"Data VS Artistry" and "How To Unf**k Your Startup" with Dan Hurwitz

Hi, I'm Warren Zenna, founder and CEO of the CRO Collective and welcome to the CRO Spotlight podcast. This show is focused exclusively on the success of Chief Revenue Officers. Each week we have an open, frank and freeform conversation with top experts in the revenue space about the CRO role and its critical impact on B2B businesses. This podcast is the place to be for CROs, sales and marketing leaders who aspire to become CROs and founders who are looking to appoint a CRO or want to support their CRO to succeed. Thanks for listening. Now let's go mix it up. Welcome to this episode of the CRO Spotlight podcast. This is Warren Zenna, the founder of the Sierra Collective. And I'm excited today because my friend Dan Hurwitz is my guest. And Dan and I met recently and became friends pretty quickly because we're like minded. And also Dan is in the same kind of predicament I am, you know, focuses on the same thing. We're like almost exactly the same age, which is cool. Whenever meet people my own age, it's good, you know. And so Dan and I have been collaborating a lot about the roles that are going on in the world related specifically to revenue leadership. And the history and the stories that he's had and the exits he's had and stuff have been really fascinating to hear. We talk a lot about this. And he also has his own podcast he just started called how to unfuck your startup, which is a really great podcast and I've been listening to it and I think it was just cool to have an opportunity to have Dan join us and talk a little about his background and his experience and also a bit, you know, why it is he started this particular podcast and what he's trying to accomplish. So, Dan, I'm glad you're here. Thanks for coming.

Thanks for having me. Warren, I'm excited to have another conversation with you, except this time actually one of our conversations. Yeah.

So why don't you just give a little background to people listening to yourself and what you do?

Yeah. So way back when I was a media guy selling digital advertising for companies like AOL and NBC. And then I got involved 20 or so years ago with my first startup where I was trying to charged to build a business that delivered technology that made advertising more efficient and more successful. And that began a journey of company after company after company who would regularly call me and say, hey, Dan, can you come in and take us to the next level? Which really means can you come in and fix a whole bunch of broken stuff and help us get through our dysfunction and, and operate more efficiently. But no one will ever say that. They never will say that. They just want you to take them to the next level. So during that journey, I helped 10 companies as their CRO or any other title that represents the same thing. Chief Media Officer, Chief Sales Officer, Chief Growth Officer, Chief Commercial Officer. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter. And the idea was overseas sales, marketing and the customer experience to help SaaS companies exit. And of those 10, fortunately five of them went on to be acquired or in one case, IPO. And it just shows that you can really turn around a company from a go to market standpoint, not just a product standpoint, with the right approaches and operational efficiency and structure. And then on the side, what I realized is one day I woke up and realized there's a lot of early stage, like seed stage founders who have no idea how to go to market and they're going to call up Dan Hurwitz one day or a Dan Hurwitz one day and say can help get us to the next level. Well, what if I could help those earlier stage companies avoid those mistakes that otherwise require that phone call to take us to the next level or unfuck the company? Because that's what I do. I unfuck companies. And sorry about the F bomb, but it is what it is.

This is a podcast. We talk everybody want here. It's all, yeah, free form conversation.

So I advise companies on the side that want to avoid those mistakes and I help them get on track and do it right, right from the beginning. And that's what I've built a career doing for the last 20 or so years. And I love it. I love the startup community.

Got it. So I guess the first question I have is why? Why did they call Dan Hurwitz? What is it about Dan Hurwitz that had them say we want you to come do this as opposed to whoever else they could have called?

Yeah, I'm not the only one that they could call. There's many people that do what I do. It's called a CRO. But I've done it specifically for companies of series A or B stage and have a track record that has created a brand, a personal brand that Dan Hurwitz is a guy that knows how to do this and can do it well. And if you want somebody to come in and get you straightened out or even just some are actually quite functional, there's always a few things that need to be polished and some edges that need to be Rounded, but I'm kind of known as that guy who can get that thing done so you can get to the next level and exit your company.

What are the typical things that you find that you consistently, consistently need to unfuck when you go work with these companies?

