246: Lessons for a Solo Founder - with Robin Singhvi

Hey there, welcome to SaaS-Story in the Making. I am Matt, I'm your host, I'm really excited that you're here. Thank you very much for coming. We are here to help you accelerate your business. We want to help your software company grow and scale and get to all those amazing goals and dreams that you've always wished for. So that's what we're here to do. If you've never been here, definitely subscribe to the show, hit that subscribe button. That way you're going to get all the updates on when we have new, amazing leaders and innovators for you. They're going to share all their best tips and wisdom. Just like our leader today. I am super, super glad to be joined by Robin Singhvi Robin, how you doing? Hey, Matt, I'm good. How are you? Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Thank you very much for coming. Let me let me share a little bit about who you are Robin, so everybody knows. So Robin is the CEO and co founder at Smart Q and smart Q helps sales teams build a library of personalized product demos for any buyer persona, and deliver demos that are contextual, that help them close deals faster. As you guys know, if you've followed me for any length of time, you know, I love demos and the sales process around demos. So I'm super excited to talk to Robin and learn about his insights there. Robin has spent over a decade in the b2b SaaS space. He's done it as a sales and Solutioning leader playing the quarterback between sales and product teams to develop and execute the best solutions for customers and key stakeholders. So he absolutely knows his stuff in this area. Once again, Robin, thanks for coming on the show. I'm glad to be here, Matt. Oh, I'm super glad to have you here. So tell me a little bit about what you've been doing lately. It's smart. Q And what's coming up for you guys?

Oh, yeah. So lots of things happening in smart Q Right. So we're growing really fast, both from a customer standpoint, and from an employee standpoint. You know, we launched smart Q officially to the general public in September, this past September, and we launched our Product Hunt. And we were really pumped and humbled to actually be product of the day, which was congrats. Thank you. Yeah, which was kind of, you know, a bucket list item for me since 2014. When I joined Product Hunt, I was one of those geeks who like joined earlier Leon and used to look at product and be like, Man, it would be cool to one day be working at a company that you know, lists on Product Hunt. And you know, what do you know, right? Dreams do come true. Didn't I didn't just work at a company. But I was founder of a company that listed on Product Hunt. And we hit product of the product of the day. So So yeah, you know, it was it was great. But you know, from a business standpoint, we signed on a bunch of new clients since our launch, and are reading some amazing stuff for even from a product perspective next year. So we're building out functionality to focus on making a sales reps life easier, right, more efficient. And of course, the eventual goal of any sales tech solution needs to be to help sales teams close deals faster, right, without a steep learning curve. And ideally, by fitting into a sales team's existing workflow, as opposed to forcing them to relearn things or you know, throwing new tools at them that they need to sort of adopt, and then hope that it will help them sort of, you know, sell better. I love it. And first of all, it was a very cool thing to have that dream eight years ago, and to see that and to say, Hey, this is something I want. And then to go out and manifest it and make it happen and take the steps. What were some of those steps that you took to say, Okay, if that's what I want, how can I not just hope and cross my fingers and think that that's going to work? What can I do to actually live that dream? What did you do? Yeah. So you know, the funny part is that a lot of people reached out to me after we launched, it had product with the danger like, oh, man, can you connect us to your marketing team? And I was like, well, you're looking at it. Love it? Because? Because yeah, it was it was it was me a couple of folks in my dev team or my engineering team and a couple of interns. And we're like, Alright, man, we got to make this happen. Right. And it always helps when, when you're surrounded by like minded folks who are like, very excited by that common goal. So everyone was like product. Oh, my God, that would be cool, right? Even even the interns are like, Oh my God, if I can put on my resume that I worked at this company, and we hit product product of the day, you know, that would just be you know, huge bragging rights, right? For sure. So anyways, like having that common goal that everyone was working towards was was very, very, very important. And then of course, we did a lot of tactical stuff like, you know, put together a template, you know, listed down down to the last detail of like, which channel which individual and who is the owner of reaching out and ensuring that this individual is aware is made aware that we're launching and the things that they need to do, right What are going to be your email templates? What are going to be your watsapp? Templates? What are going to be our LinkedIn messages and LinkedIn posts? And how are we going to time all of that? So So we tried to, like, you know, really, really brainstorm and make sure that we have all of our ducks in a row, especially because we don't have, you know, a big team that's like, that's, that's there to go and execute. It's just us. Right? And then I think the other key thing that really helped was community. Right. And, you know, prior to launching, you know, when I started smart Q, I actually had a very small community that I used to send a monthly newsletter out to be like, Hey, I got guys, I've started this, I have no idea what I'm doing. But what I'm sharing it with you guys, so so you can sort of help help me along. Right. And so that community, by the time we launched on on product con, grew to about a few 100 people. And they were they were amazing, right? I mean, my expectations for were like, Okay, I'll send those out. And perhaps a small percentage of those folks will go up, go out to smart Product Hunt, and you know, leave a vote, leave a comment. And that's that. But I was I was blown away by by the way, the community rallied around me, right? It's not just that, okay, we'll do this, like the tactical items. But hey, you know what, I'm also going to post it or I'm going to send this note out to my groups in my communities, so that they come in and support you as well. And not just like, here's a former and and then good luck, right? They're like, hey, you know, I know, this really cool founder, they're trying to do some really cool things. I think I think they deserve support. And you know, being a solo founder, small team, it'd be awesome. If like we can, we can rally and get them to the top. And yeah, just the way it played out over those 24 hours was just was amazing. And truly humbling, right that? Yeah, like, you know, the community really has your back. So I want to say, while the tactical stuff helped a lot, I think it was at the end of the day, the the larger tribe or community that that really helped us, you know, reads that product of the day milestone.

