Key Takeaways: 

• The importance of timing the market even when you are innovating
• Why content creation is important nowadays
• How openBOM helps organize data in every step of the manufacturing process

Matt Strauss, CEO of RiseKit, left the venture capital world to pursue his passion for solving social problems. Matt discovered this passion from volunteering when he was asked to mentor a handful of young people. While trying to connect his mentees to jobs and resources, Matt ultimately met with over 1,000 public and private sector leaders across his favorite city, Chicago. He hit a moment of volunteer and activism fatigue when he realized he couldn't mentor more Chicagoans. That's when he went on to create RiseKit.

RiseKit’s platform connects overlooked job seekers with the community support, training programs, and employers they need to rise to better employment opportunities.

Podcast Summary: 

In this episode, Matt Strauss shares his journey on how RiseKit provides solutions to employers, nonprofits and community-based organizations to connect overlooked jobseekers to individualized job training, employment opportunities, and resources.

Key Takeaways in this Episode:

• Challenges faced in the government and non-profit sector
• How to sell to non-profit organizations and identifying their pain points
• Why passion for social changes is necessary in the funding part

Discovering His True Passion

Working as a venture capitalist 5 years ago was when Matt had the opportunity to mentor job seekers and entrepreneurs in Chicago. This constant interaction not only allowed him to understand their needs as challenges, but also discovered his true passion, which was helping people by combining VC and technology. 

How RiseKit Provides an Even Ground for Job Seekers

Matt found out that  under-resourced job seekers rely a lot on non-profit organizations. Oftentimes, staff members of these organizations use outdated technology to equip their job seekers. Employers, on the other hand, need to integrate a tracking system to automate the feedback loop of what happens in the application. Those steps take the employer front line recruiter 2-4 hours per non-profit partner to report that back. Having all that in one place as well as having access to real time data allows recruiters to simplify the process. 

How to Sell to Non-profit Organizations

Matt admits it is a tough market. However, there is a high level of loyalty once an organization becomes your customer. What worked for Matt was to create a free-to-pay model where they can have the first tier for free, an upgraded version, and the highest tier that is a version where they can customize everything based on their daily needs. This selling format has been way more effective than trying to sell to every single non-profit organization.

Challenges in Government and Non-Profit Organizations

Governments have legacy systems in place and therefore, there is a lot of education and mindset perspective shifting. For non-profit organizations, the CEOs tend to lose perspective of what happens in the front line: Trying to find more employer partners, trying to track job applications, and communicating with job seekers. Most of the time they become customers if a solution is provided for the first two pain points but still requires a particular approach. 

Passion and Relationships

Because of the type of solution RiseKit offers, any venture capitalist included in the first raise must have the same level of passion and desire to make this social impact. Matt admits that networking and relations were the main difference makers for the first funding obtained. If you are going to target this market, making a change in society must go first before profit-making. 

Connect with Matt:

Matt Strauss on LinkedIn

Apply to be our next guest speaker here: https://bit.ly/wtsguestspeakerapp

Dan O'Day is the CEO and Co-Founder of ECFX, an automated electronic court filing notice management system for law firms and corporate legal departments. Dan has years of experience in driving strategic vision in legal technology, previously as VP of Sales and Service at American LegalNet and multiple operations and product development roles at Elite and Thomson Reuters. Dan received his JD from Pepperdine and practiced complex civil litigation.

ECFX was founded by attorneys and legal technology experts with a single goal: to address unmet automation needs in the legal industry. They are committed to filling in the gaps in legal workflows with intelligently automated solutions, enabling firms to save time, gain control, mitigate risks, and improve visibility.

In this episode, Dan O’Day will provide us with insights on how automation is being recently introduced in the legal industry. Dan will share how this industry has been very resistant to changes in technology and how they are gradually helping the whole legal infrastructure to be a place that is more open to technological tools. 

