From Farmhouse Tables to Digital Community: An Entrepreneur's Journey w/ Brad Davis of Success Panda

Speaker A: The big takeaway is that your career is a team sport. I see a lot of people that they feel like they have to do everything on their own. And what I found is with other customer success leaders, there is an absolute correlation between people that are doing well in our industry and who they know and who their network is. Uh, I call it professionally brushing your teeth. This analogy just simply means if I was a dentist and Joe, you came to me and you're like, hey, I'm here for my cleaning and like, bro, hot mess right now. And you're like, oh, really? But people do that all the time with your career. They only try to engage in their career when they need something. Too many people don't. Once a quarter do something to quote, unquote, professionally brush your teeth, go to a meetup, uh, get a coffee, chat with somebody, you know, be interested in other people.

Speaker B: Welcome the customer on Success, the podcast where we cut out the noise and talk with real leaders about their hardest lessons in customer success and other go to market Motions. I'm your host, Joe DeGrande. And an each episode we're going to unpack real challenges from real leaders, failed tech implementations, a strategy that didn't yield results or difficult customers. But more importantly, we're going to take those lessons learned and share them with you so that way you can avoid those same mistakes with your team. So if you're in customer success, sales or other go to market motions, stick around to hear from the best. And let's dig into it. On this episode of Customer Unsuccessful, I talk with Brad Davis, who's the founder founder of Success Panda. And we actually go down a different path. Talking about his challenges of entrepreneurship and more specifically how he lugged a 300 pound 12 foot farmhouse table to his client's home. As well as mastering supply chain issues and teaching himself canva, we also talk about how those failures help spawn Success Pandas, community and marketplace. I really enjoyed this conversation. I hope you do too. Now let's dive in. Let's see kick this off. So, Brad, thank you so much for coming on the Customer Unsuccessful podcast. Uh, those of you don't know Brad. Brad has. I don't know what is it? You tell me if I'm wrong here, but I think around like 10 to 15 years, somewhere in that ballpark range of customer success, customer facing experience, which is awesome. And I know you're currently the founder of Success Panda, which is awesome. It's good stuff. To social, social networking community for customer success. So, so thanks for coming on, Brad.

Speaker A: Yeah, no I'm happy to be here, Joe. Happy to, to share the, the W's and the L's with the audience.

Speaker B: So, uh, 100%. Yeah, no, for sure. And I think, you know, when we had a conversation, um, you know, and it's interesting because it's a little bit of a different perspective because we're kind of both entrepreneurs. I know you've had a couple of other businesses well in the past. And there, there comes a lot of challenges with starting, especially like, obviously, like navigating if you're working a full time gig, like kind of like a side hustle, trying to understand how to, you know, kick things off. Right. Like, what are the things? Like I even find myself like, you know, being in business for years now, like still, like you throw things against the wall and see what sticks. Right. And just seeing like kind of a lot of experimentation. So I'm curious, I mean, you know, given your background, I'm sure you have a ton of stories of things that were failures or things that just didn't work out, you know, to give guidance to the audience.

Speaker A: Yeah. So I think a good spot to start, Joe, would just be like, probably before my customer success time. Just my first, we'll say real go around at doing something entrepreneurial.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: If you're connected with me and you look at my LinkedIn, you'll see that there's this experience I have as an entrepreneur for a company called Cincinnati Farmhouse Tables. And what essentially that grew out of just like a lot of side hustles. Do, um, things your wife asks for. So I'm sitting there minding my own business, you know, just working my normal job. My wife discovers YouTube and the DIY parts of all the things back in the day.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: And she comes to me and she says, hey, Brad, look at this farmhouse table this guy made. I think you can make one. I was like, okay, maybe I can, maybe I can't. How much does it mean to you? She's like, that was coded language for I want one. I see what you're putting down now. So anyways, I go, I watch, I even remember, like the creators, um, like handle. His name was DIY Pete. Okay. That was his channel. And so I watched his video like, I don't know, 20 times because I wasn't into carpentry or wasn't. I was somewhat handy, but I knew how to use a saw and that was basically it.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: Anyways, long story short is what started as creating a dining room table for just my wife on this like one time basis, I Made this really simple, like rectangle, you know, straight four leg table. And it did stand up, it did hold together. Um, so it was made decently. Well, made it out of like just construction grade lumber from Home Depot. And I had stained it and polyurethaned it and made it as best as I could.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: And um, anyways, yeah, people we had would come over and they're just like, hey, can you build me one?

Speaker B: I'm like, that's how it starts. Yeah.