That's so cool. What a great story that Robin and some things I can pull out of there. First of all, a lot of times when we're wanting to start a business, a lot of people get scared about it and think that their friends or their colleagues will kind of look down on them or laugh behind their lap, back and snicker at them and and look at how much your community supported you and your friends and other people. I think that a lot of people are worried I can speak from my own, you know, my own past of, oh, no, if I do this, what will everybody think of me. But actually, after doing it, I have found so much support from those around me and so much care and help and guidance that it's been so powerful. And sounds like you found the same thing. I think that's just truly amazing. So if you're out there thinking like maybe I should start I don't know, I'm worried. Definitely take that step and get after, as you can tell from Robins experience. It's, it's definitely very cool to have your community, your your people kind of rally around you. And the other thing that I want to really highlight for everybody out there listening, Robin had a goal. And he didn't just say, Okay, well, hopefully this will happen. We'll put it on the Product Hunt. And maybe I'll do a couple things in here. And oh, yeah, I forgot I probably should do that. Or, Oh, if I get around to it, I'll do this. No, no, he had a process. He said, Okay, here's exactly how we're going to do. He said he lined out exactly what's going to happen, who's responsible, who's going to make it happen, and they stuck to the process. And if you're going to do anything, whether you're looking to sell whether you're looking to build a product, whether you're looking to market, you need a process around it, and Robin design the process implemented process executed it. And that is why they got that that's why they got number one on Product Hunt because of the process. So Robin, kudos to you for making sure that you stuck to your system and got what you set as a goal.

Thanks, man. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. framework was was critical to to be number one.

Super cool. So let's actually go back to before that, too, when you had the idea to Smart Start to start smart. Q. What exactly was it that told you Okay, I think there's something here.

Okay, so there were two sort of pivotal moments, right, that that culminated in SmartKey. First is, you know, like we discussed that I spent a lot of years in sales enablement solutions consulting, and one of the KPIs for my team was enabling, and readying sales teams with collaterals, trainings, demos, whatever assets they needed to succeed in, showcasing our product in the best way possible. Right. And my team and I, we tried a number of different tools, frameworks, training sessions and a ton of other approaches to get our sales teams ramped up with mixed results, to be honest, right. And during one of these sessions, I remember very clearly one of my reps came up to me and she said, hey, you know, Robin, all these tools and trainings that you're that you're executing are really forcing me to change my existing workflow with no guarantees of success. But but you know, that that US sales folks live and die by the quarter. Right? So tell me why you think the group would actually adopt these, if it doesn't help me now. Right. And for me, that was that was a big aha moment, right? The fact that we're forcing our reps to change their way of working with, you know, this, this promise that something magical will happen two or three quarters down the line, and not really trying to work within their existing workflows, right, I thought that was that was a, that was a deep insight that I that I got, right, and the second was the pandemic, with the pandemic and remote work. Now, virtual selling was absolutely mainstream, right? Everyone needed to do it had to do it. That was for the longest part, the only way you could do it. The problem was that now instead of being able to build a rapport, use your charisma to move a deal along, the rep only had a cold, impersonal, perhaps 30 minute zoom call to convince the buyer that their product or solution was the best solution right now, to me, like those two things are the perfect storm for for me to try and solve that problem. And the conviction I had was, can we build something that allows my sales teams to deliver product demos that are personalized to the buyers pain point, especially because you have a very limited attention span now, right? And would work with the reps is existing workflow, so that you know we have higher adoption and actually see tangible impact on deal conversions. And you know, so SmartKey was born. And the rest is history. As they say,

