Jeron Paul

We have Jiren Paul with us today on the podcast. It was acquired by Salesforce. It was a $400 million acquisition. 419 to be exact. Talking to a lot of VCs. A lot of them are like, "Oh, you know, I don't know. This is a, you know, a relatively small market. Blah, blah. It's competitive. You know, I don't know." I look for that in business. I look for a quality of obviousness. It's like and and effective surprise. It's like, "Wow, why didn't I think of that?" Yeah. X [music] next rock next to it. Welcome back to the Startup Ignition podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in where we go over everything in your startup journey from idea to exit. I'm Tyler Richards. This is John Richards over here. We are in Hello. Hello. >> We are in a new environment today because we actually booked a studio, our normal studio, and kind of got kicked out and we had to pull an audible and we had to pull an audible on our guest on our guest last second who we have here today who we are very excited to have. So, thank you for rolling with the punches with us, Jared. >> Super happy to be here. But we have Jiren Paul with us today on the podcast which I am super excited about to to dive into your background and understand more about you and where you're at today. Like congrats on everything you've accomplished by the way. >> Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. >> But I have a bio for Jiren and I'm going to read it before we get into a conversation cuz I know everybody's itching itching to get into the conversation. Um but we are honored to have you Jiren honestly. Um you are fourtime founder I found out. Um and your last one obviously was Spiff. Yes. um that was was acquired by Salesforce just recently. What what year was it? Was it last year? >> It was 2024 or February was when it technically closed. >> February of 2024 cuz I know that process takes a long time having gone through that. It does. >> Yeah. And so dates can get a little bit messy. >> They can. >> So that was February of 2024. And >> correct >> Salesforce is a public company. Everybody knows the details of the acquisition. It was a $400 million acquisition. 419 to be exact. Who's counting? Right? Who's counting? Yeah, who's counting? And uh but so you have started four separate companies. Spiff was your most recent one acquired by Salesforce. Um you are now at Salesforce as a SVP of product over there. I saw on LinkedIn. Um >> but you are also an angel investor. I've seen a couple of times you've been mentioned in recent articles as backing a few of the companies here locally in Utah. Um one of the ones we took a very hard look at and shout out to Moy. Um >> yeah, great great team. We didn't end up investing through our fund, but you know, we went through a very heavy due diligence process with them and they are great guys. So, only good things to say there. Um, you're a Harvard MBA. >> Yes. >> Okay. And, uh, I know that at least back in the day of Dev Mountain and when we kind of interacted a lot, you are very passionate about coding. Are you technical? >> I'm super technical. >> Okay. So, is that your background? >> Not my background. Um, you know, I I started coding when my mom actually enrolled me in classes when I was super tiny in Apple basic classes, but um I kind of got back into it after I uh sold um my my company Scaler. So, right around actually right right around the time I was kind of starting Scaler. I I started to get back into it. >> Oh, that's awesome. >> Yeah. >> So, anyways, thank you for coming on the podcast. That is our guest today. We're so excited to have Jiren here and Jiren Paul. If I didn't say the last name, I don't know if I mentioned your last name. I did. Okay, good. All right, Jiren, I don't know if you've ever seen any of our podcasts before. We've had some awesome guests on here, so thank you for coming and being one of those awesome guests. But on every single one of them, we do an icebreaker section where we kick off the podcast where I just spring something on you. And I have something for you today. >> It's not going to be too bad. It's not going to be too bad. >> I'm so nervous. Can we eat some hot hot wings or something while we're doing this? >> Would you rather do hot sauce? >> Uh, >> is it just for him or for me, too? >> Uh, well, I'm going to ask both of you guys. >> Okay. And I would I'm gonna do uh just questions. It's not this or that or anything specific. It's just questions and you just tell me what you think. Okay, got it. >> Okay, here we go. >> Uh what's better in the early stage of a startup? A handful of paying customers or a ton of users that are signing up? >> Paying customers or a ton of users? Paying customers. >> Paying customers. Even though it's less paying customers, like let's get a number. 10 paying customers or a 100,000 users. Yeah, definitely. >> Paying customers. >> Yeah, paying customers all day. All day long. >> Wow. >> For me, it's it depends. I mean, B2B, I want paying customers. If it's a B to C, I want the users. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I guess it >> background is B2B. So, there you go. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Next one. In the early stages, everybody knows that founders, we have to wear a ton of different hats, right? You're doing this or that or marketing or this or content or finances or whatever it may be, sales. What is your favorite hat to wear in the beginning when you're going from zero to a million? What are you liking to do? >> Wow, that is a total toss up between marketing and product. >> So, yeah, it's one of those two. >> Well, that's kind of the two most important parts. Well, marketing and sales, right? Marketing leads to sales, but yeah. So, sales marketing product. Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I would say marketing distinct from sales. I love sales, but um but I enjoy the branding. I enjoy the positioning. I enjoy the strategy that goes into finding a wedge and how to position yourself. So, >> are you are you a pretty creative type? >> I think so. I I don't know, man. I'll flatter myself here, but >> yeah, >> we we can humble brag here all day. That's what this podcast is. I love it. >> Uh, okay. How about you? >> Probably lean towards product in the very beginning because you got to have an awesome product. It's no fun marketing a non awesome product. So, but they're both important. I mean, the key to the early stages of a company is having an awesome product and a present market, a true market that will buy your product. So, you've got to find you got to do both product and market. But just making the product where it changes lives and makes people's lives better is super fun. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Next, next question. >> What is the worst customer feedback you've ever gotten? >> Oh my gosh. >> I like this question. >> John, you go first. [laughter] I'm going to come back to it. >> Customer feedback. Then I was two too I was trying to collect uh on a overdue bill from a customer and and I was CEO and he goes, "How old are you? You're so young. What are you doing? You don't know what you're doing." You know, just ripping on me for being young and inexperienced and I'm trying to collect overdue payment and he's trying to bully me cuz he's older. Uh, and just saying I have no clue of what I'm doing cuz I'm so young and naive and you know, all I'm trying to do is get paid. Yeah, >> man. I think for me, I'll just share a a quick story. I um so in the early days of SPIFF, we were pretty headto-head with a company called Captivate IQ. They ended up raising from Sequoia XL and Iconic. So, >> oh, don't you love seeing those when they come out? Oh, they just raised 50 million. >> Oh, totally. I mean they I think they end up raising like 160 million bucks or something and so uh you know and these are pretty good venture firms like XL or you know some some folks will even call them kind of king makers right >> we had amazing venture backing and loved them but I remember in the early days we were headtohead with them uh for G2 and we lost >> so that's a tricky customer to lose because they create the grid that that grid you know where you're ranked and positioned like actual software ranking review site G2. >> Yes. >> Yes. That's not a good one to lose. >> We lost that deal to our probably our biggest competitor at the time. We subsequently won it back. Um although we're we're we're con, you know, we're right now working through some some stuff with them. So like I mean it's just I'm sharing the real stuff here, you know, like it I hope that that can be somewhat inspiring to some entrepreneurs because >> you know you're the conversation never ends, right? It never ends. >> Yeah. If you're great at sales, you'll be in a constant. >> I love it. I love