#17: Beat the Competition with Minimum Sellable Product: Dipti Desai on Founding Crstl, Execution Discipline & the Future of Work

Speaker A: The zero to one phase was not about a minimum viable product, it was about a minimum sellable product. In the thick of COVID is when I ended up starting Crystal. What we're building is modern rails, modern digital infrastructure. We're enabling B2B commerce. One of our customers that sells pet supplies posted on LinkedIn that uh, they're now live at Target and they thanked our team.

Speaker B: Do you present this vision to the world or uh, do you really focus on execution and building out your product

Speaker A: and deliver on is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. There's got to be a reasonably well thought out hypothesis. It is mostly about execution because ideas are cheap, blown away by just the sheer number of people from all walks of life that continue to support me and hence the team by extension Deepti

Speaker B: desa is the CEO and co founder of Crystal, a modern B2B commerce network dedicated to serving the people who make and move the things we all use every day. She's passionate about creating and scaling data centric software products and businesses. Prior to Crystal, Deepti held high impact operating roles in startups, mid sized companies and global enterprises. She cares deeply about helping grow businesses, organizational culture and product innovation. The advice to share in what's important as you're building out your startup.

Speaker A: Great curiosity. Being detail oriented and rolling up your sleeves and getting it done and having good judgment around where do you need to pull in somebody versus where do you just need to run with incomplete information? We focused on that and let some fires burn.

Speaker C: Hello, welcome to the Priyanka Shinde Podcast where we dive into the art and science of strategy, execution and leadership. I'm your host, Priyanka Shinde, author of the Art of Strategic Execution and a consultant for tech leaders, in this podcast I bring you candid conversations with top executives, startup founders and industry experts who are driving innovation, delivering results and staying ahead in today's competitive landscape. We will break down what it takes to tap into founder mode and turn vision into action. If you are serious about elevating your leadership and execution skills, make sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform or YouTube. It helps the podcast and ensures you never miss an episode.

Speaker B: Hi everyone, welcome to the Priyanka Shande Podcast. Today my guest on the show is a female founder and CEO. Welcome to the show. Deepti Desai. Deepti is the CEO and co founder of Crystal, a modern B2B commerce network dedicated to serving the people who make and move the things we all use every day. With over 10 years of experience in product management and Product development. She's passionate about creating and scaling data centric software products and businesses. Prior to Crystal, Deepti held high impact operating roles in startups, mid sized companies and global enterprises where she successfully ran a uh, full product line from technical features and roadmap to business operations and P and L reporting. She cares deeply about helping grow businesses, organizational culture and product innovation. Deepthi is always eager to learn, collaborate and support founders and teams who are working on innovative and impactful products and solutions that help make the world better than they found it. I'm really excited for this conversation. Welcome to the show Deepti.

Speaker A: Thanks for having me.

Speaker B: You've had such a rich career and you know something that you have been operating in such a rich product background. Before founding Crystal, what moment and insight led you to make this leap into entrepreneurship?

Speaker A: Yeah, it's a great question. I mean um, I, you know before starting Crystal I had worked at a few different startups and obviously I was attracted to those opportunities precisely because they were entrepreneurial in nature, they were not super rigid and you could wear a lot of different hats m while still focusing on specific outcomes. Um, obviously I enjoyed that experience a lot and then sort of was considering uh, after I left my um, last job uh before starting Crystal, I really felt very strongly about wanting to bring my you know, background in software in data and being able to you know, run teams thread kind of the cross functional um, you know, attributes and requirements that always are at play when you're bringing a new product to market or scaling a um, product or a variety of products and platforms. Um, and really sort of, you know one thing led to the next thing and um, in the thick of COVID basically is when I ended up uh, starting Crystal.

