Transcript: Building a Startup Inside a Startup

Eyal David: [00:00] Hey friends, this is Eyal. You've reached Product Builder, and here you'll get to listen to the most interesting product conversations. My journey began in 2012, when I learned what product means at my own startup. Since then I've worked in the industry, and since 2017 my company has been consulting for a range of companies. My drive is to help all of us become better product people. And before we start — if you enjoy listening to Product Builder, please rate us five stars on Spotify. It gives me great feedback that the podcast is providing you value, and it would make me really happy. So come on, let's begin! Hi Shelly, how's it going? Hey, great. So glad you're here.

Shelly Shimoni: [00:39] I'm glad you invited me, thank you. Of course — we've also been waiting a long time for this, and really... right.

Eyal David: [00:46] It's just before Rosh Hashanah — this will come out afterward, but if so, then happy new year. Happy new year. So we've got Shelly, who comes from Verbit AI, she's VP of e-commerce and Direct Business, which basically means that... well, we'll talk about it more, but it really has two parts. One part relates to what we call the small customers, customers who need service at a lower intensity, but through a kind of machine — I'll tell you about it — a well-oiled one we built, and through self-service, which is the second project, the one you and I are both connected to, and... connected because we work together. Exactly. And it should be said that... basically, Shelly... yes. We talked for a long time about you coming here, because we're going to talk about how you build a startup inside a startup. Right, right. So let's talk a bit about you, to give some context on your background — you can kind of run down the timeline and tell us a little.

Shelly Shimoni: [01:40] So let me tell a bit. I started at McCann, and yes, that was the first place where I really started getting to know what the world of growth is, performance — a kind of school for advertising. I was there about a decade. From there I made a sharp move into the world of marketing, I was at Strauss. At Strauss I was in a kind of cross-cutting role, a headquarters role, whose job was to serve all the business units within Strauss, so really working with all the brands, the well-known ones. Strauss — you jump right in. Really, honestly it was, it also opened me up a lot, and truly a very intense role, really opened me up to all the different panels in the company. And very, very close work with marketing managers, learning how to build together with them the strategy of very, very well-known brands, both in Israel and worldwide — it's Milky and... suddenly, crazy budgets. And huge budgets, right, really huge budgets. Leading that is wild. Really, really — I remember arriving there just as I was coming back from maternity leave, I came in to charge ahead, and it really was a charge, and the thing grew fast too, and it brought a lot of value within the company, and as I grew within it, I also built a kind of unit, whose job was really to manage all the work of media buying and strategy building, but in-house, according to our best practices, so... so there too you arrived and basically built something from scratch. Because I'm a builder — that's it, I'm a pioneer, apparently what excites me is getting to things that need building,

Eyal David: [03:16] and building them, and then moving on. So amazing — so you were in that world, and from there you basically entered the tech world, how was that?

Shelly Shimoni: [03:25] So I always had it in my head that when I moved on, it wouldn't be to the classic worlds of classic marketing. I saw myself less leading a food-world brand now; I felt that this place of innovation and technology was something within me, and it was clear to me that this was a leap I was going to make, and so I was always eyeing those worlds, but I really was waiting for a timing that would suit me on a personal level too, and also to understand what exactly within all of this I wanted to do, but for me it was clear — I mean, it was clear to me that this was what I wanted. I mean, kind of surrounded at home, right? Your dad, and your partner is in product too. So right, totally — so the entrepreneurial background too, let's put it that way, is something I feel is somehow always within me, and always meets me. So although we're speaking here on Product Builder, which really comes from the product worlds, I can't say I'm a product person who grew up on product's knee, you know, like the more classic product people, but I do very, very much feel that this entrepreneurial place is something that's always with me. My dad is also an entrepreneur, and I really took a lot from him. And honestly at home too, Ran, my partner, is also really strong in the product worlds, so the language is one you constantly hear. And honestly, in marketing too there's a lot of product development, it's just really bringing it from another angle, one that's a more technological direction. And okay, so basically you managed huge budgets,

Eyal David: [05:01] and how exactly did you get to Verbit? Verbit was the next stop, right? So Verbit was the next stop. Roughly what year? Can you place us on the timeline?

