SHAKTI’s Post

4 guiding rules I live by when making hard-decisions. Hiring, firing and funding are part of these: 1️⃣ Categorize it. Here’s a tip I learned from Bezos👇 → For reversible decisions, decide quickly. In early-stage startups, time is gold. Being slow will most likely kill you. → For irreversible ones, take your time. I always take a night of sleep before I make the final decision. 2️⃣ Make the final call of what’s best for the company As a CEO, it’s easy to listen to everyone’s strong opinions, but have the conviction to do what’s right (even if it’s unpopular). Don’t let the desire to please everyone cloud your judgment. 3️⃣ Gather data but accept that you’ll rarely have all the facts. Avoid getting stuck in analysis paralysis waiting for the perfect data (it will never come). 4️⃣ Manage your emotions even under immense pressure. Try to remain calm and level-headed as possible. (easier said than done!) Which has been the most challenging for you to practice?

Mastering Leadership in Tech: Essential Skills for SaaS Founders Leadership in the tech world is no walk in the park, especially for SaaS founders. With the SaaS market projected to reach $157 billion by 2024, the competition is fierce. So, what sets successful SaaS founders apart? Here are the essential skills you need to lead your tech startup to success. ✅ Visionary Thinking Every successful SaaS founder starts with a clear vision. Think of Elon Musk and his relentless pursuit of innovation. As a leader, you need to envision the future of your product and the industry. This means staying ahead of trends, anticipating market needs, and constantly iterating your vision to stay relevant. ✅ Effective Communication Clear and concise communication is critical. Whether you’re pitching to investors, leading your team, or connecting with customers, your ability to convey your ideas effectively can make or break your startup. Practice active listening and ensure that your messages are always transparent and motivating. ✅ Adaptability The tech landscape is ever-changing. 70% of startups pivot their original strategy. As a SaaS founder, your ability to adapt to new information, market changes, and unexpected challenges is crucial. Being adaptable means staying open-minded and ready to pivot your strategies when necessary. ✅ Technical Mentality While you don’t need to be the most technical person in the room, a solid understanding of your product’s technology is essential. This helps you make informed decisions, understand your team’s challenges, and effectively communicate with stakeholders. Founders like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg thrived because of their deep technical knowledge combined with leadership skills. ✅ Empathy and Emotional Intelligence Leading a team requires more than just strategic thinking—it requires empathy. Understanding your team’s needs, motivations, and challenges fosters a positive work environment and boosts productivity. Emotional intelligence helps you manage stress, resolve conflicts, and build strong, trusting relationships. ✅ Strategic Decision-Making Every decision you make impacts your startup’s trajectory. Develop a strategic mindset by analyzing data, considering long-term consequences, and being decisive. The ability to make sound decisions quickly often separates successful startups from those that fail. Being a SaaS founder is more than just having a great product; it’s about leading with vision, communication, adaptability, technical knowledge, empathy, and strategic thinking. Master these skills, and you’ll be well on your way to building a successful SaaS business. #techleadership #saasfounders #startuplessons #strategicleadership #emotionalintelligence

I want to help commercial founders to find the RIGHT technical co-founder 📣 The last couple months I've met many commercial founders / CEOs, who struggled in their relationship with their CTO. 🚫 The root cause: poor CTO choice at the beginning. Some of the complaints I get: - "I had no clue how to assess his tech skills, so I assumed if he's a bit shy and geeky-looking, he must be great." - "Our product has a critical outage every week for the past 3 months, and while I see my co-founder and 5+ engineers working non-stop, I still don't understand why is this happening." - "Can you help me assess if I have an A* tech team? We're moving too slow compared to my past experiences." How I can help? 👉🏻 Assess understanding of fundamentals - I mostly see young, in-experienced engineers leveraging all the latest and shiniest tools in their tech stack, but this will soon bite you back. Just keep it simple. 👉🏻 Review technical architecture - building on the previous point, happy to be your sounding board and set up your tech stack for success. 👉🏻 Skill fit assessment - if there are technical risks to your business, help you validate if your CTO has the skills to solve them So if you're a commercial co-founder, you have an idea and already raised some funding, and you're looking to bring in a CTO / first engineer, feel free to reach out 👋🏻 Why am I qualified to help on this topic? During the past 4 years I've led engineering teams (20+ ppl) for hyper-growth startups, I was a founder myself and launched a product that had to sustain 3000+ orders / min. For both companies I've built the MVP and handed it off successfully for the engineering team to work on.