that. Okay, last one and then we'll get to the actual podcast. >> Uh, when was the moment you realized with SPIFF? And we're we're going to let our listeners and viewers learn what SPIFF actually is and does for those who aren't familiar. >> But when did you realize SPIFF was like going to work and was going to have a finish like how it did, how you exited? Like was there ever a moment where it's like oh I this is actually really good. >> Yeah I would say um can I divide those questions to you? So when I knew it was going to work I honestly so entrepreneurs are notoriously overconfident you know and and naively so and I think they kind of have to be diluted. >> So like I I seriously think I knew it was going to work from the minute I started it. Yeah. I had so much confidence and actually talking to a lot of VCs. A lot of them were like, "Oh, you know, I don't know. This is a, you know, a relatively small market, blah, blah, it's competitive. You know, I don't know." And and I just kind of knew. I was like, hm, small market, you know, that's what they said about Capture, which was my previous company. And we ended up getting kind of boat raced by this Bay Area company you might have heard about called Carta. >> Um, but we love Capture, by the way. >> Oh, thank you so much. But you know, so it's like I don't think this is a small market, you know, on the exit >> side of it. I mean, my gosh, I didn't believe that until we were, you know, pretty much through negotiations. >> Yeah. And negotiations were were very >> You knew that there was exit potential way longer before that. And once you hit some that momentum in revenue and like building and hiring, it's like >> Yeah, but do you ever know if you're going to get bought? >> Well, I know that the acquisition doesn't actually happen till dollars are in bank accounts. Like you're literally worried up until that second. But yeah, I I mean, >> but Tyler, you've been through it, too. The morning of the day the money is supposed to be wired, you're just praying it goes through, refresh, refresh, refresh or go. That's how we talk about refresh, refresh, refresh. It's or you think it's literally going to fall apart. You're like, "Uh, is this actually happening?" >> I told you we got up early on the day we went public back in 1998 and in I was in Seattle so the market opens at 6:30 and you know 6:00 a.m. I'm going I hope in the next half hour they don't discover we're not as cool as they think we are. >> Yeah, I don't even [laughter] I don't think you're normal if you don't feel that way. >> Yeah, I agree. >> Okay, cool. Thanks for joining in my icebreaker. Um, good way to get into the mood. Okay. All right. Now, to you. I I want to go all the way back here because I know that >> you even know Jiren's dad pretty well. Is that how you two met? Cuz I know. No, we met before that. I think Did you get involved with Vespring? >> When you just graduated from Harvard, I think I met you when you first went to Vspring. That's where I first got you. Yeah. Yeah. But and then later I met his dad and invested in his dad. >> Is now what? >> Vespring is now run ventures. >> Run which was Signal Peak and now run. Yeah. So Vspring rebranded as Signal Peak now to run. >> Okay. Gotcha. Yeah. Vespring was one of the first early kind of VCs in Utah back in with Greg Waro, Paul Alstrom, Scott Petty, who still lasted through all is he still with Run? >> Still with Run, I believe. Yeah. Mhm. And run is a recent thing. I think they just rebranded like a month or two ago. >> Ed Extrom was there. >> Yep. I I worked very closely with all of those, but particularly with Ed. >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, you went what did you do before NBA? >> So, actually I joined VSpring and I don't think I knew John at this part of John's memory. You're It's incredible honestly. Um you you remember better than I do but um which is great. Uh I actually joined Vspring in uh between leaving Monitor which was a a management consulting firm based in Boston and joining Harvard. So I >> I actually joined uh as a as a a summer intern actually. So right before going to business school I cashed out my 401k actually because we had no money. Moved to back to Utah which is where I'm from. moved into my parents' basement with my wife, my beautiful wife, and it tried to start a career in Utah venture capital, which at the time was just so wildly different than it is now. >> Yeah. And it also was interesting though, there were about three kind of more major VCs. Um, UV Partners, which is now Pelleon. >> Yeah. >> Vespring and then, um, >> Epic. >> Epic, which was called what before though? They had a different name. tomorrow and then before tomorrow it was uh I thought it was epic again. It was epic tomorrow epic but I can't remember the name something before epic >> but to get to be an intern or or a young kind of analyst or scout or whatever you want to call it almost all of them had to be Harvard I mean it is I'd say I'd say half or more of the people working at those firms were Utons that went to Harvard. Do you agree with that? >> No, I totally agree with that. I literally just came from a class that I teach out at BYU and I always start the class off with like 5 minutes of whatever business or startup question you want and today I got the question of >> how do I get into VC? >> Yes. >> So is that the advice you are giving to the >> No, it's changed so much. >> So it's not just going to Harvard and get an MBA. >> No, I don't. And and in fact, I think and I appreciate both of your perspectives on this, but I I don't think uh I definitely think MBA is very optional now. >> Yeah. >> Um consulting, banking are still pretty good paths into VC, but I actually uh really believe that that uh business schools become much more optional. And then of course there's there's kind of a couple different paths, but the the classic path is either some form of uh investment banking or consulting with a top tier firm or fund or firm some some kind of top tier firm and then going in or another option is of course to go work for like a top tech firm in some kind of a meaningful >> role. Yeah. One of my things too is though I tell a lot of young people say you know it's great you want to go do the VC what you should do is do your own startup. Yeah. I mean, if you really want to do your own startup, uh I don't because there's so many of them that are so smart, so talented and they do get networks built if they go there like you got a network built up and all that, but right now I mean just >> the fastest way to get and be a VC is to be a successful selling company. >> Partners partners are going to be all exited mostly >> entrepreneurs mostly. It's very and also when you start as a junior analyst or something, you don't rise up and become a partner until you've gone off and done something else. Yeah. And that's that that's what I try to explain. I think you're right. Yeah. I wasn't a partner. I was the level below partner called principal. And so very different path >> uh like like John was saying to become a partner than it is to become. >> And so you left you left Run Ventures or Signal Peak or uh what was the original name you said? >> Vspring. Yeah. So you left VSpring. >> Yes. And then what did you do? >> Uh so I had started two companies when I was at uh in business school. In business school there's a thing at Harvard called the Baker Scholar which is the top 2% of all uh folks at Harvard. It's very elite, very competitive. Oh wow. >> I I knew pretty much within about 6 months that I had no chance of getting getting out whatsoever. >> Oh, I thought you were about to say I was in it. [laughter] >> I know the opposite. And so I actually kind of ended up um really using my Harvard experience to do a ton of case studies, network like crazy, have a wonderful experience while I was there, but start companies. And so I started uh I started two companies while there while I was there. One was called Board Link. Um and it was uh kind of it was actually started with a professor named Jay Lorch and we started what I think is one of the early board u portals is what we called it back then. So it was a it was a b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b basically a way to log in as a board member of a public company and >> get access to analyst reports and the board book and review the financials and it was all in a very secure environment and even take uh view the board calendar, even take votes. Um so you know we created that spun that out and kind of I'll put in big quotes sold it because we sold it for essentially zero dollars and a job was like an acquire to Thompson Reuters. So that's where I went right after business school. And then I had also started in business school another venture that ultimately went on to become