Edu: Outsider Founders - Are You Part Of This Secret Club?

Chris: It's funny that it's taken us this long to make this episode right, Yaniv, because this speaks to the heart of the thesis statement of the show, right? How do we take all the insider information and make it available to the outsiders?

 Hey, I'm Chris.

Yaniv: I'm Yaniv.

Chris: And on today's episode, we're gonna talk about the outsider or non-traditional founder with the growth of the startup scene. More and more founders are coming in from all sorts of places with non-traditional backgrounds. And in this episode, we want to talk about what it means to be an outside founder.

Some of the unique challenges you'll face. As that outsider and how to maximize your chances of success because guess what? The startup game is not a fair or egalitarian game. It's rigged, and you may be at a serious disadvantage that you are not even aware of. So, Yaniv, this was your idea for an episode.

So what do you mean by an outside or non-traditional founder?

Yaniv: There's no hard or fast rule or no traditional line here, right? the best way of thinking about this is to contrast this with the traditional or insider founder? So an insider founder is someone who's come up through. An elite technical university.

Gone to work for a big tech company, then gone to work at a scale up. They've met a lot of people. They know the game inside and out. they understand what a startup is and they've got all of this social capital, all of this knowledge, all of this experience, all of this instant credibility that allows them to then go in there, do their startup raise relatively easily.

Raising is never super easy, but relatively easily, hire the right people and they're off to the races now.

Insider founder. That used to be most founders, right, Chris. But now, as you said, there are more and more outsider founders, and these are people who maybe come from a less technical background.

They may not have gone through university, or if they did, they might come from a completely different background. They're not well networked in the startup scene. People don't know who they are. they don't know. Who the right people are in the network. they see this highly interconnected system, this ecosystem, as we've talked about before.

And they're not in that ecosystem yet. they don't necessarily understand the rules of the game that well. And a lot of those rules are unwritten, which is. One of the reasons we have the startup podcast, right, is to get these unwritten rules out there and to actually make them explicit. this person hasn't worked in or around startups before.

They might have a lot of misconceptions, or it's simply ignorance about what a startup really is and how the economics work, how investors think, all of that sort of thing. They may well have little personal runway. Of course, that's true for. Insider founders at times as well. But what I mean is they may not have a lot of money that will allow them to kind of bootstrap their way to success.

They might be really cash strapped and potentially, although I don't think this is necessary to be an outsider founder, you may come from an underrepresented minority, or rather an underrepresented group. You might not be a minority in broader society. I'm thinking of women here. They're certainly a minority, underrepresented, within the startup community and all of these things just make the road a bit bumpier.

Chris: I think a metaphor that does apply here is the startup community, especially in Silicon Valley and, surrounding tech hubs, can be a little bit like high school. I. There are cliques, there are circles, there are, certain kinds of cool behaviors, cool people, cool networks, cool co-curriculars.

And there are certain circles that are a little further afield or less access to the capital and to the, tailwinds. that can manifest in all sorts of ways, including your network and, who, you know, and, how much access you have to them.

But it can also manifest in more subtle ways, like the vocabulary that you use, the style of conversation you have, and even silly things like your accent. Right. know coming from Australia and going to Silicon Valley, I was the guy with a funny accent in a lot of rooms.

Right. And I was also the guy with a lot of funny ideas. coming from Australia I was very interested in very egalitarian ideas and very platform centric thinking.

'Cause Australia's very much around partnerships and, egalitarianism and, I got a lot of. Weird looks that I didn't understand actually for many, many years. It took me a long time to figure out why I didn't seem to be speaking the same vocabulary and coming at things with the same pattern or perspective as the people around me.

These things can be really, really subtle, right? And. The final thing is you may grow up in a culture where, you know, we've talked about this in previous episodes, where there's kind of deference to authority or there are certain traditional business models and behaviors that seem to work for the people around you, but make absolutely no sense in a Silicon Valley style startup.

And so all of these things through subtle and not so subtle, Gestures, behaviors, talking styles, choices and so on can leave you at this weird disadvantage in the conversation. whether it's through partnerships or hiring or ultimately through raising capital.

