0 (2s):
Light that Spark Fire Nation, JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like My First Million. Today we'll be telling the story of going from broke to tech, founder and CEO to drop these value bombs I have brought Chris Sheng into EOFire Studios. Chris is a three times founder and growth marketing expert. He has worked with over 200 venture backed SaaS companies on Go-to Market and Growth. Additionally, he is a resident growth advisor at Mucker Capital and works closely with other top VC firms and their portfolio companies. He is currently the CEO of Leadr Pro, the first software marketplace directly connecting sellers with the buyers of software.

0 (42s):
And today, Fire Nation, we'll talk about going from making $12 an hour, answering phones to launching a startup. We'll talk about validating your idea. We'll talk about some key takeaways from over a hundred founders and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Chris and our sponsors.

LMNT (60s):
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Online Marketing Made Easy with Amy Porterfield (1m 21s):
Online Marketing Made Easy podcast hosted by Amy Porterfield is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with a focus on online business. Amy and her guests break down big ideas and strategies into actionable step-by-step processes. In a recent episode, Amy talks to Michael Hyatt about science back data on how thoughts influence your success. Listen to Online Marketing Made Easy, wherever you get your podcasts.

0 (1m 47s):
Chris, say What's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1 (1m 56s):
Hey John. Yeah. Hey everybody. So going back to that question that you just asked, something that I believe in that's instrumental to success that maybe most people disagree with except for maybe a handful would be, I think the idea of being backed into a corner or starting from scratch. I'm a big believer in like David Goggins and, and growth tends to come from being in those moments where you are backed against the corner. And, and me personally, you know, whether that's been, you know, financially or, or personally or whatever that might look like. You know, I think a lot of your most creative ideas tend to come from those types of moments.

0 (2m 34s):
Well, Fire Nation, we're already off to a fiery start and as I mentioned in the intro, we're talking about going from broke to tech founder and c e o. And to start off, I wanna talk about your beginnings, Chris, cuz you went from answering phones for 12 bucks an hour to launching a startup. Tell us that story.

1 (2m 55s):
Up until my mid, like early to mid thirties, I would say I was fairly directionless. I I started off in finance, I did a 180 pivot to to entertainment because that was like a childhood dream of mine. So I ended up doing TV and film production, which, you know, for all intents and purposes is, is very unstable at best. And so I ended up having to answer phones at a cancer care clinic just to make ends way for $12 an hour. You know, going into my early to mid thirties, which is super disheartening, probably one of my lowest moments in my life. And I had fortunately friends that I've known for since high school at that point, now 30 plus years, but that, that were in the tech scene.

1 (3m 39s):
One had a digital agency and another, you know, worked for Silicon Valley tech companies as a project manager manager and they wanted to do this startup called Simple Tux, which was online tuxedo rentals. And I think just, I don't know what it was in terms of like that drove them or motivated them to ask me to participate in it. Maybe it was like out of pity for my directional list directionlessness. But, but they eventually like asked me to participate and join and I just really had nothing else better going at the time. And, and that's how I started my first foray into entrepreneurship. And, and I haven't turned back since.

1 (4m 19s):
You know, I think for all purposes, like I didn't have anything really to fall back on. So this was kind of like all full go steam ahead kind of deal. But there is that epiphany moment in, in going through that first startup experience that I think is super important for a lot of entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs out there, which is, you know, you could pretty much build anything with code and in that se in that sense Matrix, the matrix is real. I think there's creators and there's consumers and you can choose which side of the spectrum you wanna be on.

0 (4m 48s):
The Matrix is real Fire Nation. We just need to accept it. It's real. And listen, Chris, a lot of my listeners are entrepreneurs, our small business owners are entrepreneurs are coming up with their side hustle right now. They have ideas. Fire Nation is full of ideas, but how could we validate if the idea that we have right now in our mind is good?

