David Chevalier: Founder-Led Sales Strategies

We always talk about what is going to change in the next 10 years, but we never ask the question what is not going to change. And I think in sales, what never changed is the relationship approach. So every tool that can focus or increase my relationship will win. Hey everyone, welcome back to Make It Happen Mondays, where we talk about sales, business, entrepreneurship, personal growth, mental health, and everything in between with guests who I truly respect and I think make a positive impact on the world around us. And today's conversation is with David Chevalier. David is the CEO of surf.com, a three-year startup. I was just going for funding and this conversation was all about founder-led sales and what it takes to be an entrepreneur.

So for those entrepreneurs out there who are starting their businesses and looking for funding, this one's for you. For those of you sales reps out there who think you want to get into starting a business, this one's for you as well. David's got a very interesting background where his parents, he actually is from Germany, even though he lives in France. Both his parents were, hardcore sales back in the 80s, you know, think Wolf of Wall Street, that type of thing, but you know, not totally douchey. And his dad was always selling and his mom actually joined the company as well and taught him a lot about sales. It's funny, his dad actually said he hoped he never, his son never got into the profession because of how chaotic and how stressful it was.

But for some reason, David had the DNA to get into it. And like we all, like we talked about, you know, you got to be a little off to be in this profession because the ups and downs come and go and you got to be able to regulate that. So we talked about, you know, his background, what made him start surf, where he got that itch and whether he started it to make a bunch of money and sell it, or if he started it to solve a problem, which is ultimately what you need to be starting your companies for, not with the end goal in mind. And it was even a little side hustle for him, as a matter of fact, and how it blew up because he started getting people to use it. And there was a PLG motion to this, but it wasn't free.

And so we talked a little bit about that and the strategy around his go to market when he had no idea what he was doing. And then how he hired his first sales reps. And it was a miserable failure because he didn't have the process in place. He didn't have the operations. He didn't have any of the things necessary to really have a sales team be successful. And then we got into, you know, getting people bought into your vision. And how do you do that as a small business owner? How do you stay involved and, and get people to believe? Um, and then we went through process, you know, the processes he puts in place and, uh, how you need to start a business with somebody who is a partner that compliments what you do doesn't exactly do exactly what you do.

And I am a proponent of that one. Cause I've dealt with it myself. And then we just talked about where sales is headed and his opinion of how we're going to evolve in this profession with all the AI coming and what hasn't changed. You know, everybody's talking about what's changing in sales. We talked a lot about on this one is what hasn't changed in sales and what probably is never going to change in sales. So again, if you're a founder, if you're an early stage entrepreneur, if you're somebody who's looking to get into entrepreneurship and start a business, you're going to love this conversation. Hopefully you enjoy it as much as I do. So let's make it happen. David, welcome to the make it happen Monday podcast, my friend.

How are you doing today? Very good. Um, for us, it's the end of the year, which means, uh, end of closing this year. So, um, yeah, in between different topics, whether that's, uh, sales closing, whether that's fundraising as well. Um, so a few, a few open topics, but, uh, looking forward to a nice Christmas season and then holiday. How about you? Same. So I've, you know, for me, I'm very fortunate to be in the exact opposite scenario that I used to be in from a sales standpoint, right? Cause sales, obviously end of the year, end of the quarter, you know, everybody's going crazy. I remember when I was selling Xerox copiers, like you, when I sold Xerox copiers, you had to have the, the, the machine installed and to print one copy in order to get commission for it.

Right. And if it didn't register a copy, it didn't count. So both years that I worked at Xerox, December 31st, I'm sitting there behind these huge monster machines, like with their engineer, like begging them. I'm like, get this thing to fucking work so I can get like, so I like stressed out. Now that I do sales training, it's the exact opposite of sales, right? Because nobody wants to talk to a trainer end of the month, end of the quarter, end of the year. So for me, it's the beginning of the month, beginning of the quarter, beginning of the year that are always super crazy. So end of the year, I can pretty much take off. My December is super light. I've already hit my number for the year. And so now it's all about prepping for the new year, which I'm super amped about.

So I'm actually in kind of chill mode right now, which I'm, I'm very, very happy about because I've been in chaos the whole year. I can imagine. I like the end of the year because sometimes there come unforeseen things like deals you haven't heard about, like you thought they're already off, um, like you hadn't heard about through the year. And then at the very end, like, oh, okay, there was radio silence. It's extra. We have a still budget available. Can we do a fast year? And then it's a dealing and relay negotiations. But, um, I think last year, we really close the deal between the years. Um, so you need to find if there's someone to sign, right? Still at the office, but, um, I think it's exciting.

It's actually, it's what I love. I mean, I think you have to have a certain type of DNA to be, to be in sales and to love the chaos, right? Because if you're, if you're not, if this doesn't jazz you up, if you're not fired up for it, right, then it's probably not the profession for you. And it's not like it doesn't happen every year, right? It literally every single year, this is where like 70% of revenue is closed at the end of the year for most businesses. So let's talk about, so we're going to get into, I think a lot of cool stuff right now, as far as where, where things are headed, what you're doing with surf and, and, you know, founder led sales and everything. But before we do that, um, let's talk about your background.

