Use
they can hear me just fine.
You know people hear you.
Hey I just think it's a pretty good start.
So does your resume.
You've done incredible amounts.
I was actually really impressed when he ran by me in person.
Can you tell me a little bit about what he did most recently to present where he for 42 now.
OK sure.
Yes so you know it's a small organization so I'm sure that you understand that there's when you're in
a small organization you have to do all sorts of different stuff.
I think that if I had to define my areas my functional areas would probably be in administration and
then product management.
So administration in terms of like the book keeping all of the state filings.
And then there's a lot of communications in hiring that I do.
So communications we have a cap table of about 15 investors and we're also affiliated with a with an
accelerator.
So that means that there's a few mentors that are you know looking in to what we're doing on a regular
basis and have a broader organization around them.
So there's communications to the investors to the mentor group and then we also have some pretty robust
online communities we have like 26000 people in our courses and in our Facebook community.
So there's a lot of those kind of communications.
And then on Thursday I was actually really impressed by the thousand years already.
Then I've been running for only a few months sorry anywhere any time in February and you haven't read
anything here.
Yeah.
So I had actually kind of started playing with this business are doing the early early early pilot stuff
for the business in the fall of 2013.
So yeah when it when it came up it kind of it really officially launched in June NAND and then we actually
had products to put up online in August so the 26000 people started coming into the community in August.
To answer your question that's awesome.
Yeah.
Basically we we were we did a lot of this AB testing and then we found that you know there was some
really is actually crazy.
We kind of went viral in India really.
Yes.
Yeah.
So we found that our conversion rate in India was like through the roof and it was costing us something
like you know less than a penny per conversion.
So that if I had ETN tactics in the way reduce that twenty two cents.
Yeah that's incredible.
Oh my gosh.
So we were just like yeah well we should just keep growing in this community.
But anyway to just like wrap up the functional question so like you know the recruiting stuff too.
I do a lot of recruiting.
I mean just for like like internes basically.
And then on the product management side I'm responsible for like road mapping the product.
So I have to actually like lay out what we're going to be working on prioritize the different products
that we could be working on and then ice over see how that's positioned in the market.
I can't take too much responsibility for the actual Dave day marketing.
I mean I do contribute but there are people who are smarter than me in those areas and I more lead them
than I do actually do the marketing myself.
Would you say that strong actually that you're bringing this leadership skills or something different.
Yeah it is yeah.
It's leadership and also it's basically I guess if you had to put it into a bottle it would be content
marketing.
Because the leadership so much on the leadership front my strong skills are related to basically leading
smart people because you know I'm working with people like we have a couple of people who are with us
from Stanford you know another person who has their master's degrees.
These are relatively smart people and I'm able to inspire them and get them all behind a common you
know roadmap and try to create a culture of success in that area.
Yeah that's that's really important to people and especially by working in towns are the game of interaction.
Yeah totally.
In terms of the content marketing I do all the research in the product design not the actual execution
of the building of it but you know that that's a lot of research.
I mean in a bigger organization it would be like sort of like Thought Leadership marketing advertising
you would fall somewhere in those functional areas.
Right.
And then laying down it looks like you were part of securing additional harmony.
So that's that's really out-of-the-box activity and all the other things he did were more straightforward.
What do you think he said for you.
That's a great question.
P.J.
I think that part of it is that there's you know when you when you receive a bunch of money from people
it's money you don't really know what that's going to feel like until you do it.
And then there's a lot of responsibility that I feel from it.
So that's what I think made the changes is that when you're actually handling other people's money and
making investment decisions for them basically because they're the people who believed in you.
Yeah it puts a little extra layer of thought into the way that you think about things.
You always want to me about mavericks.
Let's see.
I guess you know the one thing that I would highlight because you know I know you're trying to fit me
somewhere would be that the analytics that that go into doing the the go to market strategies development
and the AB testing.
So you know while you know like the leadership that I'm doing is not all related to like just charisma
or something you know we have to like look at Google Analytics and other ways of tracking what we're
doing and measuring them.
