What Founders need to know to grow their companies w/Timothee Grassin

Welcome to another episode of the Whole Human Podcast. Today I have Timothy Grassin or Grassin. You can tell us how to put the emphasis on your last name. Welcome to the show.

Thanks, Peter. Appreciate it. I'm also not going to try to, to say your last name, but Grassin is perfectly fine for me.

Good. So Tim and I, or Timothy and I, got to know each other on LinkedIn and quickly bonded over having been in and around startups for a while now. And Tim, for the people who don't know you, would you mind introducing a little bit of your background and what you're up to today?

Sure. So I'm Tim Gressin. I'm a French entrepreneur via Canada. So I have dual citizenship. I've built 3 businesses that I have had the chance to sell. My latest venture was a fintech in the Philippines offering lending solutions to employees, and we were acquired by a bank last year. And since then, I've moved from the Philippines to Thailand where I've been consulting on the side to stay sharp and get a sense of what other startups were doing in Southeast Asia. In order for myself to find another project, perhaps at least to stay sharp and aware of what was going on in the region.

So, so it's fair to say that when it comes to Southeast Asia and the people in the startup and venture environment, you're way around most of the companies, most of the actors. Is that right?

I'm getting around, but it's actually a lot more like the more I learn about it, the more, the deeper into the rabbit hole I get and the more I unravel. So. Not quite there yet. I know most of the famous startups in the region, the ones that are getting exposure due to fundraising and whatnot, but then there's the rest of the iceberg, which are all the corporate VC-backed or simply family-owned startups, which represent, I'd say, over 80% of all startups in Southeast Asia. So getting around to it, but not quite there.

And having, being French and having been in Canada as well, What's, what are some of the main differences that you're seeing between, let's say, just Europe, the European ecosystem or the North American ecosystem, and then what's out there when you look at the founders, their experiences, the way that they approach problem solving, those kinds of things? What are some of the differences that you see?

So unfortunately, I haven't been exposed to Europe too much in my professional life. I left before my studies for Canada. I'm exposed via some friends and relationships and whatnot, but I think Overall, the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Europe is a little bit less prevalent than it is in North America. I think people are a little bit more conservative and take it safe, more safely in Europe than they do in North America. I think overall, especially in the US, Canada, not as much, but in the US, people are prone to taking risks early. It's built into their DNA. Uh, they have the confidence from their DNA again to, to take these risks and to take, make bold moves. And that's why we see so much coming out of the US. And, and the same goes with investors. They have the same boldness and aggression as founders do. And that's why most startups till to this day have been coming from North America. And Europe is a lot more safe, especially on the investor side. I, I do have a lot of friends taking risks and building businesses, but as much as the government would like to promote the fact that they're startup friendly, the reality is. The tax system and the infrastructure is not at all backing startups in Europe, at least for France. I know for a fact that it's just super complicated.

And how about where you are today? How about out there? What does that look like?

Well, if you follow my LinkedIn, you'll see that I have controversial opinions about it. I think a lot of people are trying and the governments are a little bit behind on what is needed and required as a backbone for startups to To grow in Southeast Asia and Thailand specifically. There's a lot, there's a lot going on and I think it's on the, it's on the upswing, but still quite a ways to go before, before we get, we're there.

So you're now, you've been out of, since you sold TendoPay, you said you've been consulting to stay sharp and stuff. So what kind of consulting is it that you do? What is it that you're working with companies on?

Yeah, well, at first I was thinking about an overall consulting role where founders need other founders to help them navigate fundraising, culture, product, scaling. But then I realized it was hard for me to provide enough value on all of those verticals. And I started refining my offer around scaling, which is really what I had been doing over the past 3 roles. It's how to scale from 0 to 1 and then onward from there. So the last few companies that I've been working with have been revolving, the service has been revolving around scaling purely. So all the playbooks I developed for TendoPay, implementing it with other B2B founders in Southeast Asia. So that's what I've been honing in on.

And then what's the biggest challenge do you see companies have when they need to scale?

Well, at least in, in Southeast Asia, they're still using legacy scaling methods. You'd be surprised, but every single founder I talk to is trying to do email marketing and they're still doing it the very old school way. They're trying cold calling. They're starting to investigate LinkedIn. But when I, when we talk about LinkedIn scaling, they use spammy methods to connect and immediately pitch. So there's still a lot that can be done. And this is not just Southeast Asia, by the way. I talked to founders all across the world and they have these similar mindsets. So the biggest problem is figuring out new ways to scale rather than using legacy methods.