Yaniv: Yeah, I mean, you mentioned high school, Chris, I think I'll raise you one as someone who has. Already watched the Barbie movie twice, not unwillingly. I think this is a lot like the patriarchy, right? And in fact, the patriarchy is an element here. Startups are still a male dominated scene, but we're not just talking about traditional social structural inequalities.

It's also about whether, to your point, Chris, you know, the norms of this community. the people in the community, and as with the patriarchy, or with high school, the point here isn't that it's fair. In fact, it's incredibly unfair. but what we hope to do with this show in general and with this episode in particular, is to point out the ways in which it's unfair and what you can do to counteract.

Some of that unfairness and maximize your chances of success, because, hopefully, things get better over time. And I think all of us, especially those of us who are insiders and Chris now, we are very much insiders no matter what we say about some of our background, right? it's our responsibility to help push things forward over time.

But these things do take time, unfortunately. a point, the Barbie movie made beautifully by the way, and in the meantime, the question is how do you. Get through the current situation as a founder and maximize your chances of success.

Chris: Wanna make this point really explicit, ? We are not apologizing for, justifying or encouraging the status quo in this episode. I can imagine the comments being like, well, it shouldn't work that way, or, that's not fair. Or you guys are just reinforcing the patriarchy or something that is decidedly not what we're doing. What we're doing is being sober and clear-eyed about the status quo and helping you to navigate it as it stands today and our purpose today is not to make any judgment or make any effort to change that, just to help you navigate it in the short term.

Yaniv: That's right. Okay, so, with that preamble outta the way, with our definition outta the way, what are some of the things you, as an outsider, founder, and ultimately, this is a self-identification. If you, feel like an outsider, that's good enough for us, What you should do to maximize your chances. Of success. the first of these , is understanding the rules of the game, learning the lingo, And again, we're talking about there is an ingroup ingroups have a lot of social signifiers, They have their ways of speaking about things.

They have the vocabulary they use, they have their shorthand, they have their shared definitions of things. All of this stuff, like when you talk about cap tables and pref shares, or if you talk about. Lean and agile, whatever it is, right? There's all of this jargon, all of this vocabulary. Learn that language, learn that way of thinking, because.

You want to become more like the ingroup, if you want to be welcomed by that ingroup. And again, it is a lot like high school, right? If you want to be one of the cool kids, then you have to learn to talk a bit more like the cool kids. And again, like with high school, you don't wanna try too hard, but you want to be an earnest student of all of this so that you understand how they think, how they talk, and what will make you.

Palatable. And, sorry, I'm going back to what Chris was saying. when I said making yourself palatable, I hesitate. Right? 'cause it's not about hiding who you are, but it's about making sure that you are not putting up cultural barriers, to being accepted by the startup community.

Chris: Yeah, think it's important to point you out here. This is not about innate. Things that are true about you, right? gender or ethnicity or culture. These are about. a thing that is extrinsic to you. These are about vocabulary, communication style jargon, right? These are things that are separate from personal identity that are true of the in-group.

And I just finished with my little disclaimer about not justifying the status quo, but at the same breath every. Industry, every, community has an in-group vocabulary, has an in-group style, has in-group values, and as much as you might wanna adjust or change or criticize those, you are not gonna eliminate the existence of those things.

You might change them, but the existence of those category of things, vocabulary, style, patterns, and so on, are not gonna go away. And so you need to understand. That vocabulary, that communication style, those patterns of thinking, to be able to negotiate or as you said, to be palatable to, or easily accepted by and run in the circles of this community.

Yaniv: Right, and especially if you're asking for something, I think where this becomes at its absolute pointiest is of course when you are raising capital, when you're raising capital from. Silicon Valley style, venture capitalists and seed investors, right? They're expecting the deck to look a certain way, Which, by the way, we've got a great three episode series on, how to, raise capital. so listen to that. They're expecting the deck not just to look a certain way, but to emphasize certain things. They have metrics that they enjoy, right? Like there are certain metrics that are very common in Silicon Valley.

