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Notion’s Foundations of Product-Led Growth & Marketing: Insights from Rachel Hepworth
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We hosted Richard Sherman, Decibel Advisor and NFL All-Pro, in a live discussion with four successful entrepreneurs from the tech industry. The event was for founders building companies in today’s world, and highlighted the persistence and perseverance required by every great leader to break through and challenge the status quo.
Our panel of founders included:
[8:12] - Richard Sherman describes how he uses data to break down football into simple math problems
[31:35] - Delane Parnell and Richard Sherman discuss what it takes to build a winning culture and the importance of respect for every single person, no matter their role
[37:00] - Michelle Zatlyn and Richard Sherman discuss the importance of having a strong team around you off the field, including family and friends
[44:18] - Bhaskar Sunkara and Richard Sherman talk about "betting on yourself" and Richard describes why he negotiated his own contract when he came to the San Francisco 49ers
[55:10] - Dug Song and Richard Sherman discuss how to make fast decisions and the importance of trusting your instincts even when you are tired or under great duress
[1:01:55] - Richard Sherman describes his personal motivation to have his kids see him at his best. A surprise visitor makes the moment even more memorable for all!
Michelle Zatlyn, Cloudflare: Being a good storyteller is an important part of changing mindsets. When you’re putting so much on the line and people tell you “I don’t get it,” you feel like you’re weighed down – and that’s not pleasant. I think it’s very common in a founder's journey. But what I found was you have to get really good at storytelling and sharing the bigger vision with the people around you. When we started to use words like, “We're trying to keep the internet open and free, and we’re trying to democratize it,” that was when people said, “Hey, that sounds cool – tell me more.” And that's how we got our first employees and investors. I think connecting to a larger narrative around your mission can be really helpful early on with getting people to come along for the ride.
Dug Song, Duo Security: Building a team that agrees to experiment and test makes a huge difference on the inside. If you've built your team well, then you've built a really diverse team with a broad array of experiences and mindsets – but this means it will become much harder to achieve consensus on any given topic or decision. That’s why we ended up codifying some strategies for decision making. Maybe only 40% of us will agree that something is the right thing to do, but 100% of us will commit to supporting that decision – because in two weeks, we'll huddle, look at the data, and revisit how we did. One of our corporate values is to learn together and to engineer the business through these experiments.
Bhaskar Sunkara, AppDynamics: As founders and leaders, we set the example for our teams. We have to keep growing and maturing – especially in a place like Silicon Valley where you see so many accomplished people. If you're in an environment like that, it's very natural for you to push yourself to the next level and encourage others to do the same.
Delane Parnell, PlayVS: I agree with Bhaskar. You need to be constantly focused on getting better, but also becoming as much of a practitioner as a learner. I’ve tried to learn by hiring the most experienced people for every important role at our company and giving those people agency to do their jobs, while also making sure that they're all aligned with our vision. It’s important to remember that we learn from each other.
Michelle Zatlyn, Cloudflare: It’s a little like a fairy tale. I grew up in the middle of Saskatchewan, Canada – certainly not where you would think a tech founder would come from. With our two founders, we just all showed up in the Bay Area, knowing nobody – and we had no track record. But we found investors like Jon Sakoda who said, this idea is kind of crazy, but if it works, this could be really interesting.
There was a lot of hard work and lonely moments and lows – but the lows do make the highs even higher. I used to think, I don't understand why anyone starts a company because it's so lonely and so hard in those middle years. And now that I'm on the other side, it's great, although still really hard! I think that if you're onto something, keep going – if you’re passionate about it, you can make it happen.
