B2B Startups CAN Create Sustainable Deal flow |Here's How 💸🚀

Speaker A: Startup founders have to understand is that it is a clash of perspectives. You know, when you're in the corporate world, you're basically driven by uh, a seek, a search for certainty. Right. Everything is built around the concept of, you know, let's cover every single angle, let's make sure that all possible scenarios are analyzed to the nth degree because the last thing we want to do is to make a mistake.

Speaker B: So how do you as a B2B startup, create sustainable deal flow that converts? The answer comes from our guest today, Zoltan Vardy. He's created a program called the LaunchCode aimed at exactly this problem. We are extremely privileged to have him on the show today and he's going to give his insights not only on that, but also on the different corporate cultures that exist between Europe and the United States and what you as a startup should be thinking about before you make the jump to the States. Zoltan, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

Speaker A: It's fantastic to be here. Timo and I look forward to a great conversation.

Speaker B: Me too. I've been looking forward to this one for a while. So you were about 20 years in the corporate world and you're an exited founder yourself. That's quite a resume. Um, tell us maybe one or two things that you think startups should know about B2B sales and the corporate world that they usually don't know when they first start into this game.

Speaker A: Yeah, so you know, as you reference yourself, I've sort of lived on both sides of uh, that divide, uh, you know, spending 20 years in the corporate world and you know, ascending to various more uh, senior, uh, sales, uh, roles, ultimately being global head of sales for NBC Universal, based out of London for the international TV networks. But uh, also being a founder myself, kind of in the dot com era, uh, building up a business, selling it to strategic investors and then investing in early stage businesses as an angel investor. And so I think I understand both of those um, perspectives and I think that's actually one of the most important lessons that uh, startup founders have to understand is that it is a clash of perspectives. You know, when you're in the corporate world you're basically driven by uh, a seek, a search for certainty. Right. Everything is built around the concept of, you know, let's cover every single angle, let's make sure that all possible scenarios are analyzed to the nth degree because the last thing we want to do is to make a mistake. And so as a result you operate in an environment of very careful um, and progress, heavy planning Lighter on execution. On the other side, startups are effectively motivated by the complete opposite, right? They're motivated by speed. It's get to the market quickly, it's closed deals quickly, and move forward as quickly as possible. Because if we don't do it, then our competitors will. And so I think one of the things that you have to understand when you get into the process of enterprise sales is, is that you're going into an environment where the two parties are not aligned in their way of thinking about the world. Now that in itself is a state of being, right. I like to say it's like gravity. I mean you can be really angry about the fact that, you know, a pen falls out of your hand on the floor, but it's just the way it is, right? That's how the world works. And so you kind of have to accept that as a, as a part of the process. Once you accept that though, there's a couple of things I think you have to keep in mind that uh, I encourage startup founders to keep in mind, mind and the first one is not all corporates are created equal. We think of this as kind of one massive organization of, you know, multinational companies. But the fact is that there are different characteristics of different types of companies and, and the, the positive and effective enterprise sales begins with choosing the right targets and defining certain characteristics that indicate that that company is going to be more likely to be interested in what you're offering than, than someone else. And, and identifying those characteristics, digging into that and is the, is the first step in ultimately being successful at closing corporate deals.

Speaker B: Now you mentioned kind of they have different risk profiles. You know startups, they can be more risky. Uh, they almost certainly are. Do you encourage them to take bigger risks when they're going after their first B2B targets? Do you, do you tell them like sometimes you can shoot for the moon and hey, maybe you'll get it, or is it better to pull back a little bit on that risk and go after something that you know, that you can get that's realistic?