Shelly Shimoni: [05:09] 2021? A rare year. A rare year. Honestly it was a year, in Verbit's context too, of exactly the craziest hype — like literally the day after I arrived at Verbit, an article came out that Verbit had become a unicorn, over 100 million dollars, like really... small by Strauss standards. Totally, but I completely felt that spirit, of being awaited, and here too it was really about building something new — I joined the marketing department, but really to lead, to build a growth department, from scratch, a huge team, really full of responsibility,

Eyal David: [05:48] so I was really, really excited to lead something like that. And okay, so you joined Verbit — let's tell a bit about what Verbit AI is.

Shelly Shimoni: [05:56] So Verbit AI — first of all, Verbit AI is currently in a very, very interesting process, a kind of change it's going through, I mean, broadly, Verbit is a company that basically sits on technology, that knows how to provide transcription services, based on AI, based on artificial intelligence. Within that there are actually many sub-companies, that make it up, that go out to serve — mainly in the US, by the way — all kinds of different verticals. And the transformation, the change it's going through, is essentially from a company that provides services — which are ultimately basic transcription services — to a company moving more toward what we call Verbal Intelligence, which is basically taking the very professional use cases, whether in the legal worlds, the law worlds, or the worlds of Education and media, and basically providing a kind of specialization that sits on a foundation of insights, with all of this built on top of the technology — so essentially going much more strongly into the specialized worlds of SaaS, and that's what Verbit does. So we're in a kind of very, very interesting process, where we're constantly expanding into more content worlds, and that's it — I've been part of this process for almost three years now. It's a company where — as we'll talk about shortly — about what it means to feel like an entrepreneur inside a growing company, but I think there's something super special about being in a company that's also in a kind of development, that constantly has to build itself, to react fast to changes — this world of AI, and of course of transcription, which is our industry, ultimately went through a process of democratization, became something much more of a commodity, so essentially, within that place, how do you as a company know how to provide value — and not just value in the professional sense of a knowledge base, but also in the technological sense of offering some differentiation that's different — and that's basically what we do today. And of course the project I lead, its role is basically to deliver that value from a different angle. That's it — you really address huge companies by definition, and now this is the move that's happening,

Eyal David: [08:05] that basically enables all this goodness. Right. So tell us for a sec, what does your day-to-day look like?

Shelly Shimoni: [08:11] What does it look like? Wow. So first of all, super varied. It's kind of a day of waking up in the morning. Honestly, even before waking up — you have the night before, where I always carry these thoughts in the evening about what I didn't do enough, or what I need to do more of. But broadly it's, I mean, first of all my role has two parts. So let's say the first part was — and still is — basically serving the small customers. Customers — we have tons and tons of small customers, who are spread across all the different verticals we serve. And it's knowing how to give that service an immediate response. The unit I run manages almost 3,000 customers. So obviously that service can't be on a one-to-one strategy. I mean, I can't give the same level of personalization I could give a customer who is small, versus a customer who's large. So basically, what my unit did was to build a kind of machine that knows, in a very smart way, through a lot of automation, how to provide service — through a kind of — we identify all sorts of trends, we know how to say when, say, a customer is growing. Of course, it's all based on data, and really a lot of dashboards we sit on, but really knowing how to identify when a customer is declining or rising, to know how to identify that, or not — the feeling that they're constantly in some communication with us, so for them they don't feel that I or our unit manages 3,000 customers; from their perspective they're the person dealing directly with me — there are my reps in the US — and from their perspective they get full service. So we really built a kind of ecosystem that's very, very efficient, well-oiled, that really knows how to identify occupancy and trends based on data, and that's one part of my role. So a lot of my work is really with the US market, so Sunday is a day of planning and calm, and then Monday is chaos. So that's one part. The second part is basically building the technology that will let us become more efficient, which is basically the project you and I work on together, the self-service, which is basically providing a kind of accessibility, taking our product that we serve today in a much more enterprise-y, large, kind of heavier way — there's operations and there's product and you need to do onboarding — so basically taking all of that and downsizing it, making it accessible to small customers who ultimately want to use us, but not necessarily go through a person, and so that the process becomes much simpler. And of course technological, because that's basically what we — it was essentially a promise to take our product and make it as technological and accessible as possible and offer it to all the verticals, the professions we offer today, but in a way that's e-commerce-y and simple and accessible and easy.

