The Startup Chat With Steli And Hiten

In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about revenue model sharing for startups. While revenue or profit-sharing is a good option for attracting quality employees to your startup knowing when and how to distribute profits with your employees can be a challenge, especially for self-funded companies. In today’s episode, Steli and Hiten talk about how startups can share revenue, when to build an elaborate revenue-sharing model, how to incentivize your team and much more.  Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About today’s topic. 00:38 Why this topic was chosen. 01:52 How startups can share revenue. 03:18 How revenue is shared most of the time. 03:22 How Hiten thinks about revenue sharing. 03:51 How to incentivise your team. 05:09 When to build an elaborate revenue sharing model. 06:15 Why this doesn’t make sense for self-funded startups. 07:38 Why it’s good to have team members get healthy bonuses. 09:10 Why it makes sense for self-funded startups to look into this. 3 Key Points: Profit-sharing b

In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about Fundraising for startups. When it comes to funding a startup, previously, you had two options to choose from self-fund your start or get VC funding. Now times have changed and there are more funding options available to founders. In this week’s episode, Steli and Hiten talk about how there are so many options for fundraising, self-funding versus VC funding, why it’s important to do what’s right for you and more.  Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About today’s topic. 00:31 Why this topic was chosen. 00:58 How there are so many options for fundraising. 01:23 Self-funding versus VC funding. 03:22 How Steli and Hiten have always preferred self-funding to VC funding. 04:05 How the world has changed. 05:00 An example of a company that took VC funding after discouraging it. 07:49 Why it’s important to do what’s right for you. 09:03 Why there are different ways to be successful at anything. 00:00 How there are more funding options available today.  3 Ke

Today on The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about how to ask better questions. Asking questions is the best way to understand or gain deeper insights about anything or anyone at any time. Unfortunately, most founders don’t do it. In today’s episode of the show, Steli and Hiten talk about the importance of asking questions, how asking questions helps you gain a common understanding, how to improve your questioning skills and much more. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About today’s topic 00:35 Why this topic was chosen. 02:29 How people tend to make a lot of assumptions. 03:01 How asking questions helps you gain a common understanding. 05:00 Why you need to ask a lot of questions. 05:50 How you can miss a lot of information if you don’t ask enough questions. 06:31 How active listening is super important. 04:43 How Hiten is able to help people by asking them questions. 10:38 How to improve your questioning skills. 3 Key Points: Most people just don’t ask enough questions. People tend to assume a lot of things

In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about The challenger, helper, victim cycle. The victim mindset is one that some people have and it can be depressing being around someone who is always negative and constantly complains about everything. And while playing the victim might seem advantageous to certain people, other times it can prevent people from wanting to help you. So in this episode, Steli and Hiten talk about how some founders can either be stuck in the helper or the challenger frame of mind, Hiten’s philosophy when it comes to giving advice in general, how most people with a victim mindset have a hard time getting out of it and much more. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About the topic of today’s episode 00:32 Why this topic was chosen. 01:23 How some founders can either be stuck in the helper or the challenger frame of mind. 05:00 Hiten’s philosophy when it comes to giving advice. 05:32 One very useful way to help someone. 06:20 How people, in most cases, want to feel good abou

In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten try to answer the question, what color is boredom? One of the most important roles of a parent is helping your kids get through school. Sometimes, they may act in a way that doesn’t align with the system of the school, which could land them in trouble, and how you deal with the aftermath of that situation can make a huge impact on your child. In today’s episode, Steli and Hiten talk about how to handle awkward situations with kids in school, the importance of following the rules, lessons Steli’s wants his kids to learn and much more.  Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About today’s topic. 00:37 Why this topic was chosen. 03:52 How to handle awkward situations with kids. 05:40 How Hiten handles tricky situations with his kids. 06:42 The importance of following the rules. 05:00 How Steli handles tricky situations with his kids. 09:09 Why Steli enables his kid to experience the real world. 10:24 Lessons Steli’s wants his kids to learn. 10:50 Why Steli doesn’t