In last 5 years , 100,000 people have shifted from Non tech to Tech industry 🚀 Are you still contemplating a career shift into the tech industry? Here's some advice from someone who's been there: 1️⃣ Don't be intimidated by the success stories of giants like Google or Microsoft. 2️⃣ Don't get overly excited about the perks offered by startups like Airbnb or Slack. 3️⃣ Avoid being swayed by the allure of innovation showcased on platforms like Product Hunt. 4️⃣ Take caution with advice emphasizing the importance of landing big funding rounds. 5️⃣ Stay grounded when receiving heartfelt messages from startup founders. 6️⃣ Don't chase the fame or fortune associated with high-profile tech acquisitions. But if you're up for the challenge, 1️⃣ Be prepared to embrace moments of solitude on your journey. 2️⃣ Ensure your financial situation allows for flexibility and risk-taking. 3️⃣ Develop resilience to navigate through tough feedback and setbacks. Remember, entrepreneurship is a lifestyle choice. Only pursue it if you're truly passionate and committed! Alternatively, there are plenty of rewarding opportunities in established tech companies where you can make a meaningful impact. Let's explore the best path forward together! 💡 Tauseef Ahmed Ansari #techindustry #careeradvice #entrepreneurialmindset

Mark Zuckerberg believes that startups often outperform big companies because large corporations tend to be slow-moving, lack conviction, and are quick to dismiss new ideas until they’ve already proven successful. He points to Facebook’s triumph over Google in the social networking space as a prime example. Despite Google’s vast resources, they underestimated social networking, initially dismissing it as a passing trend. Even when it became profitable, big companies like Google were slow to realize its true potential. By the time they did, it was too late to catch up. Zuckerberg argues that internal skepticism and low prioritization by leadership often cause big companies to miss out on groundbreaking opportunities, even when they hold all the cards. For more business insights, follow @bizstar.coo.insights. 🎥: @southparkcommons

Building a business is hard, and doing so in a start-up or scale-up context is even harder. Building a successful start-up is akin to building a rocket ship: the team setting the direction (market and product–market fit), growth engines (go-to-market [GTM] strategy and product), crew (talent and leadership), and capabilities (strategy and planning) are essential […] https://lnkd.in/dvJ9s5-7 www.Cyprus-CEO.com #CEO #business #management #marketing #tech #AI #legal #money

Super Founder is where EVERYONE joins together :-) ...startup/venture studios, VC's, Fortune 500, social media stars with 100,000 and 500,000 followers, other founder/investor communities (similar to this one), M&A & IPO specialists so you know how to pitch your companies based on what investors think about... Investors look at M&A & IPO specialists for guidance so when executives go straight to the source of where investors exit liquidity comes from founders/executives cannot go wrong when pitching investors. And when you talk talk directly to people who were at, serviced or are at Visa, Apple, Amazon (National GM in our group), Nike, Redbull, Gartner and more...you can't go wrong with strategy, overview and nuances. The problem in the world is the more successful you are the more people come to you and the more your inbox is overflowing so these people are often hard to get access to so we made a plan...let's make a community of high quality investors, founders and executives... But lets do better than just try to "curate a room" (that's been done)...let's actually "up-level people" "fast". The idea is.... You enter the SFGN slack channel at sf-gn.com ask the M&A person what they look for, then ask a few investors then go to some people from Fortune 500 for the strategy they use/used, then go pick a engineering/sales/community expert to help you implement, then pull more team or at least traction and get funded (if you want) or just simply grow with top tier (validated) strategy and profitable unit economics... that's it! We havn't seen this anywhere in the world done well at scale...that's why we created this. Every perspective, every role is in ONE slack room. From single person business owners to $80 billion fund managers...in 4 slack tiers...each tier has all the pieces you need. We impact the world better through collaboration not competition. There is room for defensibility but when you get into nuances of offerings there is so much difference and so much to collaborate on...and such a large market to serve. At the end of the day...all I/(our team) cares about is impact...not necessarily how it's done. The only thing I'll fight for is the quality. Let's do this! Let's impact the world together! Here are some of our newest adds to SFGN...the rest are at sf-gn.com and updated every few days as we add more across different countries, scale sizes and industries. Sign up between today and March 30th to waive your entry fees (monthly cost still applies). Costs ensure we have the most serious people in the room...it creates a high value bomb of talent. Revenue goes to growing the group so that it comes off very simple for everyone else while we handle the global orchestration and multiple incentives alignment behind the scenes to ensure win win all around. So many collaborative action oriented people in this...so exciting!

