If you are new to our channel you might assume that I am just this guy that
makes videos on failed companies but no our company's slight beam is actually
around 30 people we are a venture funded startup and our core business is not
video its presentation design now I don't want to jinx it but we are on our
way to a hundred thousand subscribers and it's a defining moment for our
company where YouTube is not only our primary source of customers for slide
bean but the videos themselves the ads these sponsorships that we are getting
are already a business of its own without intention we created a new
profitable business that sells the other business
it's like marketing nirvana anyway this felt like the right time to reflect on
this six year journey especially on the stuff that nobody told me about so here
it is number one what I would be doing what does a CEO do well kind of
everything and my job changes every week this week I'm making sales we have a
sales team of course but I wanted to understand the ins and outs of how the
funnel works and what our customers are asking for so I've been taking calls as
a sales agent I took in a fake name so people don't know it's me but if you
dialed into slide being you I'd get me on the phone last week I worked with my
marketing team on merging our email platforms to send emails to everyone
more efficiently also I worked with the devs on some new programmatic emails the
week before I was working on closing our newest hire somebody to lead our slide
beat agency branch that's the part of the company that does presentation
design consulting and next week I have to work on the paperwork for our
investors to convert their notes into stock hello investors if you're watching
the point is I don't get to do what I want I get to do what the company needs
me to do sometimes that's fun and exciting and sometimes it's not but my
job is mostly an enabler not even a project manager but a project starter I
start little projects and initiatives within the company sometimes stuff that
I'm really excited about sometimes stuff that I really want to work on but I
quickly realized that I just can't and I need to move into something else and
therefore delegate them lately as this channel has grown and as our business
has grown I also spend a lot of time talking to other entrepreneurs ie our
customers whether it's for review their pitch deck or helping with their
fundraising plans I do back-to-back calls all morning and then I try to keep
my afternoons free for work so the bad here is the time is never enough
balancing work and life gets harder and harder I made a video about it on my
personal YouTube channel which I also spent some time on the good here is I
get to impact a lot of people hopefully I get to be that person that unlocks new
capacities in our team I am rarely bored always brainstorming always solving or
at least trying to solve problems it's very fulfilling especially when we hear
from the entrepreneurs on the other side and how our content has helped them
appreciate the comments and keep them coming
number two twice the team is not twice the productivity this one took me a
while to grasp when we first doubled our team from three founders to six people
total I felt like we genuinely doubled productivity we all moved in sync there
was little project management or bureaucracy required we just took a task
and did it we the founders felt how productivity truly doubled but that's as
far as it goes when you cross eight or maybe ten employees things start looking
very differently you need task management delegation and
those tasks are tasks of their own time is spent communicating between teams and
making sure everybody is on the same page so it's not double the productivity
I was incredibly frustrated at first until eventually I just kind of accepted
that this is just the reality of bigger teams and I it's just okay I guess
number three how money becomes immaterial in 2018 for the first time in
our history we had over 1 million dollars in company expenses in a year
that means 1 billion dollars came and went from our bank accounts which was
absolutely nuts and I also made a video about it now on
my first job back in Costa Rica I was making around $800 a month and after
being pretty broke through high school and early college $800 a month was a lot
of money and how could I have expected that 10 years later I'd beat spending a
million dollars in a year now sadly it sort of becomes spreadsheets and forms
it's sometimes kind of overwhelming but your job as a CEO is keeping those
numbers black not red and you hardly have the time to stop and think how much
that money actually represents it's weird because during the day I'm
subscribing to this new platform that need that maybe $99 a month and I don't
think about it twice but at home I have to stop and think if I really want to
rent that $5.99 flick I've been meaning to watch now time for a shameless plug
we are building a new platform to help you keep track of these expenses it's
called monthly much easier to pronounce that slight beam which is a lesson we
also have to learn number four building things from scratch is usually a mistake
when you're presented with the option of building a new feature from scratch or
using an API or library or tool that already solves it you're gonna be
tempted to build it yourself at least we were I was because it's cheaper well
it's not really cheaper you and your team have or should have a unique
expertise in what you're building taking time away from that is not only
expensive because of the team's time but because of the time that you've lost
that's time that he lost to other competitors to move ahead that's time
that he lost for your runway that's time that he lost maintaining and fixing bugs
in these features that is time lost designing slides when you could just
click a button and have them designed for you number 5 the importance of
community and network we did a couple of startup accelerators back when we were
starting up we did dream it in New York and fatherland startups in San Francisco
and most of the people I know in the startup world
I met at both of those programs now I get to brag a little bit now but Yossi
Ginsberg for example was in one of those programs Daniel Radcliffe played him in
the movie jungle so was the team at head up and then Pete from Jack pocket insane
companies much larger than slide bean is for sure
I remember overlooking the stripe accounts of one of the companies that
was sitting next to us and seeing how they were making like ten times our
revenue back then and I felt like a real challenge to get up the following day
and hack some new ways to catch up now I don't get to see these fellow
entrepreneurs that often but when we sit down for a beer or you know a call my
head gets out of the bubble that my company is and I often find myself in
awe of the stuff that they've achieved and how they've been able to solve and
overcome their problem call it admiration call it competitive spirit
surrounding yourself with people who are smarter than you makes a ton of a
difference now I do wish I had spent more time getting to know more of them
of the companies around us look back now of the connections that I
did make and then I feel sorry for not befriending more of these smarter people
in the end however I think that the startup community is very supportive we
know the struggle we know what other CEOs have to go through and we are
generally willing to help as long as it just takes us a couple of minutes and we
can get back to work number six you can never log off it's very hard to stop
thinking about your business if you're doing great
your mind is going miles an hour and it's really easy to get lost in work and
disconnected from your loved ones but six years later with your mind fully
dedicated to your company it is exhausting there's the saying that
building a company is a marathon and not a sprint and when I heard it I
disregarded it as one of those motivational poster messages but boy is
that the right quote believe it or not I sometimes wake longing for a
nine-to-five job that pays my salary at the end of the month and where I don't
have to worry about the runway or the cash flow I probably wouldn't be able to
keep that job for very long but the point here is you need to find a way to
rest I found that escape a little bit with
tennis which I play almost daily and with civilization six which I play a
couple of times a month botha require my full attention so my brain for once is
clear of everything that's work-related now last but not least number seven
would do it again now I don't want to end a YouTube video on a low note that's
not what you're here for is it if there's a thing that we always wanted to
do with this channel and with our content is to be honest and transparent
our worst case scenario would be to be counted as one of those YouTube gurus
selling an impossible lifestyle sadly the line is thin so you oh gee
subscribers should keep us in check call bullshit when you see it now or in the
future the honest version of this whole starting a business thing is that it's
been exhausting I have significantly more gray hair than I would if I had
that nine-to-five job six years ago I don't spend as much time with my family
as I should thirty people depend on the decisions I make and it's fucking hard
and it's not getting easier on the other hand though we have you guys and the
awesome Commons that you leave us and we have a voice and companies are raising
millions of dollars with the decks that we help them make and we make our own
rules we have tons of beer waiting for us at the office whenever we have a
chance to go back after coronavirus and when
you put both of those things on each side of a balance the choice is quite
obvious so thanks a lot for watching you know what you have to do about that red
button see you next week