Speaker A: I said, oh. I, um, mean, sure. They're like, well, how much is it? And I'm like, I don't know. Materials plus 100 bucks.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: Then I came to find out that uh, the market was more than that. Right. So if I were to chalk up some early wins and losses, here is one. The wins are usually if something is working, people, the market's asking for it, people are asking and they're coming to you. So there's kind of like that push pull marketing where um, you know, where instead of I'm trying to push something out like, hey, I'm gonna make flower pots or I'm gonna make, you know, picture, uh, frames or whatever, the, the mar. The people were coming to me, they were finding me through word of mouth and then coming, coming to find me. So I think that's usually the first good sign because you're trying to find that product market fit right early on.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: I would say, I would say a loss in that is underestimating, like again, the systems, like accounting, stuff like that, where it's just like, oh, you know, I'm just doing this for fun. But really when you start kind of get cracking and you're, you're starting to take on regular customers, like you should have some systems, make sure you have an llc, you know, all that kind of the bit doing the basic things kind of like that. Um, but the thing is, I call it the tuition of life, Joe. Because yeah, you can tell people this, but like until you're actually doing it, then you, you know, then you usually just don't do it. So anyways, that ends up growing to where I have six, six people, I have a production manager and then, um, five other creators. And it's making over six figures more than I'm making at my day job. You know, I'm thrilled about it. It's paid off all my student loans. You know, I used to, for years I swung the hammer sometimes to like, you know, midnight, 1 o', clock, 2 o', clock, um, I put in the long hours to get in kind of the, the branding, one of the things that, that helps me is I got my degree in marketing. So not that I'm a graphic designer, but if you can know how to use Canva and do just a little bit of, you know, how to make the picture, you know, appealing and things like that, then that can pay off. And um, yeah, ultimately that business ended up, um, I sold that business to a competitor basically to go away. And um, it was a great learning experience, but it was not in tech and it had its own problems and challenges. And yeah, I would just say like fast forward that to I find myself in customer success fully. I'd been in client facing roles before it was customer success. But in 2016 I'm in a Director of CS role at a startup and taking notes, gaining a lot of experience and then I'm at some other CS jobs. I have a lot of CS experience under me. And how we get to success Panda is basically I'm working at a startup in 2022 and I'm needing to solve a lot of the problems that I'm already being addressed with. So, for example, Joe, and if I quiz you on your own podcast, um, it's okay, you can have all the wrong answers because it's uh, your podcast. You can always edit it out if you want. But some of the things that I was being asked are things like, hey Joe, who are the top three onboarding softwares? And maybe you know what they are. Hey Joe, what are the next, uh, six different customer success conferences coming up? Okay, well, maybe, you know, maybe you don't.

Speaker B: Right, right.

Speaker A: Or hey Joe, who is a really great mentor that you can reach out to, uh, to help, uh, one of your CSMs, your ICs, helping an individual capacity. Right. So the point is I was getting these questions where I knew that the resources existed but I had to go find them. Right. It was like there was no one Stop shop. There was no aggregated resource that at least I knew of at the time that had all the things that I was looking for. So, um, that startup experience, I move on from that. I'm sitting here thinking about what I'm going to do next and I had Success Panda in mind. But the difference is I didn't want to just make it a newsletter. I didn't want to just make it like, you know, I wanted to make it a platform, right? I wanted to make it a SaaS, I wanted to make it a platform and I ultimately wanted to help people like, thrive in their customer success career path. And so basically, um, in the early days, I sat down, I dreamed big. I'm like, here's all the things that I want to do. I want it to be like a mix of LinkedIn and links, you know, mix of Amazon product, baby. And I want to take over the customer success world and have uh, a platform specifically um, for customer success professionals. And we can get into more details. I know I've been talking here for a second, but essentially that's kind of what happened is I just went out and I executed and I ah, built the platform. And um, we're rolling out by the end of this month. So in a matter of a couple days the uh, we already have a social, we'll say networking component of the app, but we're gonna be rolling that out like a home feed for people, similar to like just LinkedIn, except we will have different features and we monetize it differently. So there's a lot of stuff in between that. But uh, yeah, that's kind of the 5,000 foot overview of the genesis of starting from custom furniture business to just being like, you know what, I like building stuff and I think I can do that on the Internet. So.