We talk about, you know, Cac, L t v. You talk about recurring revenue, you talk about burn ratio, and there's even an element of currency, right? Burn ratio has become popular in the last year and a half, right? So again, there is an element of speaking their language and showing your currency as well, So, don't make things harder for yourself by using the wrong metrics, by structuring your deck incorrectly, by emphasizing business outcomes that are not the ones that investors are looking for. And that's also, you know, where the vocabulary bleeds into understanding the rules of the game, which is very much what this podcast is about.

Of course, understand when you're raising money, when you're working with others. Startups, when you're hiring people, what is the contract? The sort of social contract you're making with all of these different groups so that you can work together harmoniously to achieve the outcome that you have selected for your startup.

Chris: So the next key thing to do in this journey of, becoming more of an insider is get as much advice as you can, If you are not an insider, you need to lean on the advice, expertise and potentially the connections of an insider.

So, you've got here yanev giveaway equity for it. I would broaden that to say, make sure you get insiders invested in your success and help to coach you through the substance and the style, of what you're doing. .

Yaniv: I was thinking about this in the context of our episode just a couple of weeks ago about advisory boards, and one of the things we talked about at the end of that episode was about when do you choose an angel investor versus an advisory board? And we kind of touched on this concept of, are you an insider, kind of one of the elect type of startups That fits the pattern matching very easily. Then you can probably get great angel investors to invest in your startup and you get the advice for free along with the money. the reason I wrote giveaway equity for it here in our run sheet, Chris, is we're talking to people who most likely are not going to be able to tap the best people, the best advisors as angel investors, and therefore they need to be willing to.

Give away something. Not just take money for equity, but give away that equity for the advice or, even pay at times for the advice. We talked about fractional advisors, The advice is critical. It's critical for every startup, but it's doubly so for startups that have outsider founders, and of course, the compounding unfairness of this is those who least need the advice are.

Most able to access it, and those who most need the advice are least able to access it. So if you're an outsider founder and you're listening to this, you are part of the group who really needs to access this advice, and you should be willing. To take that unfairness, to take that hit saying, I'm going to dilute myself a bit to surround myself with fantastic advisors who are invested in what I'm doing and are going to make sure I stay on the right course.

Because every founder has a lot of things that they learn along the way. But again, doubly so for an outsider founder, you're going to be very easily blown off course if you do not get the advice that you need to understand where you should be going from people who've been there and done it before I.

Chris: Call this, avoiding landmines and dead ends, right? a lot of the startup founders who come to me have spent days, more likely weeks, months, and years, going down every cul-de-sac, every dead end, hitting, every landmine along the way. and have actually ended up spending quite a lot of money they didn't need to spend, because they went in the wrong direction, Still. to connect it back to the first couple of points. Their vocabulary, their style, their business model is out of sync with the ingroup. And so there's a lot of time, money, and most, importantly, opportunity cost that you can save. and in fact, success that you can unlock that would not have ordinarily been unlocked.

By just partnering with people who are in the ingroup one way or another, and I agree with you, Yev, is you need to find, your guardian angels, whether they're actual investor angels or otherwise to, take you under their wing and carry you into the ingroup. and then help you build a business that overcomes your disadvantages.

Yaniv:

Exactly. which maybe is a good. Segue to the next one, which is closely related, which is consider an accelerator. And again, as I go through this point, I'm like, we've done episodes on most of these things. That's one of the great things, Chris, of having a nice back catalog. we've dived deep on all of these.

So we have an episode called Accelerators Trash or Treasure. And in that episode we talk quite a bit about. Should you join an accelerator? And under what circumstances? Right, because it depends on how much you'll get out of it. And I guess to the point of this episode, when we're talking about outside founders and we're talking about getting as much advice as you can and giving away equity for it.

You are in the group who is likely to find the accelerator to be a good deal, to be a good trade-off, right? You're giving away equity. Yes. but you're getting quite a few things in return. Firstly, a little bit of cash. And for an outsider founder, that is likely to be even more important. secondly, You are getting the advisory, which is more valuable if you have more to learn, if you know fewer people.

Thirdly, you are getting a bit of a network. You get to know other founders in the accelerator. You get to know your advisors who are more likely to be networked into the community. so it's a great way of bootstrapping your network if you don't have much of one. We're gonna get to networking in a moment.