a company here locally called Scaler. So it was a valuation services. >> Yeah. Yeah. I remember scalar. >> Yeah. >> So how did you transition from the Tom Thompson Reuters position to scaler then? >> Yeah. So actually I went to Thompson Reuters for only about a year and um I had interned at VSpring at the time before going to business school and I got a call. So I So one of my good friends, one of my best friends actually from BYU was Gavin Christensen, who is the um founder and managing partner at Kickstart, >> of course. >> Um we were all >> we're all college buddies. Um we were econ majors together and so tight. So I I went to I got a job at a monitor and then I recruited him into monitor. He came after me and then I went to I went to uh Vspring and then when I left Vspring I said, "Hey, you should really talk to this this guy named Gavin." And so he took over my job when I left and went to Harvard. >> And then when I came back out of Harvard, he helped me get a job as a principal. So I got I actually got a call from VSpring like a one year after I had left Harvard saying, "Hey, are you interested?" and packed up our bags and moved back to Utah. And wow, that's all. >> Yeah. Vespring's the one who backed Gavin and put him like in a back corner and said, "Do this small little seed." >> Yeah. And uh they Vespring just let him have a piece of their office and did their backend stuff and got V and it was hard. The first 8 million that V uh Gavin had to go raise was really hard. >> Very hard. Yeah. Oh. So they didn't partition off. Their first fund was only 8 million and it took it was really hard. They had they were trying to go to the universities and do stuff. I mean it's hard. This is getting a fund off the ground's hard work. >> Very hard. Yeah. >> Yeah. But look I mean very successful though. >> Great. But at that time there was not a ton of V early stage VC in Utah. >> That was the there was no preede seed funds in Utah. They were all series A funds. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Cuz I I remember and I think I got involved with what you were doing with Capshare. That's when I kind of entered in the picture cuz I know you as the capture guy. >> Yes. >> And at least being a huge supporter of what we were doing in our boot camp and the whole startup ignition ego. Thank you so much for that. So, but I before we get to capture because I do want to talk about that and it is so awesome. So, Scaler was before Capture. >> Scaler was before Capture >> and Scaler still went on after you left then cuz >> Yeah, Scaler went on. It's still a very large, right? Yeah. It's like >> And then they do they they're the ones that did the S20 fund. did >> they did the S20 fund. That's right. >> And so all that. So who was your co-founders at Scala? >> So I started it and I brought on early on a couple of folks. Um so my my first co-founder was actually a guy named Ilar Fazilionov. Do you know? He was also a VSpring. >> I Who's that? >> Okay. He's moved subsequently moved to California. He was kind of an OG in the Utah venture space for again subp partner level like he was like me. Yeah, >> there's a couple of those OGs like JD Gardner, Jeff Curl, who everybody knows. He was at Vespring with me. >> That's he got Star V. >> Spoiler alert is coming on our podcast. >> He's awesome. I mean, amazing. >> Um, yeah, I worked with Jeff and JD. They they were actually the level kind of just above me when I was interning. >> Um, but I kind of actually it was really idea. I when I was at Harvard I I it was this early days of kind of internet of email marketing >> and so I had pulled together a list of 80,000 entrepreneurs and my idea actually at the time which didn't really work out was hey let's email all these VCs or sorry all these entrepreneurs and let's reverse rate VCs. So I was like, "Hey, I want them to in a confidential way say how much value did this VC add?" >> Kind of like rate my professor >> or rate my VC. >> Rate my VC. And um >> I wonder what our score would be. [laughter] >> Probably off the charts. Um anyway, yeah. So, I was doing that and Ilddard came to me one day and he said he he didn't know about the email side of what I was doing, but he said, um, hey, I've reverse engineered this thing called a 409A model. And at the time, this was right when it was going through legislation that every startup had to get a valuation to issue stock. >> Yeah. >> And I said, hm, well, I've got 80,000 entrepreneurs. What if we just emailed them and see if they're interested? We emailed them. I think we did 8 to $10,000 in our first month. Second month was like 2530, you know, after that just it just took off. And so >> great timing. Wow. Perfect. >> So little uh lesson for our viewers and listeners though is just what 409A after the dot era there was so much shenanigans with equity and pricing of equity that the government said no more funny business. And if you're going to set a strike price on a employee stock option, you need to establish a value. If you don't have a recent equity transaction, you have to get a valuation. And that's called a 409A valuation. And you that timing you after that you were able to go in and kind of start doing 409A valuations because they were now required. >> Yeah, that's it. So the first person I actually brought in was a guy named Justin Jory there and then I brought in Matt Stapleton and Zach Nent and ended up selling the company to Matt and Zach. >> Really? Okay. So that's how Matt got involved. Okay, good. Now Justin, that's a name. Uh shout out to him. He's probably one of the top three most skilled Excel magicians I've ever seen. >> Remarkable. No, seriously. Yeah. You know him. >> Oh yeah. Yeah, >> he did uh some financial projections for startups at the time and I referred business to him and stuff and but he's a he's like a magician in Excel. >> That is totally true. >> He's just a great human. >> Well, I I think I can automatically guess the segue from scholar to uh to capture, right? It's kind of obvious, but obviously I had worked in venture and I now worked in 409A valuations. both are very capable businesses and um and you know I had done so many financial models at at VSpring and I just kind of came to this realization that show me a really complex uh spread or even just a a missionritical spreadsheet uh where there is no single source of truth and [clears throat] I'll show you a startup idea you know and and so at the time it's it's crazy to think about now with Carta being as prevalent as it is but at time the VCs had a copy of the cap table, the entrepreneurs had a copy of the cap table and the lawyers. The lawyers ultimately were the arbiters. They everybody kind of had they would drive to uh they would kind of I almost view this as like a as like what do you call like um a superp position of like of like a subatomic particle like like you know like when you observe it it it goes from being a zero and a one to just being like a zero or one that was kind of like a cap table is like no one really knew what position we have. >> Not only those three parties or could be co-founders. You could have three co-founders and they all have a different spreadsheet. >> Yes. >> With different numbers. >> It's so true. >> I mean, we we were in the preede. We see some pretty crazy stuff. [laughter] >> I bet you do. >> Yeah. So, so that So, um I'm just curious were how many >> cuz basically last 20 years it's been fantastic to make SAS products out of what people used to do in Excel. Right. And so that's what you did with capture. >> That's what I did. >> And who were there besides Cardo? Carter before Carter was called e-shares. >> Yes. >> Okay. So were were you one of the first to do a SAS cap table? Were you the first or one of the first? >> Uh we started I think either it was literally days apart from from card. I can't remember which one was first. They might have beat us by like two days but I actually I think we were I think we incorporated slightly before them. So >> really so yeah and we just you know and then uh loved your product and then when we started the boot camp startup boot camp we just had you guys were great partners with us. Matt would come and teach sometimes you know that's amazing. >> Yeah. And uh and uh you know your co-founder at both Capture and Spiff, right? Yes. Yeah. And >> really you know and really probably the best partner I had at the time at at Scalar as well. >> Really nice. >> You guys have done three together. Wow. What a great run. And so, but just and you so we just thank you for that. And also, we just referred people to you. It was great. I was really actually kind of sorry and sad when you sold the company because it kind of was hard to it. What What happened eventually with that? >> Yeah. Well, I was um I was at a youth activity in Moab um doing