And so you know there's a there's a substantial amount of analytics and almost like analytics design
into it in there so I would think that some companies could be interested in that since hearing that
is being made here and the role that you're in now.
What do you say to your number one why it needs to flow through you or from you.
Or number two are you and your collaborators co-founders swearing that.
Yeah I mean I would I would say that I'm number one with a caveat.
I mean I am definitely that the the brains behind the operation.
But I'm really focused on empowering the people around me so they don't have to come to me with every
decision.
You know early on in my life of entrepreneurship I really like to I really demanded control over all
the decisions that were made for the business and over time I realized that it's much more powerful
to empower smart people to get it done.
Ninety percent of the way that you envision it that it is to get it done 100 percent of the way you
envisioned it.
But then at the end of the day you're doing everything you know.
You can be successful at it totally.
And that's the only limits.
All right.
Bernie I'm going to jump down a road that I've got Yeah let's do it.
OK.
Awesome.
So tell me where can I have obviously just 13 to 14.
Slow learner here.
Yeah.
Yeah so Robert Half Actually if I had to really like put that in a bottle.
I mean basically it was fantastic sales training relationship sales.
So you know it's not automated everything is person to person you know person or me to a company and
you know I did get to learn a lot about the different types of businesses that are out there whether
it's an industry or size.
You know I'm touching tons of different businesses.
Yes.
I mean you know even though that's a recruiting role officially I would really characterize that as
a pretty high volume business to business sales role grow in business sales obviously you are in charge
of handling some kind of metric or something like that.
You know in your goals what were your goals.
That's a good question.
Yeah.
I mean when you know the quarter that I was there that I was like Judge Dunn was actually a really great
quarter for me.
Yes so I did.
I was I think you might see in the in the resume that you know I was ranked just like this abnormal
performer or whatever.
And you know see I mean I just I was able to to score some good deals.
Yeah.
At one time you know I would I would say I would you know put that forward with a little bit of hesitation.
I mean you have to kind of tell people about those things in the resume.
But I mean it is an extremely difficult environment and I think that if I'd stayed there you know I
would have had challenging quarters.
That said it is now business also controls our viewpoint.
Yeah maybe.
Maybe I should feel you know maybe I should feel comfortable with that because that's just the way sales
rules are yeah.
Something that really caught my eye was you describing the businesses that you were working for essentially.
So you know you were working with places like BIOS's technology yes.
Or Apple which are all a Fortune 500 companies.
But wait wait from that experience working with organizations of that size.
Yeah that's a good question.
Well I mean I guess working with the with really big organizations actually that wasn't my specialty.
You know I was in the North Bay office.
We were mostly working with what I would consider small and medium sized enterprises.
But I did interface with probably actually the company that I interfaced with the most was Chlorox.
And you know they're huge.
And in that in that case you know you're dealing with a you're dealing with a monster.
I mean I shouldn't say monster but I mean they have they have their systems figured out.
Right.
So it's not flexible like when you have these relationships with a winery or a or a small or medium
sized enterprise that has an H.R. department of like two people.
And I guess the one characteristic that I would say I learned about is that you know there are certain
organizations that you either play by their rules or you don't play at all.
You see that there's probably a lot of bureaucracy within this place and if you don't play with the
bureaucracy they're like OK sorry you know.
And so that's different from that and do you see yourself as more of a big company or small company
guy.
To be honest I think that probably I mean it depends.
I do think that there's a new kind of companies like like the Googles of the world where they've done
a really good job of structuring their organization to handle people like me inside their organization
which is basically to say that it's relatively flat.
And I think that I could thrive in that kind of organization.
But to answer your question like on it as it applies to the general economy I would say that I'm probably
better in a small or medium sized organization.
Yeah unless like I say it was really forward thinking and able to handle you know able to handle somebody
like me I'm you know I am pretty I'm a I have I have I have ideas and I definitely want to be passionate
and follow them.
Yeah you seem I mean you seem like a really big huge asset to the team.
That makes that in.
Yeah that's true.
It's all about the team.
They are to go out and have fun.
Sure yes go on.
Okay perfect.