Cause you got a pretty unique one and I always love the origin story. Again, the stuff that you can't really find on LinkedIn here. So one of the things again, in our, in our prep notes here was, you know, you came from a family of sales and, and your dad actually asked you, please don't get into this profession, but yet here you are. So can we back up a little bit? Like where'd you grow up? Talk to us about your background, your parents, those types of things and kind of what gave you that sales bug and also entrepreneur bug here, where'd it come from? So originally I coming from Germany. Um, I have a French name, but, uh, living here in Paris since I think four or five years, everyone is confused because everyone thinks I speak, um, I speak French, but, uh, at the end it's, it's okay.

I would say after four or five years, but, uh, grew up in, uh, next to Frankfurt, Aschaffenburg, it's Bavaria. Um, basically moved when I was five to, go to Northern Germany because my, my brother had severe asthma and, um, we couldn't really live longer than the city. So my dad decided, okay, um, I'll do everything for the family, which I always appreciated because he always put us first and, uh, we moved there as he was basically, you need to imagine it's north of Germany. It's like, uh, three and a half thousand inhabitants. So it's only countryside, it's beautiful countryside, but there's literally nothing. Right. Um, and, uh, that was also for my dad, like, okay, I now kind of worked in insurance before I really did eighties, uh, sales, um, classic.

Maybe we, we remember that as, as the wolf of wall street, uh, years, at least for my generation, but it was really like this. He told me it's, we had the same haircuts. We had really these big, uh, blue stirred up, uh, suits and, and, and it was massive and it was, it was loud. Um, definitely if we refer to that as Europeans, it's, it's American sales. Uh, what he told me it's, it's sales like where your sales manager only knows your name when you're at the top of the leaderboard. Um, and you only get to meet the sales managers, I don't know, really at the golf course or at extra kind of holidays, um, if you perform. And, um, so that's why I grew up basically, um, I don't know, maybe he was one of the first who did home office, as I said, north of Germany, you can't see your clients in person.

So he needed to come up with something creative. Um, I remembered, he told me he had one of the first fax, uh, devices, which was able to send out 10,000 faxes per day. So you need to imagine this is like a sequencing tool, like land list outreach sales loft, but in day one, right. Um, and he said, uh, I had an, like immediate advantage and all the others, uh, because I was able just to, to do one click and it goes up to 10,000 people. Right. So maybe what we call today, the blast, uh, mass blast. Yeah, exactly. Strategy. But that's how I grew up on the carpet as a child. My mom also helped in the, in the, in the company because then he decided to do his own, uh, company in insurance, but pure sales still doing sales today.

Um, and yeah, it's fun because he said, of course I saw also the, the, the downs in these faces. Right. Um, and he said, please, I don't want you to have that emotional rollercoaster that comes with sales. Um, but for me, it was also exciting. It was when we went to a holidays, um, we were like, okay, um, how can we afford that? Um, and then there was another CRM. It was not an Excel. It was an old cardboard box with names and, uh, their address. And then you, you have to call them. Right. And, and that's what we're like, okay, maybe I can do one, two businesses and then we could go to holidays. Um, and that's how it went. And that's how, um, I saw sales since when I got then older, I understood it more, but at the beginning it was like, what's, what is that?

And why is sometimes he's mad? Why is he screaming? I don't know. Um, and, uh, yeah, very exciting for me. That's, that's how it grew up. Hey, I hope you're enjoying the conversation so far. I want to take a quick minute to share with you what I'm working on these days with my new JB sales membership. It includes live monthly training delivered by me on my two signature courses, which are filling the funnel and driving a close that cover all aspects of the sales process. It also includes monthly workshops that I'll be running on specific sales skills and different tech skills like chat GPT and how to leverage AI throughout the entire sales process. Finally, the membership gives you access to my entire online catalog with every course and every tip I've ever done.

And as an exclusive offer to my podcast listeners, if you go to jbarrows.com, click on the individual membership link and use coupon code podcast at checkout, you'll get 25% off. Now let's get back to the conversation. I love it, man. And that's, I think, again, it either attracts you or detracts you. I think for me, you know, my dad was an entrepreneur, but he was an engineer and I kind of saw the opposite side of it. I saw the entrepreneurism as far as him working from home, but he was the exact opposite of sales. Like he was a hardcore, like super smart engineer and his problem was always, he didn't feel like he ever had to advertise his, his work because the work should speak for itself.

Right. And, and he was always frustrated that somebody who wasn't as good as him, who wasn't as, you know, qualified or whatever would always get promoted over him. And he just fought all the time. And I looked at that. I'm like, you got to promote yourself that like, you have to tell people sometimes, unfortunately, how good you are. Like, and you can do it in an authentic way, in a real way, but you can't just, it's like the engineers I talked to a lot where it's like, if you think, and this is kind of transitioning to our conversation today is if you think your product is what is going to sell, then you're, you're going to be very frustrated because you're constantly going to be chasing that next update, that next thing, because somebody else is going to come out with something better, faster, cheaper next week.

So it's not what you sell, it's how you sell. And, and that to me really resonated because obviously you need to have a product that works, that does the job, right? But it doesn't necessarily have to be the absolute best product, product in the industry to win. And so, you know, for your journey with, with, you know, from a sales standpoint, you know, you, you went into founder led sales, right? So you kind of started, talk to me about like getting up to surf. First of all, what drove the, your, your desire to start surf? What did you see out there? What problem were you noticing? And why did you want to solve this problem? Talk to me about that first. And then let's talk about from a sales standpoint, how'd you get after it?