And the fourth thing is the credibility, right? The credentialing, as we called it in the previous episode around. Being accepted to an accelerator, So if you are an insider founder, And you've got folks who are like ex Facebook, ex Amazon, ex Atlassian, and they know all the investors and so on, and they're like, okay, and we've also been accepted into an accelerator.

The delta of credibility for them is relatively low. if you come from an outsider industry, you are trying to revolutionize some. Underappreciated niche, and you come from that niche and you don't know anybody in tech and nobody knows you, and then you get accepted into a good quality accelerator and you get to say, we have gone through this accelerator that massively increases your credentialing.

1. And so the advice I would give generically, right? Every situation is different of course, but if you feel that you're an outsider founder and you want to massively accelerate, I guess that's why they're called accelerators, massively accelerate your entry into this culture, into this community, into this way of thinking.

Then work really hard on getting accepted into a good quality accelerator. And we talk a bit in that. Other episode also about what makes an accelerator good quality. so do, keep an eye out for that.

Chris: An eye. Yeah, it's that last point that I really want to emphasize Yev. it's not about getting accepted into an accelerator. It's getting accepted into the right accelerator, ? If you're an outsider, the last thing you need is to get accepted into an accelerator that is itself an outsider.

There are outsider accelerators and there are insider accelerators. And the outsider accelerators are filled with outsider advisors who have no clue about the inside. They're not in the in-group. so instead of getting, the credibility signal that a good insider accelerator can give you, you just end up burning time.

And you also don't even get good advice because you end up with advisor Whiplash every week's, another, theme and another advisor. The advisors are giving you outsider advice and so you end up just burning, time, burning, equity and burning, credibility,

Yaniv: Worse than that, Chris, bad advice is worse than no advice. You know, we talk so much about how important it is to get advice, but bad advice will push you further off track rather than bringing you back on track.

Chris: Yeah. And, I wanna say something a little controversial here, and people are always afraid of, declaring these things, but like there is actually an accelerator in Silicon Valley that is strangely an outsider's. Accelerator and it somehow is a catchment for all the outsiders who are trying to get into Silicon Valley.

And it has zero credibility and is a waste of time. and I'll, name it by name. It's called Plug and Play

Yaniv: I have never heard of it.

Chris: There you go. But it's like this large facility kind of on the outskirts of San Francisco and it is set up by a group of people who. We're actually involved in giving Google some early space above their rug company.

They had a, they had a rug store and he gave Sergei and Larry Some space in the rug company, kinda office and got a little bit of equity and, he made a ton of money from that and has set up this, thing, plug and play, which hosts all sorts of. Outsiders, Australian, missions to Silicon Valley and, Korean missions to Silicon Valley. and all of these outsiders get caught up in the orbit of this plug and play accelerator and incubator and ends up being a giant waste of time for days, weeks, and months. I myself landed there the first week that we were in, the Bay Area.

It's not just the location, it's the brand. It's the reputation, it's all of this stuff. And so if you are looking for an accelerator to help you get in on the inside, make sure the accelerator itself is on the inside,

Yaniv: Right. Well, while we're on these sort of analogies to educational institutions and whatnot, what accelerators are probably like is a bit like universities, ? There are really good universities that provide a great education and also are a signalling device, right? You went to Harvard, you went to Oxford. It's like, okay, that means you've got a good education, but it also means you're elite. So you've got that credentialing. and then you've got universities that give you a good decent quality education. but the other thing that you get is universities that figure that they can.

Make a bunch of money by charging fees to students who don't necessarily know what the difference is between a good university and a bad university. Gives them a bad education, charges them a lot of money for it, and then the credential is worth a whole lot less to the graduate than they thought it would be.

And when you're talking about plug and play, that's sort of one of those moneymaking universities. They're like, okay, we, just take anyone. We take their equity, we take. Their money, whatever it is. And we don't necessarily give them a good quality experience. again, all of these things about this sort of compounding privilege, right?