1 (5m 14s):
Yeah, I think simplicity, focus on percentages. And what I mean by that is like start with, you know, people that are around you to start understanding how you're going to pitch that business idea and then start working outside of that circle further and further out of it from, you know, warm to cold cold intros or cold audiences. And that way it allows you to refine your messaging over time. And so you're not starting off, you know, talking to a cold audience and then trying to get feedback on it, but you're starting, you know, from from friendlies. And by doing so, you know, when you get to that outside circle and you're starting to talk to cold audiences, which are essentially, you know, prospectively would look like a good fit as a customer for you on paper you start looking at percentages.

1 (5m 60s):
So if you talk to say 10 people, three people say, that's a great idea, I would pay money for it. You know, you might be onto something but then validate it even further. So talk to another 10. If that percentage holds true over time, then it helps you understand like, all right, if I charged X amount of dollars, I could get this amount per month or this amount per transaction. And it allows you then to have something more tangible I feel like to then, you know, make a conscientious decision as to whether or not you want to invest more of your personal time or financial resources towards that idea.

0 (6m 31s):
What would this look like in the real world? Like think about an example, maybe it's from your past or one of your clients past where you're like, you know what, we need to validate if this idea is a good one, what did that look like? Going through the process,

1 (6m 45s):
Building out a landing page, finding ways to drive traffic to that landing page from your target audience and seeing how people convert, right? So this is like basic 1 0 1, but you can nowadays build tools on Wick, on Squarespace, et cetera, just to create like a single page where you flesh out your idea, you propose what that idea solution is and you get people to take some kind of intent paste based action, whether that's filling out a lead qualification form or just something as simple as collecting emails and you look at the traffic that goes that site, you see the percentage that end up, you know, converting and making that action. And that's a very easy tangible way to start testing something.

0 (7m 28s):
So a lot of people want to get better at marketing so they can grow their company. Where should they start?

1 (7m 34s):
I think just dumb it down to, to the three basic variables that that impacts marketing, right? It's gonna be channels, messaging and audience. So understanding, you know, who your audience really is on a very granular, segmented basis. You know, in the investment community we talk a lot about Sam Tam, but not a lot about Sam and Sam. So total addressable market versus your, your current available market and obtainable market, right? And I think a product a service evolves over time. So when you're first starting off, you know, you might think your tam is a is a billion dollars, but in reality where your, where your product is or where your service is, it's really only gonna service maybe a 10 million market. So really understanding what that looks like, number one.

1 (8m 16s):
You know, I think looking at messaging, so how do you cut through a lot of the noise of what other people are saying to be unique to your own voice? Leveraging social proof and and being creative with what social proof actually looks like is really important. And then most importantly is gonna be channels, right? I think like I focus a lot on the B2B space. So those channels are typically like email and LinkedIn, but the ones that tend to be really successful are the ones that get creative with that. So things like ringless voicemail or SMS or how do you leverage pay channels like a billboard to build thought leadership and build brand equity and brand awareness and trust. Cuz at the end of the day, like I could be selling you the cure for cancer, but if I'm doing it through emails all day long, most likely my hurdle isn't the fact that I don't have a great product, it's to build up enough trust where I can capture your attention for 5, 10, 15 minutes.

0 (9m 3s):
So just a quick example, but what's an example of your company in the past or one of the companies that you've worked with actually applying these strategies? What did it look like at the ground level?

1 (9m 13s):
A company that I worked with was selling like a vision screening device for, for children before the age of five, right? So they don't have great communicative skills, so they can't tell you whether or not they have vision impairments. And so traditionally, you know, we go in, we do the eye chart exam, et cetera, but they can't properly communicate, you know, effectively at that, at that age. And it's, it's not the greatest exam. So they're selling it to the pediatric community. And this was at the start of the pandemic. So a few years ago. And ultimately the issue with that was they had to let go good 10, 15% of their sales and marketing team because they weren't sure where the market was going.

1 (9m 54s):
So what we did when we came in was, you know, they wanted to prioritize on getting more, just like more meetings with pediatric pediatricians but they weren't getting anywhere. So we spent a lot of time in a Facebook group for the PJ Pediatric community and found out that they were literally working two times the amount of effort and getting paid the same, which makes a ton of sense, right? Like they're, instead of spending the average of 15 minutes per patient, they're now spending 30 minutes because it's the height of the pandemic. It just started, people's got a lot of questions and so that was our Bridgeway in was really, you know, looking at what are their pain points empathizing and, and getting down to the weeds with what they're dealing with day-to-day and then doing a direct call out through the different channels that we're utilizing.