Eyal David: [11:05] And what else, like, I know you do, is really communicating with all these bodies, you plan a ton, you execute a ton, you basically have the company's board or your champions there who are essentially investors, whose okay you need, and you basically need... totally. Right? So like, you orchestrate this whole thing. Right, honestly it's really like

Shelly Shimoni: [11:28] managing a unit inside a much larger ecosystem, so it has tons and tons of challenges.

Eyal David: [11:35] And yes, it's also about — kind of what you do, and constantly telling that story, and also selling it a bit. Tell us a bit about your challenges.

Shelly Shimoni: [11:42] No challenges, no challenges. But no, obviously there are. The challenges — first of all, I think that... a growing company is in a place where it's basically constantly in a kind of proof of concept in and of itself. It constantly has to... show quickly, both to the board and in general, that there are quick wins, that we're constantly on some path that's growing, that's constantly growing. And that we do it efficiently. And that we do it efficiently, and fast, and basically cost-efficient, and basically — I don't say for nothing that we're a well-oiled machine — we're not a big team, but ultimately, I'm proud of that, because the idea is really to show how even a small team knows how to very quickly show how it works efficiently. It's constantly selling, selling, but not in the sense of getting to some meeting. Selling means that even when I go to the bathroom, and I have some conversation with the CEO, telling them really the pitch of what I do, and... you pitch your employees on the way to the bathroom? We meet, we meet, we meet sometimes on the way. Or in the elevator, or really... but it's really selling all the time. It's really selling all the time — like if someone calls me over for a sec, and tells me, is there a chance you could talk for a moment about the self-service — sure, sure, I immediately have this ready pitch, not because it's simple, but because you live it, you live it, and it's something that... I of course enjoy it, because it gives me the passion, and it's kind of something that's probably ingrained in me, this constant desire to feel that you need to be working on something, and that you need to push yourself — I probably really love that feeling of it not coming easily, but but it's also part of the challenge, really showing very quickly how you can bring success here. And maybe also if something doesn't succeed, then also to recover very quickly and... yes, especially in an industry that's changing, I mean also a change that's technological, and really Verbit as a company also went through many changes, so ultimately within that too, showing how you know, how to adapt, kind of very quickly adapting yourself to these changes, and being flexible. So that's also a challenge you point to. Totally. I think that this isn't for everyone — sometimes it's also waking up in the morning knowing, like, wait, what am I doing today? Hold on a sec, what am I doing today? It's a very entrepreneurial thing, there's something to it. Very much so. I mean, I think — I remember that in one of the changes the company went through, I started in a role that was slightly different, yes, I started in a role that was really more in the worlds of growth and marketing, which are of course foundations that serve me today too, but it was really a bit different, and I really remember that as part of the company's changes, I found myself, when I was thinking about self-service, literally two people in a room with a sheet of paper and a good computer — what do we know? What do we know? What's the vacuum we have? We started really playing with data, running customers in Salesforce and it really really started in the most from-scratch way, like — yeah, like I'm proud of that path, but it really was a path — it cut a path, I'm sure. And tell me, what's the advantage, moreover, of building a startup inside a startup? So for example, to give an example now — well, we have Salesforce, we look at the data of others and we can know... So the challenge is that there's some, there's something to build on, which I don't have — I mean, there's a problem you need to solve and you pretty much know what the problem is. I mean, when I approached this challenge of cracking small customers — by the way, my unit is also a unit that was formed out of that vacuum, I mean, we did a kind of focusing, understood that we want to go strongly after strategic customers, but suddenly some vacuum was created of, wait, what's happening with the small customers, and out of that was born the solution I proposed — okay, let's build them an engine, build them an engine that basically knows how to serve them, and there's infrastructure, I mean there's something to lean on, so you're not completely on your own — I mean, an entrepreneur who's maybe fully independent, that's really a much harsher baptism by fire, so for me, yes, I had something to lean on. There are also people I got to really rely on, whether it's analysis and marketing people and of course I have a very big backing — and this is also a chance to say thank you to him, to the SVP, the CFO, who really accompanies me and believes a lot in me and in this project, so there's something to lean on, you don't feel completely alone,

Eyal David: [16:08] but there's also a lot on you, like there's a lot on you and a lot riding on what you can bring — basically these are people who helped you with the vision.

