#063: How Cyrus Shirazi’s Obsession Built Haven to $1.5M in Under a Year

People make or break companies. Great people make them, terrible people break them. I don't give a crap if you're like an AI bullshit company or like some machine learning nonsense. If you're not hiring like cracked engineers, you're not going to make it. If you're like in like a tech-enabled business and you're not hiring like amazing people to get the job done for your clients at like a really high level and provide them like the guidance and advice and strategy that they need, you're not going to make it. There's— maybe you can call it like me being like an adrenaline junkie for like the rush of like winning. But I think no matter how successful I become or don't become, I will always be obsessed.

Cyrus Shirazi, founder and CEO of Haven, is revolutionizing the accounting and finance landscape for startups with a customer-first approach. By focusing on building an obsessively responsive company, Cyrus has created a horizontal platform that serves the comprehensive tax, finance, and accounting needs of businesses. In this episode of Turning Pro, Cyrus discusses his journey from early-stage startup experiences to leading Haven, a profitable business that's scaling fast. He shares his insights on the importance of speed obsession and surrounding yourself with high-energy, ambitious individuals. He also dives into how listening to customer feedback shaped Haven's product development and why staying close to the customer is crucial for long-term success.

Welcome back to Season 3, Episode 6 of the Turning Pro Podcast. Today we have Cyrus Shirazi, who's the founder and CEO of Haven. Thanks for joining us today.

Thanks guys, great to be here.

So I knew— I know exactly where I want to start with this episode. You made a post a couple weeks ago that was basically like, if you don't respond immediately to people, then I'm not bullish on you.

Yeah, so I think that it all boils down to like customer service and like building like companies. I think the way that you treat your customers is indicative of how you kind of like go about like building your business. And so if you have that like maniacal obsession, and as soon as you see a ping from them, you're gonna like respond like instantaneously, it's just indicative of like your mindset to like how you approach like other things in like company building, life, and all of it. And I think that when I'm actively like recruiting people or talking to like their respective partners or like vendors. When I see that obsession from them, it just tells me they have their shit together and it's like, I want to work with you.

I think it also speaks to quality of work. Like, it's like you run a software plus services business. I run a services business. You used to. And a lot of the time, just how fast you respond, it has nothing to do with the quality of, say, our content deliverables, but it indicates potential quality.

100%.

But I feel like you're like that with more than just customers.

Totally. I think it's just an obsessive thing with me overall. I think quick response times are indicative of like obsession overall. And I think the people who build like great companies are just like obsessive, like in general. And those are the people like I want to surround myself with, whether that comes to like them being like a prospective like employee or prospective like founding team member or like a prospective like founder. Like those are the people that like get me out of bed every day and get me like fired up. And so I think as I like vet people kind of like to like hire them, as I vet like just different like businesses overall, like that we want to like work with. When you have that like obsessive, like kind of like nature to you, it's a whole nother ballgame when it comes to kind of like how you like work with them. But I'm getting like a little bit like sidetracked, but Overall, like the theme is like quick response times are indicative of like obsession. And I think that is like the big, big takeaway. Like whether it comes to like working with your customers, whether it comes to like working with partners or friends or like responding to this or that, it just means like you're in the game and time is money in business. And every second that you like waste, you're like leaving money on the table. It's kind of like how I look at it.

I love that framing of you're in the game or you're not. And you can tell that immediately when you get coffee with someone new, maybe you're working out with someone or you meet someone. They're either in the game, they're in the flow of things, or they are not. And you can tell immediately. Maybe they used to be, maybe they're taking a break, but they either have that— it's like a pacing and it's an energy and it's a focus— or they don't.

I'll give credit to Aaron Spivak, who's one of the first people who said this to me. He said, you're either in or in the way. And I was like, damn, that's so true. And I think to be able to have the velocity to know like the people around you, if, if they're in or not, and to be able to move past that and just maintain relationships with the people who move at the same level as you, and to understand the dynamic you need to maintain with people who maybe aren't at the same level as you. It's important in the grand scheme of things. I think what was really funny when we first got, got connected was I was like, I met like a clone of me. Like, we're so, like, we're so similar in a way that most people don't understand it. So when you meet someone who's like the same as you, I I, I actually hold my head high on the fact that Cyrus felt an extreme level of discomfort when we first met because I introduced him to like 15 people and he's so used to being the person that introduces someone to people that he wouldn't leave me the fuck alone. He's like, who can I introduce you to? How can I be helpful? And I'm like, dude, shut up. Like, it will come back around, trust me. And I know in his mind he was like, damn, like, I know we're very similar, but there's not that many people who like operate at that same wavelength, which is why it's very interesting when you meet someone like that, to keep them close because you can talk to them about things that most people don't get.