It's like the people most likely to be taken in by these are the outsiders, the ones who need the good quality accelerator the most. and so be really careful and again, listen to our podcast, listen to other great podcasts. There is never a better time to educate yourself on all of these things Than today, It used to be a game where if you weren't an insider, it was very hard to understand how the game was played. That is no longer true. So there are more rungs on the ladder to becoming an insider than they used to be, but you need to make sure that you climb them, otherwise you're going to make poor choices that actually prevent you from becoming an insider.

Chris: It's funny that it's taken us this long to make this episode right, Yaniv, because this speaks to the heart of the thesis statement of the show, right? How do we take all the insider information and make it available to the outsiders? this is kind of the heart of the show and I, glad we're having this conversation as explicitly as we are today.

Yaniv: Funny thing, Chris, we're up to episode 78 and we're always worried, we're gonna run outta things to talk about and, we never do, right? Because this is a big and complex world with lots of interconnections, lots of nuances. we can both dive deeper and we can also zoom out and bring different topics together, which is I think what we're doing today.

So, yeah, lots of fun. Next thing we wanted to talk about, actually Chris was networking. Now networking is one of those things, isn't it? That has a bit of a bad name, It gives people, I don't know, flashbacks to really awkward mix of drinks where you drink like cheap merlo and have uncomfortable conversations with people who aren't very interesting.

I think networking is extremely valuable, but you need to remove that image from your head and actually think about networking as being about making high quality connections with people without any expectation of a payoff. we talked about pay it forward before, again, a whole episode about that.

So I hope you're furiously writing down folks the list of episodes you should listen to after this one. But, The way I've seen my network build up Chris, and I wonder if it's been similar for you, is it's nearly like you are planting seeds, ?

you get someone into your network, you get to know someone, you get to know another person, and over time, you know more and more people. what you're doing there is eventually you're going to need something or an opportunity will come up, right? So you're gonna need to get an introduction to someone, or somebody in your network is gonna be looking for a speaker or an advisor, or.

For a new employee for a great role, The more people you have in your network, the more often these things are gonna happen. They're gonna come to you or you're going to be able to leverage them to get the introduction you need to get the opportunity you need, the insight you need, ? So network is this kind of durable asset that builds up.

And like so many things that we talked about, I think we talked about this, in an episode a couple of weeks ago. It's a compounding asset, right? The bigger your network, the faster your network can grow. But also the return on that network grows, at least linearly, but probably more than linearly in its size.

and so you do wanna invest in networking. Chris, I'd love your thoughts on how you've seen your network work for you, and then maybe we can get into the modern, less painful tactics of how you build that network.

Chris: Yeah. So I think in an odd way, a big part of my success has actually been due to networking and. I say it's odd because like you Yaniv like you just touched on, I haven't thought of it as a Machiavellian sales tactic where I'm there to achieve a goal and to deliver on an outcome.

I've, thought of it actually as. Casual and authentic conversations with really the goal to create friendships, real friendships. and I've done that in three ways. The first, when I was getting started in terms of my awareness of Silicon Valley and Silicon Valley style startups, I was still in Australia, was really through blogging. getting to know the voices and the perspectives of the people who lived in Silicon Valley. And at the time you could, and you would take a post by somebody and you would then riff on it. You would kind of almost respond to it on your blog and you would link to the original post. that's now done over Twitter.

It's done over LinkedIn, it's done over other social media channels. But the idea is the same, which is to. riff on, build on, and have a conversation with people in the community online. And that actually turned out to be incredibly, incredibly fruitful for me, to the point where I, when I landed in Silicon Valley, I knew many of the names and the personalities, and in some cases they knew me.

They had, heard my name online and said, oh, you are Cade. Like, oh, that's great. We, traded, thoughts on your blog? Then once I got to Silicon Valley, it became about events. there are third party events, conferences, and meetups and, drinks and mixers, which again, I, tried to show up in an authentic and genuine way to look for friendships, rather to look for transactions.