I’ve loved the #FounderMode conversations, but let’s be real: some of it feels founder-centric to the point of self-absorption. That’s why Molly Graham’s insights hit home. Nailing #FounderMode means mastering how to scale yourself as a founder. It’s not just about hiring talent—you need to know who thrives in your orbit and be crystal clear about it. One of my biggest mistakes? Not doing that early enough. Graham also brilliantly outlines the traits of an effective startup operator: - Asking incisive questions - Solving problems from first principles - Translating founder vision into actionable plans - Embracing an experimentation mindset: try, fail, learn, iterate - A product mindset: prioritizing customer-centric, scalable solutions - The ability to speak truth to power and a willingness to fight battles/negotiate for the important things - Organizing and motivating people to get things done The role of an effective startup operator isn’t to be a “yes person” to the founder, "but rather to fundamentally understand the DNA of the founder and the company, and partner with the founder to build the strongest company possible." As founders, our job is to be humble, curious, and self-aware enough to recognize this. In Graham's words: "It is the journey of finding people that you WANT to learn from and you look forward to fighting/negotiating with – the journey of surrounding yourself with people who will make you better. " https://lnkd.in/emMzVmEq

Dear Founder, Tom, the founder of a rapidly growing startup, was always in a rush. 🚀 Scaling fast meant wearing many hats, and he found himself juggling everything from sales to partnerships. His partner program, though crucial to his growth strategy, felt chaotic and unstructured. Despite his efforts, it wasn’t delivering the results he expected. 😩 Tom decided to strip things back to basics. Instead of trying to manage every aspect of the partner program himself, he focused on three fundamentals: 1. Aligning Goals with Partners 🎯 Tom realized that success depended on clear, shared objectives with his partners. He began by having honest conversations with each partner, ensuring that their goals were in sync with his company’s vision. This alignment not only improved collaboration but also motivated his partners to invest more in the relationship. 🤝 2. Measuring Success Clearly 📊 Next, Tom implemented a clear set of metrics to track the performance of his partner program. Instead of drowning in data, he focused on key performance indicators like partner-sourced revenue, win rates, and deal velocity. This clarity helped him quickly identify what was working—and what wasn’t. ✅ 3. Continuous Optimization 🔄 Tom adopted a mindset of continuous improvement. He didn’t wait for problems to escalate before making adjustments. Instead, he held regular check-ins with his team and partners, making small tweaks that kept the program agile and responsive to market changes. ⚙️ With these three simple yet powerful principles in place, Tom saw a transformation. His partner program, once a source of stress, became a well-oiled machine driving consistent growth. 📈 Partners were more engaged, deals were closing faster, and his team had a renewed sense of focus. 🎉 Tom’s story is a reminder that, in business, complexity can be the enemy of progress. Sometimes, the key to scaling successfully isn’t adding more—it’s simplifying. By focusing on the essentials and aligning your efforts with those around you, you can turn chaos into clarity and drive sustained growth. 💼 So, if you’re feeling overwhelmed by your partner program, take a step back. 🛑 Ask yourself: Are your goals aligned? Are you tracking the right metrics? And are you continuously optimizing? Simplifying your approach might just be the key to unlocking your next phase of growth. 🔑

I am super excited to share some news: I have joined the amazing team at Owner.com as their Chief Product Officer! After almost a decade at Remind, from pre-revenue to successful acquisition, from Product Manager to CEO, I was ready for some rest and reflection. But after meeting the amazing Adam, Dean, Rob, Josh, Kyle, Venkat, and Will – I couldn't wait a single day to get started. Owner is an absolute slam dunk in all 3 things I was looking for: mission, team and opportunity. 1: Mission 🌎 I have gotten to help build some truly world-altering software (Spotify, Instagram, Remind) - but Owner has perhaps the most urgent and vital mission yet. As waves of technology sweep over the world, they often leave small business owners struggling to adapt. It's gotten harder and harder for them to succeed against giant corporations. But small businesses are what make us love our communities, and they're worth fighting for. So Owner’s mission is simple - arming owners to take on their Goliaths. How can we help small businesses win in the digital age? 2: Team ❤️ I have worked on some amazing teams in my career - but the density of talent at Owner is absolutely amazing. From my first chat with Adam, his passion for helping small biz owners succeed was clear, his leadership instincts and ability to scale a company were exceptional beyond his years, and his urgency was absolutely infectious. The whole crew is similarly extraordinary. You know you are part of an all-star team when you are literally buzzing with nervous energy to ensure you bring your best self every day. It's fantastic. 3: Opportunity 🚀 So many startups right now are either navigating the challenging waters of slower growth and compressed valuations, or they are high-risk AI plays with unproven business models. Owner is a shining exception. Multiplying in size every year, even while serving thousands of small businesses- is no small feat. But more importantly - the market is huge, fragmented and in dire need of Owner’s help. Rob said something I loved: “every startup is risky - so might as well join one that has absolutely massive ambition”. 100% agree. If you want to make software that gives small businesses superpowers, if you love having real world impact and want to grow and be challenged, and if you want to build a truly important company - please don’t hesitate to reach out to me to learn more!