100%. And so this actually kind of like brings me back to something that happened to me, like kind of like recently. I have this friend, awesome guy, super, super sharp, has been trying to build a company for like a year and a half. And he came to me, was like, got like, brother, like I need some like advice, feedback on everything like I've done. Starts a company, shuts it down, starts one, shuts it down, never really gets anything off the ground. And I was like, all right, I have an idea for you, fits your background like perfectly. Come to New York this weekend, I'll have like 5 customers for you, like ready to rock and roll, fully signed, fully good to go. And he goes, it's my girlfriend's sister's engagement party. And I was like, brother, like I love you, but I'm not like talking like business with you like anymore. If you don't have that obsession, it's just people operate in different wavelengths and that's totally fucking fine, right? Like everyone's different. But if you want to surround yourself with like A+ players and people who are kind of like trying to climb the same mountain that you're trying to climb, there's these little like things, whether it's like fast response times or like obsession or just like being like focused on like the little things. That set everyone apart.

I think that's also when we, in 10, 15 years, I'm sure we'll be running different companies or multiple companies at the same time. Not to get mushy for a second, but that's also the whole fun part of this video game that we're all playing. In 15 years, I'll be like, I don't remember the deliverables that I'm sending this week, but I remember hustling in the trenches with Cyrus and Ben, and that means a lot, and that relationship is still going. 100%. Because that's what's gonna be around in 15 years.

15 years, 100%. And there's nothing better than that. Like, that is the stuff that just like fires you up and you feed off of that energy.

But I think it's also, at least for me, like, I get so much frustration in conversations with people who don't get it. And it's just part of the game though. Like, whether you're selling a service or doing a deal, there's people where you, you kind of like the same way we were talking about the box theory that Tinks has for dating people. Like, I kind of feel like there's a box theory that I actually want to make a post about this. I feel like there's a box theory that exists this with business relationships. Yeah, we're like, are you a person who I know is just going to be a transactional deal person where like, I know you do deals and you know I do deals and like we're gonna do them together but we don't really vibe with each other? Are you someone where I just know it's going to be a thorn in my side, you just don't get it on the level that I need you to? And then you meet someone where it's like, you get it, right? And I joke that if you say to someone like, you get it or you don't get it, and if someone asks what that means, like, they don't get it. And it's just like this, it's a wavelength that I don't think there's that many people on, where you're on it with people, it's like you're the one misfit in a room of 10, and then you go to a new room where all of you are on the same stage, you all probably came from a room where you felt like the misfit.

100%. And by the way, I'm sure if you exit for $100 million tomorrow, you're not going to be on the same wavelength as us anymore. So it's not a knock on the people that are not, if they're in a different stage of life. But I think it is a testament to if someone is on that wavelength, it's a hell of a lot of fun.

Completely agreed to an extent. I think that— and I'd probably put myself in this bucket— which, like, when I was like fundraising You say all kinds of shit, but this, like, I wholeheartedly, like, believe. I will die 5 years earlier than I otherwise would have because of how, like, obsessed I am. Whether it's like Saturday night, Sunday morning, I don't give a fuck. Like, I am there for, like, my customers and, like, my partners and, like, the people, like, that I'm, like, working with, like, no matter what. Because it's corny, but, like, time, like, really, really is money. And then every second that you let kind of, like, go by like that you didn't close that deal, that you didn't respond to that customer, is translating into less sales, a lower NPS, whatever it is. And there's— maybe you can call it like me being like an adrenaline junkie for like the rush of like winning. But I think no matter how successful I become or don't become, I will always be obsessed.

I think that's so profound, actually. Like, I'll die 5 years earlier because of the level of obsession I have. I actually feel like I'm very similar in that regard. I think part of it is probably just because of my cortisol levels from stress, but that stress comes from that maniacal obsession with everything that I'm doing. And most people think I'm crazy. Like, they look at the way you act and like, dude, fucking chill. I was like, you don't understand, I can't sometimes. Like, it's not— it's not that I enjoy the fact that I am this way, I just embrace who I am and lean into my superpowers to like do the best that I can. And I think maybe one of the challenges is that, uh, at a micro level you feel like you're not maybe progressing as fast as you want But it's like if I look back 15 years from now and continue at the clip that I'm at, I think I'll be happy with where I get to 100%.

And like, how do you, how do you guys go about kind of like sniffing out that obsession in like talent employees?

We are talking about hiring. Are we talking about people to do business with?

Both. Both.

A lot of it is just like immediate speed of communication. And then I think there's a sharpness of intellect. I think within like a couple— I think within 2 minutes of talking to someone, just how fast they're talking, how they're framing the verbiage they're using, the speed at which they're jumping from thing to thing in a good way. I think within a couple of minutes you can tell right away. It's like, do they have horsepower?

The last 5 hires we've made, I nailed all 5 of them within 2 minutes of meeting them. And then I interviewed a ton of people. A ton of people, and all the last 5 people, I was like, you get it. Yeah, just like there's, there's an element of curiosity, intellect, uh, openness to new ideas, but also like opinionated in your own perspectives. Like, I just think there's a level to which you can have a conversation with someone where they just see the world differently than your average person. Like, I think for me, the way that I look at it, both from the perspective of people I spend time with, people that I hire, people that I do business with it's how much pride you take in the shit that you do.