Right. And you alluded to one of them. And of course, I follow you on LinkedIn and I see some of the stuff that you share as well. And you've built somewhat of a following already and a personal brand. Some is, I'm guessing that's the route that you want some of your, the founders that you're working with to take.

It's definitely one of the biggest pillars that I leverage and educate founders on is overall founder-led sales, I think is extremely important and not many founders are comfortable or knowledgeable enough to do it. So I teach them about leveraging LinkedIn, especially because like I said, I focus on B2B founders right now. And LinkedIn is where all the B2B leads live, unless you're working with brick and mortar ICPs. I think most of the other ICPs live in LinkedIn. So if you're able to provide the right value, provide the right content, engage with your ICP that has warmed up to your content, like there's a whole strategy around it, but I use it for myself just to prove to other founders that it's doable. That's probably the number one priority for me when I engage with a company.

And I think we're seeing a lot of people trying, or a lot of gurus, right? Trying to teach people how to sell on LinkedIn. And there's a bunch of courses and there's a bunch of, some people drive with content. Some people drive with other things on there. Is it going to get, is it getting crowded or is it just me? Because my feeling is that I can't open LinkedIn without somebody trying to convince me to lead with content. And I'm like, well, I've kind of been doing that for 3 years. So it feels a little bit saturated. In other words, if you're just starting out and you're a founder in the B2B space and you want to start doing stuff on LinkedIn, what are some simple things to, they can do to get started? What would be a couple of tips that you could share?

First of all, to answer your first question, I think you and I are both in this echo chamber where we've been following all these content gurus because we wanted to learn from them. And now all of a sudden, we feel like that's all that's on LinkedIn, right? But I think for 98% of other people on LinkedIn, they don't necessarily follow those same people. So they're still prone to being exposed to the content if you're targeting them properly. I don't think it's overly saturated yet. Like, sure, a lot of people are more exposed to creating content and I think it's going to happen more and more, but LinkedIn algorithm is still quite strong in the sense that it doesn't promote garbage and there's not too much stuff that goes viral. So. Your circle of exposure is still small enough that you can play the, you can play the game and still have some results without being too diluted. Now, the second part of your question was, what are some like initial tips? So what I like to do is I like to build a 3-pillar content strategy. One personal, personable one where people get to know you. So whether it's telling stories that are still relevant to your work experience, but At least on a professional level, people get to know you a little bit better because the idea is people buy from people rather than companies. So you want to get to know who you're going to be buying from. Second thing is authority, proving that you are someone that has worked on or like provided the solution you're talking about to a certain like success. And the third one is knowledge base. So talking about like the pain points and the solutions that you provide your ICP. I think if you start with that, posting 3 times a week and rotating with those types of content, you'll start getting some somewhat of a like success with the algorithm. And the other thing is making sure to connect with at least 20 ICPs per day. Like that's what LinkedIn allows you these days. If you connect with 20 ICPs a day, you'll start building, at least you'll start feeding the algorithm an idea of what, what targeting they should provide for your content. And then lastly, make sure you use the chat feature to your advantage. And again, like I said, I don't want you to be spammy with your chats, but anyone who has engaged with your profile, engaged with your posts, or has accepted your connection request, you should at least start a conversation with because these are your ICPs. So build a natural conversation with no expectation, just a few messages to know that, to let them know you exist. That can go a long way. And that's most of my meetings I get through this very natural 4 or 5 messages. And at the end of the day, most of them will want to have a call because it's like everything you want to go from chat to face. And from then on, it's your ability to be a salesperson that can convert a call into something else. Right.

It's funny because I've been on there for a long time and have an audience. I didn't start using the LinkedIn messages actively until maybe a few months ago.

And then— How do you find it?

Well, it, the experience is not fantastic in terms of UI and stuff. And I think everybody that's on there and uses it agrees to that point. But what I saw was there was a massive difference in, there's essentially 3 ways you can do a message, right? You can write some text. Yeah. You can do a voice note. Or you can actually on the app on your phone record a video and send it to people.