Speaker A: Yeah, you know, I think that the founding principle of any, um, strategy is a balance of risk. Right. You can be if, uh, you just think of from an investment perspective, right, if you put all your money into Bitcoin, uh, then you're a very high risk strategy. If you put all your money in, I don't know, uh, real estate, then you're being quite, uh, conservative in your thinking. It's kind of a balance of various elements. And that's what I encourage startup founders to Think about, and to refer to my earlier point about finding the right corporates, there are basically, I think there are three types of customers that, that you can go after. Um, I'll use this analogy of the rabbit, the deer and the elephant, right? Elephants are the big multinational mammoth companies that move slowly, um, that make slow decisions. But if you actually can grab it, I mean it's a big meal, right? I mean it's a, it's a big uh, big win. Uh, on the other end are the rabbits who are the smaller, nimble early stage businesses that are going to make quick decisions. But you can't really, really live on rabbits for the entire course uh, of your, of your business. And so where you have to fit the, the ideal customers is that deer category, right? Deere are generally the challengers in any vertical, right? So they're not the tier one companies, the big global names necessarily, but they're very strong, very robust companies with strong market positions. But they are fundamentally motivated more to work with other startups and I'm sorry to work with startups or, and, or try out innovative um, relationships because they have something to win, right? If they can catch an innovation, if they can catch a technology and integrate it, they're more likely to benefit. Whereas elephants are very risk averse because they only can lose. Right? And so one of the key factors is targeting, uh, targeting deer, um, more than elephants and rabbits and, and then going through a whole range of qualifications that uh, that kind of give you that indication that you know, these companies are a good partner for you. So one of those is generally I always encourage them to target privately held companies rather than publicly traded companies for the simple fact that publicly traded companies are motivated very much by quarterly results. And so they're less likely to take chances on anything because they've got this pressure of performance. Um, companies that have a very clear decision making process, either they're very centrally focused, in other words, all the decisions are made in the headquarters, or they have a very decentralized structure and all the decisions are made locally. But this kind of mix of, well there's a decision here, there's a decision there becomes an extremely difficult thing to manage. So having clear decision making tree is important. And finally looking for companies that already through their other actions indicate that they have some interest in innovation. They have a corporate accelerator, they have a corporate VC arm, um, they have somebody called head of innovation or head of, you know, of you know, technology or something like that within their company. All of these are, are indications that these companies have already you know, from their mindset, established the fact that they want to do business with, with, with innovative companies. And those are the type of companies I think that startups really should target first when they start selling.

Speaker B: So I'm, I'm curious, I don't want to get too much into the details of this, but this detail I feel is actually kind of important because I don't, I don't have a good grip on it is lead generation. How has that changed for startups and how do you approach that with your startups when you're mentoring them? Because I imagine the process of finding your leads and then, you know, working those relationships to eventually convert them. That process has changed a lot with technology over the past five to 10 years.

Speaker A: It has changed, but I think the fundamentals remain the same, which is that ultimately people do business with people and you have to be able to find the path towards getting in front of the right person with the right offer at the right time to make the decision. I'm not a big fan of kind of the two most, you know, uh, sought after go to approaches to lead generation. One is I call the I know a guy approach, right? Which is basically, you know, I know a guy at company X and you know, we did business 10 years ago and we, you know, we'll, we'll probably do business now or my uncle knows a guy at company Y and you know, I'm sure they'll, he'll make an introduction, right? So that very, very network based approach, it's fine to start, but it's not scalable. Then you've got the other approach which is the spray and pray, right? That's when you send out 10,000 emails and hope somebody that responds. I don't think either is really, um, the right way to go. I believe very much in being very, very honed in on who your ideal customer is to the point where you understand their problems at a very, very granular level. You understand why what you're offering solves an important problem for them. And once you've created that ideal customer profile, then you start matching it up with companies that are more likely to be, you know, matching that profile then looking into the people that are at the companies and so on. And so that sort of structured approach is what I believe is going to drive long term growth on the enterprise sales side. Because at the end of the day, you know, enterprise sales is not about, you know, convincing a thousand companies to do business with you. It's more about convincing 10, 15, 20 companies a year to buy high ticket solutions from your business. So the more targeted you can be on who you reach out to and the more you're, you're get into their comfort zone in terms of having an open conversation, the more likely it is you're going to close. So actually you might have fewer leads, but you'll have a higher close, close rate for the deals that you do. That's what I believe is going to be really, uh, a powerful tool. Uh, having said that, obviously technology enables you to accelerate that process to reach out, but I don't think it really replaces that fundamental, you know, problem solution connection that you have to find.

Speaker B: I have to say I have more than a few examples of startups I've come across which tried to make their living off the I know a guy solution.

Speaker A: It's very typical.