Totally.

And I think that's directly correlated with obsession, right? Like, you're— you want to be the best at the thing that you do. And by no means am I expecting everyone to be like the same level of like fucked up that we are in terms of like how you operate, because there's levels to it, and it's not healthy if everyone like is like that in the same room. But there are ways to like gauge someone's pride and commitment to what it is that they're doing and want to be the best at it. And I think for me, if I find someone that holds true in those categories and I'm still wrong in some other aspect, like, I can live with that.

Yeah, I think there's also an intensity of work ethic. It can take a little longer to kind of suss out, but like Verbatim would not be around in its current form without Claire, who's our VP of operations. She's been with us for like a year, year and a half now. And when I remember when I was interviewing her and we were getting to know each other, like I was like walking through her background and I think she did 2 or 3 years at JPMorgan, I want to say, out of college. And there you're pulling like 9 to midnight, if not longer, every single day. And you could tell just as she was describing it, as we continue to talk, there's just like an intensity behind the eyes that you can tell when it comes to work ethic and people that either have it or don't have it. You have it, you have it, and you can tell right away. Totally. I want to talk a bit about early stage B2B go-to-market, BD, founder-led sales, which I know we're all involved in.

We probably just lost half the listeners.

It's a very niche topic, but I think one of my realization But over time, before I started a company, and I was investing, but I was only a few years out of college, I saw these become Brex and Ramp and Mercury and all these different companies come out. That's just in fintech, but every single vertical. And I was just in awe. I was like, oh my god, their product must be so damn good. And it's just a wonderful company. And then when you actually— a lot of our friends are building kind of the next iterations of those in fintech and commerce infrastructure, supply chain, B2B SaaS services, as we are in. And so much of it, when you're actually in, like, in the weeds of it, is a lot of the time, like, early product is not that good and it's pretty damn commoditized. Over time, you have to have a damn good process and system if you're an agency. If you're not an agency, a really dialed-in product and a good product team. So it does matter. But that, like, first $0 to $1 million, $1 to $10 million is mostly about what alliances you're forming, who you know, your sales process. And really who within the ecosystem is on your team. And so I'm curious, either of you can take that because I can kind of go in a lot of different directions.

Yeah, so I think the way early stage B2B GTM shakes out is really, really tied to the industry and ICP that you're serving. The more commoditized an industry is, in my opinion, the more your GTM motion needs to be about increasing your luck surface area. And what I mean by that is like creating mechanisms that enable you to stay top of mind with your ICP as broadly as you can without needing to do it in a one-to-one form. And when I say one-to-one, I mean like one-to-one cold emails or like one-to-one DMs or like one-to-one coffee meetups. And the way that like you kind of increase your luck surface area is by building like meaningful relationships. With a variety of different like people who are kind of like stakeholders across like different parts of like the ecosystem that like you're trying to like appeal to, then like of course like a huge steady dose of like content is like a no-brainer. I used to be the guy who before I started like my own company didn't want to do content because I thought I was going to be like laughed at in the group chats, right?

And I think everyone who started content was that guy at some point.

They just started and then it's pierced when you close a $100K deal from it. Literally like, whoa, that works.

No, like spot on. And once you kind of like, especially if you're in this like commoditized kind of like B2B like, uh, world, once you see that like it works specifically like when it comes to content, but just like the broader strategy of like increasing like your luck surface area, increasing the number of like relationships and partners and like, um, evangelists that you like have, it really begins to like set yourself apart. And then When it comes to working in like more niche B2B like industries where like let's say your only ICP is like technical teams and you can only work with like broadly like B2B like software companies, then it is still like really important to increase like your luck surface area and stay top of mind like with people, but your approach needs to be that much more targeted, right? Like you need to spend more and more of your time building very, very strategic relationships with the specific stakeholders across this part of like the ecosystem that you're in.

I mean, I feel like my company compared to yours is the exact analogy.

100%.

Like your total addressable market is a lot larger than mine. And so you have this more like, I don't want to use the word spray and pray, but like more top of mind with everyone. Exactly. Whereas mine is like very much e-com specific.

Yep.

And I think there's, there's not like a right or wrong, like it's not that one's right and what's, what's wrong. I think it just does change a little bit about how you think about go-to-market. In terms of the channels that you're using, where doubling down, how you're getting signal for what's working and what's not. Because, you know, I'll give you a great example. Like, we do these Founder Wellness Hangouts and I joke with him, like, every single person there is technically a prospect for his business. It's like 1% is a prospect for my business. I just enjoy meeting other founders and like learn a lot from them. But like, that's something that he could justify, like putting company resources into at scale because it works for him. But for me, it's not worth it. Because that's not actually 1-to-1 translatable to what we're doing. And so because of that, I have to think about different ways to do things that are very specific to our business as a go-to-market function.