mountain biking and um no cell coverage and we drove into into town and all of a sudden I had my cell phone with me and all of a sudden it started blowing up. I was like, you know, all the messages coming in and most of them were from Matt and I looked down and he basically said, um, hey, we just got an acquisition offer from Carter. you it was at the time it was eShares but um do you want you know do you want to engage and I was like what you know if you had talked to me I mean if you talked I mean if you talked to me a week before two two minutes before I would have never in a million years guessed that yeah >> that we would have had an acquisition offer from them but we did and uh it was really really actually very cool of them in in retrospect you know and and um it actually ended we ended up kind of parlaying that into a bit of a conversation with several different uh folks and ended up getting a couple of acquisition offers and we decided to sell Capture at that time. >> Yeah. And who did you sell to? Who? >> We sold it to a company on the Toronto Stock Exchange called Sodium. Yes. >> And then within a year of us selling just over one year, they sold to Morgan Stanley. Okay. >> And so their products called Share Works and it's now part of what's called Morgan Stanley at work. So Morgan Stanley actually had >> So did Capshares as a product become theirs or did it go away? >> It basically went away. >> Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It was sad. Yes, >> I wanted it to stay. I like I thought Capture was a great product and it, you know, it was built for what we deal in early stage ventures. >> Okay, so I'm seeing the correlation here though. It's like board link, you know, 409A >> cap table software. Where does SPIFF come from? >> SPIF was that the next one after capture? Yes. Matter of fact, I don't know if you remember, you and Matt took me to Tsunami in Lehi to talk about it when you launched. >> I I'm just barely remembering that, John. >> And I probably could have invested. Why didn't I? I don't know. Did I get offered? I'm not sure. Now, >> you know, my dad has a lot of those stories. I could have invested, but I didn't. So, >> of course, he's also the mo one of the most active angels in the states, so I forgive you. >> Um, yeah, it's awesome. >> Yeah, that No, I remember that though. and you were telling me about and you know I I don't know if you remember but I and I want to hear your story but I just remember that beginning. I want to hear what happened and how it came about but cuz I dealt a lot with commissions in my life and when you told me what you were doing I go you're attacking the next thing so there you go. >> Yeah. And probably we we come from a similar spot there. Jehan I so yeah I mean I again I love looking for spreadsheets that have a mission critical use case in the enterprise and so that you know we did it to cap tables uh I felt like the >> is that is that literally I don't want to interrupt your story is that literally what you tell yourself like I my thesis in company building is replacing the spreadsheet in enterprise situations. >> Yes. I mean, I've that's certainly been >> Is that still relevant for today's listener and viewer though? Like how not as much >> cuz like does spreadsheets still exist in that way to where you can still create software? >> I I think that I think it's still relevant, but what do you think? >> Well, it's a very nuanced answer and probably I could I could I could hold forth on this for much longer than any of you would be interested in listening, but I would say I would say yeah, I think it's still relevant. Um, AI is changing a lot right now and I think I think so I just made a small angel investment in a company called Quadratic >> and you can look at them. It's a it's basically an AI spreadsheet. So so I do think it's changing. Um, my next I already have some ideas of some things I want to go build and it probably actually won't be directly in this vein, but so I do think the immediacy of it >> I I think there's still some low hanging fruit, but I but I think it's a little less obvious that aren't quite. >> So here's one of our sweet spots. So I'm going to give a a call a clarion call out to our listeners and viewers. If any of you are working on a company >> with a legacy task that's being done by paper and pencil or Excel and you want to make a SAS or an AI powered SAS solution, we want to talk to you, right? Cuz that's I think it's still a great place. There's so many vertical opportunities. >> Well, the whole reason I asked was because that exact thesis is kind of our thesis, too, is like SAS is not dead. Like a lot of people are saying over the last year or two with AI, SAS is dying. SAS is dead. No, there's still a lot of processes, a lot of strategies behind the SAS model and why that's still a good thing. The average business owner or enterprise owner is not going to control, manage, and build his own SAS yet. We may get there with AI, but we're not there yet. So, that's why I asked, is that literally your thesis? Cuz we believe the exact same thing. Let's get back to Spit and ask him one fundamental question, though. >> Okay. Okay. So, because this is a great one everybody's talking about. Let's talk about this. Is AI killing SAS? I I have this feeling that there's a problem economically. Let's take like one of our best investments ever was a golf software management called Cororup, right? >> Great. Great investment. >> Great CEO. >> That was you. >> Yeah. Great CEO. >> And and uh so what happened was do you know Evan? You know Evan? >> Yeah. They I'm trying I believe they were an early Spiff customer and they might have been a capture customer as well. >> Yeah. So so um so but the idea is this. Okay. So there's 25,000 golf courses. They have to have software to run their operations, their, you know, their pro shop, their sales in the pro shop, their food and beverage, tea times, all this. Okay, >> it's almost 25,000 golf courses going to have a completely custom software built by AI to run that one golf course and are they going to have staff to interface with that AI? And then the whole industry, nobody's running the same software because there's also great efficiencies in a vertical like golf courses to have employees that can move from golf course to golf course and be familiar with the software systems running. It just doesn't seem super efficient to have 25,000 separate custom applications that from one golf course to another nobody knows what's going on with them. >> What you're saying is is even if we get to the point where AI can do that, is it makes sense still? Yeah, because like FourUp could could handle all 25,000 golf courses and they had 60 to 80 employees. >> Yeah. >> Right. So, what's more efficient in society? That's my question. And they could specialize hyper specialize on features and and and and make it work and be responsible for because the people at the golf course want to run a golf course, not interface with an AI to build custom software. >> I guess you see my opinion. >> I see your opinion. Yeah. And so I just I'd love somebody to counteract that and say, "No, it's going to be more efficient where I just voice talk to an AI and it creates my custom application for me." Is that really going to be more efficient? I don't know. >> I I think you're I so I'll push back on you uh respectfully. >> Yeah. I mean, I think your voice point is is a good one. Uh so so no one really wants to build software and my counter-argument to your point is no one really wants to learn proprietary software either. They just have jobs to be done. >> Yes. >> They just have problems. >> So if they could speak to something, you're in Star Trek and and it takes care of them. >> Yeah. It just does it. You didn't really have to learn an interface other than English natural. >> So the whole paradigm is going to have to completely transform in order for a nice coded SAS software to not be needed. And my point is I think we're still a long ways away from that. But as AI allows to build faster, more efficiently, better, and quicker, right? The the interfaces and the UI have to keep up with that. So what you're to your point, like if we can just interact by voice and press a button and say, "Hey, I need to schedule this time for 3:30. Just get it done." >> And so you can have 25,000 different articulate that for a second. So in other words, what you're saying is >> employee A at company A moves to company B becomes an employee at B and he just given a voice command over here and a voice command over here and the task gets done but the AI systems at each company could be radically different. >> Yeah, but it doesn't matter. >> It doesn't matter because the voice command gets the task done. That's and that's a huge paradigm shift. But I