Speaker B: That's such an interesting time to start a company and I'm sure there must have been a lot of thought process around doing that in such a, I would say not the most stable times to start a company. How did you make that decision, uh, to do it in such uncertain times?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean I think now that you're saying it that way and I think back to those times, which is now almost three plus years ago. You're right, I mean it was very, very uncertain. Um, but in the moment um, I felt that there was real, I wouldn't say there was sort of an opportunity in crisis. I mean I don't always necessarily see myself as somebody who looks at a crisis and immediately thinks of, you know, what opportunities there may be in it for me. Um, you know, but at the same time really what, what for me, um, you know, was, was interesting is in the zeitgeist, it was actually that, you know, being sort of a millennial, it suddenly felt like Gen Zs came to the fore. And I was like, wait, who is this cohort? Like, we were the cool ones, like, who are these guys suddenly? Right? And so it was very obvious that, uh, there was a generational shift happening. And even before, you know, this was a little bit before kind of, you know, ChatGPT came out and the AI revolution sort of really hit us, hit us all, uh, very quickly. But even before that, just between low code, no code and the API economy and you know, with kind of, you know, millennials and Gen Zs occupying decision making positions and operating roles, it became very clear that the world needed a new set of infrastructure for pretty much anything that they were doing. And then to your point, Covid was really just adding to that complexity and urgency, um, to digitize, to uplevel, to become much more efficient, to think about growth, but in a sustainable way. And so a lot of these themes actually perfectly sort of seem to collide. In hindsight, I can connect the dots, as they say. Um, but really in the moment, those were some of the things, uh, that really kind of pulled me into this.

Speaker B: Then there's, yeah, there's so much that has happened since then too, and we'll talk some about some of that. But you're right, like there's so much change that happened even during those years. And uh, you're right, like almost like a generation, a new, whole new generation has come into the workforce. And you're, you're kind of touching upon a lot of key things here in terms of like, what does it mean as we are working, what does, what do we need to see coming up in terms of what solutions companies are or what problems companies are solving, what solutions we are seeing? Um, I want to take a step back. Even before kind of you founded Crystal with such a long career, you have had, or you must have had a lot of different experiences. And so what is some value or belief or maybe an experience that has really shaped your career path?

Speaker A: Yeah, um, I mean, I just to maybe summarize, I, you know, I was trained as a hardware engineer. That's how I started my career originally in Silicon Valley. And then, um, over time sort of gravitated more towards building software products and specifically, um, you know, where kind of data sat at the very core of a lot of those products and what data is and what that means and what you do with that obviously is Very, very contextual to the business and things like that. But I found that, that to be a common thread. Um, I think some of the values that I sort of really hold very dear and I, um, think held me in good stead up until the moment I started Crystal. But I think even since, um, is really to focus on, um, who you're working with. Right, because the nature of the problems, change and technology changes and change is the only constant. Um, but really one of the things that has, um, that I hold really close to me is to really value the people that you work with and to place a high degree of, uh, value in who I work with. Right. In today's context, in the context of this job, obviously that means folks on the team, but also our partners, investors. It's a very diverse stakeholder set. Ah. But I think, uh, what's been a constant theme is I've always tried to. I've always tried to just be in the company of people who I felt like I could learn from, who could make me smarter. And that's true today, just as it was in the past. Uh, so I put a very high premium on, uh, the company I keep. I think

Speaker B: that kind of brings me to kind of your founding story for Crystal as well. And I was reading, uh, I think it was probably on your website or, uh, somewhere where, uh, how you came up to Found Crystal and the experience that led to it. And it was something to do with COVID as well. So I would love for you to share that story, uh, on what led you to do that. And, uh, you obviously had your co founders along for that journey too. Uh, and going back to who you work with and the people that are around you, that makes it important for you.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Um, I don't think I've shared actually in this level of detail, sort of the full founding story. So maybe I'll try and give you a little bit extra here. So kind of the full story is that, um, after I left Uber, I was testing out a few different areas, um, and I actually found myself in Frankfurt, Germany in early, uh, days of March 2020. And I was there because I was actually in the midst of, uh, kicking off a proof of concept with a very large airline that happens to be based in Germany, which you can take a guess. Um, and it so happened that it was that Friday, and I remember we had moved to the, uh, don't shake hands but fist bumps are okay phase of COVID and uh. Right. So I wrapped that meeting, um, San Francisco in the meantime, where I Was living at the time, um, announced a lockdown. And so I took the first flight I could out of Frankfurt and came back to San Francisco. And as you can imagine, uh, um, the airline businesses for them actually Covid was an even bigger, um, event, uh, than 911 had been, according to, you know, the many sort of experts I spoke to in the. In the weeks that weeks that followed. And so suffice to say that nobody, you know, was interested in doing any sort of a pilot or proof of concept or work with the startup. Right? Their concerns had shifted. Uh, the levels of urgency were just in very different areas, understandably. So with startups, on the other hand, timing is everything, right? The why now is possibly the most important thing in addition to later on execution and so on and so forth. That the why now is a very real component. And basically, you know, as soon as I got home, uh, the thing that occurred to me is, wow. Like the why now is almost, you know, tricky to predict. And I didn't want to jump on any fads either, right, because that's kind of the other tempting thing to do. But I really try my best to not get carried away by fads. Um, and so all that goes to say is I told myself, you know what, maybe in a couple weeks subsides and then you can sort of, uh, you know, re kind of, you know, uh, ignite some of the efforts underway. As we all know, a week and two weeks, you know, turn into months and then in years in some cases. Um, but in the meantime, what happened is I got connected to a few amazing folks that had come from, uh, PE and healthcare backgrounds to stand up a nonprofit to alleviate the PPE shortage in the U.S. um, and because I had just been at a company where moving people and things from A to B was such an important piece of the part of what we did. Um, I sort of joined forces with them and we were all volunteers, and it was a labor of love. And we were solely focused on just a singular mission, which is in the United States there was a real shortage of PPEs. We just didn't have the wherewithal to supply everyone from medical residents to, uh, medical residents to physicians, barbershops, frontline workers, nurses, you name it. Um, and so I actually started building out the digital storefront, um, for this organization. Ended up spending a lot of time actually in the Shopify ecosystem. And so a lot of brands naturally started to come to me because they were like, hey, we heard you can help with this data set problem or this data problem. And I just Started to