There are eight, any combination of up to eight. But I'll tell you what the main ones are. I'm not going to go through each one, but the main ones are, first, it's people. You could argue that the most valuable aspect, I'm not going to call people an asset because we're not assets. Were people aspect of your company is your people. It's probably number one line item on your opex in terms of its size. And your people are what make the company the company. So you might not have the right people. You might have great people in the wrong roles and they need to be deck chair shuffled, if that's a phrase that makes sense here. You may have any combination of people issues where the job, the work's not getting done because of people. Second one is, and this comes from the top, the leadership doesn't really have any direction. So I come in regularly and I'll ask the question, what's your North Star? What is it that the entire company is all pointing to and saying, that's where we are going? And it's very common for there to be inconsistency in that answer among the senior leadership team. So I'll have to figure that out. And then what are the goals? And I use okrs as the framework because I like them. What are the goals, the objectives that are necessary in order to achieve the goal of reaching the North Star? And then what are all the little things that you need to do in order to achieve those objectives? And again, that goes back to the details of the Okharra framework. What you do is you take that stuff that I just said about goals and leadership and making sure from the top down, everybody knows what they're doing and you disseminate that across, across the entire organization. Now we're back to people. So everyone in the company knows exactly where we're marching, how we're going to get there, what their swim lane consists of and doesn't consist of, and how they're going to work with other individuals and departments in order to achieve those goals. It's just focus. So those are two big ones. I'll tell you a couple other quickies. One is kiddie soccer. Let's just chase after every single thing that comes up. And with lack of focus and Again, the OKR framework and the North Star approach that I bring with me wherever I go really helps to avoid kiddie soccer. But you can't just run after the ball wherever it goes. You need to decide exactly what you want to do and say no to a whole lot of other opportunities that will endlessly come your way. So saying no is critical. Hey, sounds like a great idea. But guess what? This is our focus right now. And even though that is a good idea, we're not going to do that right now. We're going to stay the course and we're going to continue to do what we're going to do. And so that's the third one that's very common. So there's three right there.

That's okay. I'm curious, what are the other five? I'm just curious. It's a good topic.

Yeah. So you've got the people issue, you've got the leadership issue where they don't know what's going on. Then you've got an accountability and like, what am I trying to say? Know your swim lane and be accountable for it. And so that's a huge one. People should get fired for not or let go for not doing what they are supposed to do. Another one is there's no proper decision making process that uses real data to make those decisions. So you can't just say, it feels good, let's do it. I mean, you could, but it's not ideal. No board, no investor is ever going to say, well, that's a good answer. It felt good. So you really need to have the data to support the decisions that you're making. So there's five and then three more that I see happening all the time is communication. And we're talking about does the left hand know what the right hand is doing? And then it's common that these companies don't have at the earlier stages a coo. I think it's a big mistake not to have. And again, I don't care what the title is. Somebody making sure that the operation is actually running properly and that T's are crossed, I's are dotted and it's all working in the right direction. And then the last one that I see regularly is it's really about having a customer centric focus, like always focus on the customer and delivering value for the customer and being able to make sure that when it's time to. And again, I'm in the world of SaaS, but when it's time to renew, there's no question whatsoever what value you brought that customer because you have done a wonderful job of quantifying it as best as you can and show them that we are valuable and we should be renewed. And look, it's a lot easier to go get new revenue from an existing customer than it is to go get new revenue from a new customer. Customer acquisition costs are super high. Higher than I've ever seen before. And I think that it's critical that you take great care of your customers. So those are the eight that I see regularly. I could give you more because there are more, but those are the most popular.

Okay, so let's talk about some of those. I have some thoughts on them. I don't disagree with them, but I would say that I have some points of view on them. I'd like to hear yours. So one would be you talk about people you mentioned, which I agree, there's no question about. I mean people are ultimately the most important thing because that's, those are the, in the businesses you and I are in, people execute. They're the ones who do the work every day. You need the right, have the right people. And everyone also knows, I know you do that when you have the right people. It's like magic. It's amazing. We have the right people. It's the best thing ever, you know, keeping good people, finding good people, incentivizing the right people, putting them in the right seats. It's the magic that goes on. But there's also developing people like seeing potential in people that maybe one, one organization might say let's get rid of this person, but somebody else says no, no, no, this person is not to be fired. This person needs to be developed. There's a, there's a golden person inside here and that we, we want to invest in this person. How do you know in your view how to make that decision? Whether you say the people need to be let go because they aren't reaching the goals that they're responsible for or that they need either a put put somewhere else because they, they'd be better off elsewhere in the company or they just need to be developed.