And specifically, like, just to touch on that, like the way tactically and in practice the difference looks between like my approach and like your approach is you spend more time with these specific people in your industry. We spend less time with one individual stakeholder or one individual evangelist or whatever, more time with them more broadly, like with different ones. And that enables us to stay top of mind with our audience better. And so it's just like understanding those nuances and kind of like operating accordingly.

I think when it comes to content or broadly speaking about go-to-market, you do need— I tell every team we work with on this, You need a founder or founding team sprinting around a city, meeting every single person there, 100% within channel partners, ICP, referral partners. And then you also need one-to-many content, less so to stay top of mind with your customers, more about staying top of mind with those partners that you just met. And I remember we had a client who we're still really tight with, but content didn't really work for them. And I remember a few months in, he was like, we're just not driving the leads we want to see. And I was like, well, what happened? And he was like, Well, I'm just— I cleared my calendar and, you know, my— we fired our BD team and I was like, well, that's why it's not working. Again, they had been aqua hired and we were just kind of riding it out. But there's clear examples like you need one-to-one and you need one-to-many. Totally. And if you only have one, you're not going to grow as fast. If you only have the other, it's not going to work. Yep.

100%. Travis Farrow, right?

Like 100%.

Just like more broadly, even if like you have more of a niche kind of ICP, like, you then, like, have to spend a lot more time with those different, like, stakeholders rather than, like, more broadly if you have, like, a very, very big ICP. Obviously that changes as the ACV, like, increases though, right? So, like, let's say, like, I have some prospective accounts that are, like, in the 6-figure range. I have to spend more time with those stakeholders. Than I otherwise would have.

Accounting. How the hell did you get into building an accounting business?

Um, I would love to learn.

Maybe give like a quick 2 seconds for people listening what it is that you guys do, and then tell me how the fuck you ended up building an accounting software.

Yeah, so Haven is building a horizontal tax finance accounting platform for businesses not just in the US but to start English-speaking countries across the world. How are we able to do that? My business partner Scott Clark was the VP of Finance and Corporate Controller at Lime when they were doing $300 million in ARR roughly.

I didn't know that.

Yeah.

Oh, that's a fun fact.

It had 50+ international entities, so he had to handle the accounting for them all over the world, adhere to all the different accounting standards, and then handle like the consolidation. So convincing him to come and be my partner was an amazing grab and has really set us up for success. But when I say like a horizontal accounting tax platform, what I mean is like not just bookkeeping, not just taxes, not just tax credits. Like that's what everyone basically does. I mean like payroll tax registrations, sales tax, personal taxes for our founders and their employees, and then ultimately things like QSBS attestation letters. And then things like putting your equity as a founder into a Roth IRA, kind of like Peter Thiel style. We want to be that like one-stop shop for any accounting, tax, finance matter that a business and their employees kind of like run into.

And what, what were businesses using, or what do they use before you guys had this insight to start this company?

Yeah, so there's a variety of competitors in the space, everything from like from Pilot to Bench to Fondo to kind of like more professional services type style businesses who don't have like any tech approach, which is like Berkland and Cruise, and there's like Ativo and like a few others as well. And then people were kind of like scattered across like all of those like different players. Some of them had like mom-and-pop accountants that they use, like maybe their parents use them and had like a preordained kind of like existing relationship there. But how do we get started in this space? I mean, so my background is kind of like at the intersection of fintech and tax tech. So I was like a relatively early employee at Main Street, which is like an R&D credit company. And then I was the first business hire at Meow. And I just spent like an enormous amount of time at the earliest stage of the company building in like, I'll call it like the financial services world, like more broadly. And throughout that time I would always run into accounting, like, questions. And when I was at Meow, people would ask if we knew a good accountant or, like, tax professional. When I was at, like, Main Street, they would ask if, like, we could do their books and their taxes. And then January of 2023 hit. I was, like, 25 roughly, and I was like, somewhat like burnt out, uh, and basically I don't know if you know the like story of Meow specifically, but we were like originally a crypto company, then like crypto blew up, then like we started like a new business. I got to a point where I like wanted to do something new, and so I took a step back, got fat on the couch for like a month and like drank too much beer.

And then, which is important, it's a turning pro moment. Yeah, that is a turning pro moment.

And then spent as much time as I possibly could talking to like as many founders as like I could. And I was ideating across things within financial services, right? Just like kind of like my background. And a few of the founder friends or the first founder friends that I chatted with were like, what the hell is the R&D credit? It just came up in conversation. And I was like, it's free money for startups. And then I spun up a C corp. Helped those few friends with their R&D credits, help them save like, I don't know, north of like $250K. And then I was like, all right, this is a side hustle, like who the fuck knows where this is gonna go? And spent as much time as I could thereafter talking to founders, kind of ideating across like different industries and verticals and stuff, but all within like the financial services bucket. And I just heard from like one too many founders that thankfully gave me like their time after spamming them on LinkedIn to like get on the phone, that they either hated their CPA, uh, their CPA didn't get them what they needed on time, didn't get things done that they needed them to get done, just wasn't like proactively like there for them. And so I was like, all right, maybe there's something here. So kind of like did a deep dive into the space, and it's kind of like common knowledge at this point, but CPAs, people with that professional distinction, are like a dying breed. The number of CPAs that are like minted, like who get their credentials every year, is drastically like diminishing. And so I was like, all right, there's something here. And then I basically had a personal experience with my CPA where he like didn't respond to me, didn't get things on time. And I just like was like, all right, let's fucking rock. And call up like my longtime best friend and was like, all right, you want to go build a massive business with me? And started with bookkeeping, tax, and tax credits, kind of like everyone else. And got to like a million dollars in revenue and, uh, over 100 customers. And roughly like from August until I think it was like March, April, and around that point in time I raised like $750K.