Speaker B: kind uh,

Speaker A: of do pro bono work for them in the context of the work that we were all doing for the nonprofit anyways. So, you know, spent a few months with, uh, with the nonprofit as a volunteer, but at the same time just helping out these brands. And it became very clear that, that there was a new generation in charge became even more clear, and that they were demanding better tools became even more clear. And I started to feel closer and closer to kind of the founder market fit, I think, which is so, so important. Um, so anyway, so that's a bit of a longer version of the story than I've ever, ever shared before. But that's, that's sort of what led to the original, the, the eventual, uh, starting of Crystal.

Speaker B: Yeah, thank you for sharing that. That's so interesting. And yeah, I mean, so much had happened in your sharing the story about the airline industry and like, how that might have, like, shut down, but something you did just out of just pure need and necessity and helping people eventually kind of like spark this idea for you. And to me, that's so interesting. Like, you're not necessarily looking for, say, founding a startup at that time. You were just looking to, uh, at that point of time just help people, but you found a problem that everybody was dealing with. Um, and so to that, for those unfamiliar with. What does Crystal do? I know I said Crystal is a modern, uh, B2B commerce network. What does real world impact look like and what are you aiming to create with Crystal?

Speaker A: Yeah, um, so, yeah, Crystal is a B2B commerce network. And so in the context of that network, we serve three entities basically. Right? We serve brands which can be manufacturers, suppliers, really any company that has a physical product to sell. Right. And, um, I'll come back to the physical products we support today, which is basically all of them. Um, but basically anybody that is selling, uh, making a physical product, the retailers to whom they sell. And what's been interesting is the nature of retailers is expanding and changing. And the retailers don't have to necessarily be, you know, sort of the ones that, you know, we may shop at on a daily basis. Really, anybody that is buying physical products is, Is really a retailer. Right? And so it's. So it in itself is a very interesting and diverse, uh, group. Um, but it turns out that their needs are actually very similar. And a lot of the technology and the platform, the product we build, uh, the service we build is very applicable to them. And then the third sort of piece of this, um, network is the logistics providers. Right? So these are the, um, Very hardworking folks that are responsible for actually making sure our products are shipping on time and are getting delivered. So in the context of the B2B commerce network, those are the three entities that we connect. And really the original sort of the wedge if you will, or the initial sort of problem we're very, very focused on is a lot of these uh, brands and manufacturers, et cetera M went direct to consumer and then over time the customer acquisition costs kept rising for a variety of reasons. Uh, and then old became new again. Before the direct to consumer sort of wave, omnichannel, meaning meeting your customers where they are was sort of understood, um, the DTC wave sort of shifted some of those patterns for a brief period. Um, but really what we enable these brands to do is when they're selling to the targets, the Costcos, the Walmarts and there's scores of SMB, ah, retailers that are very region specific. Um, when these brands have to sell to them, um, there's a very specific set of retail compliance requirements that should be followed. Um, and then basically those are the rules that we codify and help make software around and integrations around. And so these businesses today, if they're selling direct to consumer, uh, can then go omnichannel on the strength of our platform uh, and do so while being in retail compliance with large retailers. But SMB retailers just alike. Um, so in some ways um, we're doing for B2B commerce which is ah, even just in the US context is a multi trillion dollar sort of industry. So we're doing for that industry what some of the large platform companies um, have done for direct to consumer.