Yep. So I actually have a whole process around this. Glad you asked. So first of all, I agree with you. People need to be developed and it's important that everybody gets a fair chance. Now when I come into an organization, I inherit existing people and I have to go through a process that helps me determine who's going to stay and who's not. And so the first thing that are non starters for each role and each department head gets to identify what those are. Sometimes they need a little help, and that's fine. A lot of these exercises have never been done before for with some of these people. So I'll give an example. Salesperson. Five things. Number one, iq. Need to be smart. Number two, eq. Need to know how to read a room. Know how you're coming across in the room. You just need to have good eq. Number three, communication skills. Critical, both verbal and written. Number four is sales skill. You're a salesperson. Do you have any sales skill? Do you know how to ask the right questions? Do you know how to close a deal? Do you know how to align different stakeholders to make sure that everybody sees the value that you deliver? And number five, it's my favorite. Do I want to go camping with you for the weekend? And the camping one is if you're a pain in the ass or you're just awkward, you're not somebody who the majority of people enjoy being with. Probably not right for a sales role because you're going to meet all kinds of personalities and you're going to be building relationships with all sorts of personalities. Now when you go camping, if you ever do, and I love it, everybody brings something to the table. On a good camping trip. There's that one person who brings all the equipment, tents, cooking material, lighting, all that. There's that person who brings all the food, the person who brings all the beer and alcohol, if that's what you want. There's the person that knows how to navigate in case you decide to go on a long hike. There's a person who brings jokes and entertainment and a great personality. And then there's the person every now and then that brings nothing. Like absolutely nothing. You really want that person on your team bringing nothing to customers. So that's an example of five criteria that I look for when I hire salespeople. And then you could go and do the same thing for marketing, customer success, engineers, et cetera, et cetera. Then I go through and I look at my A's, B's and C's list. A's are top, top employees, like, phenomenal. If one were to walk out the door, you have a black eye because that person, for whatever reason, you didn't, you didn't, didn't do well for them and they decided that they could find it elsewhere. A B is somebody who does a good job. And ideally I break my Bs into B pluses, B minuses, B plus. This person has the ability to become an A B minus. Never going to be More than a B minus, no matter what you do. And then there's Cs. Cs should be let go. And you can quantify all of this with a scorecard if that's what you want to do. And oftentimes HR can help you. If you have an HR department, if you are a startup that doesn't, you can figure this out yourself. As a leadership team. Take every single one of your employees and put them through the A, B and C. And then start asking questions like, what are we doing to develop our A's? To make sure that they feel valued, paid, well, appreciated, challenged, so that when they go home at the end of their week, they speak to whoever that is, their spouse, their mentor, their parent, their brother, sister, whatever, and the conversation is, I love my job. I couldn't imagine working anywhere else. I feel wonderful working there and I'm glad I have the opportunity versus this place sucks. I don't want to be here. They don't appreciate me. If that's the answer to the question. As if you were a fly on the wall listening to what's going on in kitchen or whatever on Friday evening, you got problems. So do your best to make sure you're taking care of your A's, your B pluses. What are we doing? What can we do to develop these people? Because they actually can be an A. And we feel like it's worth every dollar spent to help them stay and become super awesome than it is to let them walk B minuses. Maybe you put them on a plan and see how they do, but the reality is you probably know they're not going anywhere and then you exit them out and then you're Cs. See, you get them out, they may be A somewhere else. It's not that they're bad people. They just might not be right for what you're looking for. So I go through that entire exercise, you know, it can be done in a month or two and really get to the bottom of who are our best people? Sorry about the long winded answer, but that's good. It works great. I do that all the time.