And those also paid off for me in, all sorts of incredible ways. and then, What I really started to do again with no, ulterior motive, just out of a need for community. I started to host first party events, my own events, and so I actually paid a little bit more money from my apartment than Maybe I needed to, I got a slightly nicer, slightly bigger apartment. the thinking being that I would work from there. I didn't need to go to office and that I would host gatherings and movie nights and other things there, and that just turned out to pay massive dividends. I created such incredible relationships of people who I still call lifelong friends to this day.

We would do anything from Thanksgiving, or we used to call it Friendsgiving there or 4th of July through to little five person movie nights or debate, watching parties for the elections. And those relationships not only became lifelong friendships, they have really driven.

The bulk of my career and my success, I think, and I, I'm very proud of those relationships and very thankful and grateful for them.

Yaniv: Yeah, I think that's, brilliant you've really done this well. And by the way, folks, for those who may not be aware about this podcast Chris and I did not know each other particularly much before this podcast. We're based in different cities, And we got to know each other on LinkedIn.

I think we'd had one video call before we saw that we kind of RIFed well off each other. So, I think, Chris, you've talked a lot about the in-person thing. for folks listening here who are like, okay, I mean that's, great for various reasons. I might be an introvert, I might have young children.

I'm not gonna be hosting a party house or whatever and I might not be able to get to events. I think there's never been a better time to Network virtually. I think a big thing for me has actually been LinkedIn. LinkedIn is pretty cringe. I won't deny it. but it's actually incredibly powerful and, part of the power of LinkedIn is it's not very hard to stand out in a sea of shitty content to be authentic, to be interesting, to reach out to people, to start conversations with them, to stand out as someone who is not boring, who is themselves.

It's really powerful and again, it compounds. I guess I've been doing LinkedIn sort of stuff for six or seven years now, and I think the number of opportunities, like I said, including this podcast, but, that's far from the only one Chris, that have come through. Getting to know people on LinkedIn and then potentially progressing that to a beyond-LinkedIn relationship has been epic, right?

And, by the way, again, I, consider myself an insider, especially now. and I was always, I'd say, carrying most of the markers of tech privilege, but when I left Google, I didn't know anyone because one problem of Google is it's very much, a sealed dome. It's like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, right? I knew lots of people inside Google. I didn't know anyone outside of Google, And so when I ventured out into the world after 10 years there, I kind of didn't know anyone in Silicon Valley, of course you've got a whole lot of former Googlers running around, doing their own startups Here in Australia, not so much. So I had to build up my network from nearly nothing. And I actually think LinkedIn was a huge part of that. And then following up on the opportunities that came through it.

So I guess what I'm suggesting here is pick a networking methodology that works for you that you're comfortable with, that you can sustain. This is similar to fitness advice, right? Networking is a long game. Do something you can keep up and do something that you can fit into your routine you might not feel like you're making much progress. And then you'll look back a couple of years later and you'll realize how far you've come and people know who you are. Like you said, it's incredible, Chris. If you start doing this, you have this reputation that people know who you are without you realizing it, and then it just kind of, Opens doors, or at least it sort of lubricates doors and facilitates connections in a way that you may not even always be aware of, but it's out there working for you.

The people who benefit the most from building a strong network are the ones who are gonna have the most difficulty at the beginning getting that network happening. But, Like we said in this episode, Chris, this isn't about what's right or what's fair. This is about what you can and should be doing to overcome the unfairness, and I think developing a strong network is just something you must not overlook.

Chris: I wanna give just two very quick anecdotes about this idea of friendship based networking little bit namedropping maybe, but also just kind of fun, like little surreal moments that I had in my life where, went to this event. in Silicon Valley, there was kind of two camps back then.

One was the TechCrunch camp and one was the Mashable camp. And they really didn't like each other very much. And I was actually in the TechCrunch camp. I actually lived at TechCrunch headquarters for a couple of months and got to know Mike Harrington and he really hated Mashable. He just did not like those guys at all.

So I was at an event where I met. The editor in chief at, Mashable, his name is Ben Parr. He was actually been on the show, before, and people were all kind of clamoring to get to know him and, be friends with him and ingratiate themselves. And I was kind of like, genuinely like, you seem pretty cool.

I'll be friends with you despite you being in the Mashable camp. Like, I was like, I don't actually like your people at all, but you actually seem pretty cool. So let's, be friends. And I think. One of the only people in the group that was not like fawning over him in a genuine way.