Speaker B: Thanks for sharing that. I mean it sounds like there is a lot of complexity to this ecosystem and it's not an easy problem to solve. It looks to be very operational intense as well. What makes excited to solve this particular problem?

Speaker A: Yeah, it's a great question. I mean I think it's a few things, right? Um, one is that it's a problem that the market really wants to be solved and I think that is very very important. Um, because that market need is very inherent. Um, and so that's obviously very exciting. Um, it is. Even though we're enabling B2B commerce, um, the end of the day really what we're building is modern Rails, right, modern digital infrastructure. And in many ways it really is a very complex data problem um, that is going through many invisible hops. Um, and so how do you make that as scalable as possible, Abstract away the complexity that makes it really interesting and Then on a day to day basis, just this morning, uh, one of our customers that sells pet supplies, uh, you know, posted on LinkedIn that they're now live at Target. Right. And they thanked our team. And that at the end of the day is the most tangible impact you can feel. Because today I can walk down and our team can walk down a virtual aisle or a real aisle in one of these stores and know that, you know, we played a small role in actually enabling that. Right. Um, and so that is obviously very, very exciting and satisfying to see.

Speaker B: Yeah, definitely Something like you're uh, reducing the barrier to entry for so many of these uh, folks in order for them to be able to run their business. Uh, and that can be so powerful for them because then they don't have to deal with this compliance and other logistics, they can just focus on how to run their business. Um, and I think that can be so powerful for uh, these folks. So that is so great. Um, and at the same time, I'm sure when you were in the beginning days of building Crystal, this zero to one moment, it must have been incredibly challenging. And so what's something that people might underestimate about launching such a B2B data product? Uh, and what was that sort of zero to one moment? Uh, like.

Speaker A: Yeah, um, great, great question there as well. I mean, I think for us, I think what was very key for us to internalize about the 0 to 1 phase is it was not about a minimum viable product, it was about a minimum sellable product. And the reason for that is because there was, and there are established incumbents in the space. Right. And as you pointed out correctly, this entire operation of enabling B2B commerce is actually very complex. It's very nuanced. Depending on the retailer, depending on the fulfillment type, depending on the ERP they use, depending on their product category. I mean your product has to satisfy so many of these requirements. The market has, um, maybe not all at once, but in pretty quick succession. Right. Like you don't have years to sort of layer on these features and so you have to get to feature parity very, very quickly. And so I think sort of understanding and internalizing that we were competing against a minimum sellable product bar versus a minimum product viable product, which sometimes is possible if you're creating a new category or entering um, a category where previously software products were not really a thing. Right. I think in those cases maybe MVP is a better fit. But certainly for our case or other cases like Neobanks and things like that, there's just like A higher bar for what the market expects you to have in terms of feature parity. So I think that probably was, um, the lesson that we had to really internalize and then develop a plan to execute against and then actually execute against it. Right. So I think in a nutshell, that really kind of meeting that high bar, defining that bar that the market implicitly was setting for us, and frankly being able to do so with pretty minimal resources, I mean, we've always been a, uh, pretty lean team. And to be able to execute against, um, so many demands, uh, on the platform in a timely manner in quick succession was definitely probably the most challenging part of the 01 phase.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great one. Like minimum sellable product. Because you're right, there's so many other players in the market. And this is not necessarily like a flashy new product or, you know, like nowadays, like, everything is AI. It's not necessarily that. It's very, very sort of, you know, solving a big problem, but solving a real problem for people. Um, and so you're really trying to figure out, okay, what will get people there, sort of them to use this product that competes with the rest of the folks that are already in the market. Right. Um, and you kind of like took it upon, took upon this challenge. And I'm sure you made a lot of bets at that time as well. And so is there like one bet that you made at the start that turned out to be, say, absolutely right or like, totally wrong?