That's great. So the other thing you brought up, which I thought was interesting, is the idea of making decisions with data and not because it feels good. So here's my position on this. You know, we've become, in my view, too reliant on data to the point where we don't have any instincts anymore. And instincts sometimes are the best things we have. Right. If you're, if you have, if you Have a good leader who has a good gut and can read things well, you know, most businesses are started because of instincts, right? Someone says, you know, I really think that this is needed. You know, someone could say, you know, that doesn't seem like a really great idea. They give you all this data, like, no, no, I'm telling you, I know this is, this is going to work. And they're right. You know, they just sort of had a good feel for things. And if he'd listened to the data, he might not have started the business or made a decision. And I do think that, that I agree with you that, you know, because we have access to so much data today, we should use it, right? And we should use the ways in which and the means with which we can extrapolate data and utilize it. But in my view, it can't come at the expense of artistry and, and gut. And great leaders have both, right? They say, look at the marketplace and they can say, you know, there's like the obvious stuff, like there's a desire for this product in the market, A lot of people want it, it costs this much, I can make this much money on it, all that crap. Then there's also like, I know that a specific type of restaurant will work on this corner. And then there's a lot of people that would tell me I'm nuts. But I just, I know it. I know I can't explain why I have a vision, right. And I think that boards, if I may, right. Have a tendency to be a bit so leveraged around data that they ignore sometimes the genius that comes with, I wouldn't say feelings, it's really the wrong word because I don't necessarily like feelings as a thing, but it's in the feelings, you know, neighborhood. You know, it's gut, it's instinct, you know, And I think that this is, I actually even said maybe saw. I don't know. Follow me on LinkedIn. Two days ago I wrote something like, you know, marketing has been destroyed by, you know, data. You know, it's, it's like almost done marketing. It's like no longer an art anymore. I got a lot of feedback on this and most of them were in agreement. How, you know, the endeavor of marketing endeavor these days has become pretty much a numbers driven thing when you, I think about it, you and I grew up with marketing being like an artist, an artistic endeavor. You know, it's about language and storytelling and compelling people's emotions and stuff. And I think that's been thrown out the bait, be the bathwater. So I say that to you because, you know, I want to get your thoughts on this. I mean, you may share this or maybe you disagree, which is fine, but I do think that we've become particularly the SaaS industry in particular, because it's weirdly the SaaS industry. Not only is it measured that way, but many SaaS products are data products. They're selling data, you know, so there's a culture around this. So what are your thoughts on when you're looking at your clients? How to navigate those two sides of the brain.

Yep. So you use the word art. Thank you. I like to use the word science as well. I actually discussed this very topic on one of my podcasts during the summertime. Spent a lot of time out in the boat, so I kind of know what I'm doing, but not amazing. Long story short, we're out there and he radios. He calls up his buddy who is phenomenal, phenomenal fisherman, been doing it for, you know, 50 years. An older guy, and his boat is a beat up wreck and he just knows what he's doing. And my friend calls the guy up and says, where the fish today? And he says, oh, here, I'll drop you a pin and I'll show you where I am. So we go out to the water, right where that guy is. We're probably, you know, within 100 yards of him for the two, three hours this guy is raking fish in into his boat. We didn't catch why. He's been doing it for a long time. He doesn't need to watch YouTube videos. He could write them, he could produce them. He just, here's a guy who, he knows which way the wind's blowing. He knows the temperature of the water, the current, the tide, the sun, the time of year. He knows all that stuff and he puts it all together and he delivers. You can't teach this stuff. Warren, you have this. I have this art because we've been doing it for a long time. It doesn't mean that somebody who has less experience isn't as good. It just means that art is very, very important. And I think a combination of both are critical. However, in the tech space, especially sas, where I've lived for years, you can't walk into a major meeting and say it feels good or it felt good. So I made the decision. What you can say is, here's the data. I've got several years experience. Here's three examples of doing something similar in the past and the outcomes. And the decision that I made was based on this data, that experience and some of my art that I just know it.

Yep.

And I think that if they trust you, they hired you, they trust you. And if you can continue to maintain that trust, you earn credibility and trust. But isn't that what we're trying to do with our customers, deliver credibility and trust? And so you need to do it with your board, your investors, your boss, whoever, bosses, whoever it is. And so I think there's a balance of data and art together that makes sense.