1 (10m 39s):
So saying point blank, Hey look, I know that you are spending two times the amount of effort and getting paid the same, but you know, we have a solution here that might help you improve that quality care. As well as like cut down your, your, your patient time, if that's something that you're open to listening to, let me know. And by doing stuff like that, you know, focusing on, on really empathizing with your target audience that ended up leading us to a record quarter for that particular company in terms of the number of meetings that they had with, with pediatricians.

0 (11m 11s):
Fire Nation value bombs have already been dropped, but more coming as soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors

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0 (12m 49s):
Chris, we're back. And to date you've worked with over 200 venture backed SaaS companies, specifically focusing on their growth. How did you achieve this level of success?

1 (13m 1s):
It's crazy. Like from answering phones to today, I mean it's it's really been only like around less than 10 years, which goes to show you like it's never too late, number one. But number two, like you can become an expert in anything if you spend the time in it. And when I kind of only recently like peeked my head back up from being in the trenches, I did the count and it's like 200 plus venture back SaaS companies at this point. And you know, you name the vertical we probably helped sell into it. Everything from like smb, mid-market enterprise selling to gym owners, a a software solution or funeral home directors or again pediatricians, right? And so a lot of that's come through us.

1 (13m 41s):
My, my growth marketing agency, which I've had for the past seven years. And then having great venture capital partners, you know, market capital and the partners there specifically like Will and Eric bet on me about three, four years ago and took me in and and asked me to be a resident growth advisor And that led to a lot more opportunities within the venture capital community, especially in LA and that's kind of how I got that influx of those at bats of working with early stage portfolio companies, but also the later stage companies that are, were funneled through our agency

0 (14m 18s):
Fire Nation. Really fascinating stuff here. And one thing that I was really intrigued at Chris and I was looking at what you've done over your career here is you've interviewed over a hundred founders. What are some of the key takeaways from those interviews?

1 (14m 33s):
I can tell you the, the number one recurring key takeaway has been their perspective on failure. And I can't hammer this home enough cuz I grew up in a household where failure was, you know, the worst thing ever, the worst thing possible. And our school system I think is like based on that kind of a merit, right? Like failing is, is looked at, is is bad or has a negative stigma associated to it when in reality, like all these founders that I've interviewed, all of 'em are professional failures. I'm a professional failure where, you know, you look at failure more as a learning exercise and that perspective shift unlocks everything. Like if you just know going into it that it wasn't actually a failure, it was just realizing one way not to do something.

1 (15m 19s):
You know, you go at it long enough and you fail nine times that 10th time you're gonna probably find the one thing that's gonna work. And that's the the biggest takeaway I can say. I mean especially in the SAS and software space where it's like a lot of the times they're building something that is very innovative, brand new, right? Like it's white space, green pastures kind of deal, not a ton of competition. That's, that's the key thing is, is just being able to like fail enough times to, to find the things that are gonna work.

0 (15m 47s):
Fire Nation, that failure and failing forward and learning from that. It's such a critical aspect to what you're gonna go through in your journey. And Chris, let's do one more takeaway. What's another takeaway from these hundred founders? And these are founders of successful companies. Like what's one thing you're like, wow, that is just seeming to come up over and over again?

1 (16m 9s):
Every single one of them goes into a room not thinking that they're the smartest person. Ego has to be stripped away a thousand percent. Like the, and you have to have that self-awareness, you know, and I think that's, that's the other big thing is like everybody that I've spoken with on, on that level and we've interviewed from everything from, from CEOs, founders of seed stage companies all the way to, you know, unicorns, billion dollar plus valuation to CEOs of publicly traded companies. And and that's another recurring theme is just that their eagerness and willingness to learn from others, to hire people that are smarter than them. That is, that's another key component to it all. And that's really hard because a lot of people, like I would say, you know, coming from an entertainment world, like there's a lot of, there's a lot of like similarities in terms of like the soft skill sets that mixed for a great entrepreneur.