I love it. I love it, seeing a problem and going out and solving the problem. That's what we do here at software is fantastic job on that's really cool. And I I want to kind of get your take because you know, something I'm very passionate about sales demos, can absolutely move a deal forward actually get the deal done. But a lot of sales teams, they're not doing it. Well, they're doing it poorly. And it's kind of sad out there. So what are some of the ways that that sales teams can get really good at doing better demos?

So, okay, so So, so think of, you know, a good and of course, in my book, a good demo is a personalized or contextual sales demo, right? Is kind of like a very tailored gameplan that that perhaps a culture team has, if you take a sports analogy, right, so just like a football coach will tailor their strategy to the strengths and weaknesses of their opponents, you as a rep want to tailor your demo to the specific needs and interests of your potential customers, right. And what that means to me is that, you know, you have to do your homework, do do great discovery, research their business, the industry, the challenge is beforehand. Right? And And finally, I think, I think, if you continue on the sports analogy, right? In game, right, it's like you have to adapt, right? As to the situation, you have to adapt and pivot your demo based on, you know, your customers reaction and feedback. So I think for me, doing the work is obvious, right? You have to put in the work really know, your, your prospect, your buyer, what their pain points are, what their needs are, what they're currently using stuff that's available out there on the internet, there's no excuse for you to get on the call and be like, oh, please tell me about your team size. But like, No, you should know that right? And then, and then once you've done that good discovery, then it's like, okay, you know, I have a 30 minute call with you in person or virtual doesn't matter, right? I know your problem. And I'm going to take you right there with my product, right? This is your problem. This is how I solve it. Right? So the 8020 rule really, right? They, most prospects don't really care about, you know, the 5000 great features that you have, they're like, Man, I struggle with this. If you can help me solve for this, then you know, perhaps I'll get a promotion perhaps I'll get I'll make more commission, perhaps my you know, boss will pat me on the back. Like it's, it's very emotional. And you have to understand and sort of delve deeper into that emotion and then and then, you know, empathize with it. But yes, I get it. Like I get what you're trying to do as a person. And this is how the product that I'm bringing to you will help you solve it. But yeah, that That's that. Those are some of the things that I kind of tried to live by. And you know, I continually try to evolve as well, like when I'm giving my demos like, I'll go and listen back. And I'm like, Oh my God, that's awful. Right? Just didn't follow my own advice. So that happens, for sure. So just because I'm giving advice doesn't mean, you know, I always get it, right.

Oh, no, absolutely. So I coach people on giving demos, I've given 1000s and 1000s of demos myself. And even last week, I had a amazing demo that I delivered really well closed on the spot, they were super excited. And then the next day, I missed so many things, and I was so upset with myself. So it happened, you're not going to be perfect. But a couple things I want to point out there is you talked about making sure that you connect and tailor to the demo to them, and what they're all about and their needs and their pain. And in our process, we call it the perfect deal process. Many of you guys out there know that you follow it. That a is what he's talking about right here, the A stands for associate, you need to associate your solution to their challenges, their goals, their pain, you need to make sure that you connect it. And I actually had a client coaching session earlier earlier this week, where my clients in their demo, we're trying to show everything in the product, and even saying, Oh, no, you you may not, you know, may not do this, but just in case at some point randomly in the future, this ever happens. Like they're not, that's not what they're thinking about right now. They don't care about that. And if you go into that they're gonna get bored, or they think that your product is not for them. Absolutely take the pieces of the product that are for them that they care about that they are going to need. And that's what you talk about. Don't go into all the other, like Robin said, 1000s of other things that your product can do. Because it's, it's really going to be detrimental for the call. And for your sale overall. I completely agree with you, Robin.