Key Takeaways in This Episode:

• The challenge of dealing with an industry resistant to technological changes
• Why networking and relationships are crucial during the early stage
• How Covid was a game changer to introduce technology in the legal industry
• No need to speak negatively about the competition in order to compete

Programming and Law

Working in the legal world since he was 16 years old, Dan was able to see that it was a very adversarial environment. And although he really connected with the intellectual side of it, he did not like the argumentative part, which made him move to tech, more specifically to programming. Dan took all this knowledge and applied it to the legal environment where he found out there was a lot of work to be done.

An Environment Resistant to Technological Changes 

Dan explains that when you practice law, you are taught the concept of "precedent". There was a decision made by the court, and that became the law, and the law must be followed so we all can have rules. That same mindset of "this has always worked in the past and it should work for us again" makes one naturally resistant to adopt new technology tools.

Covid as a Point of Inflection

A lot of that mindset changed with the pandemic. Lawyers were forced to embrace tools such as zoom to hold everyday interactions, which made them realize that this tech was actually beneficial for the entire field, especially when this is an industry with a lot of inefficiencies. This showed that time (one of the most valued resources in court) could be optimized in a better way by applying a lot of digital tools. 

The Importance of Network

One difference maker for ECFX’s success was the ability to use Dan's connections and relations during Covid. The technology was accepted and well taken since there was already a strong background in the legal environment and his presence and reputation was already known. Dan said, “When you engage with people, understand that whatever you do in this transaction will pay off in a future transaction.”

The Corporate Side

Other entities that ECFX assists are insurance companies and large companies. Oftentimes, corporations outsource litigation to law firms. Some corporations do some of the litigation in house and these are the ones that have the same problem law firms have: Court notices put on the system, automating files and pulling old files. ECFX is so efficient at this that they actually have a ROI calculator that they can show to the prospect how much they can save.

Legal Advice to SaaS Founders

If you are looking to be a venture funding company and ultimately looking for a clean exit, keep it simple. Start out either as a Delaware C. Corp or California C Corp and get good counsel, and although it costs money, it is totally worth it. Keeping this legal aspect in mind from the very beginning will help you in the future, even if this does not look like a priority during the early stage. 

The Future of Legal Tech

Although lawyers are irreplaceable, the field offers a lot of opportunities for automation in other areas such as adding the ability to deal with new files as well as pulling old files. Automating other workflows like medical records and ITC notices is something that is definitely in the landscape.

Connect with Dan:

Dan O'Day on LinkedIn

Apply to be our next guest speaker here: https://bit.ly/wtsguestspeakerapp

Steve Benson is the CEO and founder of Badger Maps, the #1 app in the app store for outside and field salespeople. Steve is also CEO of Badger Sales University. After receiving his MBA from Stanford, Steve joined Google, where he became Google Enterprise's Top Sales Executive globally in 2009.

In 2012, Steve founded Badger Maps for outside and field salespeople to upgrade existing CRMs with mapping, routing and scheduling. He also hosts Outside Sales Talk - a podcast specifically for outside salespeople, and he is the President of the Sales Hall of Fame.

Badger Maps is the best route planner for field sales teams. With features for territory management and route optimization, Badger Maps is an all-in-one sales tool that allows you to drive 20% less and sell 22% more. Badger allows you to get a custom view of your territory, log meeting notes on the go, automatically update your CRM, and find new leads around you - all right from the field.

Key Takeaways In This Episode

• Differences in selling vertically vs. horizontally
• What to expect when transitioning from a 9-5 job to being an entrepreneur
• Challenges faced during the first years as an entrepreneur
• Why to lead sales during the early stage of your company

How Badger Maps Was Born

Completely familiarized with the challenges in sales and with an extensive background in Google Maps, Steve noticed that there was not a sales tool that was able to get data from CRMs then combine it with a calendar and a route traced by a map for salespeople. This gap in determining which was the best territory optimization led him to create Badger Maps.

How To Go To Market

It is important to determine if you are selling your product either vertically (just one niche or one   type of company) or if you are selling horizontally (several types of customers). One common mistake when selling horizontally is trying to adapt your messaging and make it as broad as possible, as opposed to focusing on describing the type of problem that you solve. A common mistake that is done when selling vertically is believing that you are a market fit just because you have sold to a couple of companies. 