Speaker B: No, it's awesome. Uh, I love, I love the background and it's, it's really interesting because you talk about in essentially, you know, the furniture building business that you had building out those tables, the systems. Right. And I kind of want to dig into a little bit of that more because systems is a hot topic when we're talking about customer success. Sales go to market functions. Right. So I guess like if we, if we kind of rewind and we go back to that, that time. Right. I guess, like what would do you envision if you had all of that set up? Like what would have been some of the advantages that you would have had at that point? And maybe I'm going too far back, I can't recall when it was, but like, I'm curious because there's always this debate of the chicken and egg scenario, like do we acquire first get focus on acquisition and then worry about building cs. So um, I'm curious from your perspective, right when you talk about systems, what would have been that impact at that time?

Speaker A: Yeah. So I think especially anytime you have a physical product more so than kind of software.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: You need to build out basically your supply chain systems. You know, one of the, one of the things that I didn't fully appreciate when I started getting into custom furniture building is the degree to which things can go wrong in just delivery. Right. So in just delivery of A physical product, um, things like your delivery. You're trying to minimize costs. So you hire a delivery guy you never met or you know, whatever, and he doesn't show up or it's rough if their truck breaks down or if they go the wrong address or should you give, should you allow them to talk to your customer? Right. Like what's the policy there? I have a framework that I've developed since then called APP stands for Assets Process People Policy. And it basically just give you, gives you clarity to um, your go to market motion and also how you organize a lot of your internal tools and such. But all these things have to be thought of and it's just kind of like um, the number of different systems that you can kind of implement or you know, processes and policies to make sure that just service delivery for a table goes well. Um, that was a learning curve for sure. Yeah. You know, I remember, I remember one, I'll tell you one story. I live in, I live in Cincinnati, Ohio and I had my production manager and me going to this really high end, um, home, you know, like big house. They had purchased from, from us. A. I think it was 12ft. A 12 foot dining room table. It was beautiful. Yeah, it was 100 oak heavy table. Yeah, that was the thing that I, that I, yeah. So I had my checklist. Right. And um, you know, back in the day I, I used to lift a little bit more than I did now. But still when you, when, when we got that table. So first thing was it was I think 300 pounds, um, which is a lot uh, for two grown guys to carry. It was still very, very heavy.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And not even to, to mention like if you dropped it on their floor. You know, like there's all these things that can happen. We had our blankets, we had things. But. So that was miserable. But then I also didn't calculate in Joe is when you have a 12 foot table, imagine trying to angle it in such a way to get it in their front door.

Speaker B: So it sounds like it was like a solid, one solid tape wasn't even

Speaker A: a piece, just one solid piece. One solid piece of 12 foot. And we were barely able to get it in their door past their front steps. And we were like in there landscaping and all, all types of stuff. I mean it barely fit. And I told the guy when he was in there, I mean he was thrilled that we were able to get it in. But uh, I was like, yeah, when you move, you should probably just leave this thing here because it's, it's pretty heavy. And um, I don't know if you're gonna get it back out the door. So, um, anyways, just things like that where it's a lot of times when you think and you see this a lot in customer success too, or the go to market motions. Anytime you go to a new company, people just think, oh, we're gonna do it this way. We're going to do this initiative this way. How hard can it be? It's like, oh, we're about to find out, right?

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker A: Anytime you're doing like a new motion, you're going to find out how hard can it be? And I literally was like, oh, okay. We've never had a customer ordered a 12 foot table. The biggest we've had was 10ft. You're like, what's two more feet?

Speaker B: Like, who cares?

Speaker A: Right? But in modern construction, with how houses are set up, they're not really meant to be lugging big Items that are 12ft long through. So for sure.

Speaker B: No, it's uh, it's interesting and it begs the question too. My wife's actually in. You know, we have a separate business for luxury real estate. And when you see the listings, you wonder why it says like furniture included. And then there's a whole debate. We don't want the furniture because they, they know it's uh, it could be a challenge, especially if it's custom.

Speaker A: Oh yeah, yeah. A lot of times it was, it was, we know the dimension of the room and we knew exactly. They're like, how just get us the biggest table that will fit in here. So it's just really odd dimensions. You know, it's like 11ft, you know, four inches, nine feet, two inches and then three and a half feet wider, you know. Yeah, they just want to maximize their table space within that space, which was good because custom stuff like people don't make that. And that's, I think that's another really, um, good business insight is like when you, when you find um, a lot of big companies, they just systematize everything. They have their set skus that they push out and anytime that you want to try to find something that's bespoke or custom, there's a lot of, there's a lot of space. Like there's a lot of people who would prefer to have something that um, is made just for them and that's not a space. Like for example, Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware was even plain. And they're just like, nope, here's our sizes. You know, it goes out and gets delivered.