I was like, you know, I kind of need to be careful about this friendship here. And we've become lifelong friends to the point, he came on the show the other day, we have ongoing back channel together. And I love Ben to death. and similarly another friend of mine, a guy called Brian Solis.

He's written a bunch of books. I've learned since he's quite well known. but I, was so uninterested in his professional life that. I didn't understand how big a deal he was. we bumped into each other at South by Southwest, and he was running across the hall from me running in opposite directions.

And I'm like, Hey, Brian, where are you running? He's like, I'm gonna give my talk in, you know, room whatever, three seat, do you wanna come? And I'm like, oh, yeah, I guess let's go support Brian. fill a seat and try to, contribute to the critical mass of the room for his talk.

We walked in there and I shit you not, the room was filled to the gills, like standing room only to see Brian Soto. I had no idea that he was that popular and nor was I any interested in that. but I saw Brian last night. He flew into Brisbane randomly.

and we, hung out, today after, you know, 10 years of friendship. And so these are like what I'm talking about, where there was just no ulterior motive. And over the course of our friendship, these two people alone have really ignited so much opportunity for my career, just as incredible human beings.

And so really I'd encourage you, you know, talk about sustainability on Nev. I think if you think of it as true friendships with true like-minded people, then hopefully to the degree that you like friendships and that kind of person, it should be pretty easy for you.

Yaniv: If you don't like friendships, I dunno what to tell you. actually I dunno what to tell you. Get some therapy. we can all use it anyway. so. Coming around the bend. I think the, final thing that I wanted to talk about here, which is you can say it's advice, but honestly this is necessity, so it probably is something that's gonna happen anyway, which is, if you're an outsider, you are going to be scrappier.

You're going to need to be scrappier, you're going to need to burn less cash, you're going to need to raise capital at lower valuations. because you don't have that brand, that network, all the insider privilege behind you, right? and so this is,

something you need to do, but it's also your secret weapon, The advantage the one singular advantage that outsiders have always had over insiders is that they have had to work harder for it. They've had to be more creative, they've had to be more resourceful, they've had to be more resilient. and so if they're able get past those obstacles and still be in the game, then they're actually going to outperform.

I think it's like, okay.

Make your peace with the fact that you don't wanna be looking over your shoulder and being, oh, you know, I'm not getting good term sheets for investors. I'm not able to hire the team that I want. We have a competitor there who has hired a bunch of people I'd love to be able to hire.

I can't afford it. Think about how do you turn this disadvantage and it is a disadvantage. no qualms about that. But how do you turn it into your secret weapon? How do you make it something that you build into the fabric and the culture and the DNA of your organization so that when you do get past that hump, you come out of it as this lean, mean fighting machine and you are looking across at all of these bloated, overfunded, complacent insider startups and you know you're gonna be able to kick their asses.

Chris: You know, traction solves everything, right? So if you are an outsider with incredible traction because of your hustle and your effort, it kind of doesn't matter what school you went to or who you know, or how funny your accent is, right? if you are growing 20, 30% month of a month, you have revenue coming in, you're kicking ass.

You're a defacto standard. they'll be greeting you with open arms. So, working super hard to grow your business and succeed is definitely just a killer skill. The other thing that I'll say, Yaniv is, you talked about fat and bloated insiders who are kind of, Sitting on their laurels.

What I learned from going from Australia to Silicon Valley is hard as I was working and as effective and as much of a hustler as I thought I was in Australia, everyone I met in Silicon Valley was working harder and working faster and working smarter.

And I had to rethink how hard and how effective I was at my job. And then when I joined Uber, At that point I thought I was, pretty good. I was, a Silicon Valley insider. I knew what it took to succeed Uber was like a next step function change again. the level of hustle of quality execution, of sleepless nights and early mornings that Travis Kanick and Emile Michael, and everybody at Uber were living with.

Would blow your mind. and I would describe Travis and Garrett Camp, who was the co-founder of Uber and, the early investors of Uber. they are the epitome of insiders. but they were working their asses off. And so that's what you are competing against. You need to work even harder than the insiders.