Speaker A: Yeah, um, in terms of the totally wrong, I mean, maybe I would say to the totally. I'll start with the totally wrong one. Um, I mean, I think I. And it's a little bit unclear if wrong how wrong we were. But one of the things that we were doing is we were, you know, building in stealth for close to a year, so probably somewhere in the 10, 11 months timeframe. Uh, and in that time, one of the unconventional things we did, and like I said, I'm not totally sure if we were wrong about it or if that was the right way to go about it, given the nature of the space is, um, we didn't do anything flashy like, hey, here's what we're building. Go to our landing page, get on a wait list, right? And sort of drum up, uh, demand. That way we were kind of going within our network, um, other early customers were introducing us to other early customers and so on and so forth. But, um, we didn't do anything super public, uh, facing. And the rationale behind that at the time was we're building something very, very mission critical, Right? Because quite simply, if a large retailer, or any retailer really, distributor sends our brand customer a purchase order and that doesn't land reliably, everything downstream of that gets impacted. Right. And so the reliability, even above usability and all of those things, reliability was really what we were focused on in terms of building out the platform. And that just necessarily to at least me, meant a lot of focus and not any distractions. Right. Um, and so that's kind of one of the unconventional things we did is we didn't really, um, yeah, we didn't really, uh, announce to the world we were building or make any, um, sort of public kind of flashy plays and remains to be seen if we were entirely wrong about it certainly feels unconventional. I'm sure it had some drawbacks. Um, but it's hard to know exactly and quantify what that, um, drawbacks may or may not have been of that. Um, because there's also just, like I said earlier, a very high bar for what the market expects of a product like this. And so we felt like they would want to see it, to believe it, because there also had not been in the space for a very long time. So I would say that probably was one thing that potentially was a questionable decision on our part. And then in terms of the thing we did absolutely right is that I think we got very. We were very thoughtful about it and combined that with some luck, is that we had some really good early design partners who then also went on to become early customers. Uh, because particularly when you're selling software to businesses of really any size, picking those initial customers really represent the ICP that you're there for is very important. Otherwise your roadmap can get pulled in many different directions and you can, you know, build a lot of things that aren't relevant and so on and so forth. So I think in terms of who we decided to work with, um, early on and, um, you know, how that sort of shaped the trajectory of our product and our team and our company. I think it was probably a good, A good decision in hindsight.

Speaker B: And yeah, that kind of tells me about something that I was kind of, uh, going to talk to you about as well, which is this balance between, like, vision and execution. And how do you do that as a founder because you kind of like, do you present this vision to the world or do you really focus on execution and building out your product and deliver on it? Um, and based on what you just told me, you're kind of like, okay, we're Going to focus on this early on and then kind of expand and share out what we are doing and have something sort of a proof that this is working. Um, is there kind of any thoughts around uh, vision or execution that you hold as a founder, uh, or that when you work with your team, um, that you really like to see? Um, because that is something that I always kind of feel is really necessary. Like there is strategy, there's execution, and all of those things need to happen at the right level depending on where you are in your journey as a team or an organization or as a company.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's also, yeah, such a great point.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: Um, I think I, I mean it's the sort of, the gist of it is, I think that it is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Right. As the saying goes. But here's the flip side of it is to the extent that it is mostly about execution because ideas are cheap and so on and so forth. Um, if your efforts are

Speaker B: behind

Speaker C: an

Speaker A: incorrect hypothesis or an ill thought out objective or unclear, highly unclear objectives. Right. Obviously when a company or a product is very, very new, you have more questions than you have answers. I think that's sort of a given. Right. You definitely don't have a lot of the answers. But at the same time there's got to be a reasonably well thought out hypothesis, um, that you're working towards. Otherwise all of that effort and execution is going towards something that has not necessarily been well thought out because you can poke holes in its assumptions. And the, the key assumptions that the hypothesis is resting on is just shaky. Right. So for that reason, I think, even though I believe that it is largely about execution, you always have to be, you have to make sure that the hypothesis, the objective, the goal is well thought out. And based on the information available at hand, you can speak to why that is the objective. Right. And it can be a smaller objective towards a bigger one. Um, but you have to be able to, I think, uh, define that and be able to explain that first to yourself. And it's super important to be honest with yourself is this passing your small check and the gut check because only then can you go convince the world. Right. I think you have to have sufficient, um, robustness in sort of the goal of the objective that you're working towards. So I think it's both. Um, you have to make sure that your hypothesis is well thought out and then if so, and you never know. And that's why startups are such an interesting game and really the business of Technology is such an interesting, fascinating, uh, game for all of us. Um, yeah. So you have to have well defined objectives, uh, but really once, if that is in a reasonable position, then it's literally all execution. Yeah,