Speaker B: So it's it's interesting though because it goes back to, I put it kind of jotted some bullets and we're talking a lot about like solving problems, right? And it's like literally first world problems, right? But like they're trying to fill that void of where they have a big enough of a, you know, terms of square footage and then you can't go to Pottery Barn or you name your, your luxury, you know, furniture outlet. Um, but I guess like kind of bringing it back in terms of solving problems. It's pretty fascinating how like in every scenario, which is great because it's hard for business owners sometimes, right? Like sometimes they're just trying to, they kind of go down the path of passion first and then, you know, solving problem second. Where you kind of were you, you had those two different scenarios, right? Like when you were, your wife brought, hey, she wanted a table, she saw a video, you kind of, you know, took the charge and then people started asking you identify that need similar, similar scenario to Success Panda, right? Like you notice a lot of people coming and asking you for you for that advice, whatever it was platforms, people to connect with and so on. Um, so it's, I think it's also, it's kudos to that, you know, for identifying those opportunities. But on, on the Success Panda piece, right? I think like, so you obviously learned a lot, right? M. You know, running a business, I mean in that six figure range, which is fantastic as far as like, you know, just starting it from the ground up, you know, just literally, you know, that sweat equity. But I'm curious about like the challenges that may have came up on Success Panda. Right now we're talking a total, totally different ball game, right? It's a, it's a SaaS. It's a, it's a SaaS product. It's, it's software as opposed to, you know, something that's a little bit more tangible. So I'm curious as far as some of the challenges there. So you had your learnings, right? You knew how to set up your LLC or your corporation, you know, maybe arguably some of your systems. But I'm curious about some of the challenges. Other challenges may have come, came along the way.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, I tell you that the big one of the biggest challenges is when you're trying to do something ambitious like you know, have a product baby that does things that LinkedIn does, but not quite LinkedIn, things that Amazon does, not quite Amazon. Um, the messaging is just really difficult because when you first launch a lot of these point solutions or a lot of software is just like, hey, we, you know, we help people do better webinars or we help people, like, they take one functional area and they're like, this is the job that we do and we keep it simple. And the messaging is very simple and the options are very straightforward when it comes to a lot of, um, you know, point solutions. And so the challenge really at the beginning was, you know what, how much of this can I actually bite off? Because so let me back up to when I first started Success panda in the first quarter of 2024. I have a decent sized following on LinkedIn. Um, and I opened up my calendar, I just put my calendly link and I said, hey, if you want to meet for whatever reason, whether you want to help with job search, resume, talk about networking, talk about customer success, actually work through your problems in your department, whatever it is. And I had on average like eight calls a day.

Speaker B: Nice.

Speaker A: For a whole quarter. And that was an invaluable quarter. Um, because although I was working for literally free, it gave me all of the insights and it validated some of the concerns that I had, which ended up being true. But then also some things that I could tell that people in the market kind of wanted. Um, I don't know if you want to call that a listening tour or whatever, but you see that a lot of times with, uh, like senior leadership, when they go to new companies, they just want to go and they want to listen to their customers or their prospects. And, um, that's effectively what I did. But one of the big things that when I was doing that, Joe, was in that first quarter, there were so many people who had the same challenges that, um, it really helped me prioritize what I wanted to work on. So one of the main challenges was, hey, I just need someone to kind of tell me what to do in this situation in my job. Because I don't want to, like, I don't want to post on customer success Reddit. Right. There might be some other people, um, that I can kind of talk to, but they're like, I just really need a mentor. So kind of that 1.0 version was that we were allowing people to self, uh, organize mentorships, mock interviews, networking. So it's like the difference was, is LinkedIn, they have a model where they sell, you know, um, they sell advertising.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: And the one thing that is the big difference between Success Panda and LinkedIn is I use the analogy of going to a theme park. So if I, if you, Joe, take your family, your friends, whoever, and you go to the theme park near your place and you say, hey, um, we're gonna go today. It's gonna be awesome. And then you're standing there in the middle of theme park and then you hear over the intercom, uh, attention, guests, we are now going to let in everybody after 2pm for free, you know?

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: So you'd be like, oh, dang, we need to get straight to your favorite line. We need to get our food. We need to hurry up. You're going to change your customer interaction based off now the model that was kind of put in front of you, which is, you know, there's gonna be a lot of free people and it's gonna come in and deteriorate your user experience. So what I found is in that first quarter when I was talking to a lot of people, a lot of people had frustrations with LinkedIn and they. There are. And I still to this day, like, anytime you're a founder, Joe, I'm sure you see this too. Or, or even if you're, you know, some management in some company, you're constantly getting spammed with, you know, business development people, uh, trying to sell you stuff all the time. It's so annoying. And I try to be a nice guy, so I don't say anything bad. I just usually ignore them. Um, even when they call, spell my name, Bard B A R D. Um,

Speaker B: I've got, I've gotten my fair share of Jeffs and John's before, so I get it.