Why?

If you want to build a massive company and you don't want to take like 50 years like Michael Bloomberg, like giving up 6.5% like to incentive align a bunch of like amazing people is like kind of like a no-brainer. And here we are. Haven has over 170 customers in less than a year still. Um, over $1.5 million in revenue now.

Um, yeah, I want to talk about the ICP that you're focused on, which is especially early stage founders and probably growth stage founders as well, or business owners. And we were talking about this when we were at the Row event the other weekend. I think we were doing the interview series or something, and you were like, why are you doing Verbatim? And I was like, I just love working with founders. I like helping them win, and that's it. And if it's content, cool. If it's growth, cool. If it's intros, whatever it is, I just like helping those people win because I think they're optimistic, high energy, ambitious, just like a lot of the values that I look up to.

Totally.

And so I'm curious for you, like you could be building a similar business, but I don't know, working with a completely different ICP, I'm sure that would change how obsessed you are because it's not always solving a problem. It's solving a problem for someone. Yeah. And it seems like you just care about that someone a lot and you empathize with them because you've been working in startups. So tell me a bit more about like helping that specific person.

So going back to like what we chatted about, kind of like at the beginning of the conversation, around fast response times, then translating into like obsessiveness. I love surrounding myself with people who like are cut from that same cloth. And there was no one else in the world who was cut from that same cloth as like much as founders are, like period, like hard stop. And so regardless of like what I was going to do, like when I quit Meow, like I knew I wanted to like work with founders, right? They like fire me up, get me out of bed every day, like having a courtside seat to watch them like chart new frontiers, try to change the future. It's fucking electric. There's like nothing better to do, right?

And love that, dude.

I've spent like multiple of my last couple Saturdays just like nerding out with Cyrus on ideas. Like we do that, we do that for fun.

I mean, we love it though, right? Like, yeah, I'd rather spend every second of my life like building, like building companies specifically than doing anything else, right?

Like You couldn't get me to sit and watch Netflix for 5 hours straight.

Like, I mean, I do that sometimes.

House of the Dragon season 2.

House of the Dragon is very good.

Yeah, but like, if you put me in a room with like one of you, I don't think I could. Oh, if I, if I was like, yo Cyrus, you want to come over and like smoke a joint and watch Netflix for 5 hours? You'd be like, yeah, sure. And you'd come over and there'd be like a whiteboard out.

Like after 45 minutes, there'd be two companies incorporated.

No, seriously though, I mean, like how it would really go down is like we would sit here like smoke a joint, watch Netflix, and I'd be on my phone like every like 10 minutes like checking to see like, all right, refreshing email, any emails, Slack, any Slack messages.

It would be this without the microphone. It would be the exact same thing but with laptops out.

And like even when I do like veg out and like passively watch, you're still like doing shit, bro. Like, I mean, you're not like—

I'm always refreshing.

I think the difference is that we're never like— at least for me, it's like a huge issue of mine is I'm very rarely like actively like sitting and like watching and doing nothing. You want to hear a fun fact? Yeah, I watched a movie by myself on Sunday for the first time in like maybe 2 years.

My girlfriend—

my girlfriend, remember what the movie's about?

Uh, my girlfriend, uh, had dinner with her friends, and I love, uh, like crime. And like, it was, um, like crime movies and crime TV shows. Oh yeah, it was called, um, The Badlands. It's on Netflix, just came out. It's very similar to Lone Survivor. It's basically about an operation that went south. Uh, what's that? Oh my God, it was with, uh, Liam— what's his name? Liam Hemsworth? No, Liam— is it Liam Hemsworth? Yeah, I know what you're talking about.

It's not called Badland.

Land of the Bad? Land of Bad? Badlands? Something like that. It was fantastic. And I, I like watched it. I was like, all right, like, this tells me that if I find something the same way, like when I nerd out on companies, if I find something that I'm curious about enough, like, I'll actually do it. But I don't take the time to like surf Netflix to find something to watch. It was just— I saw like the trailer of it for 2 seconds, and I love crime movies, and I sat and watched it. And after, I was like, damn, that's like a big milestone for me. I don't like sit and watch movies by myself very often, or movies at all.

Yeah, I mean, I'll still like watch movies, like, but I would lie if I could tell you that I like remembered like everything that like went on, right? Why? Because like, yeah, like I'm refreshing.

