Mike speaks to Jothy Rosenberg an incorrigible entrepreneur who has sold 9 of his tech startups for millions of dollars each. In this episode, Jothy explains how he does it and how you can do the same.

During this episode, Jothy covers assessing the viability of your idea, how to get the attention of investors and raise funds, honing your pitch, self-financing, building a team, the impact of dilution on equity, and much more.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Without product market fit your startup will fail.
• Product-based companies sell for multiples of 5 to 15 times revenue. Service companies typically sell for a multiple of 1.
• Use LinkedIn to find a lighthouse customer. An early adopter in desperate need of your solution who can afford to pay and will work with you.
• Launch big, invest in marketing.
• From day one, build your culture, that is how you attract your founder team.
• To be self-funded, start with a service, then build a product based on that.
• You can raise money before you make a single $.
• Approach the right type of funders at the right stages. Jothy explains how to handle JVs, seed funds, incubators, and more.
• Find investors on LinkedIn.
• Your pitch has to go beyond being good it has to tell a compelling story and include research and proof.

BEST MOMENTS

17:12 "Find a lighthouse customer … a kind of early adopter, who will work with you to make sure that what you're building solves their problem."

24:18 "We had this typical situation; we had this product and now we were looking for a problem and we never found one which was a disaster."

43.47 “You can raise money as a seed with a small foundational team, clear identification of a big opportunity and you don't need to yet be getting any revenue.”

45:12 "Don't just send a business plan to a VC."

1.05.43 “ I don't believe that in an early stage, anyone except the person who's got the vision and the most passion should deliver the pitch, but they can get help.”

1.13.15 “100% of nothing is still nothing… at the end of the day, the equity translates if you sell it.”

ABOUT THE GUEST

https://www.jothyrosenberg.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jothy

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tech-Startup-Toolkit-Launch-Strong/dp/1633438422

ABOUT THE HOST

Meet Mike, a seasoned tech entrepreneur and visionary with over two and a half decades of invaluable experience in founding and scaling successful tech start-ups. Mike brings a wealth of firsthand knowledge and a deep understanding of the challenges faced by entrepreneurs and tech professionals.

As a host, Mike is dedicated to sharing actionable insights, strategies, and stories gathered from conversations with industry leaders, innovators, and experts. With a remarkable ability to distill practical wisdom from guests, Mike curates engaging discussions that resonate with both aspiring entrepreneurs and seasoned professionals.

ABOUT THE SHOW

Welcome to Mastering Tech Growth, where we dive deep into the strategies, challenges, and triumphs of scaling tech-driven ventures. Join us as we explore the dynamic world of technology businesses, uncovering the secrets behind successful growth trajectories. Each episode brings you candid conversations with founders and industry experts, sharing invaluable insights, proven tactics, and real-life stories. Whether you're a budding entrepreneur or a seasoned professional, discover the roadmap to navigating the complexities of scaling in the ever-evolving tech landscape.

Today, Mike talks with Maarten Ectors, an award-winning innovator in AI, Web3, and next-gen tech, known for launching the world’s first blockchain reinsurance solutions. They discuss the transformative impact of AI on society and the future of work. Including what developers, coders, and technical architects can do to position themselves now to take advantage of the wave of AI innovation and new technologies.

He also shares how AI is likely to impact the lives of less technical people like your parents and drastically change the way society works.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• AI is on the cusp of replacing millions more jobs across numerous industries e.g. robotaxis will make human drivers irrelevant.
• When you add robotics to AI, the transformative impact accelerates e.g. what happens to the food industry if we print our meat and fish?
• In a few years, we will have unlimited energy, which is what AI needs to explode and rapidly transform society.
• Work that requires human contact or where human contact enhances the experience is not likely to be eliminated by AI e.g. hairdressers.
• Think about what needs to change to make the new technology viable. They will need developers to create the framework to facilitate that change.
• Get involved in DevOps for AI and Cloud.
• Understand how to make models that get deployed on the Edge in the cloud and can be scaled out.
• Big companies who put together small teams to solve a specific problem as spin-off businesses succeed E.g. Amazon pizza teams.
• Most highly skilled work can be done gig style. AI could bring together a group of people with the right skills to solve a specific problem or build something like a super rocket. Once done, everyone moves on to another project.
• Generative AI is going to be a problem for coders but what it produces still needs to be evaluated and fixed by experts. That means you´ll still need coders.
• Technical architects are a vital part of AI technology development. Someone has to see the broader picture and make sure that is what gets delivered.
• AI speech recognition will transform lives in the next couple of years.
• Because AI is likely to greatly reduce the availability of work the structure of society must change radically e.g. universal income.