Speaker A: Yeah. And so essentially, Success Panda, we have what's called matches. And so they're basically microtransactions. So the idea is that if you, Joe, are on Success Panda and you list yourself as a mentor, um, and you have like, specific reasons why you're on Success Panda, which can be filters. And so if I wanted to read, if I'm looking at your profile, so when you log on and you look at the members, you see all these different members, they have different, um, levels of experience. I work at different companies, very similar to LinkedIn, but if I want to connect with you, depending on your level of membership, I either pay $2 or I pay $4. And so that way, um, when you see that I'm reaching out to you, you as a member know I at least have skin in the game, that I paid two bucks because I want to talk to Joe. Yep, I want to talk to you. And so the next iteration is we'll actually split that amount with, um, with the member. So right now it's all goes to Success Panda. But on the roadmap, we'll actually split that out to where, um, you can, you can help monetize your knowledge base. And there's other things on Success Panda that help you monetize. But the point is, um, everyone's got skin in the game. So you, you know that a lot of the people too, that are reaching out, that are just spamming us right now on LinkedIn, they're not gonna pay. If they're spamming 200 people, they're not paying 2 times 200, so that's $400. They're not gonna pay $400 a day to go on Success Panda to just spam people. Right. So it's, it's different, but, uh, it might link. So LinkedIn will always have its place, but we're building, uh, a spot where people who are in the space are looking to be intentional. Right. About their, their actual network irl in real life.

Speaker B: It, it's actually really interesting because this has come up quite a bit and at least in the past, from what I've seen and maybe longer you could tell me if I'm wrong here, but, um, of the frustration of LinkedIn. Right. I think there's a lot of people, like, complaining algorithm changes things of that nature or on the, on this, on the flip side of things. Right. Like, it's, hey, I, I just don't see genuinely good content to even to view or engage with. Right. Um, but what's, what's interesting is that pay to play concept. Right. Everyone's both in, you know, kind of bought in. It sounds like on both, both ends of the spectrum. Right. And I think, like, okay, I want to make sure, one, I put something meaningful out there. And two, if I'm going to engage with someone to have that call, like, hey, I'm not going to ghost them on the call or I've seen that time and time again. Just as a business owner, as soon as you offer something for free, there's no skin in the game.

Speaker A: So.

Speaker B: Oh, well, ah, I'll, I'll push this call back or I will. I won't take the opportunity. Opportunity, whatever that offering might be. Um, so I love that, I love how, you know, it's, it's kind of keeping both parties accountable, but, you know, with a monetary, you know, way, uh, of doing so. That's awesome.

Speaker A: Yeah. And it, like the feature that we're rolling out at the end of the month. So like the homepage, when you log on, um, LinkedIn, you see, you know, your main feed.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: Uh, how we're going to be different is, well, first off, in order to join Success Panda, the at the beginning of August, we have no more free account. We have what's called not a bot account. So it's $1 per year.

Speaker B: Nice.

Speaker A: And so the whole point is to, uh, we don't want people who to even sign up if you're not willing to even confirm you're not a bot. So if you're not willing to pay a dollar, it's not about the money, it's just literally a low cost way of screening out bots because sure, they, they will not be able, like they don't put in financial information the majority of the time. Second is, um, you know, like if you're on a not a bot account or you're effectively a free account, we'll just call it, um, you'll be able to react, only you won't be able to post content. So the idea is like, we'll have the different tiers of memberships where it's going to be low, under 10 bucks, you know, basically paid monthly. You can do it a year and there's discounts and stuff like that. But the idea is that, um, it's like when you learn this when you're a kid, Joe, if you ever get something really nice for Christmas, you just kind of take care of it, right?

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: And if you're paying for a subscription, you're just more likely, um, to be involved. And then also going back to some of the other features of Success Panda, we have a marketplace where, let's just say you, Joe, you're a vp, um, of customer success, and you're a really nice guy and you just say, you know what, I feel like being really nice today and I'm going to give away my favorite absolutely gold platinum tier onboarding template for free. Right. You could list it on Success Panda Marketplace and people can just go down there and download it for free. Or if you're just like, there's a lot of people like this that I've met, a lot of senior leaders, you know, or just not even senior leaders, just people in the space, when they lose their job, they try to go on to LinkedIn and they try to start the consultancy, try to, you know, offer stuff for free. You know the model that I'm talking about?

