Ben Sharf: The Do’s and Don'ts of Business Development

You're listening to the Name Drop Podcast, the brainchild of Indie Consulting, a full-service marketing partner. We are here to reveal the industry experts and brilliant founders behind the marketing campaigns and brands you know and love. In a world where things change fast and marketing is the opposite of static, we are here with a behind-the-scenes look on marketing geniuses and how they find their inspiration, hoping to inspire you along the way. Hi guys, welcome to another episode of the Name Drop Podcast. Today we're going to be sitting down with a co-founder from an e-commerce software company. We will be talking about all things founding and scaling a business, um, what it means to let go and when to know it's time to do it, and how to create a culture with a fully remote team. Happy listening. Enjoy the episode. Hey, thanks for joining us.

Thanks for having me.

How are you today?

Doing well. Another Monday. Uh, it's fun though. We're in crazy time right now, so I enjoy it.

Super busy.

Yeah. I always say that if you don't wake up— I actually tweeted about this the other day. I was like, if you don't wake up on a Monday morning inspired and excited by what you're doing, like, change your life.

I agree with that. Like, I think the happy Friday people need to start being happy Monday people because we should be excited for the week.

If you get Sunday scaries on what you're about to do, then you're not doing the right thing. And I just always equate that back to when I was in college. I was like, oh God, class is starting tomorrow. I was like, I don't think school's for me. Like, that's kind of the thing that I realized. And I'm thankful that I do wake up on Mondays right now excited to build.

Yeah. Do you plan on Sundays for your week? Are you like, let's wake up Monday and see what happens?

It ebbs and flows. I think I'm actually more of someone who tries to live with like 7-day weeks versus Monday through Friday.

Okay.

So I'll spend time on Saturday and Sunday getting the same types of things done that I would on a, you know, Monday through Friday. With the exception of maybe meetings because most people aren't meeting on Saturday and Sunday. But as far as like deep work planning, et cetera, it's more of like a 7-day week for me. So I wouldn't say that it's like every Sunday from 3 to 4 PM, I'm like planning out my week. For me, it's just like an ongoing evolving thing. I like to get through my inbox before the week starts, which is like a big thing for me.

I do that too.

Like I don't wanna wake up Monday morning with 150 emails without knowing what I'm, like about to be hit with that, at least look through it on Sunday and then know what's coming versus sitting down at my desk Monday morning. It's like surprise, the thing's here.

Whoa, okay, where do I start? Yeah, yeah, for sure. So without revealing who you are, what are you thinking about professionally today?

What am I thinking about professionally today? How to scale my team as fast as I can without compromising quality.

That's a, that's a big question.

I'm playing full-time HR recruiter right now because we are Growing by orders of magnitude, and I just don't want to overextend to bring someone on that isn't the right fit because we're very eager to expand.

Yes, I've done that. It's not worth it.

It costs a lot more money to make the wrong hire than to wait a little longer, and you don't learn that until you do it wrong.

Yep, and then you're like, whoa, yep, should have just kept searching for a few more weeks.

And we— I've done it before, so I've learned the hard way, but now it's— yeah, that's literally the only thing on my mind right now.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's a big question. And how are you tackling that?

It's a combination of a lot of things. I'm a huge proponent that a lot of like big hires end up coming in network, so referrals, relationships. We're working with 3 different recruiters right now. I'm tapping into everyone in my network being like, this is what I need, and I know this is in your world. Who do you know that I should know? Yeah, it's a lot of going on offense. I think one of the biggest misconceptions some people make is like, just wait and everyone will come to you. And that's not the case because odds are the A+ person that you want is already employed somewhere and maybe not even looking for a job and you need to go seek them out.

Yeah, 100% agree. So brag about yourself a little bit. What are you better at than others?

Brag about myself? I love that question. Not even a question, prompt, whatever you want to call it. I would say that I am a super connector and I will get to wherever I need to get to no matter what or get to who I need to get to. So I always joked that like, I always have a guy. It's like whenever you need something, like I either have that thing or the person who has that thing. And so I've built my entire career thus far off of relationships and network. And I think that's a really special thing because it allows you to get to places that you never thought you'd be able to get to and do things that you never thought you'd be able to do.

And how do you build that network?