Speaker B: Rampant.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's rampant. And, and you know, I think, I think it's, it's all new, natural. Right? That's your comfort zone. That's where you're going to find those initial conversations. And by the way, there's nothing wrong with that approach to start. But if you want to create a scalable business and predictable revenues, then you have to be able to move away from that. And that's what the launch code is all about. And what I basically uh, do in my work with, with B2B tech founders.

Speaker B: Yeah, let's talk about the launch code a little bit more. Um, now, without giving away too much of the secret sauce, how is it that you work with startups so what does it look like when they first come to you? What uh, kind of things are you looking at in their business? What kind of suggestions are you making? How does this program work kind of going forward for a startup that needs this sort of structured program of B2B sales?

Speaker A: So you know, I like to practice what I preach. So in fact I do only work with a very specific type of customer. And, and that is a B2B Tech founder who is struggling with sales that sells a high ticket service to enterprise customers and is looking for a way to create a repeatable, predictable revenue stream. And that's where it begins. Right. So um, I'm very focused on those type of customers because that's where I can add the most value from my mix of sort of enterprise and startup experience. They ultimately share three problems. The first problem is they don't have a very focused offer or message. Right. So typical situation. I don't know how often you have this timo when you're standing in uh, an event and somebody goes over to you. And then, you know, you inevitably pose the question, so what do you do? And then begins the five minute monologue of, you know, all sorts of buzzwords and AI and distributed cloud and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker B: And you're like, that's half my week.

Speaker A: And then you're like, uh, okay, thank you, well, have a nice day. And you kind of walk off. But, you know, that's where it begins. Right? You have to have a focused offer message so people understand what you're selling. That means a clear value proposition, a clear product offering, some clear messaging that talks about the problem rather than you. That's kind of the first pillar of the launch code. And what I solve for the second problem that a lot of companies at this stage of development have is they don't have a structured approach to client outreach, um, or client acquisition. And what I do is I take them through this process of outbound selling, of partnerships and inbound marketing and using those three levers to, to combine this sort of structured sales approach, which, uh, ultimately means that they will reach out to people who are most likely to be interested in what they're selling and close more deals. And the third problem that I solve for with the launch code is, you know, building a business is controlled chaos, right? I mean, you just, you're constantly like doing all sorts of stuff and there's shiny objects all the time coming in your field of vision. What I try to do is to narrow their focus on, you know, on executing based on very clear targets. Right. So one, what is it you want to achieve? Um, what are the KPIs are you going to use to track your performance? How do you know what good looks like? How do you know if you're in the wrong track? Start making decisions based on data rather than gut feeling and ultimately building a sales team around that that is capable of scaling so you as founder aren't sitting there at every single sales meeting. And so that sort of combination of focus and structure and execute based on targets is what I offer through the launch code, either through a personal mentoring program or if somebody's interested in just getting the content, they can buy the Entire course of 6 hours of videos and they can get access to all the content themselves and they can use me as a stopgap if they've come across some issues they want to discuss.

Speaker B: Okay, um, one more question to that before we kind of switch gears and talk a little bit more about corporate cultures that you've been involved with. Um, do you encourage startups to actually bring in Salespeople when they're starting to gear up, or are you more of a fan of the founders? And the original team should be doing this originally before they start to bring in any salespeople so that they know it from the inside out?

Speaker A: I'm a big fan of the latter. So I think one of the big mistakes that, uh, founders make is they think they can delegate the sales responsibility, right? And that's fine because effectively, you know, an overwhelming majority of the founders even I work with are kind of tech focused, product driven founders. You know, sales and marketing isn't their comfort zone. They kind of think of it as voodoo. But the reality is that you cannot avoid the pain of sales if you want to, you know, experience the gain of sales. And what I mean by that is you have to go through the process of reaching out to people, getting in front of them, understanding their problems, understanding the objections they raised with your service, working that back into your product development, working that back into your offering and your messaging. You just have to go through that process. And it takes time, you know, I mean, uh, you know, even if you're a very seasoned salesperson, it takes time. So you might as well do it as if you're, if you're a product focused person, because that's where you're gonna understand what it is that you can actually ask your salespeople to bring on and, you know, and to execute. Once you have that, you know, that general understanding of the problem, you solve, who you solve it for, and why you're better than the competition. That's when you can bring in external salespeople who are gonna help you execute on that vision. And even then, you know, it's not like, you know, it's written in stone. It's gonna evolve over time as you expand your, your business and you realize certain things are resonating with your target customers. Certain things are not. But at least you're not setting them up for failure because you're telling them to kind of do the hard work. And then, you know, uh, rather than doing it yourself, I can definitely get