Yeah, I agree. In fact, I think to your point, I go so far as to say data is the insurance policy when you don't trust instinct.

Great point. You should write that down right now, post it right away. That's awesome.

So what we've done is that there's such distrust that we rely almost exclusively on data until someone comes along who just is some sort of wizard. I know also, you sort of have to know your lane, you know, like there's I, I learned this the hard way a lot of times. I've sort of think at 60 years old, I've gotten to a point where I figure out like, where I can swim without looking at the music anymore. I don't need to look at the music sheet anymore in certain areas, whereas other place I need to look at the music sheet all the time. And if I'm in those zones, I can say to somebody, look, I, I don't know how to explain this to you. I can't tell you why. I'm just telling you I know this is going to work. And if you know me long enough, you'll know that I'm right enough about this particular area and you should just listen to me and I'm usually right about it. And then there's areas like, I don't know, I need data because it's a insurance policy against me not knowing. I don't have a feeling about it. So to your point, like, I think what we, we try to do often is we look at the magic of a business. We look at magic of what happened in the marketplace. And what we do is we then try to reverse engineer what we think happened and turn it into a bunch of data points that we can repeat it, we can make it work, work again. But it was the magic that made that work. There was data that supported it, but the magic was leading it, not the data. And I believe that to be true. Frankly, I think energy and magic is really more critically important than data. Not to say data is not important. But what ends up happening is we do A backward look at data. Most of the time we say, why did this business work? And you look at all the things and you can try and say, okay, we're going to try and put together the formula of this thing that worked and then we're going to try and replicate it. I tell the story a lot of times there was a time way back in the 80s, I think maybe late 90s, I mean early 90s, there was a pirate movie that came out. It did really well. I think it might have been actually the first Johnny Depp pirate movie. And you know, Bruckheimer was the producer and you know, it was like what Johnny Depp's freaking pirate. Like it was this idea. I remember people think it was a stupid idea, especially amount of money they were spending on this thing. And it was brilliant. I mean it was a great movie and it made a lot of money. It made like a billion dollars, you know. And what happened was, which is common in Hollywood, is that now all of a sudden everybody started making pirate movies because they didn't think about the fact that it wasn't because it was a pirate movie, it was just a good movie. It just happened to be about pirates. So you can't like now try to re engineer a pirate movie and think you're gonna make one. It's because it was just a good movie. It's all, it's didn't matter. He could have made a movie about, you know, lobsters and it would have been good if he had the right formula. And I do think that we've, we look in the rearview mirror at data when we're building companies a lot of times and you know, you can throw data around in a boardroom and be really smart. I mean, there are people I work with are freaking genius with numbers and stuff and they can go, oh no, look at this and these trends and look what's happening here. And you can't argue because it's logical, but there's somebody else like, yeah, but it's not right. This is going to work better. This is just going to work better. And I'm talking about this a lot lately. It's why I'm harping on it with you is I, I don't necessarily having this move into sort of a philosophical discussion, but I do believe that there's, there's a magic in business and it has to do with all those things you mentioned. If you take all those eight things, which are great by the way, you take those eight things and when they line up, it's like Planets lining up like, it just. Things work.

It's an entire ecosystem.

It is. It works. Right. So if you can get those magical things happening, which is, again, why I'm tending to focus a lot more in my business around that stuff, because I believe that that's where the gold is. You still have to have a good idea. You have to have a product that works. You're right. You have to have customers that are happy with what you do. But I think those are table stakes. You can't put something in the marketplace that people don't want. But that leads me to my next question for you. What happens when you're in a situation where you talk about customer centricity, which I completely agree with? What happens when the company's goal is, we want to exit in two years or we want to be acquired in two years, as opposed to. Our goal is we want to make customers really happy. Right.

Which.

They're not the same thing. So, you know, what's the way that you'd manage? Let's say Dan Hurwitz is brought in to, you know, come help a company, and the leader says, dan heard great things about you. You know how to come in and help make things work. Here's what the North Star is. You asked him that question. We want to be acquired in two years. That's our goal. That's the North Star. What's the way that you respond to that goal as the North Star?