Speaker B: I mean, you definitely need that baseline answers, where are you going? That destination. But after that it's all about, like, how do you get there? And like, what is it that you need to get there? Um, I wanted to switch gears a little bit and talk about sort of your experience, um, as a founder, especially as a female founder and a female CEO. I mean, I sometimes you don't want to kind of differentiate between that. And yet there are experiences that we all have being in tech, uh, that we all face. And so, um, you are a female CEO building in a deeply technical, uh, world of B2B data and logistics. And so what's been the most surprising about navigating this space?

Speaker A: Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, um, I think if anyone that knows me and has worked with me for any period of time sort of knows that I sort of believe in waking up and then showing up. Right. And then just doing the work. And so there's not a lot of thought around the demographic sort of aspects of it. Um, I think probably what I've been most, almost more touched by, like, beyond, um, surprised at this stage is just how many people have helped me in small and big ways and rooted for me and continue to do that on this journey. I mean, I will now, a few years into this job as founder, CEO, I mean, I may even say that I feel like there's more support and I don't know if it's a function of the climate we're in, the times, uh, the world's changing around us, et cetera. It's hard to know that, um, but it almost feels in some ways that in this job I've felt more support and more, um, yeah, just more support, um, than maybe I ever felt in previous roles. Uh, again, it's hard to know and pinpoint, uh, the reasons exactly. But I will say that I've genuinely just been blown away by, touched by just the sheer number of people from all walks of life, um, that continue to support me, and hence the team by extension, uh, on this journey.

Speaker B: That's so great to hear because, and it's so encouraging, um, for anybody who's listening, who kind of wants to follow and your footsteps or is thinking about their own founder journey, uh, or their own leadership journey in terms of how that might look like. And so I'm glad that you're kind of experiencing that because, yeah, it's so important for, um, every founder to have that kind of support. Right. And uh, even have that seat at the table sometimes, even when you might be the only voice on the table. What helps you stay true to your voice or make space for your voice and your own leadership style, uh, itself. And so is there anything there you can share what has helped you stay grounded and stay true to your own voice and your own, um, beliefs, um, in your, in your founding journey?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think some of that are, some of that is just inherent traits. I think some people are, you know, some people are just grounded or they're not. So I think some of it is just, um, inherent. But I think also potentially, I think potentially what also helps me is, you know, I started this company, you know, somewhat, you know, I was mid career, right, by the time I started my own company. And as you know, I have spent the entirety of my career in Silicon Valley. And Silicon Valley is a big lab. Right. And I think over the course of my career, up until starting Crystal, I had seen either directly or indirectly, um, companies, teams, people experience the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Right. And I think there's nothing like having been in a living lab that is Silicon Valley, where all sorts of experiments are happening around you and some really take off and maybe they should or they shouldn't have, and some should or shouldn't have, but they don't, and all sorts of outcomes in between. I think you really realize that there is, there's too many factors involved in any company coming to existence, any company scaling, any company achieving product market fit. And like, there's just so many variables. And so therefore you try to just control what you can control, right? And not to like, get distracted by noise and distraction, et cetera, of which there's plenty. So I, I think maybe if I have to, um, summarize, it's probably because I had sort of seen things going in so many different possible directions bad. I think it ought to keep you grounded on a, on a undertaking and on a journey like this.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's uh, that's amazing. I think a couple of things you mentioned, and I want to reiterate that things. One is like, control what you can control, because I think that is what you can do, uh, I mean, thinking about your own actions and I think something you said earlier as well, which is like, I show up, uh, and I show up in like, you know, the way I can show up and show up, showing up Consistently. Because that's the other thing you can do. Right. If you don't show up, then you can't do the other things as well. And uh, I just wanted to reiterate those two things because I think that they're connected and they're so important to navigate any kind of situation. Be it like you might be founding a startup or you might be a female in a tech world or male dominated industry, whatever that might be, or you might just be in your first job, it could be any scenario. But those two things can really help you navigate any, any kind of situation. Um, so thank you for sharing that. I'm sure, like it will be help everybody. Um, that being said, I know you recently also raised a series A round funding round as well. I think it's been a few weeks, so congratulations on that. Um, any lessons from this particular like fundraising round, uh, that you would like to share?