Speaker B: on board with that. Um, I wonder, and I just want to press just a little bit on this. I have seen quite a few founders where they are the typical, I just want to work in front of my computer. I've built something wonderful. I don't like talking to people all that much. And you can see it in their eyes. As soon as you try and talk to them, they get this horrible feeling of, I know I should be doing this. This is a Good thing that someone wants to talk to me, but I really don't want to be here. What do you tell those founders?

Speaker A: I tell them to accept the fact that they have to move beyond their comfort zone if they're going to be successful. But I also tell them that I don't think the expectation is for you to then turn into a completely different person. What it means is that you have to be comfortable with the fact that you're going to have to understand what your customer wants. And it's a good idea to get a co founder who balances your skill set with, um, more traditional sales and marketing skills. You know, any team that I've worked with that I think has really broken through has always been a combination of a product person and a sales and marketing person. Literally. It's that, it's that, it's that combination. And I think that that's what's going to lead most to success. Um, having said that, there are great examples of founders I've worked with who have evolved, um, in their environment. Uh, so a German company that I work with, company called Computomics out of Tubingen, um, they're in the agricultural technology space. Um, a PhD founder, you know, ah, a true scientist in the truest form of the word, um, who, who has built a company in the last sort of, I guess, few years where they started scaling, um, that has been a meaningful player in this very niche area that they operate in. And, and I've seen in my own eyes how he has opened up and he's become a much stronger salesperson, the leader, um, not probably because that's something that he imagined he'd doing, but that's just what, what's required from the job. Right. And so he's evolved in that sense. And so I think that that's where, um, it's incumbent upon the founders to accept that, that um, that selling is part of the problem, part of the solution. And I think, you know, just going from my own personal experience, so, you know, I've built my career in sales. I've closed $2 billion worth of B2B sales over the course of my career. So by all accounts, I'm a seasoned salesperson. Well, I didn't start out that way. I actually am the son of two academics. Both my parents were professors. Um, you know, I grew up in a house with 10,000 books on the shelves and with very, very small understanding of commercial activity or any interest in selling. In fact, selling was kind of something you didn't talk about because it was icky right. So I came out of that environment and was lucky enough early on in my career to start working for somebody who explained, who explained to me that actually selling isn't about trying to convince somebody to buy something they don't need. You're actually solving an important problem for them. And I think that's such an important mindset shift that you understand that your job as a salesperson, founder is to solve another person's problem. And let's be honest, who doesn't want their problem solved and who doesn't like to solve problems for others? I mean, that's the greatest thing. And so if you adjust your mindset to that, you'll find that the whole process becomes less foreign and much more smooth and actually very rewarding.

Speaker B: Two things I got out of that that I think I just want to emphasize, which I think you're right on with. First, an understanding and acceptance of what the life of a startup founder is going to be like. It is going to be a life where you are getting out of your comfort zone. You're doing things that you've never done before. And the second thing is that you're absolutely right. This is a skill. It's not just you are a salesperson or you're not a salesperson. Anybody can learn to sell if you put your mind to it, if you practice at it, if you get good training and get good help with it. So, um, yeah, I'm with you on that one. Um, now, before we, um, before we end, I wanted to get your experience on different corporate cultures because you were amongst many positions, a, ah, very high ranking position at Prosieben, which all of my German listeners will know is one of the biggest media companies in Germany. And a lot of startups that I chat with, particularly when they hit around the Series A level, uh, they're starting to look towards the United States, they're starting to look to wider markets. And what differences are you seeing in corporate B2B sales culture between Germany, Europe and then the United States? Because they do business in very different ways. And how would you prepare a startup for taking that leap outside of Germany to the UK or to the us?