So building and managing a network are two different things. I think a lot of people understand what it takes to build one. Not a lot of people understand what it takes to manage one. Right, so a very simple example is always lead with value. Give someone something without asking for anything in return. The only way that that actually works at scale is when you have a big enough network to understand someone's problems and be able to offer them something that they actually want from you. Right, so you do have that cold start, like chicken and egg problem at the beginning days of building a network. It's, it's almost like a marketplace in a way, right? Like it's supply and demand. If you come to me and I ask you like, what are the 3 things that are top of mind for you right now? And you tell me those 3 things and I don't have a large network, I'm probably not gonna be able to help you with anything. Right. But for For me, I think it becomes second nature when you meet someone, just give, right? Like the get, it comes around. You are able to position yourself for when you actually need something. Like that thing will come because you've, you know, you've been giving all the time. And so I take my network very seriously because someone gave me one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was make your A's, A pluses, and find someone else to do your C's for you. For me, it's my network and my relationships and my ability to meet someone new and then basically figure out in the back of my brain, like, who else should they know based on like like all the interactions that I've ever had. And so for me, I think that has opened up doors for me that I could never have imagined. Like, I think my favorite example is that I got Nike to sponsor a video on a YouTube channel with zero subscribers.

That's a solid one.

Yeah.

How did you get them to do it?

It was, it was network. It was relationships. I basically just like built FOMO around this thing we were doing and made them realize that it was either going to be one of their competing brands that were going to participate in it or it was going to be them.

Yeah.

And they preferred to be the one in it. I honestly, part of me thinks they did it not even because they wanted but because they cared more about not letting others do it.

Yeah, for sure.

But it's all part of it.

Yeah, yeah, no, definitely. I like the reminder of you have to give, it will come back around, but I think actually giving and really not expecting anything in return is rare. I think a lot of people take the like, oh, I'm going to toss this referral to them or make this connection for them, but it's because they want something, not because they just want to build that connection with you. And I just, I feel like I experience that a lot in our world of I can tell when someone's looking for something in return.

100%. I think a lot of people who are in that position, it's because they lack trust.

Yeah.

They don't trust themselves and they don't trust the people around them. So they don't trust that if they do right by you, that whenever they need you to show up for them, that you will.

Right.

You also have to understand that every person is different. There are, you know, I do have a small blacklist in my life of like people that I will never do another thing for. Not because they didn't do something for me, but it's like all you do is ask and ask and ask and to a point of greed. And it's actually just annoying at this point.

Right.

But largely speaking, I think it compounds.

Yeah, right.

Like, do right by other people. People will start to come to you and just don't be greedy. Operate with integrity and it will take care of itself.

Yeah, for sure. So what's your definition of business development? What do you think of when you hear that word? Words.

Business development to me is strategically pushing your business forward in a way that opens up new opportunities for you to grow. So that business development can be contextual depending on the business you're working on and what it is, but ultimately you're building relationships or building out new verticals or ideas to just push the business forward. And so I think a lot of that stems from like partnerships and deal-making.

Yeah, for sure. So you talk a lot about, a lot about your network, which I'm sure plays a huge role in your approach to BD and/or sales. But how— talk a little bit more about that. Like how do you leverage it? How do you know what pieces need to come next? Like, what's your, what's your approach?

Yeah, I feel like by the end of the best deals, it feels like I'm doing a deal with a friend, not with a prospect.

Yeah.

Which sounds crazy, and you can't do that with every deal because of course you need more deals than you can make friends. It's just like a function of time. But I truly mean that, where it's like I have people that I've been building relationships with for like years, and now opportunities present themselves to either do partnerships or like one-to-one sales deals, whatever it might be. But it's so much more fun and it's so much easier to get deals done when you actually enjoy the person that you're on the other side of the table with.

Yeah. So do you take the time to really get to know them?

Yeah, 100%. But I will say, like, undeniably it's contextual, right? Like, as you start to scale your own business and your time, like, the way you spend your time is the hardest decision you make every day as a founder and CEO.

For sure.

So there are certain deals where, candidly, I just don't have the bandwidth to be able to, like, give it the TLC that it needs. But For sure, there are some that it's— I'm going back and forth with a couple people now, and some of the largest deals are working on that I consider genuine friends. Whether the deal happens or not is a whole nother conversation. But I also believe that, like, the best people in BD and sales are people who've been cultivating this ecosystem way before they started the current job that they're at, right? Like, one of the things I love is if you bring someone into that ecosystem, like, they have a Rolodex of people that they're going to go reach out to. And even when you leave that job, it's on you to maintain at least good standing at a minimum, even if you have nothing to exchange. Because again, that network becomes your value as someone in a BD sales role, because everyone could ultimately do cold outreach, but it's like, what do you have on day one that's warm that you can use to leverage?