From 9-5 to Entrepreneur

Transitioning from one field to another is not easy, especially when you have experienced a lot of wins on the corporate ladder. Most of the time, this lack of failure creates a conflict when the person goes through trial and error while building a startup, giving the impression that he/she is failing all the time. Having an understanding that there will be more failures than wins is something that must be clear before becoming an entrepreneur. In Steve's words: “It's easy to fly a plane, really hard to be the Wright Brothers.”

Long-Term Perspective

Steve can't stress enough about being patient during the first years of a startup, since you have to find your place in the market. You are always resource-constrained, and most importantly, it is not about solving a problem, it is also about creating the infrastructure to make that happen. During the first years you will have to play different roles, including the ones you are not a subject matter expert in. 

Advice To Early-Stage Founders

Talk to a lot of people (including and mainly your customers) to get feedback and feel free to lead sales, even as a founder. Interacting with your customers as well as potential clients will allow you not only to understand their needs, but also to provide you with important information that will help you to either modify your product or your sales strategy.

In this episode you will hear Aleks Gollu’s take on how the video calling landscape is changing rapidly for a better customer experience. For an increasing sector, the forms and calendars to reach a company are a deal breaker. Potential buyers are getting more educated about the products before buying and need an easy channel where they can interact with the provider and finalize the transaction. 11Sight brings a solution to this time gap where all the customer engagement life cycle is covered with video calling as a first point of contact. 

Key takeaways in this episode:

• The current video calling tools provide an excellent solution to daily interactions but not for a shopping experience. 
• Potential clients need shortcuts where they can access in one click, the real source, and interact directly with the provider. With so many online resources out there, this is hard to accomplish.
• Technology allows you to connect with the world, but you also need to be as available and accessible as possible to them. 
• Interacting through video calls indicates a stronger buying intention and it tends to close more deals as a first interaction than chatbox and phone calls. 

A totally new sales approach.

It was very clear for Aleks that video was going to be a good means to conduct business. And although Zoom, Skype and Whatsapp were already in the market with certain video features, there was not an efficient way for companies to interact with their customers immediately. For specific segments, the traditional approach of filling out a form then getting back to the customer to schedule a meeting and talk to them within the next 5-10 days is a deal breaker. Especially in those high velocity sales where the customer is already educated about the product and  willing to buy but still has some questions that must be answered and needs to contact the provider/vendor. After reviewing the statistics, it was found that 30% of the scheduled meetings are no-shows and the other 70% buys from the first vendor they talk to. This context allowed 11Sight to come into the surface and provide a whole new sales approach. 

Removing the noise and obstacles.

The strategy is simple but powerful: By removing obstacles such as downloads, landing pages, social media accounts or calendars, or any other platform restrictions and directing the customer to interact to the vendor with just one click, 11Sights provides the potential customer with the ability to go directly to the source and address the customer’s needs in real time through video calling. 

Your backyard is around the globe:

After several decades doing business, Aleks has been able to witness the big change technology provides to connect transactions. Even though the standard business one-on-one elements are always there (such as validating your product in the market, being customer-centric, etc.), what has changed enormously is the reach of the company. The very fact that you can have a business meeting in the morning with someone in Canada and another sales meeting in the afternoon with someone in Austria leaves it very clear that the world is accessible to everyone and there should be no restrictions whatsoever to close deals. But it is crucial to understand that in the same way there is a world accessible to you, you also have the obligation to be as accessible as possible to them.

How the video calling world is evolving. 

Aleks envisions that video will become more mature in the sales and marketing space since it is not moving vertically. The type of video interaction 11Sight provides is one where the SDR can have a call card on the side, a script, the client’s information or data coming from the CRM while he or she is having the video interaction with the potential customer. The feedback customers are sharing is that a video call as an initial contact is three times more likely to result in a sale than any other internet tool.  It has also been shown that a potential customer holding a video interaction is more serious about his purchase than one interacting with a chatbox. This opens a big window of opportunities to improve the video calling experience.