We were talking about this on a couple of, a couple of the earlier episodes about kind of the behind the scenes that people don't see. It's like whenever we've been hanging out, it's been podcast, we're jamming on ideas, we're thinking about going to market, we're in the Hamptons, we're at these events, we're at rooftop stuff. But I know most days you're just on your laptop by yourself until like 11:30 at night, 100% ripping.

Even if it's not like the laptop, the phone, like I, I was joking with someone like relatively recently. They were like, dude, how do you like text so fast? Or like respond to so many texts like so fast? Or like always respond like pretty instantaneously? And I'm like, I don't know, but my thumbs are getting tired. And like, it's, it's true, but like, I love it at the end of the day. And it gets to a certain point where you realize you need to delegate some stuff, right? So you need to begin to trust your team to step in and be an extension of you. And you train them so that they know how to handle and have these conversations and build these relationships. And like, let's— I'm always down to help any founder with fundraising, even if I'm not the one chatting with them, right? Like Michael on my team, like I'll loop him into like some conversations with like founders.

Shout out MB.

Shout out MB. Um, just because my schedule is like so crazy, like typically like average day is like, I don't know, call it like 12 calls a day minimum. And that doesn't even— that's like calendared calls, right? It doesn't include like calls in the morning or random calls throughout the day or like calls at night and whatever. And I think without that, I would probably go a little bit insane and not be able to kind of like compartmentalize, like, which conversations are which and like, what's going on here? And so you just need to find ways to kind of like do things in a more of like a less than like 1-to-1 fashion.

I think the best lesson that I learned from you when we were hanging out a couple of weeks ago And I think there's different types of lessons. There's things you read over and over on podcasts, and then there, there's some times where your schedule is so messed up that you're like, I just have to actually go do this lesson now that I keep hearing about. And it happened to come at exactly the right time where over the past month we've been growing like crazy. Yeah, we're kicking off a lot of new folks and I'm in charge of sales and BD and all our go-to-market. And then there are still parts of the content process that I'm deeply involved in that I still really enjoy. But a lot of the time after kickoff, I still try to stay on the calls and increasingly I'm just like, my team is like, you're in the way, you're blocking things from happening and we can move faster without you. And I'm like, no, but you need me there. Like, the client wants me there. And they're like, they don't want you there. I'm telling you, they care about the results. And I mentioned this to you and you're like, oh yeah, no, I'm not on those. Like, you don't have a business without that. And I had heard that advice hundreds of times on podcasts, but it happened to come at the right time that over these past— over a lot of these recent ones, unless there's like a specific client I want to stay really, really tight with, Yeah, I just told my team, like, don't invite me to the recurring invites. Like, I'll pop in, like, pull me in where you need me and I'll get involved, but I should not be doing it.

It's hard though, dude.

It's hard. It's really hard.

It's really hard. And it's not— it's, it's, it's one because it's like, it's your baby.

I think part of it, it's ego too, but like, I think I am—

but the challenge also is expectation setting, because if you set that expectation at the beginning, it just makes it harder to get out of it completely, especially with like recurring calls.

But I will say, in a lot of calls, like, when— if we're about to kick off with someone new and we're running through final details, I'll say like, who's kind of our point people? And for the past 2 and a half years I've been like, well, I'm involved. And then our ops team and strategy team is involved. And increasingly now I will just say like, we have a kick-ass team and they're going to be the point people and then I'll hop in and out. They, they, that, that they don't care. Like they just wanted the question answered.

Yeah.

And once I did that a couple of times, it was right after we talked. I did that a couple of times. I was like, they really don't care if I'm there. They just want to make sure stuff is getting done. Totally. And that completely changed, like, just my calendar. Yeah.

If Haven fails, what's the reason?

I didn't work hard enough. Simple as that. Like, I mean, Haven's a different type of business than like traditional startups or venture-backed companies, right? Like, we've been profitable since day one. I've made sure we're profitable every step of the way. We make capital allocation decisions understanding that I'm not here to play the venture game, right? Like, I've raised some venture money. There's a chance I go raise more, but even if I do, like, I'm building a real company. I'm not here to try to hit like linear growth and sacrifice like service quality kind of like along the way, which is not how you build like a real business. And so yeah, I mean, it would literally be because I don't work hard enough. I get too far away from like the customer and understanding like what they need and want. And then people. And when I say people, what I mean is like by hiring like the wrong people, right? Like no matter what business you're in, and I like, I'll die on this hill, people make or break companies. Great people make them, terrible people break them. I don't give a crap if you're like an AI bullshit company or like some machine learning nonsense. If you're not hiring like cracked engineers, you're not going to make it. If you're like in like a tech-enabled business and you're not hiring like amazing people to get the job done for your clients at like a really high level and provide them like the guidance and advice and strategy that they need, you're not going to make it. And so there's unfortunately some businesses out there who have forgotten about that part, forgotten about like the customer service component of kind of like building businesses. And I think that has led to a lot of opportunity for a lot of like new up-and-comers. Like if we look at kind of like the space, like just like startup world, like as things stand today, like there's basically like an incumbent for like pretty much every sort of like solution. And then there's like a new kid on the block. And the new kid on the block is like taking customers either here and there or left and right from the competition. And why? It's because they have that like new found gumption hunger that pushes them to obsess over the customer and make sure that relationship is like prioritized like above all else.