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I 100% agree with you, and I think a lot of people— it's surprising to me how many people don't have that or haven't thought about that as they've progressed in their career. Maybe I just take for granted that it comes instinctually to me. Like, I like it, right? You know, like it's— I just like keeping in touch with people. But it's such a value when you have someone in your world or bring into your business that does have those connections. But not everyone. I guess it just comes from discomfort of like, why do people— more people not do it?

I think it depends what's important to you. It depends what you're good at. It depends what you want to be doing. I think there's an element of like mental drain that comes from it that some people don't want to deal with, right? Are you introverted or extroverted? Do you gain energy by being around people, or is it just an energy suck and it actually just exhausts you? You don't want to deal with it. I think that's a huge part of thinking about how you build teams, right? Like my technical co-founder couldn't be bothered to go to a networking event, right? It's like his biggest nightmare. Yeah, and to be honest with you, if it wasn't his biggest nightmare, I'd probably be like, you're not the right co-founder for me because we're just gonna be doing the same things all day.

Yeah, yeah, and you don't need that.

Exactly.

What are the biggest mistakes that you see people make with business development?

I mean, you just, you make it too transactional. You ask for things without actually showing value. I think one of the other pieces to it when you're selling something is almost positioning in a way where you make that other person feel dumb as if they're not gonna like take whatever it is that you're offering. And so I think sometimes people who just can't read the room or like understand how to navigate that contextual conversation is a huge miss. So know when to get aggressive, know when not to, know if it's too early. Like, relationships and deals have different deal cycles, right? Like, there's always an average within your business, but we've had deals close on the first call. We've had some that are 120 days in that I still think will close, but there's reasons that that's not the case, uh, with the same consistency all the time. And so it's on you to understand how to approach each situation differently. And I think some people just miss the boat and like follow a script and have low EQ, and so they can't adapt and they just try to do the wrong thing.

Yeah, I definitely agree. And I've learned, I mean, I feel like I've learned from my mistakes with that of even to the nuance of like, okay, when do I bring pricing into this conversation? Is this person ready for that yet, or do we need some more directional buy-in conversations first? And it looks different with every single person. You can't follow the same Okay, here's our 1-2-3 punch and we're going to be good to go, right? I mean, I wish it was that easy, but it's not.

Totally. And I think I take it for granted right now that we're a team of 16 and I'm 3 co-founders and just myself and one other co-founder do all the selling because we both come from a BD partnerships background. But I think we take it for granted that I know that he knows and he knows that I know that like intuitive way to adjust. But it's like the first time we bring someone else on, we're like, here are the guardrails, but don't just be a robot, and then seeing if you can actually train someone else to be like adaptive the way you need to be.

Yeah, yeah. No, it's hard because you do want people to kind of stay in the lanes to some extent, but also to your point, know enough to read the room to be able to pivot on a feeling, an energy, something that's said, and that takes practice for sure. It's reps. Yeah, absolutely. So I think there's often a lot of negative connotation around sales and being a salesperson, What are your thoughts on this?

I do agree with you that there is a negative connotation, and I think a lot of that is because you're perceived as someone who's just always selling something to someone all day. And that's why I think the concept of relationships is so important, because you need to build a Rolodex, you need to build trust with people, and you need to understand that while your end goal is how much money can you drive, there are ways to sell people where they feel like you're actually doing them a favor even though they're giving you their credit card. And I think there's a subset of salespeople who don't understand that, and then they get that reputation. I also think there's certain sales tactics that are used widely that piss a lot of people off, and if certain companies get associated to those, it just starts to spread like wildfire as the annoying company that's just, you know, non-stop. Like, there's— I won't name names, but I know there's one company that's so notorious for outbound email where they'll literally hit you with 15 emails until you just like have no choice but to get on the phone with them to tell them to leave you alone. Like you don't want to be that.

No, definitely not. Yeah. I, when I first, I mean, I started indie to be a marketer and to continue marketing, but just for myself. And then as the team has grown and my role now has changed almost fully to business development and bringing in new business and clients, I initially had so much discomfort with selling because I was like, I don't want to be a salesperson. You know, like that's not I don't want to be forcing this proposition down someone's throat or like trying to convince them. But now I have a totally different outlook on it because I think, one, if you believe in what you're doing, you're genuinely trying to help and make their lives easier or help them meet their goals. And you want to approach it with like, hey, no skin off my back if this doesn't work out for you, but I think this can be really beneficial and valuable. And how you then explain that isn't just gnarly sales. Yeah, pushing it.

I think you bring up a really good point, which is do you believe in the thing you're selling?

Yes, 100%.