Speaker A: So this is one of those questions that unfortunately requires you to dive, uh, into some stereotypes like what are German leaders like and what are Americans like and what are the differences? Stereotypes are there for a reason, right? There are certain generally cultural, uh, comparisons that you have to make. And I can acknowledge that. So I was actually CEO for Central and Eastern Europe at Pros Events alliance, which is, was an Independent division with five TV channels, a thousand employees, hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue. So it's pretty big sized, meaningful sized business. And I reported into the headquarters of Munich and uh, as an American born executive, I did find it sometimes challenging to find my way around the German culture in uh, in interfering outside of Munich. Um, because as you would expect, the German culture was much more conservative, it was much more formal, it was much more structured, um, than what you would have experienced, let's say, in, in the same situation in the United States. Having said that, um, as a German company looking to, let's say enter the US that presents a great opportunity. Um, you know, one of the things that um, that you have just to accept is that in the United States that the sales and marketing as a form of behavior is like breathing air. It's just such a natural part of the culture. So this idea that, well, I shouldn't be very, very, you know, pushy because you know, they're not gonna want me to be, you know, so forthright in what I want. Actually Americans love you when you just tell them what you want. I mean it's really, is a, um, it's an expectation and this concept of like, of like, well, you know, we have to be very careful and we have to, you know, it's just, it just doesn't work actually. If you don't speak up, nobody's gonna, gonna recognize you. And I've got a great, great example of how this mindset has really um, shocked me just a few weeks ago. So I, I was found by a US based startup founder who was in the ed tech space and had reached out to me through one of the workshops I did and wanted to have a chat. And um, and I uh, think it's about, I'm guessing I'm in his mid-20s. Um, this, this young man and I had this conversation with them and you know, as you do. Well, what do you do? And he's like well you know, we got product market fit and we're, you know, we're expanding and we got all this stuff. We're going to go into Europe. And I'm like oh really? That's, that's fantastic. How long you've been around? It's been nine months already. And we're, you know, we're growing and, and what's your monthly recurring revenue? Well, we've hit $15,000 a month. And, and then I'm like thinking to myself, man, that's a pretty bold behavior for a company that's been around for nine months and has hit €15,000amonth or dollars a month revenue for Fast Forward. I'm talking to a startup founder out of the Czech Republic, um, who, similar context saying yeah, you know, we're doing our best, we're kind of trying to break out, um, you know, we're, you know, we had a lot of challenges. Oh, well, tell me about your business. Well, we've hit €200,000 monthly revenue now. Um, you know, we've been around for about three years and it was almost like he was apologetic about the fact that he, you know, he's this Monday. And so there's like this juxtapositioning of like the, the 25 year old kid out of the states with 15,000 monthly revenue behaving like he's running Google and then the guy out of the Czech Republic who is basically running a business that's, that's uh, you know, 20 fold, who's behaving like um, somebody who is ashamed to be a founder. Right. So it was such an interesting juxtapositioning or comparison of these mentalities. Long story short, I really encourage founders out of ah, Germany to, as ah, we say in the United States, take the bull by the horns and really go hard into the US if they want to make a change or if they want to break in because nobody's going to um, be offended if they're particularly pushy. And second of all, frankly, you know, you're not going to get anybody's attention if you aren't.

Speaker B: I've talked to quite a few where they made their jump into the states and then once they got a little bit of help with their sales approach in the States, um, which was along the lines of what you were saying is just go, just go and make the ask, just make the ask faster than you would try and do it, you know, 30 minutes faster than you normally would in a meeting. And people will appreciate that because they're not wasting their time.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And then they can just get to the yes or the no, but they will appreciate you. And hey, maybe they even might recommend you even if it's a no, because they know that you're going to do business. Well, in the eyes of two things