Talk more about straying too far away from your customer because that's an ongoing fear of mine. Yeah, I've tried to solve it, but there's always one or two teams, clients of ours, that I am the point person.

Yeah.

And I'm going to try to keep it that way. I'm curious, this is a question for both of you, like ensuring that, you know, I'm sure some weeks go by and you maybe you're talking to leads in the pipeline, but you actually didn't have a conversation with like any of your active customers. Does that scare you? What guardrails are you putting in place?

I'll let you answer first, but I actually think that the answer you're going to get from me versus him is going to be vastly different from even your perspective.

You first.

So I don't think it's necessarily as much about talking to your existing customers. It's about talking to your ICP and the customer that you're working with more broadly. I can get amazing learnings from a founder who uses another accounting platform. I can get amazing learnings from my existing customers. So it is more so just making sure you always allocate time to talk to your persona. And that is what I mean by kind of staying close to the customer. There will never be a point in time in which I stop taking calls with founders. Just hard stop, never. I will always make time for it.

Why?

One, because I understand how close it is, like, important is to be like close to the customer. But two, like, they fucking fire me up.

It's fun.

It's fun.

I think I, I feel like I have a different role in my business relative to what we're talking about because I have a technical co-founder. So my job is to throw as many inputs as I possibly can at him, and I have the implicit trust that he has the filtering system to take all the information I give him and sift through what's bullshit and what's not. So that could be anything from like new features that competitors are dropping, other tools people are using, things I'm hearing in the market from talking to people, even from talking to like a customer or prospect, like, yo, Kieran, this person said this one thing, like, just take that information and do whatever you want with it. At the end of the day, like, he, all he does is talk to customers and candidly, like, that's all he wants to do. Like, he's a product manager. Like, he wants to talk to customers, build requirements, give the requirements to the engineers. Have them build a product, give it to the marketing team, and that cycle just continues itself. And like my role in this business for this thing to work very well is to not get in the way of letting him take the inputs and craft our product roadmap. My job is to come in as the non-technical person along with our other co-founder Mike and be like, all right, I understand why this is the thing you want to build, but like Mike and I spoke to 10 brands and like they all told us that we should build that instead of this first. And here's why. And he'll always take in information. He's very analytical. He needs the data. He needs to understand why we feel that way. But ultimately, at the end of the day, my job is just to give him inputs. But I don't think I have the same role as maybe you do of like staying close to my customer to understand what we want. That's way more his job than my job. But I can give him inputs to go into whatever that formula is for how he prioritizes what we build. So I think like, I guess it's all to say that I do talk to customers and I do talk to prospects and I'm always talking to founders. But I think that it's not as one-to-one with like, I heard this, so change the product and do that. It's more, I heard this, Kieran, add this as an input to your decision-making process and then come back to me with whatever the final outcome of, of the, the 10 inputs was. And then we can collectively agree on if that's the direction we should go.

Yeah, I think it's different with the CTO.

It's way different.

Yeah, I think, and this is something I've like done at Haven and I've honestly, I'd say like I'm obsessive, I'm impulsive, I shoot from the hip.

You and me both, brother.

Hungry as fuck, right? Like, I'm like, you can call it lightning in a bottle, whatever, right? Like, I'm like running in like, like one set direction. But when it comes to company building, I think maybe it's not a different mindset. Maybe it's just something, something that like I've observed kind of like along my journey of like working at other companies. But you got to let the answers come to you. And what I mean by that is like, don't just build to build. There's so many engineers out there who are just like building shit in a silo that has like no application to like their end user. And so like before we started Haven, like, really started it. I didn't actually go and make the decision to, like, fully go all in until, like, I had a ton of validation from, like, a bunch of, like, prospective, like, customers, quote unquote. And then when we started to do bookkeeping, taxes, and tax credits, we ultimately began to do personal taxes for our founders. Not because I came up with it in some silo in like the basement of like, uh, my parents' house, but because our customers asked, right? The reason we're going to launch like payroll tax registrations as a product and then like sales tax as well is because our customers ask, right? And at a certain point you just hit like a critical mass like threshold where it's like, all right, we gotta fucking build. And I think You need to make sure that you never get away from that. And those learnings can definitely come from not just me, right? And once I have like a true like product team, I mean, at least for like a while, like I don't really believe in like PMs truly. So like my engineers will like report to me, but having people who can be those like sponges that can soak up like all this knowledge like from your customers, whether that's like me, whether that's like Michael, whether it's like Daniel or Taylor, my co-founder. Like having the insight and wherewithal and the mantra of being like the person who doesn't do all the talking in the room, the listeners, will give you the ability to stay very in tune with like what is top of mind for your customers. And I think, one, you need to make sure as the founder, like, you're definitely doing that. But then two, and this becomes increasingly important as you grow and scale, you better be damn sure you're finding and hiring, like, obsessive people who are going to be those sponges.