Shelly Shimoni: [16:17] It's that I arrived — well, and basically breathing life into it, and like in different places, like probably yes, there are all sorts of junctions like these that — also junctions you kind of get stuck at, suddenly like — describe to me exactly the flow you wanted, or how do I know how to serve a vertical when I understand that not everything is built automatically on my end, and I do want to give it some kind of response, so there are many such crossroads, and I think the challenge is also knowing whom you bring into the room in order to help you solve that crossroads — it's a lot of, like, it sounds cheesy and kind of networking and all that, but there's a ton of networking work that happens within the organization, I mean that happens within your ability to identify who can help you solve, or reach the fastest solution to a problem — yes, that's a wonderful advantage, there's an abundance of very smart people you can rely on.

Eyal David: [17:11] Cool, and basically you've been working at a large company for three years already, and naturally from home you also see product, so I'll ask you a question we always ask here: basically what product skills do you think are most important? So first of all that's a great question,

Shelly Shimoni: [17:26] and honestly — well, I'll reveal that we started talking about this a bit beforehand too, and honestly you gave me an idea that we talked about, about someone on my team named Nili, who's amazing, and you kind of said to me, what is it about Nili, what do you think makes her like that, she's excellent — and it really suddenly distilled for me the things that are most important to me when I recruit people, or that are important to me and that I value in people generally, so I think it's a ton of creativity, I mean knowing — creativity, but not only in the sense of being a creative person; creativity in the sense of thinking fast about solutions, and knowing how to adapt yourself mentally to what the vacuum is that I can now solve, how can I quickly now arrange, take control of the situation, distill the problem, and come with a solution. I think that really, really sits on that, and it's also very much being an activist — meaning, not waiting; I think that's also generally an excellent trait of entrepreneurs, constantly knowing like, wait, what am I here to solve, how do I bring value here, how do I solve the problem of whoever's in front of me — so it's really about being organized, which you're a great example of too, right? So that's something that — I of course, I don't know how you like to operate in the world, totally different — totally, as an order freak myself, so I completely see it as something important, and it's also a bit like — there's something about being an entrepreneur, or in general also about being product people, which is knowing a lot about all kinds of things, I mean, you also have to come with a bit of marketing, and also understand data, and understand the numbers and analysis, and also understand, wait, users — I mean, the variety, your ability to kind of know like a bit of everything, or to know how to play with this toolbox a little each time — that's what makes you a truly good product person

Eyal David: [19:20] or a person who understands what the product needs. You know what I thought about yesterday, that touches on this a bit but is a bit different. Basically one of the roles of product, of the product person, is basically to identify bullshit — so like, if you know how to speak several languages, and basically several terminologies, and you know how to identify the bullshit, then like you've done enough. Totally. Your bullshit or the bullshit of... Honestly I have tons of these conversations

Shelly Shimoni: [19:40] with Ran, my partner, who's like, wait but I didn't get it, kind of, and it's a kind of asking a question that's like — like he identified the gap, where something stayed gray to the end, and that's — yes, it's constantly confronting that, like also knowing within yourself when you're bullshitting, like when you're kind of saying something that, wait, requires precision — and you're close to being a perfectionist, and all the things that...

Eyal David: [20:03] And that's ultimately a skill, that you draw out this feedback that isn't clear, that's yours — cool, I think you also talked — I just remember we talked about lateral thinking, and basically getting into the details, right, I think totally,

Shelly Shimoni: [20:17] I think a lot of the work is basically also knowing, on one hand knowing how to look ahead and several steps ahead, okay? Like, so this is what will happen in phase one, because it's the most important thing for the product — we really talk about this today too, what has to be at launch now and what comes after, so really knowing, like, understanding what's actually important for now and what's important for later, and knowing how to plan that, but on the other hand also knowing how to get down to the details, I mean, not to wander, not to go kind of around, to understand, wait, that every detail here is meaningful, yes, really so, because a mistake costs money.