Because I think a lot of the bad connotation around being a salesperson probably stems from someone selling you something that they don't even believe in, but it's their job and so they have to do it, right? I think you can tell if someone's passionate and has conviction about whatever it is they're talking to you about, to the point where you almost feel dumb if you don't do it because it's so obvious that everyone in the room talking about is like, how could you not accept this?

Yeah.

That's when it's a good sale, when they're thanking you like you're actually alleviating a pain point versus trying to force-feed them some solution even though it's not a good fit.

Definitely. So what relationship has had the most impact on you professionally?

I would say that the answer to that question has evolved at every step in my career, but I would say right now in my current life, my co-founders, probably because this is my first real company that I started. I joke like most entrepreneurs have 100 failed ideas starting at like the age of 10 or 15, but it's like the first actual business that's really, uh, viable and working, I would say. And I think right now it's been my co-founders because what we've evolved from over the last— where we started like 2 years ago to where we are today is just so crazy to me. And I think that we've just kind of forced each other to level up so much to maintain the standard that we all want to be at. And have pushed each other. And I think we're now having conversations where looking back, I'm like, wow, I'm very thankful that they're keeping me grounded because we all have different personalities and like to move at different speeds. But I would say it's the most top of mind right now because we're going through such growing pains together.

Yeah. And how much intentionality did you have behind, like, when you started this company thinking about how the three of you would interact? Like, Do you balance each other's personalities? Do you bring different strengths? Like, what thought process went into that?

Yeah, so I was the matchmaker amongst the group, and I— it was very much, uh, top of mind for me where we have complementary skill sets and very different personalities, to the point where, like, on a spectrum, one is here, one's in the middle, and one's all the way at the other end. And the one in the middle plays like middleman, literally, between the two of us, and it works great. Like, I would say The best feedback we've gotten, we're not raising money now because we're profitable, which is fantastic, but when we went through the process of raising money, we had an investor who was like, you guys have one of the best 3 co-founder dynamics I've ever seen, and I've been in venture for 15 years, because it just works. I think it's one of those things, especially when you're so early on, that if you don't have this seamless fit, you're just, it's bad writing on the wall. And I'm very fortunate of that. And I think as time has gone on, our roles and responsibilities have become more and more clear based on our skill sets and our personalities. And so it's not something that I take for granted and it's something that I was very serious about in the early days too.

Yeah, I think you have to be for it to work, especially with 3. I mean, 2 I think is a challenge in and of itself, but I think when people sometimes want to start a business, they take a friend or a coworker and they're like, oh, let's do this together, but maybe don't fully think through the dynamics of what that partnership could look like moving forward. And I just think I've seen it, it makes or breaks businesses.

I know way too many that have had terrible falling outs, and I know some businesses as well that are doing well, but the founder, co-founders don't like each other. And I don't know how sustainable that is either. I think there's a fine line between being best friends versus like acquaintances or not knowing each other and trying to strike a balance. Like one of my co-founders was a coworker previously. I watched him operate and I was like, oh my God, I need to work with this guy. He's brilliant. And my other co-founder was actually a childhood best friend of mine who I recognized just had like the same level of drive and tenacity that I do about business and was just different in our like friend group growing up, or like I knew he would be on a different path. And so there's like 20 years of trust behind that relationship.

Yeah. Yeah. Which makes a huge difference.

Totally.

So tell us who you are.

Tell you who I am?

Yeah.

The grand reveal. What's that? The big reveal? Yeah. How much detail do we want here?

Take it anywhere you want.

Take it anywhere you want. All right. Well, I grew up in Buffalo, New York. I grew up, two sisters, middle child, moved away from home when I was 15 years old.

15? Yeah.

Went to a boarding school in Connecticut for hockey.

Okay.

Ended up playing Division I hockey at Colgate University. And then I was planning on going into a corporate M&A job at the end of my senior year. Senior year came around. I ended up leading my team in points and signed with an agent, was talking to a bunch of professional teams about playing professional hockey. And then COVID cut our season short and flipped my world upside down. So then hockey wasn't a thing anymore. I then was going to go to the corporate job and 12 hours before my first day, told them I wasn't coming.

Wow.

Which I think is definitely a big culturally defining moment for me as a person.

For sure. And why?