I wanna, I wanna push on something you just said. You said you don't believe in PMs.

Yeah.

Was that product or project?

Product.

Elaborate.

So I have two big learnings or two big experiences from my career. I just turned 27, so it's pretty short, but it's from my time at Main Street and from my time at Meow. Meow was a thousand times better company than Main Street, not even a question, right? And we never had any PMs. Basically, I would work with the engineers, Brandon and Bryce would work with the engineers, Chris would work with the engineers, blah blah blah. We shipped, we shipped fucking fast, and we got shit done. We built great products that like worked.

Yeah, but who's telling them what to build?

We were.

Yeah, but who's building like actual technical requirements, like architecture decisions, like PRDs? Yeah.

Oh, like our engineers knew how to do that. Any engineer should know how to create PRDs. Nasser, good buddy of mine.

Yeah. So what you're saying is you would rather your engineer make the PRD and build?

100%.

Maybe I'm biased because I have a product manager co-founder.

Yeah.

So like, that is his role in the business.

Totally.

But like, I think that has been one of the biggest unlocks we've had because our engineers are just like writing code all day.

Yeah.

Of course they can like sit and give their two cents on like a strategic decision being made.

Totally.

But it's more like our velocity at which we were able to move things is so much better because they wake up every day and they see the list of shit that they need to build.

Huge difference between having a co-founder who's like a product person and like an actual PM.

Yeah, yeah, we— it's just my co-founder. Yeah, we don't have like siloed PMs for each product.

Totally. But what I can say from like experience is that PMs are not always the most customer-facing people. And from like our time at like Main Street, like, we really didn't ship.

Yeah, but that's why my co-founder is so great, is because he loves to talk to customers and he's a product manager.

100%.

So it's like he doesn't need— he can do the whole job himself because he can go— he doesn't need like a, a foul, another call to— if he's not a founder, let's assume he doesn't need another party to give him customer inputs for them to make a PRD to then go to the engineer. Like he's taking those inputs himself, making it and giving it to the engineer. So the efficiency is just off the charts.

The way I'm thinking about it, right, is like in most startups you have like the founders, then in some instances you'll have like another layer, which is like the PMs. And then the engineers.

Yeah, yeah. The caveat is that the founder is the PM, so it's a lot different. I just wanted to make sure I was on the same page with you.

Yeah.

One note on customer-facing conversations. I will say that I feel like the context of those conversations matters a lot to get feedback. And I feel like if I'm— if you're a potential client or an active client of Verbatim and you and I go get dinner and get like a couple drinks in us or go work out for like an hour, you can You're not in work mode, you're not checking Slack. You can be really honest with me. We can talk through pricing, new products. You can walk me through the whole business. That is 10 times more effective than if I catch you and you're a client between your 12 calls and I'm like, what do you want to launch? What's your pricing? You're like, I'm scrambled, man. I've tried to have these conversations sometimes with clients and I know they have a stacked day and it's like a 1:00 PM call and they're like, I don't have time to talk about this. Like maybe I can give you some quick feedback. Like, hey, like we're happy. I guess maybe this would be cool, but there's no real thought. Where if we went out and worked out for like an hour or two, that could inform my roadmap for the next 6 months. Just that conversation.

100%. And the way I think about product development more broadly is not trying to like randomly get time on the calendar to get feedback from my customers, which is what traditional PMs do. And in my opinion, at the early stage of company building, they have no fucking clue what they're doing.

I agree with that, by the way.

Right. And so that's why I obsess on spending my time with other obsessed founders and doing my soft sell sort of like vibe where I'm like, what's going on in your world? Like, maybe I'll roundabout way try to figure out if there's any like accounting or tax or finance pain points. Then you like work backwards like into it. And I think when you're able to have those like honest, like the wall is down sort of like conversations, that's when you actually like learn. And so that's like what I optimize for when it comes to like allocating like my time, specifically when it comes to like thinking about like the customer. It's not like, oh hey, said customer, can we jump on the call for like a feedback session?

Yeah, I wanna, I wanna double click into the journey you've had so far. If there's one moment in time that you feel like was that turning pro moment for you where everything just changed.

It's when I decided to go all in on Haven.

What was your mindset at the time behind that decision?

There's something here and let's fucking cook. Simple as that.

It's a mic drop.

Mic drop.

That's a great place to wrap. Can you talk to the camera on the left? Tell people where they can find Haven.

Let's fucking cook.

And you.

Yeah, you can. Our website is usehaven.com. On LinkedIn, Twitter, all of that jazz. And let us know if we can help with any of your accounting, tax, or finance needs.

Oh yeah. Thanks for coming on, man. Thanks, brother.