I was in Mary Kay for 22 years, I
told somebody one day, like Iwas in that company for 17 years
hearing affirmations and theywent in one ear and out the
other.
Jennifer Loehding (49:20):
It wasn't until like I had a real reason
that I needed to do that, that Iactually started doing it.
David Hirschfeld (49:27):
So you know when the Well, good for you, I'm
impressed.
Jennifer Loehding (49:31):
Thank you.
When the student's ready toreceive, the teacher arrives
right.
That's how it is.
David Hirschfeld (49:35):
Yeah, that's right, all right, one last thing
.
Jennifer Loehding (49:38):
I want to ask you what is the best piece of
advice you've ever received?
David Hirschfeld (49:43):
Okay, the best piece I've ever received.
I'm sure you got more than one,but Boy, nothing is coming to
mind, like I got into the whole.
All the things I've said arethings I've heard, so you pick.
I mean they're all really goodthings.
All the things I talked abouttoday, I don't think any of them
(50:06):
are original, except maybe theonly hire people that are
smarter than me that one I'veheard other people say it since,
but that one I just came upwith on my own.
But all the rest, like focusingon the problem and the customer
, these are things I've heardand recognized the truth in them
.
That's probably the mostimportant is focusing on, is
(50:29):
recognizing that you have to bein love with the problem.
Yeah, so for best advice.
And also the morning aphor, themorning affirmations.
That's really important If youwant to reprogram yourself into
a different direction.
Say them every day, and theyshould be grouped.
(50:50):
You have a group of them thatare health-related, a group of
them that are finance-related.
A group of them are healthrelated, a group of them that
are finance related, a group ofthem.
And they should be very general, high level things, not
specific, like not I'm going tomake an investment today or
something.
Well, unless you want, unlessyour thing is to make an
investment, new investment everysingle day.
Right, more like I'm just I'mgoing to.
(51:12):
My investments will continuallygrow.
You know that's a kind of aaffirmation right, finance?
You know being successfulfinancially is easy for me.
That's a good affirmation.
Yeah, and there should besomething altruistic about your
(51:34):
affirmations too.
Yeah, it shouldn't just be allabout you.
There should be some that arealtruistic in there, because
giving back to the world,there's something that creates
more value in people's liveswhen they give back.
Jennifer Loehding (51:49):
Yeah, I would agree with you on that too.
So it's huge.
I think that it's hard to findfulfillment when you haven't
figured that piece out, david,this has all been good.
So yeah, and I'm sure somebodylistening to this is going to
want to catch up with you orcheck out techies or you know.
So where do we want to sendthem so that they can find out
more about you and the company?
David Hirschfeld (52:17):
T-E-K-Y-Z and you can email me directly.
I don't put this link in theshow notes, but if somebody made
it to the end of the show thenit's simple.
David at tekyz.
com, I'd love to hear from youabout your ideas, or we can just
chat about startups in generalor about software or tech in
general, and I'm easy to find onLinkedIn.
Jennifer Loehding (52:34):
Very good, very good.
Yeah, we'll make sure we getthe website in the show notes.
We won't put the email in there.
They listen, they stick in hereand listen all the way through.
Then they know how to get you.
That's a special moment here.
You stuck it through the end,right?
Good stuff, David.
Well, we appreciate your timeand your knowledge and wisdom
and all the good stuff and andI'm glad we got to get you on
here and do all that have thisconversation.
David Hirschfeld (52:55):
Yeah, thanks, Jennifer.
I really appreciate theopportunity.
Jennifer Loehding (52:58):
Absolutely, of course, to our audience.
We appreciate you.
We hope that you found thisepisode both inspiring and
informative and, of course,reach out to David if you have
questions or need help with.
You know startup, the launchfirst method, any of those
things, and you know what to doon our end.
So you need to share, likecomment, do all the things so we
can keep sharing all thisamazing content and getting
these awesome people on the show.
(53:19):
And I'm going to leave you withthe final thought that I always
say in order to live theextraordinary, you must start,
and every start begins with adecision.
You guys, take care, be safe,be kind to one another and we
will see you next time.
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