The first baby we should start and how I got there, I would say. And I am, I found an interesting program in France and that's why I moved to Paris. And it was a master program, which is between an engineering school and the business school. So I knew, okay, I'm on the business side, not on the engineering side, unfortunately. But if I want to do something in, start building my own company, everything has to do with tech nowadays, right? So I found this program, which is, um, one of the best, uh, French business schools, um, kind of combined, uh, half of the program was with engineers and half of the program that were business people. So I thought, okay, I get at least into the right group in the right environment.

I do one year of a master. Um, I take one year of, um, starting something, hopefully, um, and finding out. And, um, if it not works, the downfall is I have, uh, two degrees from a super good engineering school and, and business school, right? So that was the plan. Um, and, uh, actually we, we worked throughout the year at a lot of different projects. And of course you, you go into and you try to attack a massive market. So you, you see, okay, what could you do? And then you want to ideally build the next Uber or Airbnb, right? So we, we took very big markets, uh, Romain, my, my co-founder was French, who's an engineer. He started in telecommunications and then went more to finance in this project.

And I was more on the e-commerce side. Um, interestingly was that surf was just a side hustle. It was basically for our work, for one of these big projects, we needed to do a discovery, ask 100 people, um, in the U S when we did an exchange at the start of COVID. And, um, we needed to go on LinkedIn because, uh, we didn't know anyone in the Bay area. And we thought, okay, let's, let's see and find some people on, on LinkedIn. Um, and we needed to use a CRM because we need to keep track and, uh, give it at the end of the two weeks. I think it was, uh, to a program manager to, to check on the results. Hence, I started adding people on LinkedIn, uh, writing them text messages and getting them ideally on the phone.

Um, and then I needed to keep track of it, uh, which I was not very good at, I would say, because I always looked for, for having as many phone calls as possible. But then everything else, what I did, I was not so particular about. Um, Roman was completely opposite, um, engineer by heart. So he said, no, no, no, it needs to be all structured. Um, and then we didn't find a solution how we could get our LinkedIn, uh, conversations into our CRM in an easy fashion. So no copy and pasting, right? He looked into Zapier. Zapier really didn't work for us. It was so complex also. It broke all the time. Um, so that's why, um, I just said, Hey, you know what? I worked in banking. I see end of the tunnel.

I do it, uh, in an all night or whatsoever. Uh, and then then we are finished. And he said, okay, you go your way. So really the business way. And I do the engineering way, which means, um, I tried to build a shortcut. And, uh, this shortcut was the very beginning. It was a purple button. We called the magic purple button, uh, on LinkedIn, a Chrome extension that gives you the possibility with one click to add a contact. So all the different contact details from LinkedIn into the HubSpot theorem. Um, so basically eliminating manual data entry for 20 fields and, um, then syncing the messages as well. Um, how we went from there is basically first, our colleagues were like, okay, can we have the shortcut as well?

Because we did a lot of interviews, blah, blah, blah, blah, uh, shared it with them. And then we thought, okay, we've, you've built this now. It's an amazing piece. And it's a little hack basically. Um, maybe there's salespeople who work on LinkedIn and the CRM, uh, who could be interested. Went on Facebook, uh, put a post out, Hey, we're looking for better testers. Um, and then from there went super quick. We launched them product hunt back in the days. I think it was, uh, four years ago. Now way nice on product count to launch because now there's so many products out there. Um, and, um, then we get our first, uh, clients. I remember when we had 200 EUR MRR within the first, uh, two weeks or something amazing.

Yes, we can, we can now, um, buy ourselves like one, two times, um, per month at dinner. So, um, still kept going on with our main projects, but then quickly switched. And, uh, then in under what, two years, switch from me and AR just, uh, with all the sales team and anything. So. So was this a, was this a PLG motion like product led growth? Like, did you give it away for free or did you immediately charge people for the service upfront? We immediately charged people, um, because we said, Hey, there's a value. Um, Hey, we're doing a bootstrap. We need to charge from day one. Otherwise this is going to end for you and for us. Um, so that's why day one, and I know your product was not, Alfred was not great.

I had a lot of bugs, but your product is never perfect or great. Uh, you always need to adjust it depends on depending on your, on your customers and feedback. So, um, yeah, this worked quite well for us. Yeah. And was it, was it one of those where individual users bought it and then you started going after the corporate like companies when you started to see that kind of, Oh, like 10 people. Was that the typical approach or did you stay focused on individual users for, for a period of time and then make the shift to say, okay, now we need to focus on corporate. To be honest, at the beginning, it was just, there is a problem of manual data entry, whether it's a small company, whether it's a large enterprise, they all have the same problem, but for big enterprise, it has a bigger weight.

So let's create a product, which is super easy to access. It needs to be in 60 seconds for everyone to understand a short time to value. So the first action is really the ad contact. So to, to, to see and, and create a habit. And from there on, um, we really applied some gamification elements in the product to really grow with the product, out of the product. And, uh, now we have four years, 28,000 installs, uh, with this Chrome extension. We have a lot of bigger companies who went in individual reps, have a credit card allowance, go buy, but just then buy a few licenses. Two years after we really had then CLM people who go into these accounts and actively upsell, right. But, uh, before it was, uh, amazing, a big logo.