Speaker A: Um, yeah, I mean, I think, you know, there it's, it's sort of similar to the thing I was saying before is a lot of things have to just fall in place. And that just means to me really the, the takeaway is that there are no singular heroes. Right. And so I get the pleasure of, you know, sharing the announcement and things like that with the world, but I am, I think I'm very, very aware that there's a real team behind this. There's so many people putting in the effort, serving our customers and holding down the Ford so that I could go do my part on things like that. Right. And so I think really it just continues to reiterate the importance of the team. Right. Because ultimately, um, any of these things are really a testament to the work that the team does. How we show up and serve our customers, our partners, and how we continue to improve on it. Right. Like, we definitely don't always get it right on the first try, but are we earnest about learning from it very quickly and things like that? But really I think, uh, the importance of doing the right thing or striving to do the right thing, overcoming setbacks, identifying the setbacks and overcoming from them very quickly and then sticking together very, very tightly, um, as a team, I think those are some takeaways.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's really great. I think team is such an important part of when you're starting out and building out your startup. Uh, and I'm sure like you with the values and the belief system you have had and some of the things you shared, like building out a great team and the people you're working with, uh, which is so important to you, like any, um, anything, any advice, anything you would like to share in kind of what's important as you're building out your startup and hiding for your, like those, that initial team, what do you look for? Uh, and what's important at that point? Because that's the culture you're also establishing for your company.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, yeah, definitely. I think in this, um, you know, post Covid world and you know, AI and things like that, I mean hiring I think is, you know, looking more and more different each day than, you know, what I knew of hiring and scaling teams. Right. Sort of pre Covid. Right. So in some ways I think we're rewiring and learning for those of us who um, you know, have been in the industry, sort of pre AI, pre Covid and the playbooks basically that existed at the time, I mean they're quickly becoming unclear if they're still super relevant these days. So I think that story is being still written. Um, nonetheless, I think to the extent that hiring people, um, is concerned, I think some of the things I've learned is you hire for traits and then uh, the skills come serve as a quick second. Um, the traits are pretty hard to teach and particularly in the context and the timeline of a startup where every 6 12, 18 months you have some pretty big milestones to hit relative to those previous. Um, those traits are really what carry you through. Um, and what those traits are I think varies from company to company, team to team, founder to founder. But certainly in our case, I think grit, curiosity, being detail oriented and rolling up your sleeves and getting it done, um, and having good judgment around. Where do you need to pull in somebody versus where do you just need to run with it with incomplete information? I think those are some traits that I find, um, are incredibly important. Um, and obviously being in the business of technology ingenuity and um, innovation and things like that are very important. Um, but I think even above that I would put, um, great curiosity and just the ability to be a workforce. It doesn't matter which function you're in, doesn't matter what your title is. Uh, and particularly right now with AI, uh, shifting the landscape so very much, in some ways we're all competing with ourselves.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: To be useful and relevant and productive, uh, the next day. So I think those are some things that I think are pretty.