Right.

And so somebody pointed out that voice notes were much more effective in actually getting people to open them and listen to them and respond.

Mm-hmm.

And so I did that for a little bit and that worked really well. And now like, let me try this video thing. And so now what I've done is every time somebody sends me a message and it's the first time that I'm engaging with them or I sent them a message and they respond, I will actually record a little video. I've set up a phone. I'm looking to my, my left here because there's a phone sitting ready for it, and I record a short video message. I have 100% response rate.

That's amazing.

And people say, it's so nice to put a face, live face to the name. Thank you for your warm message. I really appreciate it. And then they will answer the questions that I might have given in the message, or they will Tell me more about something that they were trying to talk to me about. And of course you have to be comfortable doing that, right? Just like you and I are now doing this. If you're not comfortable being on camera, if you're not comfortable talking with people, I'd encourage you to start practicing because in a future where more and more gets automated, even though AI is getting amazing at text and, and, and sending messages, I think people will start responding more to when it's actually you and they can see that it's not AI generated. I get that question sometimes, right? I'm sitting here and people are like, oh, is that AI? I'm like, no, how can I prove it?

You know, that's a good one.

Yeah. All right. So let's try and, and shift gears a little bit. So remind me, in the different companies, you've been a co-founder a couple of times, is that correct?

Well, yeah, I've been co-founder 3 times essentially. Like the first business, I was co-founder for a few months before the other founder dropped out. So I became a sole founder. Mm-hmm. And then the next 2, I was a co-founder indeed.

So let's talk about first the co-founder relationship, because I think that's relevant for most of the audience, even though we also have a lot of solo entrepreneurs there, but co-founding something with somebody. Can you tell us about how it came about? Just one of your companies, for example, either at Candy Banners or at Tendo. How'd you guys meet? How did you guys decide to start a company? What's the brief story on your co-founding?

I'll tell you about both because they're so different and unique, and then they have their own set of results. And I think that's important for, for the discussion around co-founding and finding a founder. So Candy Banners, I was sharing an office with Jan, who became my co-founder. And for 6 to 8 months, maybe even a year, we were sharing this office space. He was a creative director, freelance creative director for agencies in Toronto. And I was running Stinson Design, my first company. So we got to hanging out. I was just subletting, I was subletting a desk in like an office space in his biggest space. And we would hang out a lot, talk about business ideas and stuff like that. And one time we were on vacation in Dominican Republic for a kitesurfing trip, and I saw him working an entire like night on these ad banners. And I asked him like, what, what's up with these? with this project? Like you've been working all night. We're here for a kitesurfing trip. He said, yeah, agencies, like they subcontract that stuff out. They pay a ton of money. Like he told me about the budgets and the timelines. And this is when the idea for Candy Banners came up. I told him, if I can productize this service offering and scale it and all that, like, would you want to partner with together on it? And the moral of the story is like, we had this long lasting relationship before we knew each other quite well on a personal level. So that led to a very fruitful relationship. We built Candy Bananas and then he became a co-founder in TendoPay as well. So we've had this, like, obviously we had tons of ups and downs and it's been tough, but we've, we had this one year of relationship before starting a business together. Now TendoPay on the other side, we met our co-founders because again, we were sharing an office and at the time they were looking for developers to help Build an MVP. And instead of building an MVP, which would have cost a lot of money and not solved what they were looking for, we proposed to be co-founders, but we didn't know each other from Adam. So it was a completely different relationship that was built on just a willingness to work on a project together. And that turned out to be a lot more complicated and tumultuous than the Candy Banners relationship. And Yeah, again, ups and downs, but very difficult relationship between founders because it was again based on not knowing each other at all aside from wanting to build a project together.

So, so if you're in a situation where you have an idea or you're thinking about starting something with a couple of people that reasonably well, I think the situation that you had with your first co-founder at Candy Banners is quite unique perhaps. I think in most cases it's a couple of people coming together and they're like, oh, this is a good idea. And then they start it or they're lifelong friends, but they've never done business and then they start something together. So, so how do you, how would you set yourself up for success? What are some things that you would do if you're starting out with a new co-founder?