I think growing up, I got stuck in this idea of like living the life that other people wanted you to live and not necessarily the one that you wanted for yourself, right? Like I went to a very corporate-heavy school. It was like, go get the best banking or consulting job that you could. And I was super competitive, so I was like, okay, I'll go do that. And then I got the job and I was like, wait, why did I get this? I don't even want this. And realized that I've always been itching to be an entrepreneur. And I think I read the quote that regret hurts a lot more than failure and never could unsee that. And I was like, I'm not doing this. Ended up giving that job up, joined an early-stage COVID testing startup that scaled to $50 million in revenue in 5 months where I met one of my now co-founders. And then I spent a year at GoPuff doing business development and partnerships before leaving and starting Platter. But for me, it was a culmination of a lot of things. Like, I have a YouTube channel, I have a podcast, love content. And because I love relationships and business development, it was like, what is the intersection of all the things in my life? And it was consumer and content, which to me, building a consumer— I mean, commerce software company which enables direct-to-consumer brands in partnership with the network that I have, it was like a match made in heaven, which is why Platter is my baby.

Amazing. So tell us a little bit about Platter.

Yeah, so Platter is a theme and app bundle for Shopify brands to help improve profitability. So in layman's terms, for those listening who maybe don't understand how the Shopify ecosystem works, they have an app store the same way that Apple does for the iPhone. It has a bunch of apps that e-commerce brands can download from to help improve their storefront. We natively build a lot of the functionality from those apps into one solution to consolidate your app stack. And then provide best practices around how to increase your average order value and your conversion rate so we can quantify making you money and saving you money at the same time.

Awesome. And how did you come up with this idea?

So I spent a year at GoPuff working in the e-commerce world, talking to a bunch of brands in the Shopify world, started to understand a lot of pain points that were coming up. And my co-founders both come from an e-com background as well. And we ultimately knew we wanted to start a company together but didn't know exactly what the thing was going to be. So we actually started as an agency and started working with brands that we wanted to make our future customers of the software company and essentially just synthesized pain points from working with enough brands to figure out where we could productize something. So once we work with enough people in an agency capacity, we just productized that and launched, started building, and then eventually launched a software product that evolved into what is now called Platter.

That's awesome. What a journey.

Yeah, it's been wild. I think in entrepreneur world, like a couple of weeks feels like a couple of years.

That's true.

And looking back now, like us three just sitting in a basement with this silly idea to where it is now, it's pretty cool to see. But I don't know, I'm inspired and excited because I still feel like we haven't done anything yet.

Yeah. Yeah. Like you're just at the beginning. Yeah, it's a good feeling. What does an average day look like?

An average day for me, I would say depends on the day of the week, actually. I've been very intentional about structuring my week based on the day, so I try to have different themes for different days. Mondays, since today is Monday, I'll just give you what a Monday looks like. Only internal meetings.

Okay.

So it's just meeting with different teams, making sure that planning and progression is on track. And then it's also, also a lot of content and writing and ideating for me. So I need to like lock myself in a room sometimes just to be thinking about like what's the highest impact use of my time for this business. And then I think the thing that is omnipresent now is just relationships and meetings. Like I've, I'm always out there meeting people. I always say that my job in this business is to make sure that we're top of mind for the right people all the time, whether that's partners, investors, customers, advocates, doesn't matter. So I, I'm the one, I'm the free-roamer in the group that's just like out and about, whether it's doing workouts, coffee meetings, lunch meetings, just if I have to get in front of the right person, like I'll figure out a way to do so. But I think as time has gone on, my schedule has become marginally less like actual operational work and more about like high-level thinking and like relationships. Because I think in order to move the business to the next phase, you have to like stop working in the business so much and start working on the business.

Yeah. How's that transition been?

Hard. I, you know what, actually like therapy has been really helpful for me in that transition for business, which is really ironic, but it's been an element of trust and more specifically letting go. Yeah. I think letting go of things is very challenging when you want something done a certain way. The easiest way is to just do it yourself. But recognizing that that mindset is not scalable across every aspect of a business, learning how to let go has been very challenging for me. But I think at the end of the day, you need to trust yourself and you also have to trust the people that you put in place to support you. And the only way to truly trust them is to just accept that if you delegate something, they're going to get it done the way you want it done. I would say to bring that back to the main question, not that easy, but I would say it's gotten better.

Good. It's a hard process. You start something and it's so much a part of you, and then as it continues to grow and scale, you move further and further away from it and you lose way more— you lose control every single day. Just figuring out how you then interact back with the business and the brand as it as a standalone, it just, it's uncomfortable.

Yeah, it's different. I will say though, it's super cool when you like have a request for something to get done and it actually gets done and you didn't have to touch it. I'm like, whoa.

Yeah, it's like, how did that just happen?

Like the first time we had a customer just like go through the, this was like a while ago, but the first time we had a customer just go through the full lifecycle of signing a contract to onboarding and deploying and I didn't touch a thing, I was like, wow.