And you know, this is not about hustle porn and, burning yourself out both ends. It's about acknowledging that you're in a globally competitive landscape. I was working with a founder recently who is making the pilgrimage to Silicon Valley on my advice, actually, and we were talking about what success looks like for the trip.

First thing I said was he was going for a week or two. I said, you need to be there for four weeks minimum. And he was setting up some meetings and I said, you need back to back meetings for the first week, back to back. That will take hundreds and hundreds of emails to. Hundreds of people and it'll require 5, 7, 10 meetings a day.

And you need to then leverage those meetings into introductions for week two, three, and four. that is the kind of scale you to talk to. And he was not, thinking about that scale and that the kind of like effective high degree of hustle that you need to really succeed and, stand out from the crowd.

Yaniv: I wanna be just a little bit careful there, Chris. I don't disagree with you. but when you talk about, you know, the late nights and the weekends and the early mornings and all of that, one of the ways in which you can be an outsider founder is that you are not in a position to do that. I think this is very common for parents of young children, which we both are.

Doubly so for mothers of young children in general, unfortunately. and again, we had an episode, about that with a founder, a mother of a young child, and the challenges that can present, depending on, of course, your own circumstances. And so I think when we're talking about hustling harder and being scrappier like.

Putting in hours is one way to do it. And to a certain extent it's necessary, but I think it's more about that level of intensity that you're talking about, Chris. Isn't just about putting hours in, it's about mindset, right? expecting big things. Having that self-belief and not saying no.

I'm reminded dream guest on the show. I'm not sure if we'll ever get her as Melanie Perkins, the founder of Canva. She was an outsider founder and she doesn't speak publicly much, but one of the stories she told quite a few times is around the hundreds of meetings that she had to take before she could get anybody to take her seriously.

She's a great archetype by the way. She sought advice very early. She went to Silicon Valley, she worked out of. Food courts at shopping malls because she couldn't afford anywhere else. And she would just take meeting after meeting, after meeting, take rejection, after rejection, after rejection. I think that's what we're talking about, that intensity, that self-belief, that willingness to endure a massive rejection, which is important for every founder, but doubly so, for an outsider founder, that's really what we're talking about here, Chris.

Chris: It is about intensity and there are other ways to compensate for sheer time.

And, you know, getting those advisors, spending time on the right things and effective execution, high quality execution in the time you have is all very important. You know, I'm reminded of myself working out of the Metreon at fourth and Mission in the food court there and like literally wondering like, where's our next meeting? Where do we have to be? How do we power through and how do we get there? You know, there's an old story of Travis down on Sandhill Road trying to raise money and they actually played a prank on him and.

Ordered his only Uber away from him, because at the time there was like just one Uber down there. So the VC firm ordered it away as a kind of prank and he had to run through the bushes and through the, through the fields trying to get to the next meeting on time. and they were having a good laugh at him and like, he, just would not quit.

He made it to that meeting, you know, on time sweating and almost dead. And so that's what we're talking about in terms of intensity.

Yaniv: That's an amazing story. All right, Chris, so that is our episode on being an outsider founder and what you should be doing to maximize your chance of success, if that is how you see yourself. Now, we talked about the importance of getting great advice. As a founder.

So one of the people who offered some of the best advice I've heard is sitting right here in the podcast. Chris, if people wanna work with you and get your advice, what do they need to do?

Chris: So, I've carved out time to work with founders and help them become the insiders. So feel free to learn more about that over at chris sa.com/advisory and reach out from there.

Yaniv: Fantastic. Before you leave us and move on to the next task, in your No Doubt busy life, we would love you to join the Startup podcast mailing list. In that mailing list we have episode announcements, other content from me and Chris. Previews of upcoming episodes, ways to get involved, and often exclusive content that will only be available for newsletter subscribers.

So this is the best way to keep in touch with the whole world of the Startup podcast. Join right now at TSP Show. We promise, no spam, just fantastic content every week.

Chris: Alright, awesome. great to chat to you and have talk next week.

Yaniv: Thanks a lot Chris. Have a great week.