Speaker A: I want to, I want to highlight from what you just said because I've had this come back to me in multiple contexts. First of all, people in the States want to help like that. There's a culture of hey, you know, this isn't for me, but you should be speaking to my buddy here. Or you know, actually I Don't think this is the right fit for what we're doing, but you should definitely speak. So one of the things I hear from a lot of European founders is like, there's, you just get a lot of, of people just helping because, you know, just paying it forward as they say, right? You just, what comes around, goes around, so you, so you get that benefit. And that's a great cultural, um, value in the US where, where people are just much more willing to help. It's the first thing. Second thing is, um, you. The, the, the one thing you have to be careful of. And, and uh, and I say this as an American and you know, I spent the first 22 years of my life in the United States and the subsequent 30 in Europe. So I've kind of again, see both sides of the story is in the US as much as people are very direct and very collaborative, there is a huge BS factor. And I won't say the words right, but there's a huge BS factor of the people really, um, overselling their qualifications and overselling the reality of what they can do. And it's a very difficult thing to judge. Um, and it can lead you down the wrong path. So let me give you a specific example. So I worked with a health tech company, uh, out of Europe that was looking to launch into the US and through some connection they found their way to an American guy who, um, who basically convinced them that he had a direct connection to every single, um, hospital in the US and you know, he was going to bring them in with their technology everywhere and through some miraculous course of events, got them to agree to a completely exclusive arrangement without any upfront guarantees, nothing that effectively locked out this company from doing business with anybody but this guy. Well, time passed. I actually started working with them. So this is, this predates my, my work with them. And I, and I looked at the contract and I, and I said, guys, what are you doing? What were you thinking? Like, how can you get into this environment? Well, you know, he was really, you know, he's really, uh, convincing and you know, he really sold us on this thing. Fast forward a year later, the guy has done nothing. You know, um, I, I was in a position to have a conversation with him by, by phone for 10 minutes. It took me about two minutes to realize he was full of crap. I mean, there's, you know, no way that he had this type of access that he was selling. And he really, uh, pulled this company into a very difficult situation that ended up in sort of a legal battle. And so I think that's one of the challenges that you have to acknowledge. If you're going to go to the States. There is a big dose of bloated projection that you have to cut your way through. And you have to be very careful that you don't fall for it because it could really hurt your business.

Speaker B: Yeah. Um, and having somebody on your team or somebody you're associated with who has that good BS radar.

Speaker A: Exactly. Detector. Yeah.

Speaker B: Massively helpful. Which brings me to my last question. Just a quick one. I'm interested. Under what circumstances would you tell a startup that they should hire somebody who has experience with the American market? Because I've. I personally know a friend of mine who. He, um, was that guy where they hired him because he had a massive network in the States. He was American himself. And, uh, you know, like, he did very, very well for them, but he'd been living in Germany for a good long time. Uh, is that something that is important is bringing somebody in who knows the turf, or do you think that founders can learn that stuff and it's really not that necessary as an expense?

Speaker A: I think it's a matter of timing. So I would not, I would not recommend that somebody unless they really have extremely, uh, significant resources. But even then, just from a common sense standpoint, I wouldn't recommend starting a market by just like, hiring somebody there and then letting them sort out the details. I believe very much. And you have to test the market as a founder from a distance. Look, if anything's happened, thanks to Covid, it's like the world has shrunk. Right. So there's no expectation that you have to be everywhere physically. You can do a lot of calls, you can do a lot of discovery discussions, uh, just the way that we're talking here, very virtually. And so I think that, that I would encourage founders to test the waters and to. And to get their first few customers at a distance. Once they've built traction, once they feel like there's, there's. There's a clear niche they can fill, that's when you can begin thinking about hiring some additional people. Even then, I'm not sure I would hire a senior person. I would hire more people on the ground who can support, like, customer success or maybe business development or, or marketing partnerships. And then once you've got that and you've got your foot in the ground, you've got a small team. That's when you hire a senior person. Because there's one thing that I think a lot of European founders are shocked about is the Cost of a senior person in the U.S. i mean it's, it's three to four times what you'd expect. Maybe if not three to four, two to three times more expensive than in Europe. And so especially on the sales side, right. If you're doing a business development thing, so it's a big commitment and, and look, it's a big risk. I mean, you know, uh, you're uh, hiring somebody that doesn't come with your DNA. They might be a perfect person at presenting themselves, but actually they don't lift, they don't like heavy lifting, which of course we know in a startup world this is a great requirements. So, so I would do it in stages and, and, and that's what's going to lead to your highest chance of success.