can see how that could happen. Yeah. The question will be is that going to happen in 2 years or 20 years. >> Yeah. And I think that's that's the one like what is that the 400 trillion question 400 trillion but that's like the 13 trillion question. Exactly. Like like in my days of yellow pages I launched the first ever internet yel pages in '95. There were people run around saying print yellow pages will be dead in two years. Okay. Well we still have print yellow pages today. Now granted, by about the mid to late 2000s, they were kind of very dying. Yeah. >> But it took 10, 15 years. And the question is, how long will it take? It's going to be fascinating, isn't it? >> Yeah, it's it's going to be super fascinating. >> Well, I'll be old by then. [laughter] >> I already am. >> All right, back to uh your original question was, "How did you get from capture to spiff?" >> Okay, so how did I get to capture? >> He was He's talking about tsunami. You took him out to Tsunami, told him about SPIFF. So, where did the idea of SPI and maybe introduce to our audience real quick for those who don't know what SPIFF is? Sure. What is and was and now still is SPIF but now within Salesforce. >> Yeah, it's just called SPIFF. Uh it's it's called Salesforce Spiff. That's what it's called. >> I like that name. >> Yeah, it's good. They kept the name, which is awesome. And they've kept the product, which is great. Um and and investing very heavily in the product. So, it's it's been wonderful to work with them on that. Um, so the genesis of of SPIFF was really, you know, it's it's a scratch your own itch. It's um, exactly like John said, we've all run commission spreadsheets. I've run a sales team. I know how much uh, really it comes down to this really great uh, sales rep, really head of sales we had at Capture. His name was Billy Rogers. And I remember going into his room. He always we gave everybody two monitors and on one monitor he had up Salesforce. This is a really funny story now in retrospect cuz he had Salesforce up on one screen and then he had a spreadsheet up on the other screen and we said what's the spreadsheet and he said oh come over here this is this is the amount of for the boat that I want to go buy like some like super aeronautique or something he's like this is what I'm saving up for and my family's all looking for we want to boat you know we're really into boating and here's all the deals I'm working on and here's this here's the every month here's the ones that I think I can that'll come in and the ones that are out and it kind he kind of merged this like spreadsheet that tallied up his commissions with a little bit of a workflow management tool because he'd be like I really need to focus on that deal cuz it could give me a lot of commissions. And so that was the aha moment where we said commissions is not just a small problem. This is really the second we called it the second screen of sales. Yep. CRM and and follow-up software and and some of these incredible tools like outreach and um sales loft or you know or now even some of the really incredible new tools are coming out like clay and others. These are your first screen of sales but the second screen of sales had been completely ignored which is the human motivating factor which is so critical actually for uh for sales. sales is a I still to this day, you know, we've uh for a lot of us that have, you know, a background in the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints, we've served missions. It's hard. Sales is hard. You know what I mean? >> You talk You talk excels at it. >> We're really good at it. >> Um and so it's hard. And I think a lot of times, uh you know, having uh an ability to stay motivated is critical to being a successful sales rep. So that was the idea. We loved the fact that there was a spreadsheet opportunity here because each rep, just like we saw in cap tables, every rep had their own commission spreadsheet, but the CFO or someone on the CFO's staff had their commission spreadsheet. You know, they [clears throat] never talked to each other and there was no validation between the two of them. So, there was an inevitable and ongoing stream of disputes. Oh, I think I was owed this and oh, what's this clawback? I don't, you know, I don't even agree with this. And so, we saw that same dynamic that we saw in capture. And then the other big thing we love is we love automating accounting software. And so um really office of the CFO is probably my biggest focus area in my career with valuations and equity man equity accounting and now cap table accounting. And so it it kind of checked all those boxes for us. So we really spun it up when we were at um towards the tail end of capture. Um, right when I knew we were getting acquired was right when we started to spin that up. And I actually negotiated with the acquirer. I said, "Look, I'll stick around for a year, but nights and weekends I get to work on SPIFF." And they said, "Yes." And so that's how it that's how it went down. >> Yeah. >> That's great. So take us through the journey of SPIFF. How do you get from where you started in that office looking at your sales rep's commission spreadsheet, getting the idea to selling to Salesforce for 400? >> Oh man. How how does that happen? Walk me through that. >> Yeah. Oh my gosh. So so many crazy bumps along that road. Um I'd be super remiss not to mention Matt Stapleton. Really quick. Um >> shout out to Matt. Oh my gosh. >> He sounds integral. >> We got to get Matt on here. Everything. >> He's incredible. He's He's like >> and just one of the nicest guys. >> Matt, expect a text or email from me. You're coming on this podcast, buddy. [laughter] >> He gets the best best human award in in my opinion. Um, and he and I have started, you know, now >> I mean, he literally got up in front of Startup ignition boot camp and taught little segments for us. >> Yeah. >> And he's very, he has this professorial demeanor to him that he can, he can assume. >> He likes to teach. >> He loves to and he's very good at it. >> He's actually, that's what he's kind of doing right now. He's serving on boards now. He's semi-retired. I'm constantly trying to get him out of retirement. But >> I thought he did. He didn't go to he didn't transition to Salesforce like you did. He did, but he was only there for a short he was there for a shorter time than I was only there for >> How long you've been It's amazing you've stayed this long because most don't. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And I you know and it's it's not always been easy. Not not because of Salesforce. What an incredible culture. And I have learned so much from Mark Ben off and >> the team there. It's it's really um you know I I just sometimes very frequently honestly I feel like you know my skill set is adapted to create a lot more value in a different environment. >> Yes. Yeah. No 98 out of a 100red entrepreneurs would last less than 6 months with their acquire if they're the primary or secondary co-founder like you and Matt are. It's very hard. I mean we we talk about this all the time. It's so many of this and no no John I'm gonna I'm committed I'm gonna stay a long time and about three months in they go this is not what I thought it was hard I mean Salesforce has a little bit of that Google aora you know where it's like oh it was it's widely recognized as like the first SAS of all time right so it's kind of got like that ooh what's it like to work at Salesforce thing going for so I'm sure it's it's kind of cool to be there so cool >> how long did Matt stay >> Matt stayed the full year >> he did stay the full year I mean they gave us some financial incentives that made very worthwhile for us to stick around. >> That's awesome. That's great. >> So, okay. So, give me one thing that comes to mind because I know this path is crazy and you already mentioned the ups and downs. Give me one thing for our viewers and listeners and a lot of our listeners are budding entrepreneurs, right? These are people who are kicking ideas around, getting going right now, figuring out their business model, figuring out their goto market strategy. Give me one thing that like really attributed to the success of Spiff >> of Spiff >> and and like when you think back on it like if I had to put one thing in my mind like this is it. What would that be? >> I mean uh >> I know that's hard. It >> it is hard >> and you were you were about you you started by telling the story and say but I got to give credit to Matt Stapleton. So yeah build off of that if you want your answer your story. >> Yeah. No, it's great. I mean, Matt um you know, if I could start every single thing that I ever do in my life till I die with Matt Stapleton, I would. I mean, to go. >> Yeah. I mean, he's we're really we really are very complimentary to each