This one got that right.
Yes.
There a consulting firm.
It's about 10 people and they work with really large institutions.
So like World Bank the government of Mexico State Department.
And in that role I didn't put it on my resume but I actually started as the like regular analyst.
And then they promoted me into the senior research analyst and I thought Yeah for people who were interviewing
I guess that's important to see.
You know I basically beat a bunch of people out to get that position.
Anyway Yesso Actually I was doing a lot.
Even though it was a senior research analyst I would say that that my work was about 20 percent research.
It was about 40 percent.
Team management and team building and about 40 percent basically content marketing I was responsible
for doing all of their content marketing at the time.
So there were a lot of papers that have other people's names on them including mine.
But you know this pretty much was pretty much my work in that because the principals were busy bringing
in the dough or whatever and you know but they wanted to.
They needed to have their names on to some thought leadership so I would create you know white papers
and infographics and courses and stuff like that.
Was any content creation for you.
Yeah.
And you know when networking were so I like the World Bank there's a certain level of expectation around
the quality of what you're producing.
So that every nation under scrutiny whenever they put out some money.
Yeah.
So I think a lot of what I call it technical writing almost as well because you know basically since
our our our clients we're governments you know these are people that specialize in policy and stuff.
And so while there certainly are some people who are like you know economic scholars or whatever a lot
of this was translating relatively complex economic concepts down to people who are not specialists
in the area mind knew you were there for more than a year.
Yeah I started that role when I was finishing up my MBA program and then and I stayed with them for
a while.
And basically they just they couldn't really offer me the salary that I was looking for and so I had
to I had to move on and say that role.
And also the role that you're in now have the content development piece and a small team that I'm quite
interested in.
Why did you take the job or are international.
Between us.
It seems like that's where the action is.
That's a great question.
B.J. you know I mean at the time my wife and I were living in Sonoma County and Sonoma County does have
some industry although honestly it's it's pretty much all health care related now.
And so I didn't really I don't I mean I'm not qualified and I don't really have that much interest in
health care it's just not my field.
And honestly Robert Half is it's it's a company that offers a lot of training and I like that but I
also knew that I was going to learn a lot about a lot of businesses.
And that's what I liked about it because I knew that I could touch you know small businesses medium
businesses enterprise level clients and learn about these cultures and I figured that that would be
pretty valuable to know for the rest of my career.
Awesome.
And that's it.
When you found out more about that person since Yeah I mean kind of yeah a little bit it depends on
the client.
Some clients don't want to hear your ideas and other clients do.
They want to talk to you about working for this group.
No that's no.
You pretty much got it.
I mean the team the team building was equally as important as the content.
So I did actually hire you know junior analysts one from Stanford one from MIT one from DePaul you know
and these were young you know either current or recent graduates current students or recent graduates.
But you know these are really some high caliber people and they were as they were expecting to touch
some relatively senior stuff and you know I would assign their team roles and debrief with them and
stuff like that.
And we would create some virtual work relationships.
So you know yeah that was pretty important.
I don't want to that I just wouldn't wouldn't want that to be overlooked.
All right.
Good to know.
OK.
So supremest Rose you've had between 2004 and 2008 so you might quite know your.
I hear you.
Oh yes.
These roles you collaborated on but is there anything that you want to tell me about those jobs and
rapping.
I guess that like it would depend on the kind of position that these people were looking for.
But I guess the main thing about those two roles the gorgeous group and the Jews own the you know those
are extremely international engagements that I was doing there.
So Jews all day I was working for a Chinese a small group of Chinese businesspeople in Chile.
And then in the gorgeous group you know this was basically me managing one key account although I did
have others.
But you know they were doing business and in Germany the U.K. Japan Australia Canada the US and so I
was managing a lot of their pretty much all their business affairs.
So in those two roles I would just highlight that you know I am pretty experience working crossborder
if that's important to an organization.
And you never know.
Honestly International is that's the world we live in.
So yes.
All right.
Yeah.
So your educational history and the same global finance from E-D HECS.
Yeah.
Excellent.
Well it's crazy.