Speaker B: Sound advice. Okay, we're going to get to our last segment here, which is our uh, Win, lose or draw game. Zoltan, are you ready to play?

Speaker A: I am.

Speaker B: All right, first one for you. Win, lose or draw. Every startup that does B2B sales, taking on a startup coach or mentor for that specifically within the next five years,

Speaker A: I'd say win. With a caveat that not every startup founder needs a sales coach, but everyone would benefit from one. Uh, you know, there's a lot of tech founders who have that skill set and have that understanding, but maybe they haven't, you know, practiced it enough in order to be successful in sales. Uh, those people who really feel like they don't understand what sales and marketing is about, they're not comfortable with understanding what the process is and everything really would benefit from somebody who shows them the way. At the end of the day, of course, execution is always on the back of the founder. Right. So the best mentor in the world can't do it for you. They can point you in the right direction. So yes, but, but be prepared to, uh, to ultimately do it yourself.

Speaker B: Next one, Win, lose or draw. Big corporates starting to take more risk and doing more deals with smaller startups.

Speaker A: I'm going to say draw on this one because it really depends on which corporates you're talking about. Whether more will take risks. I can't be for sure, but I think that as we progress and as technology becomes such an integral part of our day to day lives, the comfort level for testing and experimenting will be growing. But I also wouldn't mislead founders to think that all of a sudden big companies that have behaved a certain way for the last hundred years are going to suddenly do it differently. They might tip their toes in the water A little bit more easily, but they're still going to be demanding a lot of the risks. Avoidance, uh, that is fundamental to the DNA of a company.

Speaker B: Do you think it's desirable that they take on more risk and start working with more startups? Do you think that that would actually be a good thing or it's not really their place?

Speaker A: I think it would be a huge benefit to companies to take more risk. Having worked in that environment for 20 years, I know that how difficult it is for anybody who is a little bit more innovative or is a little bit outside the box in their thinking to, to basically rise within that type of organizational environment. So yes, they would benefit significantly. The best way to do it actually, I think great model, uh, is that what Virgin does? You know, Richard Branson's group of companies, Basically any business they start, they start as a separate independent entity. Um, you know, they have the resources of the back office for the corporation until they reach about 50 or 70 people and then they're basically spun off into a different company and basically operate as an independent company. I think it's a really interesting model where you get the benefits of the big company and the corporate organization, but at the end of the day you act like a small company within a large one.

Speaker B: Yeah, not an easy thing for them to change their DNA. But.

Speaker A: No, but then again, Richard Branson isn't exactly a typical, uh, corporate leader either, so.

Speaker B: No, certainly not. Okay, um, all right, so our last one. I hope this one doesn't give you a big head, but win, lose or draw, uh, Zoltan Vardy turning the launch code into a book one day.

Speaker A: Yes, 100%. It's already on my, uh, on my to do list and actively working on it. So I'm hoping 2024 will be the year I release my first book to the market. So. Nice one, very, uh, very committed to that.

Speaker B: Cool. Then, uh, that'll bring us to the end of our chat. Zoltan, thanks so much for sharing your wealth of experience and your significant perspective on different corporate cultures. We really, really appreciate that. Thank you so much.

Speaker A: I appreciate as well, Timon, if you're around me, I do have one special offer to your listeners if they're interested in uh, taking advantage. So one of the things that I do when I start the launch code with my customers is to go through their value proposition, which is basically a single sentence that explains what problem you solve for whom and why you're better than the competition. And I've created sort of a five step process to create uh, a new value proposition and what I want to offer is the opportunity to download a 30 minute free free video with a worksheet that they can use to to create their own value proposition. They just have to go to zoltanvarti.com podcast so zoltenvaarti.com podcast they can download it and uh, they can benefit from that. And if based on that they feel like it'd be worthwhile for us to have a conversation I'm certainly open to that as well and they can look for me on LinkedIn.

Speaker B: Yeah, sounds really good. And we will link to that in all of our show notes so look for that link below. Thanks again to everyone for listening and watching and we will catch you all again next week.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker B: Thanks everyone for coming by this week. The link that Zoltan just mentioned you'll find in the show notes. Be sure to like comment and share wherever you're able and we'll see you again next time in the ring. Take care everyone.