I usually get asked the question differently by my reports who say, what's our end goal? And especially when you're talking equity. Right. Here's my answer. And it's kind of the same answer. It's not wise to put a for sale sign on your lawn when you're a business like this, like a SaaS business, or, you know, because when you do that, there's really only a couple of reasons why you would. Number one, you just don't want to be in the business anymore, so you want someone else to take it. So I'm going to put a for sale sign up on my lawn and see if somebody comes by and wants to buy it. Or number two, things aren't going so well, and I got to get out of this thing, and I got to give my investors whatever I can back so that they don't get completely, you know, destroyed financially on that investment. What I tell my reps is, third, I'm gonna.

I'm gonna throw out a. Yeah, go ahead.

What's the third.

Third reason is, you know, how there's made for advertising Websites, mfa.

Yep.

There's the same thing in made for revenue businesses. Mfr. And it's because the company decided, not because they don't want the business anymore, they're tired of it or it's not doing well. It's because the business was literally invented to make money in two years because someone engineered a way that they can make money in two years.

Common. That's a good one.

It's a made for revenue business.

Yep. Now you got to remember that the, the investors, board members, whether it's VCs or PE, they're all bankers. And that's great. They're great at banking and bankers want to make money. They go out and get LPs so they can, you know, invest in companies to make money. So the goal is, to your point, to make money. So what I tell my reps is, I'll tell you what, we can make that answer real easy. Go sell something. Let's create a machine that sells a whole ton of whatever we're offering.

Yeah.

And let's do it really, really well. When you do that, doors open. You don't have to put a for sale sign on your lot. People come to you, knock on your door and say, I want to buy this. This thing's awesome. Look what you've created. That's the real answer. Go sell something. Go figure out how to sell something.

I'm in agreement. I do believe that people want to buy products that customers are happy with. I mean, that's it. Right. So again, I, I asked this question because I'm, I'm confronted with this particular issue a lot with my clients who are in situations where they're in businesses that don't have a long term plan. So if they don't have a long term plan, the customers are suffering as a result. Right. They're not going to be taken care of. I'm not going to worry about a customer outcome as much as I'm going to worry about whether or not the stock price goes up this month because we acquired enough customers this quarter that are going to make it appear that way.

Yep.

And I think this is a conundrum. I think the SaaS business in particular is designed this way because the reason why it's so popular is because it's capable of doing that uniquely like any other is.

Yep.

And so, you know, I think that that's sort of an inherent problem with some of these companies where when I'm, when I'm advising my clients who are looking for chief revenue officer jobs, I ask them like to find out like what their goal is and don't listen to the bullshit that they tell you. Like, oh, you know, they give all these lofty things. It's really like, okay, so what do you really want? You know, if the, if the, if the, if it's an engineer who's kind of young, they probably have enough artistry and vision that they're young enough that they want to create something really big and they want to have a name for themselves and they have a lofty goal. That's good. But then when you get like these investment companies involved, these guys are like, you're my age, I've been doing this for a long, like, yeah, we just want to flip this thing, you know, we don't want to entertain to it, you know, like, I'm tired of that crap. I've had my dreams, you know, now I just want this thing to make me multiples next month or something. And you know, those are dangerous mixtures to throw together in that thing. So I mean I bring it up mainly because I'm seeing a lot of it. And I know because you deal with so many different companies, it just must be an interesting thing from your perspective to deal with these sort of weird, misaligned long term, short term.

Yeah, that's the key word. So what I see regularly is a tech centric founder identifies a problem and says, I can fix this and it'll feel good to fix this and I'm going to make the world a better place or I'm going to make business more efficient or whatever it is. But those, those are the intentions. So that person goes and builds company gets started and then goes to investors and says, I need your money so that I can grow. And the investors have a different agenda. The investors, especially in the VC world, just read the power law. That model was, is go invest in X amount of companies and for every six or seven one of them will crush it and pay for the losses of the other five or six. And it's funny because I built a career on those other five or six that are great companies, they just need another chance to be fixed and I come in and fix them and give them another shot at making something. But the idea there is the investor is investing so that they can return for their LPs within the time frame of the fund. Two years, three years, it makes sense. And given that the founder didn't start the company by saying that ever, it's a total misalignment and it's a shame.