In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about scheduling principles for startup founders. Being a founder of a startup means you’re extremely busy most of the time. It also means that you’re being asked to certain things like speak at events, be a guest on a podcast and so on. When not managed properly, fitting all these into your busy schedule can get out of hand, especially if you schedule way in advance. In this week’s episode, Steli and Hiten talk about a bad habit Steli picked up recently, One way to decide if you should schedule an event in advance and how Hiten schedules events much more.  Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About today’s topic. 00:31 Why this topic was chosen. 01:58 Steli’s latest tip in sharing philosophy. 03:22 A bad habit Steli picked up recently. 05:32 One way to decide if you should schedule an event in advance. 06:49 How Warren Buffet schedules events. 08:01 How Hiten schedules events. 09:00 Why you shouldn’t say yes to everything. 09:34 Why you need to ask yours

Today on The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about how to foster a state of flow in startup teams. Sometimes, we are completely immersed in an activity that we don’t realize how much time flies by. This experience is a mental state that psychologists refer to as flow.  In today’s episode of the show, Steli and Hiten talk about what it means to be in a state of flow, examples of being in a state of flow, what flow state is all about and much more. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About today’s topic 00:35 Why this topic was chosen. 01:39 What it means to be in a state of flow. 02:00 Examples of being in a state of flow. 02:30 What flow means to Hiten. 02:50 How you can have influence over people’s states. 03:49 The kinds of people Hiten likes to work with. 04:43 What flow state is all about. 07:17 The stress can affect founders’ flow. 3 Key Points: Flow is when everything you do feels so easy. You can be watching TV and be in a state of flow.You can have influence over people’s states. [0:00:01] Steli Efti: H

In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about how to overcome creative blocks. As a founder, creating new things is something you’ll need to do all the time. Whether it’s creating a new blog post, shooting a marketing video or writing a new line of code, creativity is part of being a founder. However, there are going to be times when you can’t think of what to create and this can slow down the progress of your startup. So in this episode, Steli and Hiten talk about why creativity can’t be defined, ways to overcome writers’ block, how Hiten uses context switching to get past creative blocks and much more. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About the topic of today’s episode 00:29 Why this topic was chosen. 02:03 Why creativity can’t be defined. 03:09 One way to get over writers’ block. 05:00 How internal resistance can cause creative block. 06:20 Another way to get over creative block. 06:56 How overthinking doesn’t help. 08:37 Hiten’s process for creating stuff. 10:19 How Hiten uses context s

In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about Extreme Ownership. Extreme Ownership is a book written by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin and it talks about the leadership concepts used by US Navy SEALs to accomplishing the most difficult missions in combat.  This book also provides readers with Jocko and Leif’s formula for success and demonstrates how to apply these directly to your business and life to likewise achieve victory. In this week’s episode, Steli and Hiten share their thought on the book, how the concept can be applied to your startup and much more.  Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About today’s topic. 00:38 Why this topic was chosen. 00:58 What you need to know about extreme ownership. 03:33 Jocko Willink’s response to every problem. 04:32 How a leader can have extreme ownership over everything that’s going on in the company. 05:58 How ownership can be empowering. 07:54 How Hiten and Steli are very much aligned. 09:09 How getting people to take responsibility can be really difficu

In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about the messy middle. As your startup grows, new challenges arise. Processes and strategies that you used in the early stages are not the same pones you’ll use at the middle stages. Adapting to new changes is something you want to get right, as getting this wrong can have a negative effect on your startup. In today’s episode, Steli and Hiten talk about how every company you work on now is uniquely different, why the middle is messy, what a messy middle looks like for a real company and much more.  Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About today’s topic. 00:35 Why this topic was chosen. 02:58 How every company you work on now is uniquely different. 03:40 Why the middle is messy. 04:42 How tech debt is one of the messiest things you can have. 05:00 What a messy middle looks like for a real company. 07:09 How marketing can be one of the messiest things about a company. 08:24 Steli’s experience with messy middles. 09:00 One of the biggest challenges about