Speaker B: Of course, yeah.

Speaker A: Do the freemium model and build an audience and do all that. Well, I've made it easy for people to just be like, hey, you got laid off on Wednesday, the next Wednesday. Just go on Success Panda you can start your, you can put yourself down as a coach or a consultant and you can list out what your assets are, whatever it is that you want to free, and you can sell it. So you could give it away for free or you could be like, hey, I'm gonna sell this for, you know, $20 or $100 or whatever it is, the things that you build. Um, so it's also kind of doing that job to be done of allowing people who want to monetize their knowledge base to go on there and to um, join like a pool of coaches or consultants and then also list, uh, their digital similar to like Fiverr, right, Where you can go on Fiverr and you can download, you know, Excel files or PDFs or, you know, whatever. And so that's what I mean about having a product baby where LinkedIn doesn't quite do that, right. You gotta offer it through some other platform. But then Amazon, uh, doesn't have like the social. So that's what I mean is I'm taking aspects of these two platforms and putting them together in a way that is ultimately helping the individual CS professional or go to market professional, monetize their time thrive or build out their, what I call their dunbar number. The actual people that. 150 people to 200 people that you actually know in your life, uh, so that, you know, they can, they can feel like they're getting ahead, move ahead and also make money.

Speaker B: That's awesome. No, I love the concept. Right. I think kind um, of creating an, um. Essentially. Yeah, it's a, it's a marketplace where you could essentially share those lead magnets, whatever that might be, in terms of, you know, to engage an audience. And also kind of, you're kind of giving the ability to people to put a paywall. Right. I think that's, you know, everyone has their own way of doing it. They're using kind of LinkedIn as that channel which is, as we talked about, is that challenge. Right. Um, but now having a more formal marketplace, um, I think it's great. I think it's an awesome idea. Awesome concept for sure.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You know, so it's a good, it's a good way to solve that problem.

Speaker A: And just the, uh, last things we do, it's like going back to the aggregation model. Like, if you go on companies, like, who are all the companies that service the CS tech stack? Okay, well, let's find them, get them on there and list them out. What are all the events? Where are all the communities? I think people are shocked when it's like, you go on there and you're like, well, you have your own community. It's like we list all these other communities, right, because we understand that people want to join other communities or there's other startups. So it's not only is it trying to be a marketplace, but it's trying to aggregate together a lot of the other things that people need. Not just a marketplace, not just a, um, you know, a LinkedIn alternative that, where you have predominantly an algorithm that's feeding you one type and everyone's chasing that algorithm, where ours is just going to be a lot more equitable to just, you know, everyday people who are going on asking questions. Oh, and we're, we're also. There's a feature where if you want to post anonymously, you can just toggle that on and you can make an anonymous post. So, um, it's, that's gonna make for some good fireworks, you know, so, um, 100%. Yeah, it's, it's gonna be, it's gonna be a fun, fun spot for sure.

Speaker B: And I think that's, it's also enabling the audience, especially for. Right. And obviously, like the core thing here, you know, on customer success is even helping people that. Just to avoid those pitfalls. Right. And then you mentioned a pretty good story of how, uh, people are afraid to, to go and ask on LinkedIn or through the communities publicly. Right? Because they look like maybe they just, they. Not everybody should know. Like, I guess, like that's the main thing. Like I, uh, talk about this in a lot of other podcasts, right? Like everyone is kind of just in this and experimenting, but they had this idea of like, I should have the answer to this. You have to leverage other people in your network. Right. But they might be reluctant to do so. So giving the ability to be anonymous, it's a pretty, that's a pretty powerful thing, you know, and that they could get the answers that they need more comfortably.

Speaker A: Um, yeah, no, I've seen, I've seen a definite need when I've talked, when I've spoken to people. A lot of times it has to do with their, their management. Um, hey, is it normal for me not to receive any variable comp when I close a renewal? So like, no, the answer is no.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Uh, but at the same time there's a famous, uh, Goethe ah quote where it says truth must be repeated again and again because error is constantly all around, for sure. And LinkedIn is very helpful for that way because you see people with their content calendars, they're Putting that out there. But generally people don't need the answer to their content. They need access to um, seasoned professionals who'll just be able to tell you exactly what they, what they have. And then they're, when you visit their page, if they have, they're like, hey, I have this free resource. You can just click on it and download it. Right. So it's all just a seamless experience that uh, that we're trying to build.