other. Very different. Um but we're also enough the same and we can finish each other's sentences sometimes and so we're kind of work married and it's honestly been super hard. Not working with him to be honest, has been super hard for me. But I would Yeah. I I mean obviously I think the answer that most people would give and the one I would give is team but I got prepped for this by saying hey if there's any uh contrarian ideas that you have you know sometimes get those out there. So I'll start by saying I think I too would say it's it's the team. So it's it's who you know CEOs I I like to really focus CEOs on doing what only they can do. And when you think about the things that only a CEO can do there's it's a very small list actually. Um it's not it's not complex. It can be very hard. >> Um but [clears throat] we don't really do that much. And one of the most important things we do is um set the vision and and then get the team, you know, get get that and really just the team below you. That's really all you have to focus on that it will recursively flow down from there. >> What was the size of Spiff when you were acquired? We were in the We were right around 300 people. >> 300 people. >> A little more. >> What about What about earlier though? Like is I know team still crucial in the early days, but is it is it is it the same answer going to like your first million in revenue? Like cuz I don't know if team is as important as when you're a 300 person company, right? like what what is the thing that okay if I had to do this all over again and I'm going from 0 to 1 million what are you doing >> you know I look for something this is my little bit contrary answer because it it flies in the face of so much that you hear around hey if you're trading off the idea versus execution execution is way more important I really look for something that I'm borrowing a term by this really famous uh creativity researcher a guy who researches creativity his name is Jerome Bruner and you can look him up. And he has a phrase that I've fallen in love with. It's called effective surprise. >> And I love that because the effective like lots of things can be surprising. A joke could be surprising. Um a piece of artwork could be very surprising. Wow, that's a very strange way of looking out. Starry Night um by Van Go. Wow, that's a really interesting view of how to look at the sky at night. Um the effective part means that it has some very practical value. And so I look for effective surprise. I look for wow. And and they have the effective surprises have a quality of obviousness about them in retrospect. So um there's this guy famous um uh there's a famous scientist named Thomas Huxley and when someone explained to him Charles Darwin's theory of evolution he said wow that seems so obvious why did I not think of that >> and it's true when you you know even with Einstein's idea of like space and time dilating hard to get your mind around that but there is kind of an obviousness to it it's like wow that's how you that that makes all this makes sense. You know what I mean? And so there's I look for that in business. I look for a quality of obviousness. It's like and and effective surprise. It's like, >> wow, why didn't I think of that? When you have an idea where you're like, I'm glad I did think of that. >> So you are you, if I understand you, are you attributing it to the actual product and problem solution that you were bringing to the market? It was just like that's what you say the product was just that good. It was just that much of a >> just reflecting back I would say like this like take capture for example a huge problem was you need a single source of truth to prevent litigation problems fighting arguments etc can be serious right yes and so having a spreadsheet especially a non-colaborative spreadsheet like Excel right and having eight different versions amongst VCs invested and the founders is going to lead to problems so you said well obviously it would be smarter If we had one person responsible and one piece of software responsible for doing that and SAS can handle complex things more than making all these formulas in Excel. That seems obvious in hindsight. >> Yes. >> And it could have been done 10 years earlier. >> It could have. >> Yes. Right. >> Yeah. I mean the software >> Salesforce and Omnature here in Utah were doing SAS businesses >> totally. >> 10 15 years before we figured out cap tables need to be sassified. Right. And so then you're what you're saying is the same with commissions. You said the first screen is CRM and tracking contacts and where I'm at with customers, but what about what motivates me to be a top salesman is I I want to get that boat. >> Yes. >> And building that in to the process seems obvious in hindsight, but you recognize something. That's what you're saying. Is that what you're saying? >> That's what I'm saying. And I would just maybe add one thing to what you said. I loved everything you said. >> The surprise element can be quite deep. And what I mean by that is it may not seem very surprising that cap tables needed to be aggregated, but whenever I talked to VCs at the time, their answer was like this is like a $10 million market. Who cares? Like no one wants to invest. So there was this surprising element to to my belief >> that this is a much larger market than than what you think. And similar I saw it again with with commissions. Oh, you know, like you're solving some small like way down the value chain problem. And I was like, really? There's$8 billion dollar in commissions that are flowing around obvious to me. No, but but yeah, in hindsight now, it's every company in the world has a cap table. Every company, whether they've put it into a spreadsheet or not, it's totally true. >> And every commission sales position in the world has to track commissions. >> That's right. >> That's right. >> And has to [clears throat] track customers and the motivations behind sales. I mean >> 80 million sellers kind of saying it's >> it seems like a small thing but when it's very broad that it's really so that's incredible insight. Yeah. I tip my hat to you Jiren for your ability to recognize that. Yeah. I've learned a lot from you just sharing that. >> Oh thanks. >> We're going to we're going to build that into our venture fund uh scouting activity and it really resonate. What did you say it was? It was >> effective surprise. >> It's effective surprise. Have you ever heard of the purple cow from Seth Goden? >> I have heard of the purple cow. >> It's like the same principle. It's like you kind of just have to have this wow factor to the market with the product that you're bringing to the market. The market just has to be like, "Wow, >> that is cool. Oh, I've never thought of that. >> Never thought of a purple cow." >> Yeah. I never thought I didn't know purple cows existed, but now we want purple. >> And what I like about what Seth goes says, and then when everybody's a purple cow, now it's something else. >> Yeah. Got to be a yellow cow or green cow or whatever. Sure. >> Okay. So, I I'm I'm I like your answer. when you're scaling, when you're hitting scale, getting to that 300 person, you know, startup, it's team in the beginning. It's that effective >> surprise. It's the wow factor and just having a good product that serves a good market. [clears throat] >> Yeah, I like that. >> Um, okay. >> Having some deep insight that others It's It's kind of like seeing $20 on the on the sitting on the sidewalk that everyone else has overlooked, you know? Yeah. >> They're out there. They really are. But you have to see the world differently somehow to be able to see it. It's probably under some bushes over there or something. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> We I we we talk about um like these must-have products versus these nice to have products. >> And I think and I I a lot of people always ask, "How do you know when something's must have versus nice to have?" Because almost everything starts out as nice to have, right? Like Tyler, I totally agree. when you're super innovative or like bringing a new product to market, it's like >> I don't think the customer even knows how much mustave something is until like the entrepreneur and the innovator actually makes it must have, right? Or establishes the market like that. >> That's brilliant. I'm going to quote you on that cuz I totally agree. >> Yeah. Establishing a market, creating the market. Um I have questions about Salesforce and the process that you went through with that bohemoth of a company. Sure. >> I don't know how interested my dad is in this, but me going through this with a public company, you know, being acquired by a public company is just such a crazy beast. >> And I just remember getting the initial due diligence checklist that them and their lawyers and attorneys asked for. >> I was acquired by a large education company and it took us so long to get all of the things with our attorneys and everything on our side buttoned up to actually get it to a presentable state to where they could actually thumb through it. And then it that process of just I mean through it took months of time. How long was it from when you got the first ping that Salesforce was interested to when you actually got the money in the bank account done? >> Okay. So the first ping that they were interested actually came 2 years before the acquisition. Wow. >> Yeah. But there was there was an interesting weirdness there. They Yeah. They tried to acquire us 2 years before the deal went down. Um sorry. Yeah. I guess I guess it would be let me just make sure I'm No, it's it's a year. Sorry. So they they tried to acquire us the year I'm sorry I exaggerated on accident. It's a year before they acquired us. They reached out to us around Dreamforce of 2023 2022. Dreamforce of 2022 and they said we're going to make an acquisition in this space. But then uh there I don't know if folks are followers of Salesforce but there was actually a shareholder activism like kind of um effort and they had to shut down their M&A committee and we were like thank goodness because that meant for us that we could keep building and we weren't we didn't want to get acquired at that time we had uh probably less than half of the revenue that we were going to ultimately have a year later and so way way less than half and so the multiples and the amount of money we would get if we had to sell at that time were were not super attractive to us. So, we were just like they they but they when they left and kind of said, "Hey, we can't do the deal now." We were like, "Oh, no problem." And they were like, "Hey, but we'll stay in touch." We're like, "Great. Let's stay in touch, you know, awesome." Like, "Perfect. They're still interested in us, but we don't have to sell." Well, not a year went by, the next Dream, like right before the next Dream Force, which would have been Dreamforce in 2023, they said, "We want to spin up acquisition conversations again. Dream Forces usually in October. I don't remember the exact time it was, but the deal was started negotiations in earnest late September, early October. The deal was inked in December and the deal was finalized in February. So that's for that large of a transaction. >> They are very I will say Salesforce M&A machine is probably I I can't imagine a better large company M&A machine on so many levels. They are so professional. They are so fast. They're so good at what they do. It's it's really remarkable. >> So I you said something that I always like to teach to entrepreneurs too to understand cuz in um >> corporate venture is actually a big funer of startups. People don't realize. So it sounds to me like Salesforce ventures invested in you. >> They did. I didn't know that. Let's let's just to make sure the the listeners and viewers understand this is that >> a huge swath of venture capital in this country is actually not from venture funds and angel investors but from corporate venture arms and almost every major big company has two things. A corporate venture arm which would make an equity investment in an early stage company like they did in Spiff in your case, right? Correct. But then they have another division totally separate from the ventures is their M&A department. >> Correct. >> Which is in charge of acquiring customers or I mean acquiring targets? >> Totally. >> Whether or not Salesforce Ventures was invested in you, they still could have been interested in you. But did the fact that they made an investment in you from their venture arm enhance the desire of M&A to acquire you? >> Yeah. Did you get close to them? Certainly. So that and so this is what I try to teach in our boot camp to the entrepreneurs that they should understand that it might be a wise thing to check out the big behemoth players in their market for a venture investment. I don't know if you know but Pura uh was you know the IoT device they were in our first cohort of >> boot camp uh >> yeah yeah and and they the interesting early in their history after they got 100,000 from an angel investor their next 500,000 >> was actually from a multi-billion dollar fragrance company that just and they wanted to kind of know what they were doing be inside the tent and they gave him 500,000 grant they didn't they said it's not going to be debt we're not going to make an equity investment those are harder to get through but we're just going to grant grant you money. >> Unbelievable. >> Yeah, I know. And that's PI. Now PIR does like 200 million a billion dollar company. But the whole the whole point is is that I just wanted listeners to understand that this is a whole world that's also available to you as an entrepreneur. >> I love that. I love that. >> That's cool that you got the uh ventures to go into you and then I didn't know that. That's really that that's a great path. Yeah. >> Thank you. Yeah. >> So where did we cut you off there on that? >> You didn't cut me off at all. Anytime either of you just >> I'm learning more from you. I think a lot of people in Utah aren't fully aware of the size of your transaction and your exit and how well you guys did. And I hope that this is a small piece of, you know, just another great feather in Utah's cap, but what you've done, I tip my hat to you for what you've accomplished. It's pretty amazing. >> Means a lot coming from Utah. >> Before we before we close, I want to dive a little bit just briefly just topically because we don't have enough time to go deep on your angel investing. >> Sure. So, you're now obviously turning around and investing in the next generation of entrepreneurs, which is super fun. Like when I sold, when he sold, I think that's just the natural path of an entrepre successful entrepreneur is you you turn around and invest in the next generation. >> It's true. >> Um, what are you looking for in angel investments? And how active are you? I I feel like you've even on this podcast said a handful that I didn't know about and then I went and researched you in preparation for this podcast and I found out a ton >> then, too. So you're you're pretty active. >> I right now I'm really active actually. So I but I take a strategy that >> is maybe not the most popular or maybe not even the best for optimizing irr, but I invest I write a lot of small checks right now. >> Partially because I'm trying to get my name out there. >> Um and then I'll and then on several of the ones that I have extreme conviction or that are showing a lot of progress, I will write a for me a much larger check. And so I um and I generally look because I'm not trying to compete with venture capital firms. Um I I really actually that's one of the things I most look for is I'd love to co-invest alongside uh either of you. I'd love to co-invest alongside a fund. Um that that for me is like hey they're going to do some diligence that I won't have time to do. they're gonna have deeper pockets than I will so I know it's not just gonna uh you know u not not make it to the next level. And so those are those are things and then I try to look for areas where I have some unique insight into what they're building. Like I I invested in an AI spreadsheet, you know, I feel like I know that space reasonably well and um and I invested I've invested in some sales stuff that would be highly related to >> that's cool >> to what I what I know. So, yeah, that's kind of what >> No, I mean that kind of matches the thesis of our fund too. You know, we're super early preede fund and you know, I think a lot of investors that are actually in our fund that they kind of have that same logic like, okay, you guys are going to be able to >> do more due diligence, dive deeper and understand, okay, what makes a good opportunity versus what not, what doesn't make a good opportunity. So, I think that is very similar and and I think use investing small and then going big on the ones you feel very a lot of that's a tried and true strategy. That is one of the most prolific and successful angel investors in the history of Utah, Scott Frasier. Scott Frasier. Scott Frasier, >> his whole thing was I put a little money in in a whole bunch of deals and then I double, triple, and quadruple down on the winners and it's paid off big time for me. He's, you know, I I sat, you know, side by side now. We he has his sons doing this. I have my son doing it. But he uh he's a legend and that's a great philosophy you've got you're following there. So good. >> Means a lot come from you. >> Yeah. No, seriously, it does. >> It's great. >> I love Scott, too. >> You know that a lot of people that have new wealth from selling their company the first year of