How can we now get to this big enterprise and do some, some chess play? So they basically sell to the whole enterprise. And that was then, um, after two years, we, we got the, the real big logos in terms of quantity as well. Um, but it was exciting. I mean, it was first job for us in that sense. Right. So, yeah. What do you think led to you guys standing out in, I mean, the amount of tech stack sales, tech stack there is out there is just mind numbing, right? I mean, you saw the MarTech stack, you know, a while back that just grew and grew and grew. And then you have the sales tech stack that just grew and grew and grew. You know, and at this point, like I have a lot of people reaching out to me, Oh John, I want to, you know, now the AI tech stack is just growing and growing and growing.

And you know, I kind of had to shut it off for a while to like, cause I had so many people coming to me like, John, I need you to check out my new thing. And now I'm just like, dude, I'm sorry. There's just too much out there. Like I'm not interested in looking at it right now. If I have a problem, I'll go look for something that I can use to solve that problem, but I'm done evaluating here. And I think there's such a, especially when it comes to point solutions, right? Like everybody's kind of contracting back to platform play here. It's like, okay, let's consolidate into one thing because let's save money. We got a little over our skis with, you know, interest rates being down at historic lows technology, who cares?

Let's have overlap and everything else. So what do you think were the, you know, for you and for others that are trying to build these technical solutions, AI solutions or whatever, what do you think helps stand out from all the fucking noise that is out there right now? Yeah. So we thought about the go-to-market from the very early day on. We didn't know back then that it's called go-to-market by the way. But we just saw, okay, adding an extra layer or adding another platform, people won't buy our product because they already have six to eight tools, right? So how can we be present where they are present? So that's why it's the same story with, I don't know, you work at the desk at your home, right?

For one week. And then in the next week, I put on your desk, a glass of water. You start drinking the glass of water and you feel the effects of it. You are more productive, right? And then the next week I put it away again, but now you're missing it. So it created a habit for you to drink, to have in that same environment on your desk, a glass of water, it gives you productivity and to drink it and feel better and more productive. It's the same how we started with Surf. So we really put it inside LinkedIn where you spend up to even six hours per day now in sales. And we've made it so easy to, that it feels like a native integration of HubSpot to integrate with HubSpot. One click, 30 seconds, even you're on board, it's connected and you see the first value.

I think that's so important having the simplicity approach, being present where you are present. Because then for our go-to-market, we can piggyback on the CRMs. We made partnerships with them. We made the CRMs better. We activated the CRMs because you need contacts, right? To push into deals later on. And that was, I think, how we thought about go-to-market when we built the product and when we launched it. But back then, we didn't know that it's go-to-market. So ignorance is, uh, is part of the plan, right? It's like, I think that's to me, I always say like, I wish I read more. I wish I looked at history more and that type of thing. Cause I could learn from a lot of mistakes, but for some reason, I'm just a glutton for punishment.

I like making my own mistakes. So I just keep going forward. And, you know, eventually I trip over something that, that actually might work. Um, but I think the, the challenge, right, is, is that, okay, so we have the go-to-market strategy, if you, you know, whatever you want to call it, but then it's like, okay, we have some traction here. And I think the, the, the allure for most founders, especially engineering founders, right? I, I, I have this post that I did a while ago called the engineer, uh, the founder's dilemma, which is typically an engineering founder goes out there, they create a product. And because, you know, they're passionate about that product. And I always say sales is the transfer of enthusiasm, right?

If you believe in what you sell, it's, it's about that transfer. So they have passion for what they created. Then they typically go out there and try to sell it, if you will, to, to friends, families, and fools, like people who they're, they're close with, who are obviously going to probably give them good feedback, you know, those, and might even buy a few. And then the engineer gets kind of like, oh, great. Well, everybody wants this. Everybody needs this. So now let me just hire a sales rep and go, right. Or, or hire a VP of sales and go. But because that VP of sales doesn't have the background, they don't have the passion. They don't really know what the market is. They tend to fail miserably.

And then the engineer founder says, you know what? I knew sales was a joke, blah, blah, blah. Let me go to marketing now. And then whatever. So how, you know, with your founder led sales approach, you know, what was, what was the catalyst to make the switch? And what did you have to, what did you feel like you had to have in place to like, as a foundation, as a structure or whatever, before you could add that next piece to then take it to that next level? So, yeah, basically we bootstrapped the first two years, right? And then we took a fundraise. With the fundraise, we thought, okay, now we have money. We need to, uh, kind of have maybe product market fit. We were at 500,000 AR. So we were close to realize that.

Meaning, uh, let's, uh, hire sales people. So let's go times three next year. And it's easy because, uh, it's just five sales people we need to hire and then they sell our product. Uh, so numbers add up, right? So easy. Uh, on the spreadsheet, they look great. It looks great. Exactly. And also the investors say, yeah, no, you need to go big. You need to hire sales people. No, you need to go to market, right? Um, so we did know how to run a sales team. Um, of course, founder led sales gave us the experience, at least how to run a demo, how to sell efficiently. Um, but still from no sales prior, prior sales experience, right? Um, so we hired these five sales people. First of all, we didn't know what to look in for in the sales person.