Speaker B: So for sure, for sure. I love also too like the event piece of it because even, even for myself I think I don't believe that there is a very good way of identifying like what's out there in terms of conferences and events.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Like, sure, you have many communities that host their own, right. And then they might do like your SEO focused articles. So that way they pop up in your Google search, you know, results. But otherwise that's about it. You have to continuously do different keyword changes in order to get what you're looking for. And nine times out of ten I, I find something, oh, I would have attended that, that was close to home and it's already passed. So, so giving the ability to kind of have that one stop shop for a lot of different pieces and you know, one of them being the events, um, it's pretty powerful. It could really enable people in, you know, the CS space.

Speaker A: Yep. Yeah. And the CS enablement is just helping people thrive in their career. So it's just like think of anything, Joe, that would help people thrive, whether it's events, joining communities, knowledge share. I personally when I was doing Success Panda, uh, um, at the beginning it was, I was doing a lot of this stuff for free. And then it grew. People like, can you coach me? Can you coach me? So there's a lot of opportunity to use it for, hey, if you just want to do a side hustle, people are like, you know what, I just want to build a side hustle. You can do coaching, you can do consulting. Fractional is, is growing, right? And more and more people are doing contract roles and fractional roles. And it's like, where's the marketplace to find fractional talent?

Speaker B: Right? It's true.

Speaker A: And so there's, there's the this, the stars are bright over Success Panda. And I think that uh, in a couple years especially we'll be looking back, you know, at the, these types of interviews and I'll be looking back and I'll be like, I remember when, uh, the problems were simple. And yeah. So the goal is to make it like a standard. Right. So There, there are a couple standards within the space, like, um, there's a couple certifications where people look like, hey, you know, I want to get the success coaching, right? Certifications. And that's pretty ubiquitous. Right. And so once you gain enough market share, it's with a, you know, that hockey stick, right, where I think the percentage is like 13% of your total addressable market, and then just starts taking off. Um, so we'll see. I'm having a lot of fun and I love doing some of the product work on it, which has been really fun. But at the end of the day, when I see like, the success stories of people and the changing of individual lives, uh, helping people find jobs, you know, um, that's ultimately why I decided to do it in the first place.

Speaker B: That's awesome. No, I think, uh, kind of having that problem first mindset, right? Trying what to solve, then of course, helping people. Those are going to be the best outcomes, right. You know, when starting a business. But I mean, while I'm, um, just checking out on time and I, you know, I want to make sure, you know, kind of leaving with the audience with, you know, a few takeaways here. We talked a lot of different stories, right? Obviously, you're just your entrepreneurial journey and then kind of down to success panda and how it went from something that was more, again, tangible, you know, products, you know, going down to the community. And I think you've had a lot of learning lessons, right? Uh, mainly about like just, you know, the systems, the things that you need to get in place other than outside of just the product. You also talked about a little bit about, about prioritization, right? Because you're kind of all on your own, like water, and then leaning on the audience to figure out, to help you with that prioritization. But I guess, like, if you were to leave some additional takeaways or one big takeaway, what would you tell the audience?

Speaker A: Yeah, so I would just say, um, don't. That your. That your career, the big takeaway is that your career is a team sport. I, I see a lot of people who, um, particularly men, for some reason that they feel like they have to do everything on their own. They have to do it. They're like their way. Um, they have their own agenda. And what I found is, as I have become more enmeshed with other customer success leaders and other customer success communities, that, um, there is an absolute correlation between people that are doing well in our industry and who they know and who their network is and um, the support system they have around them. So that would be my big takeaway is like, uh, I call it professionally brushing your teeth for my coaching clients. And this analogy just simply means if I was a dentist and Joe, you came to me and you're like, hey, I'm here for my cleaning. And like, bro, you haven't brushed your teeth in, like, a year. It's been six months since you brushed your teeth. Like, you're a hot mess right now. And you're like, oh, really? I'm shocked. I'm shocked to hear that I haven't brushed my teeth in six months and I'm a hot mess. Um, but people do that all the time with your career. They do it all the time professionally. They only log on to LinkedIn or try to engage in their career when they need something, right? And so the key is, when it comes to people, fast is slow and slow is fast. If you can go slow with people and you have that ability, then you should do that. And too many people don't, once a quarter, do something to quote, unquote, professionally brush your teeth, go to a neck, go to a meetup, um, get a coffee, chat with somebody, you know, be interested in other people. I know that can be hard sometimes for other people, but people are quite interesting if you let them talk, and they actually have a lot of stories. But if you just professionally brush your teeth and do kind of the little things to build your network, you know, join Success Panda, uh, you know, and see what. Organize a mock interview, give back. You know, there's so many job seekers out there. If you're someone who has any sort of experience in hiring manager, organizing a mock interview for a job seeker is literally can change their life. And so my goal is just to try to provide the means to help people, the tools that people need, and, uh, to help them professionally brush their teeth and to, uh, make sure that they understand that their career is a team sport and that there actually are people that care and they want to see you succeed.