angel investing, they usually get burned and learn lose a lot of money. >> So, um, all of us have been through that. And what happens is, uh, by you kind of saying the things you you've learned, I think you can avoid a lot of that. Yeah. So, that's really cool. Thank you. Okay, let's wrap it up. >> Yeah. So, let me ask two questions. Two questions and then we got to wrap. >> There was one question to answer. If you [laughter] had two minutes with an entrepreneur, you know, our audience or, you know, budding entrepreneurs or, you know, in the throws of early stage, two things, two quick tips, like what are the two most important things you could tell uh a CEO, founder of a a company with two or three founders and just getting off the ground. What would you tell them? >> I'm actually interested to hear what you say. >> What's the like put you on the spot? >> Top one or two things that you really >> Yeah. >> feel would be good for them to understand and know. Oh my gosh, John, I want to hear from you. >> I want to learn from you more and then it'll spur some thoughts. >> They're pretty general. I mean, but like if you were talking to yourself, you know, 20 years ago, what would you say to yourself? >> Like to me right now, I I feel like I'm talking to myself a lot. Um, and because >> because I I'm honestly I'm I'm bringing what what Salesforce I learned this this phrase at Salesforce called beginner's mind. Have you heard about this from Zen Buddhism? So cool. >> I haven't. Zen Buddhism, one of the concepts they teach there is this concept called beginner's mind, which is shin. And it means to even if you're an expert at something, >> it's often helpful to try and erase all your preconceptions and go in with a totally clean slate and try to reason up. Elon Musk will call this like reason up from first principles, but to for try to eliminate your potential biases. And one of the things I'm really working on because I am starting to think about uh new ideas right now and something I might want to go do or maybe not. But as I'm doing that, it's really important for me to realize that actually sometimes your success can become your biggest impediment >> to to to knowing what you need to change. So like for me right now, I'm a little swimming to be honest with you, John. I'm I feel like AI has disrupted so many things. I was on the phone um with Woody. Do you guys know Woody Clementson over at Ask Elephant, the CEO of Ask Elephant? No. >> Cool company, cool guy. And he said something that's just been deeply resonating with me recently. He said, >> um, he said, "Jiren, in the era of AI, your software isn't special." So, this does go back to our debate. >> Who knows who's right? I actually think you're largely right. It's not immediate, but there is this element of like your SAS, your software, it's not as special as it used to be. It's a lot easier. Even if you're not all the way there, >> we're seeing that where software engineering is changing. Yeah. And it's Yeah, >> it is. Which isn't to say it's gone away, by the way. But um but yeah, I'm I'm thinking a lot about um what it means to to to start a company in the era of AI. It's very different. So, I think that's what I'm I'm I'm actually trying to bring a beginner's mind to the problem. >> I like that. Yeah, that's great. Great advice. >> And that that is and it's often our own expertise sometimes can get in the way because we start concluding that we know things that maybe in this environment we don't know. >> Yeah, it's so true. >> That's good. So true. >> It's great. >> Um okay, let's wrap it up because we've had >> Well, don't you have any final thoughts? >> Oh, I have a ton of final thoughts. >> Both answer your own question. I'm Could you mind if I ask that? Can we go two minutes over so I can hear you? I want your answers. >> I don't know if they're here to listen to us. They're here to listen to you, Jar. >> Come on. >> Um, no, that what you said kind of reminds me of the uh behavioral change, you know, the five steps of behavioral change where we're uninformed optimists at the very beginning. Entrepreneurs at the very beginning, we're uninformed optimists until then we're informed pessimists because we start learning so much about the market that we start hating what we're doing. Like, did I make the right decision? Oh man, this is going to be so difficult. But it's about coming out of that >> out of that informed pessimism back into an informed optimism. >> Yeah. Yeah. Informed optimism, right? Or there's two choices, right? You can go from that informed pessimism into like the valley of despair or you can actually go climb out of it and become an informed optimist again, right? And I think that's just like the whole entrepreneurial cycle. So that really resonated with me. Yeah. Yeah. >> I like yours better than mine. >> I really do. [laughter] It's just something that we talk about in our boot camp because, you know, mind mindset's a huge thing too in entrepreneurship and and I think a lot of execution comes from like the belief and the confidence of the entrepreneur themselves and especially as I'm around a lot of students lately and just seeing like you know kind of the deer and headlights look in their faces and just re you know telling them hey you guys can do this trust me if anybody can do this it's you in this state at this time in your life that you guys can go and make world changing products and be innovative and disrupt huge industries Right. >> Um, so my mine, okay, I'll say this. I I it's back to first principle. I say just remember your task as a new startup is actually to find product market fit and a business model, not the widget you want to build. You have to actually find a product >> that will solve somebody's problem or meet their needs and they want to buy it, okay, before you start building it. And so it's back to lean startup principles and it's just again the first phase of a startup is actually not a company it's the search for a business model and product market fit >> and then the second piece of that is all along the way you got to check yourself am I acting on assumptions or am I acting on facts >> so much of the pain the loss the failure comes from us assuming we know something when we really don't know it we assume it and then we go build a product We go invest a lot of marketing dollars. We do a lot of premature scaling because we're assuming we know something that we actually are >> I love that >> just an assumption not a piece of knowledge. So, it's back to that. If I had to say one thing, remember your product at the beginning is actually a validated business model. And you do that by acting on facts, not assumptions. And that's the thing like all the time I say, well, how do you know that this target market will pay $499 for that? How do you know that? Yeah. And they go, well, it just seems right. Okay. Well, what do you mean such a cool thing? >> Who have you talked to? What what research have you done? You know, I mean, that kind of thing. And it's just that's the thing that we keep seeing time and time again is just people acting on assumptions. And the most expensive thing to do as a startup entrepreneur is to act on assumptions. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's a great point. I love that. >> I think we can conclude with Jiren's journey is not acting on assumptions. He's actually done the exact opposite. Probably obsessively looked at markets and products and taking your journey of finding these pains with these spreadsheets and converting them into amazing SAS products is is awesome. >> Thank you. Thank you. So, and obviously a repeat founder, you obviously know what you're doing, right? Not a lot of people can say, "Hey, I've sold three, four companies, right?" And even though your first one, you say, was zero dollars for the time that you put into it. I think we can all claim that kind of startup. But hey, Spiff, congratulations again. Yeah. I mean, you So, okay, let's wrap it up and thank you, Jiren, for coming on for the podcast with us. It has been such an awesome conversation. Hopefully, all you viewers and listeners loved it as well. I'm sure you could reach out to Jiren. Find him on LinkedIn. Find him on social media. I'm sure he's such a nice guy and he's angel investing. I don't want to throw too much your way, but Jiren is a smart guy. Trust me, you want him on your cap table. That is 1,000% true, right? >> Okay. But thank you. This is another episode of the Startup Ignition Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Please subscribe, like, share this with your entrepreneurial friends. We love any kind of comments that you throw away. Any kind of questions. We're here to answer them. So, thank you so much and until next time. Thanks for tuning in. That's it. [music] Back next rock.