It's a weirdly It's a very strange situation because it's the poison pill in the business that in fact the business many times needs in order to survive in the first place.

Yeah.

My clients many times are founders who find themselves crunched between two, basically two outcomes. One is I have to adhere to the mandates of my investors whom, like you said, have leveraged themselves for my business and they've plugged my business into their business model, which they get a certain return on after a certain period of time, which takes me off of the purpose I had, which was to grow customers over this period of time. And, you know, there's a balance there. And I think that, you know, if you have the founder led companies whom aren't commercially sophisticated, they get sucked into that because they need money, Understandably, they need money. And so now they're kind of like, what do I do? You know. And I see a lot of confused founders looking at me like, I don't know, I, like, I have like a two, like, you know, the, the Animal House devil and, you know, on my shoulder and stuff, you know, and I'm wondering like, which one I should listen to. And I started this business because I believe that I have a solution that can solve a major problem and have a big impact on society. And that'll take me 10 years or 15 years. And I'm okay with that because it's worth it to me. But the money that I got, I need to pay back in three years. And that means I sort of have to do stuff that I would normally wouldn't do. I have to surrender my principles to. And it's a weird thing. I don't, I'm not, I don't want to like make some bold statement or some overly dramatic statement like money is evil and stuff, because it's not, you need it. But it comes with dynamics that need to be managed. And I think that's an interesting topic for another day.

Yeah.

But anyway.

Yeah. I will tell you just one quick story.

Sure.

I work for a startup that, where I was chief revenue officer and the company got its first round from venture capital and that investment firm has seat on the board. And it was all about go, go, go fast, as fast as you can. Revenue at all costs. Go get the top line revenue, go get new logos, generate revenue as fast as you can. The next round that was done was a round done with a family office private equity firm who was thinking, no, that's not how it goes. We need to go responsible, slow and steady, predictable, make good decisions, take whatever time you need. And the first board meeting with both of those investment firms at the table with board seats. I looked at my CEO and I said, what's our message here? What are we doing? Are we going to the VC side? Are we going to the pre side? What are we doing? And the answer was, well, I'm not sure. We're still trying to figure that out. And I'm thinking, I think mom and dad need to figure out what the heck they're doing with this family so that all the children here can have some direction. So we need to figure that out ourselves. So let's get them at the table and let's have that tough conversation. We never did. We never did. So it never got resolved. And then I left.

I'm familiar with this and I appreciate that it's a great, great topic. So I want to be mindful of time here.

Sure.

So how, how can people get a hold of you? How do, how do these fucked up founders find Dan to help them unfuck their company?

You can always find me on LinkedIn. I respond. I'm in it every day. I'm posting stuff every day. I help the community regularly. My, my advisory firm is called first tracks, spelled T R A X advisors firsttracksadvisors.com My website shows myself and my partners. But the easiest thing to do is you can, you can email me dan@firsttracksadvisors.com or go to my LinkedIn and reach reach out to me on LinkedIn.

Well, great and pleasure. I knew this would be a great conversation.

So it always is with you Warren. I love you man.

Thank you. Thank you. Same. I mean it. So you're great. So really good stuff and I'll be seeing you around the neighborhood and thanks again for being here.

Sounds good. Thanks Warren. Take care.

Thank you for listening to the CRO Spotlight podcast. The CRO Collective's mission is to help CRO succeed and help founders and CEOs build CRO Ready organizations. You can find out more information about our services@the crocollective.com that's the cross crocollective.com and we look forward to having you join us next time.

This thing to do is you can, you can email me dan@firsttracks.com or go to my LinkedIn and reach reach out to me on LinkedIn.

Well, great and pleasure. I knew this would be a great conversation.

So it always is with you Warren. I love you man.

Thank you. Thank you. Same. I mean it. So you're great. So really good stuff and I'll be seeing you around the neighborhood. And thanks again for being here.

Sounds good. Thanks Warren. Take care.

Thank you for listening to the CRO Spotlight podcast. The CRO Collective's mission is to help CRO succeed and help founders and CEOs build CRO Ready organizations. You can find out more information about our services@the crocollective.com that's the Croat rowcollective.com and we look forward to having you join us next time.