Yeah, it's cool.

That was dope. How do we do that with like thousands of more?

Yeah, right. What would you say is the best part of what your role looks like today?

I mean, I just love, I love being an advocate, right? Like I'm such a people person. I'm so extroverted. So for me, like doing podcasts like this, doing all the external facing things, like meeting people, learning from others, like that's what I love to do. So I want to be able to just like lean into my superpowers, which, as I said, is like my network. And I, the fact that I'm getting to do more and more of that now is just like making me more and more excited because it's what I enjoy. It's where I get my energy from.

Yeah, and what about the worst part?

I think the worst part is that you can't turn your brain off, right? Like, it's not like a clock in, clock out kind of thing. Like, I remember I was in Florida the other week with my family for Passover, and I was sitting at dinner and there was like a software update that was pushed that like took down a lot of our sites at the same time. And like 6 people from my team were like up all night trying to fix it. I couldn't contribute because I'm not technical. And it was fine. It wasn't something that we had done wrong, but I'm like sitting at dinner on my phone and everyone's like, what are you doing? I was like, don't even ask, I'm busy.

We can't go down that path.

But yeah, it's just that that's the blessing and the curse, right? I think not being able to turn it off is a challenge, but I also think that's part of why we're successful because we're just constantly thinking.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it does, it comes with the territory. You have to be because you're the one pushing it forward. So, but it's also definitely a con. I mean, I'm getting married in a month and I'm trying— Congrats. Thank you. I'm trying to take 2 weeks off for my honeymoon and I haven't taken 2 weeks off since before I started the company.

Yeah.

Right? And even when I have taken a week off, I'm still like checking in online and I'm trying to figure out if there's a way for me to like disconnect for a couple weeks. And I think yes. I think like the business is in a different place and we're ready for that. But I'm nervous about it.

It's trust.

Yeah, it has to be.

You got to trust your team around you.

You got to trust it. That's why they're there.

Yeah. Hearing you say that just scares me.

Right? Doesn't it kind of make you feel like, ooh, stress?

Like, oh, 2 weeks? Oh my God.

Yeah. My therapist is like, you're going to be fine. I'm like, am I? I don't know.

But you learn. I mean, it's easy for me to say this to you as someone who hasn't done it successfully, but I think you eventually learn that there are things in life that are bigger than 100% business. Like, yeah, hopefully— I mean, everyone's different, but I hope, you know, it might be your only honeymoon. So yeah, it's the only one. Yeah, so you should probably enjoy it because there will be many more meetings and emails to read.

Guess what? It's gonna keep spinning without me, so it'll be fine. What have you most— what have you found most surprising about starting Platter?

How many people— how many people give off the perception that they know what's going on that have no I don't know if I can swear.

Oh, you can.

No fucking clue what's going on.

Yeah.

Right? Whether it's like people who are prospective investors or advisors or industry experts, it's like all bullshit and everyone is still learning along the way. And it like, I think when you're like a young, naive, ambitious founder and you see a big title or you see a headline, you're like, oh my God, these people have it all figured out. Like, how are we going to compete with them? How, you know, all the things like the self-talk and the doubt. But as you start to actually have a little bit of success and start to compound wins and you look around, you're like, it's not, it's not real. Just you got to have conviction and patience. And I think the other thing is just trusting yourself. Like it all goes back to trust because I think in the early days you don't feel like you're qualified to be at certain tables because you don't have the same pedigree or whatever it is. And that's just not true.

Yeah, agree. Yeah. We talk about this a lot with our team of your No one's an expert. No one is really an expert in this space. We're all figuring it out. And if you believe that you're learning and curious and looking for data points to back your perspectives and arguments, that's great. That's what people are looking for. There's not a bunch of people out there that know way more than you do, at least those that are hiring us. That's why they're hiring us, right? Totally. But it's interesting because you see these titles and you're like, oh God, they're going to have they're gonna just outsmart me on everything, and it's usually not the case.

No, conviction and self-belief takes you a really, really long way.

Yes, yes. So talk a little bit about— you guys have a fully remote team, right? How has that been? What works? What doesn't work? Talk a little bit.