It's fantastic to see art and economics skin in your language is actually caught my eye.
You see it.
Yeah.
Speak Mandarin also.
I mean it's not.
I mean I don't want to oversell that because mentoring is a tricky language and if I'm you know speaking
like to somebody a native speaker you know I don't sound like a native speaker but you know I could
probably do business in Mandarin.
Someone making.
And then figuring out the software we talked about earlier that Google Analytics and you say you're
a master at that.
Yeah.
Perfect.
All right great.
So the level page tables which is pretty advanced Excel macros just.
As C.A.T. a sad intermediate.
I know you Master for Google Analytics and excel.
I can understand that this is your A.M. but you're in the sandwich touch that you have on hand.
So that's an econometric software that we use in college and it was pretty important to what we did.
I mean you know I was I actually specialized in econometrics.
So that's two you know senior level courses that I spent with it and I have used it since then.
And basically if I need to do some pretty hard core econometrics I can do it.
All the introductions and this off isn't just any arbitrary final cut Mac motion.
And then you have a team now.
And that's that's always great from for middle school.
Yeah in your most recent rule or any of that development I think you mentioned it.
Yeah.
So I did put so I actually do know some HGL but I've read this as you know this Wick's So ACIM.
You know the way I understand it is like basically taking a lot of the coding out of HMO development
and front end development.
And so I use a platform called Wick's which is like it is a it's basically like a like a Squarespace
or something like that.
And we're our WordPress.
And that's my platform.
And even though it does have a cat it basically can't call a database.
So you know anything that requires like my sequel type thing or even calling a database I couldn't really
build that kind of Front-End solution.
But for most businesses like even businesses that have things like pay downloads e-commerce events whatever
you need to do you know as long as it's not too too deep.
You know I can basically build a really really beautiful Web site and you know probably about six to
eight hours depending on how deep web site needs to be.
That said Well those are all of my questions.
Cool.
Thank you very much.
Do you have any questions for me.
Yeah.
I mean I guess one of my questions would be.
So I guess first of all like what.
Since we're going to be working together.
You know what would be your feedback on on how I handle the I guess first like how my resume looks as
does the resume look.
All right.
Is that something you can sell to people.
Yeah probably get some credit.
If you are so critical is that you have bullet points which I love bullet points.
You know what I mean folks are typically friendly when you have about your clients attacks and it's
hard to get that much information.
You have to say I'm greedy and I would use the interviewer to just convey that information.
Ok cool.
But the format of your resume sent assaye a function of my expertise.
I don't think it's close.
What about sex.
And you really have citation which is good executive summary it's great.
Found one spelling error.
OK yeah.
In the content marketing and brand messaging on the second page under the CCJ group you read.
Where is it.
So the word my By the second or last line of my lines by White House economic team.
But as an industry I think having your relevant information on the bottom the Thompson might hear your
technical skills is fantastic.
It's so good and so important that when you send out a call for resumes that you get pings back.
I'm sure you know about resume filtering and how that works and you want to be as high as possible.
So write down as much as you can and then obviously how your education is really important.
So that's where out of your resume.
Yeah.
All right so then what about you know my interviewing skills like this like the way I present myself
and things like that.
Is there any feedback that you would have me that would help me improve in that area.
That's true.
So you live totally or you dress like your energy law was great.
It's like you're in your home.
So that's totally fine.
Isn't anything like inappropriate.
So that's good.
It's arms.
Your level of engagement is super high.
I feel like you heard the question that I was asking and you say really bogus which I really like.
You actually intended to talk about the same two or three things Rechab you had.
And as the person is interviewing you that's how you figured out what was important to you.
So you talk a lot about hiring talented people in managing talented people.
You also talked about marketing and content and that seems like it's a huge passion of your CV marketing
and getting in touch with people.
A third thing too.
It seems like you really like to be in the middle of things and to be the focus of a lot of different
projects and people may influence so that you really like being here and that you feel really comfortable
and confident.
So he said you know you've had some very different jobs.
You in general talked about the same function that you served on those teams are really saying you felt
like you served on those teams.
Well the.