Sean Byrnes is a Partner at Near Horizon (nearhorizon.vc). He started his first company, Flurry, in 2005, which became one of the largest analytics and ad platforms in the world. He later sold it to Yahoo in 2014. Sean has been a founder, investor and advisor over the years and has a wealth of lessons to share.
Join host Alex Shartsis In this episode as Sean shares with us the essentials of successful company building, emphasizing the significance of pivoting, meticulous customer research, and the pursuit of problems that resonate with customers.
Show Notes:
0:00 - Importance of Pivoting
1:22 - Sean's Background: Founder, Investor, Coach
6:35 - Finding Needed Problems for Successful Products
14:47 - Real Business with Revenue Over Fundraising
17:10 - Necessity of Founder-Led Sales, Avoiding Early Hiring
20:48 - Making Founder's Selling Replicable
22:46 - Challenges in Bringing in First Salespeople
25:06 - Importance of Getting Help in Hiring Salespeople
45:46 - Early Stage Sales Hires: Variable Compensation
48:02 - Commitment Over Lower Quota
52:33 - Prioritizing Customer Success Before Sales
54:31 - Customer Success: Not Just a Cost Center
56:19 - Product Leading to Revenue Growth
1:05:40 - Managing Board's Expectations
1:09:03 - Trial and Error in Go-To-Market Strategy
1:12:29 - Building a Cohesive Team
Guest: Sean Byrnes(linkedin.com/in/sbyrnes/)
Host: Alex Shartsis(linkedin.com/in/shartsis)
Audio Engineer & Video Editor - James Fixx (fixxmusic.com)
The Seed to Sequoia podcast is created by Silverwood Advisors to help founders with practical advice on building successful startups.
If you would like to get expert advice for your startup reach out to us on:
Website: silverwood.ai
Linkedin: linkedin.com/company/silverwood-advisors
More about Sean Byrnes:
Aside from Flurry, Sean has also been the CEO of Outlier AI, a Board Member of Great NonProfits and the Author of the Newsletter - The Breaking Point.
Here are some questions founders can have answered through this episode:
What is the importance of presales over traditional sales techniques in the early stages?
How do you determine if there is a burning demand for a product before it even exists?
What is the importance of finding a problem that people viscerally need solved for a successful product?
What is the advantage of enterprise solutions over consumer products in terms of research and market validation?
How does Sean challenge the notion of a founder having a mystical vision for their product, and what does he advocate instead?
What is the difference between product-led growth and relationship-led growth in terms of customer satisfaction?
In what ways does customer success contributes to reducing the cost of acquiring new customers?
What was the specific pricing tactic implemented by Sean at Outlier? What was the most significant lesson he learned from implementing it?