I think that was the first fold. Second, uh, we didn't have a clean CRM ourselves. So we didn't have a rev ops. Um, it was, uh, very, uh, kind of, uh, unstructured. Not everything was filled out, looking for data. Uh, so it was really a mess. I must say duplicates everywhere. Um, we really didn't know what works, kind of what ICP we should address. Um, so hiring five people with thinking like, Hey man, we, we did bootstrapped, uh, like to a million. Now it's so easy, right? I mean, if we did that just with, uh, ourselves or back then we had also interns, a few, so five to seven people, I would say, and now the sales people can take it and double and bring it to the next stage, right? We miserably failed.

And, um, I must say we failed because of various reasons. The first one, we didn't know what to look in for a sales person. So, um, sales person are good at selling themselves, especially, right? So, um, you need to see, exactly. Exactly. So you really need to dig deep, have also later on reference calls, but even though we started, um, hiring people coming from a very good, uh, I would say CV background on the CV, uh, it all made sense, right? Big enterprise, man, Salesforce, they, they sell the big enterprise, right? No Salesforce. They are all sitting in a golden cage, have their SDRs and BDRs bringing in business so that they just need to close. And it's a complete different, um, mindset and also kind of sales flow, uh, they're having, and we are early stage, right?

So you need to dig for everything. You are the SDR and the AE in person for full cycle rep, which we didn't understand at the beginning as well, because we hired an SDR. So we didn't understood the SDR position. We did understand the AE position and just hired five to six people. Uh, so yeah, finding the right people, um, who have this kind of sales gen. Now it's, it's difficult to describe what it is, but I would say after talking to so many sales people and having so many interviews, you kind of quickly see if there's a sales gen hunter attitude or not. Um, so that's how it starts, uh, then having rev ops, having the right CRM system, the right sales math to see what's the right ACV we go for, where we have the shortest year cycles, where we have to the highest LTV, basically the lowest churn, right?

All this data work. And for me, the most important, and that's also where I recently talked, for instance, with the, um, sales leader of Dataiku, an organization who has now 600 sales people, I guess, uh, he said being on the field is the most important. So you need to be on the field with your sellers. Otherwise they can bullshit you in your one-on-one calls. Uh, you have otherwise maybe micromanagement approach. So you need to be on the field so that they can see, Oh, okay. Our leaders with us and I can follow him or her, and I can believe in that. Right. So I think that's the biggest one. And it's also the same for big orgs because they said we didn't have regional sales managers who were on the field and then things go, go, go down.

Right. So I would say these, these three things is as far as important. Yeah. I don't think it's, it's to double down on, on absolute, I mean, all three of those, right. To know what to look for is especially the type of sales rep that you need, right. Different companies need different types of sales reps. Um, and it takes a little while to figure that out, but the, the, the lead by example factor, right. I think that to me is the best leaders I've come across, the best sales managers, the best leaders are the ones who lead by example and show the reps that they're in it with them. They know what the game is. It's not like they did it 10 years ago and now they're barking at them, you know, just to update their forecast.

And I mean, even for me, you know, even after I sold my first company, I remember joining this other, you know, company as a sales rep and it was a trainer. And I remember the VP just barking at me like, you know, when you make, you know, how many cold calls you make today and all this other stuff. And, you know, I'm an, I'm kind of an asshole. So, you know, I, I remember looking at him like, I don't know how many cold calls have you made? You know what I mean? Like, and granted that should have been a fireable offense, but, um, but I had the same story was, uh, when I worked in the bank and I was in a trading room with my ex boss and exactly the same story as you, I also barked back at him.

We didn't talk for two days. Um, but I think sometimes you need to do that to, to, to gain your, I don't know, in German we say fetters or to gain some, I don't know, hair on like an animal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's absolutely. I mean, well, what was interesting was after I barked back at him, we didn't, same thing. We didn't talk for like a week, but then the next week when we were doing our call blitz, he was in his office with his door open with his headset on and he was making cold calls and I'm sitting there and when I tell you they were, he was one of the best I've ever heard making cold calls. And as soon as I heard that and saw him do it, I was like, holy shit. Okay. Headset on. I got to get after it now.

And so I think there's, you know, yes, we can coach. Yes, we can tell people what to do, but if you're telling me what to do and I don't really have a sense that you've done this before, or you actually know how to do this, or you did it so long ago that it's just not as relevant today because things are different, then I'm not going to buy into this whole vision for you. And, and one of the questions was talking about vision. Let's, from a leader standpoint, how do you, let's talk about kind of the vision and how you get people bought in to, to work with, at surf, not just, you know, be an employee, but really be part of the company. Like what's your approach to, cause it, you know, there's one thing about hiring people, giving them a salary.

Okay, great, whatever. But I always say like, if you can't get people bought into a vision, they're just going to do their job. And, and then that's what you should expect. But if you can get people to buy in to the culture, the vision and where things are going, you can get them to do way more than just their job. So what are some of the things that you do as a leader to get your organization aligned and rallied around the vision of what you're trying to accomplish? I think it's always comes down to people. So, um, if you don't believe into the vision as a founder, um, or if you see that the founders become a bit less affair and then people see that people see that so quickly. So they're not fully bought in then anymore.

They see the founders are not fully bought in. They're not fully bought in. So I think it comes everything down to that need to be repeatable every week. We repeat the vision. You need to be relatable as well as a founder. You need to be there. And I think that's the most important and people see that so quickly. Yeah. Yeah. You got a little bit. Did you start this with the idea of selling it or did you start this with the idea of, of solving a problem and seeing where it went, seeing where it could go? Solving a problem. I mean, uh, as we said, we had the same problem being back then in, uh, Berkeley and, uh, doing this customer discovery. So we didn't plan to build this particular business or company, uh, which was, which was a more side hustle as I said, right?