Today on The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about the Enneagram personality test. Enneagram tests are online tests that can help you to determine which personality type you are and those of your team members. Like any personality test, Enneagram tests are not a science, but it can be a useful tool to help you understand yours and your team members’ tendencies in order to anticipate and prevent conflicts, and create a great working environment. In today’s episode of the show, Steli and Hiten talk about what an Enneagram test is, why it’s one of Hiten’s favorite tests, how they are different from other personality tests and much more. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About today’s topic 00:31 Why this topic was chosen. 00:50 Where to take an Enneagram test. 01:21 Steli’s thoughts on personality tests in general. 04:04 What an Enneagram test is. 04:17 Why it’s one of Hiten’s favorite tests. 06:49 How Enneagram tests are different from other tests. 07:00 About Hiten’s Enneagram score. 09:17 How to use Enneagram

In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about how to build a remote sales team. In today’s startup world, working remotely is more popular than ever. And the popularity of remote work is also spreading to sales teams as well. However, having a remote sales team can be challenging and you need to manage it properly to make it work for your business. In this episode, Steli and Hiten talk about how having a remote sales team is possible, the type of people to hire for your remote sales team, mistakes to avoid when running a remote sales team and much more. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About the topic of today’s episode 00:27 Why this topic was chosen. 02:11 How having a remote sales team is possible. 03:29 One major mistake most companies make when they start to build a remote team. 04:16 How hiring a junior sales person remotely can be a challenge. 05:26 The type of salespeople to hire for remote work. 05:56 The second major mistake most companies make when they start to build a remote te

In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about the heart of your startup. Sometimes trying to make a decision can be quite a challenge and whether you should listen to your heart or not in that situation can be a challenge for most founders. One reason for this is opening up your heart requires courage, and if things go wrong, feelings can get hurt. In this week’s episode, Steli and Hiten talk about why most people can’t speak from their heart, one thing that prevents people from bringing their heart into things, how the truth isn’t in the mind and much more.  Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About today’s topic. 01:03 Why this topic was chosen. 03:28 Why most people can’t speak from their heart. 04:20 One thing that prevents people from bringing their heart into things. 04:54 One thing that helps Hiten come at things from his heart. 05:13 One of the things that makes this podcast valuable to people. 06:06 Why the present moment is an important way to practice bringing your heart into things

In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about founder distractions. Being distracted from work is something all founders have to deal with and, while some kind of distractions can be a good thing, when distractions start affecting your level of productivity then it may be time to make some changes.  In today’s episode, Steli and Hiten talk about what founder distractions are, the most common types of distractions, how you can overcome these distractions and much more.  Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About today’s topic. 00:32 Why this topic was chosen. 01:00 The first thing that comes to mind when meeting other founders. 01:40 Why meeting other founders can be a big distraction. 03:32 How Hiten approaches requests for meeting up. 03:40 How founders get distracted by competition. 05:17 Another major distraction for founders. 06:45 Why you don’t need to read ten books a day to become a successful founder. 09:25 How meetings and getting on calls with people can be a distraction. 10:10 Antido

Today on The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about the fear of doing something insignificant. It’s very common for people to sometimes feel that their ambitions or what they do is not big enough and then beat themselves over it. This shouldn’t be the case, because of how big a goal or ambition is a very subjective issue. In today’s episode of the show, Steli and Hiten talk about why people worry about something insignificant, why you need to define what small means to you, why the idea of being small is very subjective and much more. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About today’s topic 00:31 Why this topic was chosen. 01:40 Why people worry about something insignificant. 01:50 Why you need to define what small means to you. 05:14 Why the idea of being small is very subjective. 06:00 How people can get stuck in doing something they don’t like. 07:30 How people judge themselves based on other people’s opinions. 08:25 Why you shouldn’t be rigid about who you are. 09:44 Why you always need to access your current