BEST MOMENTS

03:38 “The AI-enhanced worker will very quickly eat the market of the rest."

9:19 "Do something that will require human contact."

25.01 “A lot of companies now scale through technology, not through users, not through workers.

26.28 “They need teams that can do 500 different things in a small unit, not 500 people that are all the same.”

33.52 “The DevOps person that goes towards Edge or AI DevOps is going to have a lot longer runway than the person that just stays doing what they've always been doing.”

35.37 “Generative AI doesn't mean there will not be programmers, but I think the architects are going to become more important.”

36.42 “AI-enhanced experts is the model for the next five years afterward, it will depend.”

54.06 “If you don't have users adopting and an easy go-to-market, hence product market fit, technologies are relevant.”

EPISODE RESOURCES

https://candao.io/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mectors/

ABOUT THE HOST

Meet Mike, a seasoned tech entrepreneur and visionary with over two and a half decades of invaluable experience in founding and scaling successful tech start-ups. Mike brings a wealth of firsthand knowledge and a deep understanding of the challenges faced by entrepreneurs and tech professionals.

As a host, Mike is dedicated to sharing actionable insights, strategies, and stories gathered from conversations with industry leaders, innovators, and experts. With a remarkable ability to distill practical wisdom from guests, Mike curates engaging discussions that resonate with both aspiring entrepreneurs and seasoned professionals.

ABOUT THE SHOW

Welcome to Mastering Tech Growth, where we dive deep into the strategies, challenges, and triumphs of scaling tech-driven ventures. Join us as we explore the dynamic world of technology businesses, uncovering the secrets behind successful growth trajectories. Each

Today, Mike speaks to Krista Neher about the increasingly critical subject of personal branding. Krista is an award-winning digital marketer, bestselling author, social media specialist, speaker, trainer & CEO.

Regardless of the tech work you do, how you present yourself makes a huge difference to the opportunities you attract. Your personal brand builds credibility and makes you attractive, so the information in this episode is critical to your success.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Your personal brand is who you are. The person people see when they meet you. Work with you, listen to you or experience your work. Be that face-to-face or online.
• Your brand needs to demonstrate to potential clients that you have what they need and something extra to offer.
• Think why would someone pick me over someone else?
• Look at how your competitors differentiate themselves.
• When building your personal brand online, focus on one channel.
• Listen closely to what others tell you about how they perceive you.
• You have to be memorable. If you don´t stand for something you stand for nothing, so nobody will remember you.
• Create a great elevator pitch for yourself.
• Be authentic. If people feel they can´t get to know you they won´t connect with you.
• Don´t feel fenced in by your brand. People expect you to evolve and pivot

BEST MOMENTS

O7:58 "What´s the reputation you are building for yourself that is unique? What sets you apart from others? – That´s the way to think of your brand."

08:19 "If you're an entrepreneur, are looking to get clients or grow your reputation externally, it's really about how people perceive you and being deliberate and consistent."

36:46 "The first is memorability. Which is specificity, simplicity and consistency."

36:52 "Authenticity. So, if people don't feel like they are getting to know you, they will not connect with you."

48:36 "Points of difference…. what are some meaningful differences that I would get with working with you than working with someone else?."

57.10 “Get your elevator speech down. Your elevator speech is what you say when you meet someone.”

ABOUT THE GUEST

https://launchyourself.com/

https://bootcampdigital.com

https://kristaneher.com

ABOUT THE HOST

Meet Mike, a seasoned tech entrepreneur and visionary with over two and a half decades of invaluable experience in founding and scaling successful tech start-ups. Mike brings a wealth of firsthand knowledge, and a deep understanding of the challenges faced by entrepreneurs and tech professionals.

As a host, Mike is dedicated to sharing actionable insights, strategies, and stories gathered from conversations with industry leaders, innovators, and experts. With a remarkable ability to distil practical wisdom from guests, Mike curates engaging discussions that resonate with both aspiring entrepreneurs and seasoned professionals.

ABOUT THE SHOW

Welcome to Mastering Tech Growth, where we dive deep into the strategies, challenges, and triumphs of scaling tech-driven ventures. Join us as we explore the dynamic world of technology businesses, uncovering the secrets behind successful growth trajectories. Each episode brings you candid conversations with founders and industry experts, sharing invaluable insights, proven tactics, and real-life stories. Whether you're a budding entrepreneur or a seasoned professional, discover the roadmap to navigating the complexities of scaling in the ever-evolving tech landscape.