Yep. And I think that's the mistake I see a lot of young founders look for. Oh, I'm going to start this company going to do this and then I'm going to sell it too. And I always tell them if you start a company because you want to sell it, the likelihood of you ultimately selling it is not going to be high, right? You've got to start it because a, you're passionate about whatever the problem is and you're solving an actual problem that, that people, you know, have an issue with. And then the money will, then if it's good enough and you, and you solve a big enough problem, then the money will come eventually. But if you start with the end game in mind, usually you're going to fail pretty horribly, you know, pretty early too.

Yeah. I think Bill Gates, Bill Gates is Bill Gates now, but I think he said, uh, you need to do it for love and the work and then money comes along and it's at the end. It's, it's true. I mean, as a bootstrap founder, especially we didn't pay ourselves for what the first one and a half years or something. So it's really tough. We had some savings we put in, started literally with both each 10 K. Uh, so it's really tough lives, but you need to love it and you need to have this determination and resilience, uh, because otherwise it's so, so tough. Yeah. If you don't believe, I mean that being an entrepreneur is, is like now all of a sudden a sexy thing, right? It's like, Oh, I want to be an entrepreneur.

It's like, I got this, I had this conversation with my cousin at Thanksgiving here in the States and he was like, yeah, I want to be an entrepreneur, you know, my buddy. And I'm like, do you, do you know what that means? First of all, there's one thing about being at a startup, you know, joining a startup and the chaos and whatever. But there's another thing about actually being the entrepreneur who has the idea, starts the idea, has to fund it, has to pay everybody else's salaries, those types of things. Just because you join a small startup company doesn't mean you're an entrepreneur. And, and, and going back to like, if you really want to be one, you have to believe it. You have to have such conviction because the ups and the downs of a day-to-day entrepreneur are absolute misery.

I mean, absolute chaos, absolute misery. Like there's been times where I've been up, like, I can't believe I did this to myself, quite frankly, like, why don't I just go get a job as a sales rep and make a half a million dollars a year and tell everybody to leave me the fuck alone. Right. But you, you need to have that conviction. You need to have that driver or else it just is not going to work. Yeah, no, definitely. Definitely. And that's the rollercoaster, right? It's, uh, of course it's tough in the downs, but it's also so exciting in the ups. And, um, I don't know if I could ever go back to a normal job. Uh, I have no clue. I think it would be fun to just go for one week. You know, this, uh, there's, there's a series in Germany, like, uh, like a job change or something like this.

Uh, so I would love to, to see that because every day there's so much happening, right. And it's so tough sometimes to not jump between the topics because at a 40 people company, it just happens. Right. Uh, no, I, I am straight up unemployable. Like there's no way I could ever work for, I can't even take money. Like as far as funding is concerned, I can't even take money. Cause I don't even want a boss from that perspective. Like I don't want somebody's money that they'll tell me what to do. And I've like, I have this like allergic reaction to somebody else telling me what to do. And that's not exactly in my benefit, by the way. Like I've, I think I've, I've made my life a lot harder, uh, over the years because I just, I, I, I have this itch to pretty much always do it myself and, and not have somebody else telling me what to do.

And, but going back to it, if you found the right partner, if you found the right investor, and if you found the right people, like it makes all the difference in the world compared to just getting money from somebody who's going to tell you what to do. Yeah. Your, your partner is also so important. Um, so I'm really shit in the top picks where Walmart's great and vice versa. And we know that, right? Uh, I don't want to be an old star in everything because I can't, um, I I'm good at the things where I'm good at. And I constantly push for this genius zone in me. And we always try to reach the same as the employees, but understanding that is so important as well, because I think otherwise we would have failed way more in the beginning.

And, um, yeah, he knows. If you have the same skills that what I learned is if you have the same skills, if you start a business with somebody that has the same skillset as you, inevitably, you're going to start to question what they do because you can technically, you know, in your mind, you can do what they do. And so if they don't do it the way you like it, you're going to start to nitpick that. But if you start with people who have different skillsets, you know, for me, my first hire was my CLO CFO, right? So she was operations, finance, and everything. Now I understand operations. I understand finance. It is not my specialty though. So I would challenge her on those types of things like, Hey, what about this?

Whatever. But I would ultimately defer to her expertise. Whereas from a sales business development and vision standpoint, that was my, that might, so it really, we complimented each other really, really well. But my first startup, I had another sales guy like me and we just, we literally butted heads like this because we eventually got to a point where, okay, I'm bringing in more money than you are. So therefore I'm more valuable than you are. And all of a sudden I'm better. You know what I mean? That type of stuff. And it was, it just tore us apart. I heard exactly the same stories from, from friends like, Hey, can you have maybe a chat with my co-founder? I don't know if you can do the fundraising.

So, you know, these first doubts I'm like, well, because you have similar profiles probably. So you need to put the trust out there from day one and you need to keep the trust. And it's so important. And then when it comes to hiring, because you mentioned your, your first kind of C level hire, right? Another game when we hired now our first leadership, how do I manage someone who's probably having more experience than me, um, who, who, uh, kind of did the things before, um, how to, to handle a leadership C level role. Right. So that's why I think, um, such a beautiful rollercoaster because every year we say every year is different. It's all over again. It's all over again. And, uh, it's, that's just crazy to entrepreneurship.