It's been— it's definitely had its challenges. I think one of the challenges is when the team is rapidly growing, what like a remote 5-person team is like versus 10 versus 15, etc. It changes substantially. Like, I actually— it's funny timing, but like, I had a meeting the other day with our first employee who like said— put a message in a Slack channel where I was like, all right, that's debatable if you needed to say that or not. And I had to talk to him. I was like, you have to remember that this isn't just like the four of us anymore, right? Like, there's a lot of other eyes and ears, uh, different, different types of people from all walks of life, and it's not just a few people anymore. And that needs— you need to realize that. And he's like, wow, I apologize. I actually forgot that, like, I didn't realize it because I was so used to this old norm. And so I think for us it's been being very, very attentive to what people want and don't want. And so we always ask for feedback down to like the structure of meetings. I was like, are you getting value out of this meeting? If no, what would you rather see? What else do you feel like is missing, right? So something we just started, which, you know, to me I was like, this is probably kind of silly, but people actually find value in it. Like, we do an icebreaker every all-hands meeting. It's very simple. Like, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you like spicy foods? Like, you— it sounds crazy, but there's no— you miss those hallway conversations with your coworkers. So if you don't force these weird one-off conversations, you're not actually going to get to know people any better. Which, again, it took me time to actually internalize that and realize there's value in it. But ultimately for us, it's being very communicative with our employees to make sure that we're in tune with what they do like and what they don't. I think the second one is making sure that every new employee is very good at working asynchronously. Because the bottom line is like, you're just— we can't sit on Zoom calls all day. You need to be able to document things and be an independent contributor. And then I think the third thing is just like making a point of having offline interaction, whether it's the full team, whether it's pockets of people who are in the same geography. It's really important to me that people don't feel isolated.

Yeah, I was gonna ask about that. So do you all have like regular on-sites where you get everyone together?

We do it with our leadership. The challenge is that we're global as far as our full team, and so We haven't with this. We did it last year when the team was, what were we at that point, I think 7 or 8 people, and we brought everyone to New York and a couple of them had never been to the US before, which was so cool.

That's cool.

Yeah, but the team is now at a size where we're gonna have to hit some pretty big milestones to justify the spend that would be required to bring the team together. But I would say it's at the top of my goals. I would love nothing more than to like bring together whatever we're going to be at that point, 15, 20, 25 people to somewhere for everyone to be together. I think that would be like a bucket list moment for me as a founder.

For sure. It's fun. Yeah, when we started we were fully remote for I guess the first 3 years, and then in the past couple of years we moved to more of a hybrid model. So we have, we have legacy employees that are still remote, but we have a team here in New York and then we have a team in North Carolina. But we've been doing like a team on-site dates that happen a couple times a year since the beginning, and I feel like it's just been part of what has made us successful is like just having that time together. It's so important, and especially when you're not all sitting together every single day, you just miss those connective points, I think.

The whiteboarding sessions are just like the best. Like when I, when my co-founders and I try to do it once a quarter, and I like when we're just like locked away in a room with a whiteboard and nothing else and just like talking about everything that's going on.

Yeah, and even just to build energy around where you're headed and feel reconnected into the purpose behind the business, that in and of itself makes it valuable.

100%. And I think as time goes on, I've realized it becomes more and more necessary for us because more things are happening and we aren't able to communicate as frequently because we're all so busy.

Right. Right. So what do you see as the biggest opportunity for Platter in the next couple of years?

So basically the misconception that we're trying to debunk is that building a high-converting ecommerce storefront is expensive and It takes a long time. That's not true. That's just the status quo in the industry today because of misalignments between most development agencies and brand founders because development agencies get paid for their time. Mm-hmm. So they're incentivized to make things complicated and expensive, but brands want cost-effective and efficient. And so the only reason that's the status quo is because of that misalignment. And so for us, if we can debunk that myth in the next couple years and our name is synonymous with being able to build a high-converting storefront cheap and effectively. Then I think we probably did something right.

That's amazing. Cool. And what is next for you? Like, do you, are you looking for more partnerships? Like, you mentioned the team, building the team before. What is outweighing? Is there more demand or do you need more? No.

No, demand is not our problem, which I think every founder would love to hear.

That's a dream.

Yeah, every founder would love to say that. Demand is not the problem right now, hence me playing full-time like recruiter HR. For us, it's the other side of things. It's like scaling up the team in an effective way and obviously maintaining that level of demand, but above that, it's like maintaining customer satisfaction and quality because I also don't want to scale too fast and then people get pissed off because that's, that's a long tail downstream that you do not want to play with.

No, no. And you don't want to lose your— if you start, you know, having a leaky bucket where people are dropping out, it doesn't matter how much you have coming in.

No.

Yeah, for sure. At 21, I mean, I guess not, did you ever think you'd be doing what you're doing now?

I had a feeling that I would be building something, but I don't know if I had any clue in what industry, what it is that I'd be building, where I'd be building it, or who I'd be building it with.

Yeah.