Eyal David: [20:53] Yes, totally, really, okay, so I think from here let's really dive into the topic of the episode: how to build a startup inside a startup. You explained all the background that led you there — I'm sure your career at Strauss too has, there's a real connection to it — so how did it actually start? What did it look like at the beginning? So at the beginning, so basically

Shelly Shimoni: [21:14] first of all, kind of, as I said, the company went through some change, we kind of understood very fast that our core business sits on large customers, I'm telling you, on huge customers — yes, we, like, Verbit today does the Super Bowl on one hand, and Netflix, and really very, very large customers we work with, and we understood that this was the focus, and alongside that but we have tons and tons and tons of small customers who are bread and butter, meaning their need is daily, but technologically we didn't really have a very efficient solution — at that time — to serve them. Ultimately we can meet them through a salesperson, through an onboarding team, but that costs us a lot of money, and

Eyal David: [21:57] and it requires managing. It should also be said that this is actually a great way to find new customers in this style, right?

Shelly Shimoni: [22:03] Right. Like maybe one of the employees happens to need some transcription and suddenly, hi. So in the past Verbit really, out of a goal of focus, right? Provided less of a response to these customers, but I also kind of because I really sat in my first role at Verbit on the worlds of demand, so I really knew it from the bottom, I knew whom we said no to, whether we said no to them because of the threshold of the deal they wanted, or because they were a private individual, and suddenly a mass started accumulating of such customers, and that's something I identified very quickly, and alongside that I also kind of looked outward, a lot at the competitors, and ultimately you see that Verbit's competitors, even if they're small and less significant or large like Verbit, also in terms of offering and value, ultimately offer something that you want to be a player in this pool, and you're currently not a player, and we started mapping this market, basically to understand how big this market could be, how much we could take from it, how much we could take from it, because we have all the big enterprise infrastructures — for small customers, from which we have very, very good infrastructure, we also have a very good product. Ultimately our technology is really a technology that gives a precise response to those professional verticals, and to me this whole 1-plus-1, it led only to insights, to an answer that in my eyes was super clear, that we basically need to develop our own self-service. So you did a pitch, basically? So it started with a pitch, and it wasn't one pitch — I naively thought it was something, or not naively, there were many intervals here — we started really, I literally went person by person in management, and really tried to rally them, to tell this story, and afterward this story also led to presentations, and the presentations also to numbers of course, I really built a business plan, I sat down with a three-year plan for how I show the growth of this thing, I really built a model of how many customers I commit to bring, and really taking all my background in growth, and basically building a funnel from this, and how this funnel behaves It sounds complicated, but that was still the easy part — the harder part was basically the resources part, because ultimately I basically want to develop a product and as we said the company is a growing company, there are many needs, there are huge customers who need service for many, many things very acute ones, how do you prioritize now, exactly how do you prioritize this. I'm a stubborn woman, and I'm kind of, I'm smiling and really nice, but I kind of don't give up, there were many intervals here, also my belief in it, and really also the ability to know how to rally the right people within the organization, helped a lot with this, and and ultimately I got some kind of opportunity to run this at the POC level, I mean I really connected, I moved from the CRO organization, from the sales organization I was part of, to the product organization, that's the kind of move I made for about eight months, and there I basically had to connect very strongly with product people, with dev people, and really start promoting this idea. And again do sales work, and again basically rally the topic. Totally, it's the ultimate sales work, because it's also competing internally against other projects, so many times you also have to kind of know how you succeed, because I'm very connected to that developer, to understand that he's the person who now most understands the platform, and he'll solve exactly this problem for me, and then run and build. Ever since, I remember I would schedule which days who would come to the office, so I could catch them for a moment for a conversation, it's very, very kind of... It really preserves this mindset, right? Basically each time coming... it's constantly being, really, it's constantly kind of being on guard in some place, it of course, it kind of sounds jungle-like, but there's something very, very enlivening about it too, and like, it's the passion, yes, when you do something you want, then I totally felt that excitement, and of course there are also difficulties, yes, because it's kind of — suddenly you hear no, no, that won't happen now, it'll happen in Q4, and I'm like, how will it happen in Q4? I already promised in Q4 that... so there's a lot of those too, and in the end, in the end, in the end, we really launched some POC, something very, very initial, we learned a ton from it, but in the end, to be honest, it's a POC, I mean, it was something very initial, and out of that we also understood very, very quickly, that it's not enough to launch something — in the end you want to, for a moment, launch something that's constantly, it's in a learning process, you can't stop, you can't launch a POC and say it's done, and I also think that sometimes there's a kind of, a bit Israeli thing, I talk about this a lot with my American boss, that like there's something... there's something very Israeli in this desire to run very, very fast, and there's something very, very American, specifically in planning, so the Israeli side can often be annoyed, because you say, what, this thing, I would have launched it already, and the American side is, you didn't think enough, you didn't give it enough time, it didn't ripen enough, so I think that, on one hand it was good, because so to speak, we created something, and there are customers, and suddenly we really saw, and conversion, and ICP, and who the customers are who kind of start using us, and very quickly we understood what needed to be done differently, but on the other hand there was also planning work here. And then out of that we basically decided, kind of together in collaboration of course with management, to basically do a kind of stop, and do some planning work here that's much more serious, basically to understand much, much better the... to distill the offering, to look also much more deeply at the map of the competition, and then you and I also met, so kind of, it did a kind of low point here, basically I'll tell a bit, right, so basically the thing was that, kind of, I'm the most — this is a turning point in the project, right? Like I kind of, someone needs to tell him how amazing he is too, and not only on the podcast. So basically you entered the picture, and we basically decided to start this process from zero, which is a brave decision in my eyes, because we already had a product, but it's about pausing for a moment, and really analyzing it from zero, understanding again the competition, and the offering, and what the competitors have, and what we do that's less good, and basically really distilling the whole flow, really from zero, and also understanding, wait, where we place more emphasis, in the first stage and the second stage, and basically in a collaborative effort with you, together with all the amazing people you brought into this project, whom I'm really happy to work with, we basically built from the very beginning, the strategy of how we want to launch this product, what we say, where the differentiation is, and we're now, practically speaking, really kind of in development stages, with the product running in parallel, but in development stages toward launch.