In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about doing what scares you. When trying to accomplish something, the fear of the unknown can prevent you from taking action and completing your goals. Whatever it is that scares you, overcoming that fear and completing your goal can only be beneficial to you. In this episode, Steli and Hiten talk about how doing things that scare you can help you grow, situations where being scared can be a good thing, some business situations that scared them in the past and much more. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About the topic of today’s episode 00:27 Why this topic was chosen. 01:50 How doing things that scare you can help you grow. 02:01 How doing something that you’re scared usually leads to something valuable. 03:06 Situations where being scared can be a good thing. 04:02 How listing out things that scare you can be beneficial. 05:23 Why you should feed the fear in a positive way. 06:39 How everyone, including founders, has something that scares them. 07:

In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about the various things they do to relax. It’s no secret that running a startup can be super stressful, and being stressed out can affect your performance as a founder and that of your team. So it’s important that you allow yourself to relax when you can. In this week’s episode, Steli and Hiten talk about why it’s important to relax, ways in which they relax and much more.  Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About today’s topic. 00:35 Why this topic was chosen. 01:00 Why it’s important to relax. 01:56 One way Hiten relaxes. 03:15 Another way Hiten relaxes. 04:13 A third way Hiten relaxes. 05:06 Why relaxing is a good thing. 06:04 One of the most relaxing things for Steli. 07:25 Another way Steli relaxes.  3 Key Points: For some startup founders, Relaxing sounds like the opposite of what they need.For me driving is relaxing.Tension breeds more tension. [0:00:01] Steli Efti: Hey everybody, this is Steli Efti. [0:00:03] Hiten Shah: And this is Hiten Shah.

In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about making exceptions for employees. There might come a time in your startup when a team member might ask you to make an exception for them either due to their performance or due to unforeseen circumstances. Deciding whether to give such exceptions to a team member can be tricky as you’ve got to consider how it will affect your workforce. In today’s episode, Steli and Hiten talk about why you should always prioritize the group instead of a person, the mindset of an employer's mind when they let go of a person, why exceptions are not the new normal and much more.  Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About today’s topic. 00:32 Why this topic was chosen. 04:33 Why you should always prioritize the group instead of the person. 05:08 The mindset of an employer's when they let go of a person. 05:00 How companies can over-index on an individual’s needs versus the group. 05:35 How to approach a situation when a team member wants to be treated differently. 06:31

Today on The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about the need for speed versus the need for focus at a startup. Deciding whether to prioritize speed versus focus at your startup can be crucial to how successful you’re going to be. Overall, prioritizing focus will always trump speed. However, in order to prioritize focus on you need to know what to focus on. In today’s episode of the show, Steli and Hiten talk about why focus and speed are really important, how focusing can affect your speed, how to tell when you should focus and when you shouldn’t and much more. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About today’s topic 00:33 Why this topic was chosen. 01:20 Why focus and speed are really important. 01:48 How focusing can affect your speed. 02:14 How to tell when you should focus and when you shouldn’t. 03:54 An example of what to focus on. 07:55 How some founders tend to prioritize speed over focus in the early days. 05:42 How focus always trumps speed. 06:42 How focusing has helped Close succeed. 3 Key Points: Spe

In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about how what perks and benefits should you offer your employees at an early stage startup. Offering your employees perks and benefits can lead to a happy workforce, however, deciding what types of perks and benefits to offer can be challenging. In this episode, Steli and Hiten why founders struggle with deciding what types of perks and benefits to offer, how Hiten typically approaches this issue at his businesses and the importance of establishing why you want people to work for your company much more. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About the topic of today’s episode 01:20 Why this topic was chosen. 01:50 Why people struggle with this. 02:37 How Hiten typically approaches this. 03:50 How Google handled perks initially. 04:22 The main types of benefits you can offer. 04:46 The importance of establishing why you want people to work for your company. 06:23 Questions to ask around benefits when you’re hiring. 07:21 The difference between benefits and