1 (16m 59s):
But in an entertainment world, ego runs rampant and you know, a lot of times you might be betting on the wrong horse, which is yourself, and that's hard. That's a hard pill to swallow.

0 (17m 7s):
When I talk to people who are achieving a lot of success like yourself, I like to know what's next, but not just professionally. Chris, what's next for you personally and professionally?

1 (17m 19s):
On the professional front, I think it's pretty straightforward. Like I, I've sunsetted the growth marketing agency. We basically built out automated solution to generate more of those B2B mid-funnel leads for enterprise kind of companies through Leadr Pro, which is a software marketplace connecting sellers directly with buyers of software. We like to position almost like as a dating app for B2B sales. And there's a lot of similarities and, and the dating analogy with as it relates back to like sales. But you know, I think perf and personally, I'm definitely on this journey to empower others like myself, you know, people who have sat on the couch with great ideas but had no idea how to execute.

1 (18m 0s):
That was me. Like, you know, later in late twenties, early thirties. I I, I was like that guy who had the idea for Netflix before Netflix and just kind of like, you know, pinched myself when, when that came around. But I just, you know, I never knew what, how to take the first step or what was the first step and, and what did that look like? And so, you know, I I'm, I'm trying to give back to that community of, of entrepreneurs or people who have that hustle and willingness to grind, but maybe are lacking, you know, the, the skill set to know exactly what that first step looks like and, and, and share my experiences from that.

1 (18m 40s):
You know, I, I have a bootcamp where for, for startup founders or people who are looking for that great idea to walk them through the steps of that, you know, as well as like private coaching and all that kinda stuff. But yeah, I mean I've been super open to lending my time to those that are willing to learn

0 (18m 57s):
And that's so generous because fire, when you find somebody who's had massive levels of success willing to give back, especially on a one-to-one basis, that is priceless. So, Chris, give us your big call to action here. How can Fire Nation connect with you? What action do you want our listeners to take to experience more of what you have to offer?

1 (19m 18s):
Yeah, I mean I think at the end of the day, my life calling has been around just growth, business growth period, right? And personal growth to a lesser extent. But I'm still evolving in that, in that world. But I think in the professional side, like business growth, whether you are a B2B company that wants to list their company on our platform Leadr Pro or if you are a startup founder that's looking for advice on how to go to market with your solution or how do you scale more customers or that person again on the couch that's just like, Hey, I, I have an idea but I don't know what to do. You know, I'm available in all formats. So, whether you're early stage founder, you can reach me on www.chrissheng.com, that's chrissheng.com

1 (20m 6s):
Or if you're later stage, you know, B2B SaaS or software company, you can hit us up on Leadr Pro, that's leadrpro.com

0 (20m 14s):
Fire Nation. You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with CS and JLD today. So, keep up that heat, head over to eofire.com type Chris and the search bar and the show notes page will pop up with links to everything that we mentioned, of course go directly to the URLs Chris has shared as well. And Chris, I wanna say thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side.

1 (20m 41s):
Thanks for having me.

0 (20m 43s):
Hey Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Chris for sponsoring today's episode in Fire Nation's. Successful entrepreneurs are great at three things, productivity, discipline, and focus. That's why I created the Mastery Journal so that you can master these three things in a hundred days and we're talking step by step. So, visit themasteryjournal.com and I'll catch you there or on the flip side.

LMNT (21m 6s):
LMNT is an electrolyte drink mix with everything you need and nothing you don't. Try it totally risk free today. Visit drinklmnt.com/eofire and get a free sample pack with any purchase plus a no questions asked money back guarantee. That's drinklmnt.com/eoFire

Online Marketing Made Easy with Amy Porterfield (21m 27s):
Online Marketing Made Easy podcast hosted by Amy Porterfield is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with a focus on online business. Amy and her guests break down big ideas and strategies and actionable step-by-step processes. In a recent episode, Amy talks to Michael Hyatt about science back data on how thoughts influence your success. Listen to Online Marketing Made Easy wherever you get your podcasts.