Eyal David: [28:57] And yes, we worked on it together, and I think if you haven't understood until now, then Shelly was also amazing, and was an integral part of this story, and she rallied me, and she rallied everyone, and also argued for it, and this thing is running, and one of the challenges I think it's worth us really talking about, I mean, we'll also touch on things of depth, of these processes, but one of the challenges is now sitting on the bench, and waiting for this thing to be developed. Totally, right,

Shelly Shimoni: [29:26] it's also suddenly doing a kind of — it's sharing it with more people, so it's suddenly, on one hand, it's my baby, right, but on the other hand it's also bringing in more partners, and really also knowing how to let go and trust. In that regard it's kind of, it happened to me really fast, because we really also had an amazing connection, and I really think all the people who kind of entered this project, they're the most precise people there could be. But yes, there's also a lot, by the way, also in the context of that startup that's in growth, how you as an entrepreneur also know how to tell a story that ultimately, on one hand, reassures, and there are many difficulties, right? Suddenly there's some mess, and there's some, some understanding that something in development, or in design, won't necessarily happen the way we planned it,

Eyal David: [30:10] or that you need to, wait, think about how it will happen. And when will it happen? Exactly, and a timeline that you naturally reflect, you committed strongly, so suddenly, wait, also knowing how you reflect outward, yes, something that's optimistic, and on the other hand also knowing how to internally pressure the system, so that ultimately, yes, to keep the promise. So there are many of those, and of course constantly reflecting, reflecting where we stand, ultimately, when I reflect outward, then in the end not everyone wants to understand now where in WordPress, and in the backend and frontend everything is, but they do want to feel that they understand more or less where things are, so also knowing how to really make it accessible, and so knowing how to do this price conversation, even after you've supposedly sold and already received the resources, but no, it's not over, you're constantly in a kind of process of... really, and that's another thing I remember you said, in the challenges, it's basically the matter that you have momentum, you're running with it now within the company, and people want to jump in, people want to combine agendas, I don't know, I kind of see it from the side, and it looks to me like that. I think that when it's in the beginning,