Yeah. And Matt, you know, in full transparency, a lot of my frameworks and fundamentals, were informed by some of your LinkedIn posts and your newsletters, stuff like that. So thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome. That's awesome. I'm glad to see it helping you and seeing you thrive. That's fantastic. Tell me a little bit, I know that you're a solo founder, I want to share with some of the audience because they're, they're trying to build their company. And what are some of the best things about being a solo founder? I mean,

obviously, the first thing is, you get to be the boss of you, right? Which is pretty cool. No, no, no more answering to a boss or dealing with office politics is just you your ideas, your vision. So big plus, in my book, obviously, for sure. And also, of course, you get to make all the decisions. Of course, this can be making all the decisions can be a blessing and a curse. But it's definitely a freedom that you don't have, right when working for someone else. Being a solo founder, you know, you get to choose your own path, make things happen your way. Of course, then you also don't have anyone else to blame, if things go south. But so so those are, I think some of the great things. But, you know, I have to caveat and say that, you know, it's not always easy, right? Being a solo founder, especially can be extremely tough. You're the CEO, you're the CFO, you're the CMO, you're the HR person, and you're also the guy or girl who does all the grunt work, right. It's just, it's a lot of work can get pretty lonely at times. I think and that's why I think it's important to what I realized over the, over the past year or so is that it's that's very important to have a strong support system, right? Friends, family, mentors, advisors, whatever, you know, to help you through the ups and downs. But, but having said all of that, you know, it's been a wild ride for me. And it's come with his own challenges and rewards. But, you know, if you're up for the challenge, and you know, have the drive and determination to make it work, I think it can be an extremely rewarding experience. Just don't forget to take breaks, and have some fun along the way. Right? We tend to forget that a lot though. Things are great when you're in Yeah,

yeah, definitely make sure you take some breaks and step away and, and you're right, it's it's you are serving all those roles and wearing many hats. And so one of the things I would add to that because I agree, you nailed a lot of the best pieces about solo founder and some of the some of the tough pieces, but also you're doing all those things. So you have to figure them out, you have to learn how to do them, you know, you might learn them from somebody else that outside a mentor, a book you read or whatever, but you have to figure it out and you have to learn it which means you will grow as a person you will get so much better at a lot of different areas of business that it's it's incredible. You know, I I have a college degree and I've learned so much more being a founder and being an entrepreneur than I did back there. So it's it's it's pretty amazing. The amount of of growth that can have happened. And I know that you've gone through that yourself. It's awesome to hear your story. And then you also went and built a team. So how did you go out and build that team? What were some of the things you did? And what were some of the lessons you learned along the way?

So in addition to being a solo founder, Matt, I'm also a first time founder. So I did a lot of things wrong, including how to build a team. Right. So what I what I did realize, though, is that I think it's a process that any, it obviously takes a long time to find the right fit, right. So so you have to be open to trying out different approaches, and, and be open to sort of adapting as you go right? For me, my best employees, or people in my team have come from references, right? I've always sort of placed them so much higher than then sort of cold applications and stuff, not to not to dismiss them, but but it's just, especially as a solo founder, when I'm trying to prioritize my time and make myself more efficient. It's like, okay, as soon as it comes from the set of people, I automatically know that that this candidate perhaps checks, X number of boxes, so I can really just focus on one or two things which I, which I know that I need to dive deeper into with this person. Right. So that was that was I think one thing that always let people know, that, that you're hiring, that you're building a team, this is what you're looking for in a team, this is your mission vision, right? So that they know what kind of people to refer to you. And then I think as as, as I grew my team, what I did not do, and recently I've started do more is that it shouldn't be, shouldn't be afraid of delegating. Just because I'm the boss doesn't mean that I have to do everything myself, right? I mean, it's the whole idea is how can you free up your time and energy to focus on the things that either only you can do as a founder, or are like the highest priority, right, in terms of return on investment in terms of time and stuff like that. And a lot of the times I think in the in the flow, you tend to miss it, but the team that you're building is really there to help right there. They're not just there to fetch you, your coffee or whatever, right? Yeah, they're there, to bring in different perspectives and approaches as a solo founder. You know, I've, I definitely a lot of the times have have had blinders on, right, you develop your own way of doing things. But that doesn't mean it's the only way or perhaps it may not even be the right way. So having these team members and building a culture that that that enables them to sort of propose new ideas and approaches. You know, it's like, it's like, you know, it's like the Avengers, right? It's like having a group of superheroes that you're trying to get together with different superpowers all working towards the same goal. How about that?

I like that. I love that. That's really well said, and, and I definitely agree with a lot of what you said is something that's been told to me, as, you know, when I was coming up, and a lot of my mentors told me, use your resources, because I would try to do everything myself. But user resources is something that I share with my team as well for them to use their resources, you know, with the people who work for them. And it's really important to understand that you don't have to do everything yourself. In fact, it's better if somebody else can focus on that while you focus on other stuff. And so I think that's great advice. And as we come to the end of time in wrapping up, what piece of advice as a solo founder, as somebody who went out there achieved your goal, but now are still focused on growing and scaling your company? What piece of advice do you have for other software leaders who are just getting started?