But I knew for sure that I wouldn't be working for someone else by this point in my life.

I love that. What advice would you give to someone who's just starting their career?

Follow your curiosities, and regret hurts a lot more than failure. I think don't If you're sitting around wondering if you should do it, just do it. Like, there's, there's very few people who follow their passions and curiosities and operate with integrity and regret doing that, like, down the line.

That's true. Even if it doesn't work out, you'll still learn so much from it.

Yeah, it's failing forward is a real thing.

Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. Okay, so we'll wrap things up with a little trendy or tragic round. So I'll give you a topic. You tell me if it's trendy or tragic. Okay. Kendrick Lamar and Drake. Fighting.

Trendy.

You think?

For sure. Ugh, why? Just because I think people are getting— like, I think the giving someone something new in the media is just inevitable with what's going on. I mean, in my opinion, in my opinion, the media is being dominated way too much by like politics and a lot of things that people don't want to talk about. So despite the fact that it's kind of ridiculous, the part that I find funny about it is that people that are this successful put this much energy into like trolling each other.

That's what I'm saying.

That's why I think it's pretty funny.

Okay. Okay. All right. I'm like, don't they have better things to worry about?

But they don't. Clearly they don't, which is why I'm like, all right, I'm all in on this. Like, if you're going to, if you're going to try to troll each other, at least go for it.

Yeah, no, that's true.

That's true.

A fair perspective. Leveraging employees to be like LinkedIn influencers. Trendy or tragic?

Ooh. I'm going to say trendy.

Okay. Why?

Because I'm all in on organic social. And I think that posting content, you increase your surface area exponentially for one person to see something and resonate with it. And so I think that everyone can be a brand advocate.

Do you encourage people on your team to?

Certain departments.

Okay.

I'm not like forcing my engineers to like post on LinkedIn, but like all of our like marketing and sales people, yeah.

And do you give them guardrails of like, here's how you should talk about things or not?

No, I'm a huge proponent of authenticity and trust.

Let it ride. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. In conversations with other founders or CEOs, this has been like a hot topic of how much do you push people to have their own voice, and if you do, do you give them like a playbook or do you just say let it ride? So I think it's, I lean more on the side of like hopefully if I've hired these people, they are going to, I appreciate their voice and I respect their voice and they should just go for it. But it's funny to see like bigger organizations try to like put such restrictions restrictions on things that then no one wants to participate anyway.

I think, I think my answer is definitely contextual.

Yeah.

Like to where we're at.

Yeah.

Because I joke with myself, I'm like, if we caught someone's attention because you said the wrong thing, like that's probably a good thing because we're not really big enough to probably have that attention. But yeah, I'm always in the camp of like moving fast. Like I gave up my corporate job because I hate the red tape. And so I, to the best of my ability, I don't want to become that.

Yeah. Yeah, fair. I don't know how to frame this. Brands making merch that are not in the business of making merch, like Wawa. Trendy or tragic? Apparently you can get like a Bojangles sweatsuit. Like, what are your thoughts on this?

Yeah, I think it's— I hate— my answer would— I'm probably going to lean towards tragic because I would say it's contextual where there are certain brands that are so cool where I'm like, I would totally wear like a hoodie if this brand had it. It, but I do think there's probably brands who have no business doing it that are doing it. I'm like, this just looks bad.

Yeah.

So probably more tragic, but I do think it really depends on the brand that you have because the way that I think about it is if you have a brand where if you separate the brand itself from whatever it is that you're building and the brand still like has a vibe, then sure, go for it. But I think some people try to force a square peg into a round hole and then it doesn't come off right.

Yeah, I agree. I lean more towards tragic. I feel like a lot of brands are creating merch just to to give to influencers and have them wear, you know, the sweatsuit that, I don't know, is like a— I don't want to use the same example, but like a Chick-fil-A sweatsuit, for example. And it's— I get it. But also it just feels like a waste.

Yeah.

Because that really— is that really a tactic?

There's also just too much out there.

Yeah.

Right. Like getting attention of people is so hard already.

Yeah.

We're just like multiplying that exponentially by trying to make Chick-fil-A into a merch company. Like, let me just go buy your food.

Let's not. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. This is fun.

Thanks for having me.

Where can people find you and Platter?

You can find me on Twitter, LinkedIn @BenSharf, B-E-N-S-H-A-R-F, and then Platter is platter.co, P-L-A-T-T-E-R.co, and my email is ben@platter.co.

Awesome.

Thank you. Thank you.

All right. So you guys You guys can find us on Instagram @namedrop.pod and I'm @malbakes. Thanks so much!