Shelly Shimoni: [31:14] when it's something that's very kind of in a pioneering place, then no one gets it, there's nothing to do, it's something human, you don't, you say, ah, there's still time, or ah, we'll see if it happens, and lo and behold, it's happening, right? Not that I had a doubt, right? Because it will happen, but I think it is something, that suddenly the moment people understand it's happening, then everyone also wants their place, basically, to make sure of course that things, also to have their say, but also basically to give the best practice, of how you do things right, and really take into account all the departments, and there's a whole system here, it's no longer marketing and advertising, there's operations here, and development, and security, and really very many bodies, that you of course want, in a way of rallying them, to take into account, but that's also a challenge, because many times it joins late, or suddenly they do a kind of reshuffle on you, in what you planned, because there's some assumption you maybe didn't think of, or did think of, and suddenly it does change things. So when we talk now, about what you learned from the thing,

Eyal David: [32:18] probably communication, that's really the thing you most want to feel, no? Yes, I think that,

Shelly Shimoni: [32:24] I think you need to understand, and this is something that kind of, in every process of entrepreneurship, it's not a sprint, there are no sprints in these things, you enter a kind of journey, where on the journey something happens to you too, many things happen to you, like there are many, it's a roller coaster in that sense, where you're not always happy, or always satisfied, you're constantly in some transitions, and it's sometimes also kind of knowing, to get the reassurance, kind of from yourself, from within yourself, and not from what others tell you, because sometimes they'll tell you, why are you still motivated for this, what's the drive, and it's simple, once it might be something I could do for myself, but today it's something that's the opposite, it spurs me on, it's something that I, why? Because I know it will work, because you believe in your vision, it's a bit like, when I thought about my career, so I said, it was clear to me that I'd get there, when — I have a technological role, it was clear to me, what I did before that, but it was clear to me, because I probably knew that this is where I need to be, now I completely feel that I'm in the place I needed to reach, but I think it's like, there's something a bit naive about it, to think that it's okay, this is where I need to be, and this is where I'll get. On the other hand, like, good thing it's so, because then you don't let things kind of confuse you, you really believe, that you know what you need to do, and that's it, you're on it. That seems to me a good suggestion for everyone, even if you're not in the product world,

Eyal David: [33:55] if you want to get into the product world, then really believing and going with it is a really right thing, totally, because in the end you only need

Shelly Shimoni: [34:02] one person to believe in you, to believe that you know what you're doing, and that's it, like it's very, I very much believe

Eyal David: [34:09] in that, like it's surely some story of mine too that's stunning — how nice that you tied that together. Any other things you learned that you want to mention?

Shelly Shimoni: [34:16] I think another thing I learned within this process is kind of knowing how to connect to the motivation of the person you need to convince, or of the person sitting in front of you, kind of not from a manipulative place, from a place of basically understanding for a moment what problem you're solving for them, meaning where the win-win is, basically yes, where the win-win is, how you help them, like sure, cool, you want to raise something here, okay, why should I care? So when I sit with a CTO, it's understanding for a moment why, by taking resources from him, I'm basically making the product step much further forward, because it also helps the enterprise, it doesn't only help the... suddenly the UX also improved, basically. Totally, or suddenly yes, like our ability to sell add-ons became much more sophisticated, or with the COO, actually I'm streamlining our whole operations system by basically reducing and streamlining and eliminating the onboarding, so really knowing how to speak to each one from their own pain and not from my pain, okay? Like from my passion, really understanding for a moment what the motivation is, and knowing how to speak

Eyal David: [35:20] it in a way that makes them connect the fastest. Wow, so what, did you train for this? How are you so good at this? Where are they good at this? I don't know,