So, so these, these sort of, you know, framework, you know, parts of my framework that I've developed have evolved over the past two years that that I've been working and growing and making mistakes and learning from those mistakes at smart. Q. So I think the first thing is that, you know, you have to have a clear vision and goal, right? What is the problem you're solving and you know, of course, your approach to solving the problem might change. Perhaps your your, you know, your target audience might change the way you've architected your product might change. But but if you're if you know, the problem that you're trying to solve, in my case, that how do you make sales reps as lives more efficient, effective and help them close deals faster? That always helps like having a clear sort of Northstar? It always helps you. You know, make decisions and prioritize tasks with that Northstar in mind right as you move forward. The other thing that I've realized and this is one thing that I I think I did. All right, I was talking to my target audience, right? Even before I wrote a single line of code, I was like, you know, I'm not going to build anything until I go and talk to like 100 sales leaders, and ask them that, hey, you know, what? Is this a real problem? How big of a problem? Is it? Is it a vitamin or a painkiller? Right? And if it is a big problem, and in a painkiller, would you pay for it? Right? So so getting getting some validation, for the problem that you're trying to solve, I think allows you to make those mistakes early on, when the stakes are a lot lower. Right? And I think you you, you said this, that don't be afraid to go out and ask for help. Right? Network, seek out mentors. You know, starting a business is obviously it's lonely, and a lot of the times overwhelming experience. So always ask for help, whether it's from your network, mentor, friends, family, it's important to have a support system, different points of views. And I think that you said it right, that you don't know everything. So find people who know that specific how to solve that specific problem and learn faster, don't make those mistakes, perhaps, right? It's possible to, to like, just just hear from them that I made this mistake, you shouldn't do X, Y, and Z instead of what I do. And that, I think, yeah, just just kind of stay flexible. Right? Especially in software, the, the landscape changes constantly, right? So it's important to be sort of flexible and adapt to the situation to the market. Don't be afraid to pivot, we have a couple of times already, in our one year journey, right? And try new things. Sometimes I think, you know, the best insights and opportunities when you're building a company come from just unexpected places, right? And so so being like, really just open and welcoming of different opinions, perspectives, ideas, is really important. And I'm like, you know, don't have an eagle, I think that would be my final thing. But you know, don't have an ego, because there's going to be a lot of people, investors, prospects, who are gonna be like, no, this doesn't work, it's bad. You should stop, blah, blah, blah. Doesn't like you don't have to take it to heart. You can take whatever feedback is objective and relevant. Move on with after that. And because because you did spend the time sort of thinking through the problem, realizing that's an important problem. It's not for everyone, and that's okay. Right. So So I think those are a few of the things that I'm trying to live by and implement. Hopefully, that's helpful for folks.

Yeah, for sure. That's a lot of great stuff. Absolutely. I agree with so much that I want to make sure people can connect with you and learn more about what you're doing and smart. Q. So what are the some of the best ways they can find you?

So I'm on I'm on all social channels. So wherever Matt is, I Am I follow Matt. So if you if you look at Matt's followers, you'll find me. But to be honest, they're like jokes apart. On LinkedIn, you'll find me first name last name, Robin CB. Same on Twitter. We're also on YouTube. Now just a fledgling little channel. We're starting out. So at Get Smart Q is the YouTube handle. I also try to write from time to time so I have a substack newsletter, so smart q.substack.com. It's the same on medium. And, you know, we also have a blog on smart q where I write in what's called founders corner. So like, whenever I have this, this aha moment or stream of thought, I'll just put it out there and then, you know, let people bash me up for it. But but that's okay.

I'm sure it's great. Nobody's bashing it. That's really cool. I'll go check all that stuff out. And we'll make sure to put that into the show notes. So if you're listening right now, you can click and see all that stuff. So, Robin, this has been awesome. Thank you very much for coming on the show.

Thank you for having me, man. It was a great conversation. I enjoyed it.

Likewise, and out there. Thank you for coming. Thanks for listening. Again. Make sure you're subscribed to the show so you don't miss out on anybody else who's going to share amazing stuff like Robin just did. I look forward to seeing you all next time. Take care. Bye bye