Speaker B: Yeah, um, that's great. Yeah, it's so important, like the people you hire, it can really change how your company progresses and grows as well. Besides the product you're building, I think your team is, is sort of the next most important thing, um, sort of going in towards the end and as we wrap up or into kind of look towards the future and ask you about like the broader tech landscape and what trends or opportunities are you excited about in for over the next three to five years?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, um, I think, I mean I think looking, I think looking at the next three to five years it's almost impossible to understate, um, or overstate rather the importance of automation, intelligence and speed and the way it is just redefining how we work. So I think as we look to the next three to five years, um, I think developing expertise in areas that only you are very, very good at. And that could be any number of things. It could be working with customers, it could be sales, you know, it could be how you think about growth, hacking, you know, it could be any number of things. Website development, writing code, um, you know, all of these skills are going to become actually only more important, not less. Um, right. And so to really sort of pick your lane or lanes and develop deep expertise in it, um, is because I think the tools are going to come and go the rate at which we're seeing a lot of the tools coming our way. Um, but I think it is actually only going to become more important to know what you're good at, to know what you enjoy. Conversely, however, I think it is also going to be an amazing time for generalists because there's always been this debate on do you want to be a generalist, generalist or a specialist. But it's also the case that if you enjoy being a generalist, there's probably not going to be any better time than the next three, five, ten years because you could be a semi good developer and a semi good marketer and a, you know, you know, semi good sort of, uh, you know, speaker and actually stand up, um, you know, a pretty meaningful, meaningful business for, for yourself. Right. So I think both are going to be true is to the extent that you have certain specializations that you care about and enjoy, um, uniquely you and being very good at it and knowing all of the tools and how they come together is going to be incredibly important. Conversely, if you're a generalist, uh, I think it's a golden period, uh, starting to dawn upon us.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's so interesting. Right. There's something for everyone. I think it's just sort of figuring out what, what would be best for you. And I think what I'm hearing you say is like the AI part, like that's going to just be baseline for everybody. It's kind of like being able to use a computer. Um, he knows how to use it. So like everybody's going to use AI ah, in some form or the other. And that's no longer the differentiating factor anymore. I think it's either you are the generalist and you have a bunch of skills or you kind of are specializing in something. So yeah, that's certainly, I think, great advice, something to be excited about combined into one. One question that I like to ask folks on the podcast, and I kind of also think about for myself nowadays is, um, what is something that you have had to unlearn as a founder that served you well earlier in your career?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think I am still unlearning, so I can't say I've quite. And I think it's also a bit of a company specific thing and things like that. Um, but particularly I think if you come from a product background like I did, um, part of the superpower and the uh, um, joy is you can look across all these different things and see how they connect and be pretty adept at knowing the trade offs that you've had to make to get to this point or what other trade offs need to be made and so on and so forth. Right. And so you've necessarily just kind of been operating in the weeds on multiple different dimensions. Um, these days one of the things that I'm really working on and learning and I think to an extent, um, maybe there is to know to what level of weeds to get into. Right? Like I'm not of the belief that, you know, hire like great people and like, let them go to their thing because there's got to be a common goal objective. Is it well thought out? Is it understood? Are we all operating towards the same, same goal? Um, but at the same time. So, so, so for me it's less about the binary of like, you're either in the weeds or you're not. It is to what level of weed? Where are you in? Right. And know that in a given week, in a given month for a given project, how far down the weeds do you need to go? Uh, and stay there or rise above, um, is sort of, I think the constant learning exercise. So I think, I think I'm less, like I said earlier, less about the binary if you're, you know, hey, don't be in the weeds or be in the weeds. I think it's knowing that if you have these 10 different work streams and you know, today's you Know, whatever the week of June 16, what is the one thing as a founder you're going to really focus on for this week, for this day, for this month. Right. And really be focused on that and let some fires burn. I think is, you know, there was a great podcast about this sometime back or an article that I read. So essentially it's like knowing which fires to let burn for how long and when and where I think is a, uh, is a slightly uncomfortable exercise, but I think one that needs to be, uh, wrangle.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, I kind of have a different take on it. It's just like know which are the right balls to drop. Uh, sort of similar way of saying it. But I think what kind of you're saying is, you know, it's almost like the true founder mode. It's, it's not like, you know, founder mode means oh, you don't hire anybody and you're always doing the thing, or, you know, there's no managers or something. It's really understanding sort of where you need to be depending on the situation or the project, uh, and where you can get out if there isn't a need for you to be in there. And so I think that nuance is really important rather than like a, uh, formula that it's a yes or a no. Uh, yeah, that's really helpful. Well, this has been a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much for sharing these insights and really enjoyed it. And it's been wonderful to sort of see your journey founding Crystal and also just the work you're doing at Crystal and how it's helping a lot of retailers and brands and so forth.

Speaker A: Yeah, thank you for having me. And yeah, shout out to our team and customers as always, and it's what keeps us going. But yeah, thanks again for having me.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker C: If today's conversation sparked new ideas or challenged your perspective, I'd love to hear from from you. I work with tech leaders and founders to tackle complex challenges, whether it's scaling teams, making high stakes decisions, or turning ambitious ideas into reality. If that sounds like something you are navigating, let's connect. Reach out via my website, thepriyankashinde.com or find me on LinkedIn.