Okay. So it's like a regular relationship. I think the more time you spend together, the more you get to know each other. Like on a deeper level and you get to know the problems that might arise and you want to get through that early on because if you discover them a year or two into the business and you feel like it's going to be tough to work together, there's so much on the line to lose. Like the relationship gets sore very easy. So like working with lifelong friends has that advantage that you've already established what can go wrong and you already know the kinks of someone. But the downside is you could break that relationship because business might get in the way. And again, like I talk about this topic to a lot of founders because it's very hard to find co-founders and everyone is going to have issues along the lines, but I don't have the exact solution to it. I would say better to have this kind of work friendship relationship, like I built with Jan over a year and then have a business idea and grow from there. But like you said, it's very unique and it's not super viable for most people. But on the flip side, things like the accelerators that do co-founder matchmaking and you just meet each other for a few days or a few hours and then are supposed to build a business together, like that's way more prone to failure. And I think I both know that most startups don't fail because the product sucks, but because the founders end up breaking up.

Right.

And I think like if I were to build something with another founder in the future, Right now I'm more on the path of solo founder, solopreneur. But if I was to build something with a founder again, I would make sure that I spend 6 months to a year with them to get to know them on a personal level rather than have an idea and meet someone to build that idea. Like rather spend time with someone that I find smart and I want to work together with. And then over the 6 to 12 month period, find a product that would work, but not the other way around.

Yeah. I was literally yesterday working with a guy who has an idea, who's acquired some technology and wants to launch a business. And he's been interviewing potential partners. He's talked to 3 people, 2 of them he's rejected. Now the 3rd one, he wants to enter into a co-founding kind of relationship and they're talking about warrants and equity and all this other stuff. And he feels obligated to now essentially get married to this guy in a business term because they've talked about the idea and I have And so I had to, or I wanted to say to him, well, let's create a framework, some agreements that allows you guys to essentially get to know each other over the next 6 to 12 months. And as you work through the issues and as you see if you can work together, this other person essentially gains co-founder status and earns the warrants, which is normal, by the way. You don't get it from the beginning, right? You earn it over time. But so, so for me, when I meet people like that, I try to If they want to get going on the business right now, I advise them that, well, let's set it up in a way that you can get going on the business, but that there are regular meetings where you talk about the issues, that there are agreements in place that determines how you govern and how you make decisions. And ultimately, one of you has to be the person who says, this is not working out. You're no longer part of the boat. And if that person coming into the business doesn't want to be in that situation, Then it's not for you, right? One of you has to be the stronger initially. You can't be even Steven, which is another thing I think many people do wrong, right? Like, oh, well, we have to be even. You don't have to, and it actually makes things much more complicated. And so talking about that and figuring that out, I think, is tricky for most.

All right.

So co-founding, and now you said you're going to be a solopreneur. You also have a podcast, which we should plug in our show notes. You've been doing it a little bit longer than me. How has having the podcast helped shape your thinking or helped change the way that you think about doing your business?

Initially, the podcast is one of my sort of scaling strategies. I use it to approach my ICPs without them suspecting a sale, and then I convert them into clients.

Oh, wait a minute. Do you want to buy something from me now? Is that where we're going?

Well, you tell me, what are you selling? No, in all honesty, that was the initial thinking. And then I realized that I actually really enjoy this format. It's fun to get to know someone on a deeper level. And there's a lot I can learn from other founders. What, not only what their biggest issues are with scaling a business that I can then solve through like my next product, but overall just a discussion format. I've been consuming podcasts for so long now and learning so much. That I wanted to try to emulate that and give back a little bit to other aspiring founders, especially because Southeast Asia doesn't have as much content as North America. So I wanted to be able to deliver that. And I've been doing it for longer than you, maybe 2 months overall. So not that much more experience and I'm still learning and still getting used to it. So I'm learning from this podcast as well and really enjoying it.

Good. Good to hear that. I think we should end on that happy note. Tim, I want to thank you for joining me today.

Appreciate it. Well, it was great being on the podcast, Peter, and I hope I'll be listening to your podcast and learning a lot in the future as well.

And with that, this was another episode of the Whole Human Podcast. We will link to where you can find Tim online, his businesses, his LinkedIn, all those things. As he said, we're gonna record more of these. So if you know anybody that you think would be a great guest, or if there's a topic that you want me to cover with somebody, just let us know and we will make sure to get that done sometime in the future. Thanks for listening.