Yeah. I love it, man. So, so let's talk about just from, you know, your perspective of where you see things going. Right. So obviously I think with you investing, you know, going to get funding for the organization, you want to take this to the next level. You're focusing on augmenting sales reps, not replacing them. Um, but there's this pretty strong trend right now of AI tools who are really taking over, uh, the, the, the vast majority of what sales reps do. And I'm going to put this in a, in context of what average sales reps do. You know what I mean? Like the ones who are kind of going through the motions and doing what they've been told to do. I think the 20, the 80, 20 rule here is, is all over the place, right?

I think the Pareto's rule that the 20% are always going to survive. They're always going to evolve and they're always going to be insanely valuable. But my concern right now is for the vast majority of the rest of the sales reps out there where all these tools are coming to effectively replace what they do or the vast majority of what they do in a lot of ways. So where do you see the, uh, with what you're doing, right? And also what you're seeing out there with all the other tools and technology that's kind of quote unquote competing with what you're doing. Where do you see us evolving to here in the next couple of years from a, like a sales standpoint? Like what is, what does the sales rep need to be doing right now to stay relevant in this, in this market?

Cause it's really hard for me to wrap my head around all the tech stuff. And if you do the tech, use the tech the right way, the shit is bananas. So where are you seeing it from your side? I think we always talk about what is going to change in the next 10 years, but we never ask the question, what is not going to change? And I think in sales, what never changed in the last 100 years is the relationship approach. So every tool that can focus or increase my relationship will win. Meaning at the moment we do 60% of manual data entry, for instance, right? A tool who can cut and bring me more to the relationship will win. So I think that's where I see everything heading more relationship than ever, because we get our emails blasted and so many more things.

So if you focus on that with your tool, I think you're going to win. Yeah. So what are the skills that you think that sales reps need to focus on right now? Right? Because the challenge here is a lot of the, and I've said this a couple of times recently on conversations is, you know, I did a lot of grunt work when I was early in sales. You know, I, again, kind of like you were saying with your dad, I like handwritten things, wrote down stuff, put this in this. And as painful as all that shit was like door to door sales, cold calling, all that stuff. It turned me, it gave me the context. It gave me the business acumen. It gave me the sales fundamentals that allow me to be today who I am in sales and able to leverage, in my opinion, the technology the right way, right?

Again, going back to augmentation versus automation. But now with the vast majority of those admin tasks and all that shitty grunt work, being able to be taken care of by technology, I guess I'm wondering like, what are the fundamentals moving forward and what do sales reps need to focus on? And I guess relationships, but I mean, it, people in this micro content world that we're in and the immediate gratification, like relationships are suffering in general as a population, because we're always looking for that short term satisfaction. So what would you suggest like sales reps need to focus on right now in order to evolve with wherever we're going? Because I don't know, I don't think anybody can say what 10 years out looks like.

I don't even think anybody can look and say what two years looks out at this point. So what do you suggest reps do now to put themselves in a business to be evolved with wherever this goes? I think SDRs and BDRs. So to get specific, they will move more up. So meaning they have more time to do discovery calls. And that's what we see. We also probably will have a more full cycle rep motion because now you can as a rep, as an AE, I mean, can you do your own research and prospecting probably with an AI agent. So that's what I'm going to see. Meaning, I think going back to cold calls, it sounds weird, but I think there's a higher chance now, especially as these new SDRs and BDRs are Gen Z. They're not used to speech, they're more used to text.

So I think there's a bigger chance where you can like prove yourself and have a good script, for instance. That's why I see the SDR and AE roles at the moment evolving now. Yeah, I think it's the ones who are paying attention, right? The ones who are working on that, you know, figuring out, I keep telling reps, you said, you know, earlier that nothing beats, you know, founder, when a founder is in the field with the rep, right? Well, also nothing beats being in the field in general. And sometimes you have to manufacture that in the sense that, you know, maybe you're in a tech sales where you're sitting in your office, you know, and that's, that's your world. So it's really hard to personally interact with people and, you know, and understand body language and that type of stuff.

So force yourself to go out to networking events at night, force yourself to, to, to go to events and introduce yourself and, and develop those relationships outside of that job so that you understand what relationship development actually is. And that's the thing that I think a lot of reps are missing right now is they're jumping from school into effectively a virtual world where relationships are damn near impossible to develop in a rate and like real core relationships and trust. And those types of things are brutal to try to, you know, in a one hour conversation over zoom in a 30 minute conversation over zoom. So, you know, cause anybody can put a, you know, a face on as far as, uh, yeah, this is great.

But then behind the scenes, you have no idea. So like a lot of this, we have to almost be proactive in saying, look, we have to go out and find ways to reconnect with people outside of this world. I just paid for a meetup with sales leaders to, to one of my sales reps, uh, 1200, I think. And I was like, it's really expensive to be honest, because it's just a one evening and it's a very expensive ticket, but there's so many, uh, decision makers, so many people in our ICP. And I saw his recent deals happen a lot on the relationship side in person. Right. So that's why I said, okay, I think this will be worth for your pipeline and we're going to invest into that. So going back to old traditional ways, I think, uh, especially as a new entrance are more, the Gen Z is the way to go.