Shelly Shimoni: [35:28] first of all, I don't feel it's something you're born with, I think it sits, in my opinion, on intuition, I mean, you a lot kind of read who the person in front of you is, and yes, like, it's again that adaptiveness of knowing how to adapt yourself reading for a moment what bothers him most or what he basically kind of wants to understand more, and basically knowing how you know how to mediate your idea into that thing, and I think it sits a lot on that,

Eyal David: [35:55] and you really expose that during the conversation, you know when you arrive at the room already... So again I do

Shelly Shimoni: [36:02] preparation, like, understanding for a moment who the persona is and such, many people I also kind of know already for quite a while, so it's also kind of, for a moment, I learned and understand and understand, and yes, and the ability to kind of really adapt in a way that's natural, not in a way that's threatening. There's this kind of saying that in management often, kind of, I remember throughout my career I asked the dilemmas, so wait, what kind of manager am I, because on one hand I'm very, very approachable, very kind of smiley ultimately kind of very, very at eye level and kind of — the manager figure I always had, kind of, was someone who bangs a fist on the table, and what I learned about myself is that ultimately the value or the place I come from in management is, kind of, let's call it the power of softness, like how to come from a soft place but one that has power in it, it's not a weak place, it's a place that kind of knows how to connect very well too, also not to come off threatening but assertive, meaning

Eyal David: [37:04] not to give up. Because you come from the vision, and if the people are also organized, then it's all the better, so we're reaching the end of the episode, I really enjoyed hearing about all this. Me too, it's fun, it goes by so fast, right? And I'll ask you kind of — to Shelly in another 13 years, what do you wish for her? Wow, first of all, so kind of, we talked a lot about entrepreneurship,

Shelly Shimoni: [37:26] I really feel that that's where I kind of wake up or feel most alive, so it's clear to me that I must do something that on one hand brings this pioneering spirit, like this place of building something, identifying something that's at its beginning, but that can succeed and basically being a partner to its success, and basically yes, enabling me kind of the ability to bring the — also my worlds, whether it's growth and also marketing but also the product understanding and of what product is, so I think it'll be something, I mean, I'm not at all sure there's some kind of written role definition that necessarily needs to be there for Shelly, but I know that it'll be something that basically brings out this very, very entrepreneurial side, it's a bit — right, there are such visionaries,

Eyal David: [38:23] that there's probably such a position that probably also has a lot of value in what it does, so good luck, if that's what you're aiming for. Any recommendations for people who want to get into the field,

Shelly Shimoni: [38:37] into tech in general, into product? So I think it really sits a lot — first of all, if you decided this is what you want to do, you'll just get there, because that's it, that's what you marked for yourself, so I think that many times it's a bit kind of like being a new immigrant, you need to know how to learn the language — it doesn't mean you won't know how to speak it, it means you need to think about how you, how you make the other side understand that you speak it, I mean, for me it was clear that I know how to speak the language, I just needed to understand how I speak it, so kind of also a bit like an entrepreneur, knowing for a moment who can help you if you need to sit down, consult, talk, how you, a bit like a product, package yourself in a way that kind of makes the other side understand your motivation, and... the value you bring, basically. Exactly. So I think it's a lot about that, about determination, about like really, if you decided this is what you want to do, then like there's no reason you won't get there, truly. And do you recommend people outside of tech to go into tech, into product? I think that... look, for me it's — I like, I only have good things to say about it, because I really feel I've reached the place of where I want to be. I think you need to have a passion in the end, a passion for technology and a passion for wanting to work with a product that's constantly in some kind of motion. You need to love it, you need to love what you want to sell. And if it's like that, and if you love the dynamism of what I'm describing here, then go for it, totally.

Eyal David: [40:09] A believer. How positive. Come on, I had a lot of fun. Me too, it's fun, thanks for inviting me. My pleasure, come on friends, until next time. Bye for now, bye bye. Hey friends, thanks for listening. If you found this podcast valuable, you can subscribe, follow us, and of course find more episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any other app. Of course, if you didn't find us on some app, I'd be happy for you to write to us. We'd love five stars on any platform, and for you to follow us, so more listeners can discover us and find the podcast. You can also find previous episodes on any app or on the YouTube channel — we have links in the description. Until next time, come on, be efficient, and bye bye.