Speaker B: Absolutely. No, I love it. It's definitely a team sport. You certainly can't do it on your own. You need advice on all fronts, you know, whatever that might be. Um, and speaking of, right, like, obviously, like, mentorship, I'm sure, is big. You've learned a lot from people, right? And, uh, outside of, like, your. Your own experience, right. You've learned throughout your entrepreneurial journey, and I'm sure from just like, traditional education. But I'm curious where you turn to. Are there particular books you recommend or another course or. I'M just curious as far as where you go for, like, you know, non traditional learnings.

Speaker A: Yeah. So, I mean, I have people in my life that I turn to. Um, I think this, that's been one of the, the humbling experiences about being an entrepreneur is you don't know everything. And so having mentors, uh, I have, you know, quotes on my website that, um, there's statistics, you know, 69% of CEOs receiving mentorship credit it with helping them make better decisions. 76% of people surveyed said that having a mentor was important, their job satisfaction. And 75% of executives said that mentoring played a key role in their careers. And women who are mentored are more likely to be promoted than those who are not. You know, just, just that alone. Right. Um, having someone in your corner that can give you objective feedback and they don't. It's not your boss. Right. It's not someone who has, you know, influence over whether you say to company or not. It's someone who cares about you enough to tell you the truth. And I think in the reviews that I've received and in a lot of the feedback that I've gotten, um, you know, especially with job seekers, if someone gives some sort of a response, I'm like, hey, it wasn't great. And, you know, I'll tell you why, like, thank you so much. I knew it wasn't, but you were the first person to tell me, so there you go. Yeah, you just have to have people in your life that care enough about you to kind of help you see your blind spots. And then, uh, one book that I would recommend, um, is a book called Thinking, um, in Moments. And, um, I'm big on, especially in customer success. We talk about customer journeys, but sure. Intentionally engineering peak moments.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And so that's kind of a nice book that I've learned because basically, as customer success professionals, we're talking to people about renewals and they're looking back and they're thinking, what was my peak? Or what was my pit moment? So you can actually engineer peak, uh, moments. Not enough time and energy is given to talking about doing that. We're mostly just trying to keep the lights on and, you know, keep everybody renewing. Um, but yeah, it was a great book that actually helped me in a lot of different ways. Uh, see how peak moments really kind of define the user experience, but it can also define your brand. So really like that book.

Speaker B: That's awesome. No, it sounds like a great book. I'm actually going to check it out and we'll put it in the show notes for the, for the audience. But um, but I guess like to wrap things up. Where could everybody find you? Brad?

Speaker A: Yeah, so I mean, you can find me on Success Panda. Um, you can also find me on LinkedIn. I'm not a LinkedIn hater. It'll always serve its purpose. But uh, yeah, feel free to connect with me on Success Panda if you, if you'd like to, we'd love to have you join the, the community. And uh, yeah, Brad Davis on LinkedIn. And yeah, I was happy to join you today. Joe.

Speaker B: Awesome. No, lots of good stories, Brad. Really appreciate it. Lots of good, you know, fun from their whole journey. So thanks so much for coming on.

Speaker A: Cool.

Speaker B: Thanks Jeff. That's a wrap for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening. If you got some value from this conversation, hit subscribe, leave a rating, or review and share it with someone who's also out there trying to build a better customer success or go to market strategy, even if it's messy along the way. And if you want more frameworks, tools, automated playbooks, check out Joda's test techtouch.com and subscribe to our newsletter. That link is in the description. Thanks so much for being here. Keep building, keep learning and I'll catch you on the next One quick note before we wrap this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. The ideas and opinions shared here are of my own or those of my guests and don't reflect the views of any current or former employers, clients, or partners. We might reference tools, platforms, or companies, but nothing shared here should be taken as fact, endorsement, or criticism. Do your own research and always consult your team or legal counsel when making any business decisions. This content is not legal, financial, or business advice. It's just us, uh, sharing what's worked, what hasn't, and how we've learned from both. So thanks again for joining us. We'll see you next time.