And because you have way more opportunities here, you know, know so many about our prospects, uh, before we even jump on the call or the meeting with them. So, uh, sales cycles are shorter. So the relationship is way more important now than ever before. Right. Because all the rest you can, you from this cover, you, you know, before. Yeah. Yeah. And building trust is, uh, isn't something you can do and, you know, I mean, you can, you can earn it right by doing some homework and having good questions, that type of stuff, but it's not something you can, you know, kind of build in the first 15 minutes of the call, quite frankly. So, um, awesome, man. Well, let's finish up with one. What's your, um, you know, you like talking pretty direct and unconventional shit and those types of things.

So any, any, uh, uncommon or not popular view that you have right now that you think is everybody else is holding on to that you're just like, nah, this is bullshit right now. What is bullshit right now? I mean, I hear a lot about AI SDRs, to be honest. I do believe the underlying tech. Yes, I do believe it will make a change, but at the moment it's still a shell. So we see the same tech we used before just wrapped in a nice gifting or shell. So I think we still need to wait until they really prove themselves. I know we see they have a lot of kind of revenue creation, but also a lot of churns. So I think we're still not there, but we believe in a technology, but we need to wait still a bit. Um, I would say, um, yeah, that's currently, I would say my, um, yeah, I think it's, it's just more about the odd, like, again, I think that nothing replaces the, the top SDRs, the top AEs, the top sales reps.

I, I, there's not a technology out there that I think is going to catch up to the, the really good ones who know how to develop rapport relationships, understand need and pain. It's the ones who are, like I said, just going through the motions, right? The ones who are just showing up, setting out their cadences, you know, you're making general calls. Yeah, you can do that with AI, right? AI workflows, we do the same and we believe in that, but I think at the end, someone needs to be there for the relationship and on the phone. I recently got from an AI a phone call, which I was, this is so not relatable to me and I'm not going to call back, right? So I'm not seeing that yet. I see everything before and I see empowerment, but I don't see replacement.

And to be honest, I never see replacement. I see just people spending 80% of the work on the relationship and 20% on admin instead of 80% admin, what we saw before, right? Yeah. Well, let's hope, let's hope that wave doesn't wipe out too many people. Let's put it that way. And those reps actually do use that time to develop the rapport because otherwise I think we're, a lot of people are in a lot of trouble, but David, this has been an awesome conversation. Exactly. It's a fight almost against each other. I saw recently in San Francisco, little groups like, I don't know, between quotes, F-U-C-K, AI, SDRs, and they had all these t-shirts like almost demonstrating. I was like, okay, interesting, probably all these reps at the big enterprise companies, SDRs.

So I'm really curious where this is going to take. I'm happy that we see hopefully finally some revolution in the sales space because if we're honest, the last revolution was finding a mobile number, right? That was the last revolution. So AI is so fast in so many different kind of topics, but sales was not really in the last, last years kind of stuff by AI, at least not real, real stuff by AI. So let's see where this goes. I think that's where I'm super excited. I see money goes in. I see a lot of market entrants. So it will be even harder for go-to-market. And I see a lot of challengers in the pre-sales, on the CRM spaces as well, right? I see HubSpot doing an excellent job. I think they did 2,000 product shipments just this year at this scale of 2 billion revenue.

So it's amazing where this market goes and that's where I'm exciting for. And let's see how we can position in all of that. And yeah, I think that will be exciting. And I'm happy that we have such a big customer base to continue to develop with them. That helps. That helps. And yes, we are here for the next revolution, but together with the sales reps and SDR and BDR. Love it. Awesome, David. Well, thanks again for coming on this. I love the conversation and the insights here, especially on the founder side of the house for so many people out there who are thinking about starting businesses, wanting to start businesses and kind of thinking that it's all this beautiful, fun, cool shit and not realizing the grind that it takes.

But I love it here. So how come more people find out more about what you're doing, about Surf, where you want to point people? On LinkedIn. So basically, check for Surf. So S-U-R-F and an E at the end. Because when we rebranded, actually, our first name was Leechert, so maybe some listeners know that. But we looked for Surf, but the domain was for self for a million or something. So we said, ah, nah. It was our second year. So we added an E to basically, yeah, the name creation between Surf, Surfing. Because the Shaka symbol, right, this is pretty much the same, like the sales phone call symbol, if you just flip it. And then, yeah, and then we are serving clients right at the end of the day.

So that's why. Little name creation, that's where you can find us, surf.com, on LinkedIn, David Choyier. Bit of a complicated name for non-French speakers. I don't know. Good luck with finding that. But, yeah, happy to connect on all this. Awesome, David. Well, thanks again for coming on. I appreciate it. Likewise. Thanks. Thanks, John. And everybody, thanks for listening. Hope you got, enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. Like I always say at the end of all these podcasts, go out there and make somebody smile today. Because no matter how bad your day is going, or how bad you think it went, you make somebody smile today, and you know you had a good day. And the world needs a lot more of that right now.

So thank you all very much, and I will see you on the other side. Hey, everyone. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. With your support and our incredible guests, we're one of the top sales podcasts out there right now, and I can't thank you enough. Now, to keep the momentum going, it would mean the world to me if you could go and leave a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform and share some of your favorite episodes with your network. Also, I am super excited to be launching my new newsletter, where I'll be sharing everything I know and everything I'm learning along the way while I'm out there selling every day just like you. Go to jbarrows.com slash newsletter to sign up today.

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