1598 – The Two Types of Founders with Build Scale Grow’s Benjamin Friedman

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0:58with us right now benjamin friedman uh benjamin you're a uh fractional coo and fractional cfo and you are the founder and president of build scale grow you're found on the web at we build scale grow.com benjamin thank you so much for joining us no it's great being here josh yeah And so tell me about the concept, like how does We Build, Scale, Grow work? So a lot of founders of small businesses and fast-growing startups find themselves hitting an inflection point where they're growing really quickly. And in order to continue to scale the way they want, they're realizing that they have to shift from a group of people trying to solve a problem to a small company really looking to make a greater impact exponentially.

1:46And so I come in, I partner with the founders and the president of the company to think about, okay, where are the gaps? Where do we want to head in the next couple of years? And what needs to happen as far as systems, people, processes, software, in order to reach those goals? Yeah. And so who do you typically work with? Like what types of companies? So it's agnostic to industry. It happens to be businesses both investor backed and privately held. It's typically founders who have hit one or two inflection points. One is where they've gotten a round of funding outside pressure to really level up their infrastructure and figure things out, build on their product market fit or service market fit.

2:34The other is organic growth. All of a sudden, it's taken off like gangbusters and they're really plowing ahead. And they found that their actual business is holding them back from growing even faster. And so they work with me and with other people. I'll bring in other resources to, again, figure out where are the gaps and then how do we move forward to build the right systems so that they can take on these new opportunities. Yeah, what do you see? So let's say that this is, you know, a company and, you know, just a couple of folks and they said, well, this sounds great. You know, maybe they bootstrapped, maybe they took in some outs on funding.

3:17but maybe they haven't run an operation with, you know, 30, 40, 50 employees or more. I mean, I can think of like how I would feel, you know, when that, once that company starts getting to that size, it's kind of a different, well, it's not a kind of, it's a different animal. You know, when you're talking about companies of that size, and I have to imagine you, you encounter that quite a bit where people are like, I just, I just don't have this experience. It's First off, when you're small and you're nimble, and let's say there's five to eight of you, everything's easy. Then when you involve teams and HR and compliance and legal, that to me, speaking as a founder, has mostly been at the helm of SMBs, that starts to not feel as fun.

4:03Yeah, it's funny. There are two types of founders that I'll be talking to and eventually working with. One is very self-aware, as you mentioned. they realize the business is growing quickly they realize they have to build a company around what they're trying to accomplish and they recognize that there are gaps in their knowledge or experience or they recognize that they're spending too much time building the infrastructure whereas they should be really focused on product development getting investment looking at partnerships new business opportunities etc then there's the other type of founder who has plateaued They've gotten from zero to one in technical terms or zero to one or two million in business terms.

4:44And they've stayed at that number, 12, 18, 24 months. And whether it's a partner, an investor, maybe a trusted mentor or coach says, hey, you really need to think about doing things differently if you want to take this to another level. Now, you know, hey, Josh, you know, some people are very happy running a business that makes one or two million dollars a year. It's a great lifestyle when you reach it. but there are others who want to keep going. They want to see how far they can go. And that's what a point where they're open to having a conversation around what can we do here? And finally, the thing that I like to bring in as a perspective, holistically around the whole business.

5:21So you talked about like PR, legal, people operations, you know, most founders are not going to have experience in all those different areas. In addition to sales and marketing and finance. They might have skills in some, but probably not all. So I like to come in, give them some perspective, talk about the areas they should consider and work with them to prioritize how they're going to move forward. Yeah. And then like, what does it look like when they start engaging and working with you? Like how does their, you know, let's say it's a founder and then, you know, maybe someone that's been kind of running operations, but maybe it's not really they're jammed.

5:58What does life look like once they engage with you or any really competent, great fractional CFO, COO? Sure. We look at it to begin with at two axes. One is what's going really well right now and what's not going very well at all. First, I want to get a sense of the business, of course. Second, I want to gauge the founder's self-awareness. Josh, if I'm talking with somebody and they're like, oh, everything's amazing. Everything's perfect. I'm just like, I'm not sure we're ready to work together because that type of self-awareness is the same as Michael Jordan saying, well, I won one championship.

6:34I guess I'm good here. He just kept going and going. The other axis is where do you want to be in three, six, nine months? Where do you want to be in a year or two? Really gaming out the future plan so that we can reverse engineer. What do you have now? what's working effectively, and where do we need to concentrate our resources in order to make the most impact for you to get to where you want to be. Yeah. And Benjamin, you're also the author of a book. Congratulations on that. And can you tell us a bit about that? Sure. So I spent a few years putting together this book called Scale, Reach Your Peak.

7:13It was about two and a half years of writing, really looking at problems that I had faced directly or through my clients, and then digging into the research, listening to what they had to say, but taking those academic best practices and applying them into real world situations and executable deliverables. So how are we going to actually take this knowledge and apply it? And then I kept the book in a very modular fashion. So it's 500 pages. It's over 130 articles. But each of those articles is independent. You can take five to seven minutes, look at it, get a sense of why this is important, what you should be thinking about it.

7:51And if that resonates for you, you want to dig deeper, then great, you know, have at it. If it's something you want to put off for three to six months, that's fine. Put the book on the side and come back to it when you're ready. So it was a great experience for me. I loved writing it. I'm not going to say I love the editing and design process. as much. But it was for me solving my own problems and then channeling that for something I hope every founder can use. Yeah. And tell me more about the transformation that you would hope by the time someone goes through what you've put together and, you know, they've really taken some time to digest, you know, kind of the lessons and stories and so forth that you've shared in the book.

8:29Like what outcome would you hope for them to come to? Sure. So I hope initially founders look at it and say, okay, let's put everything in three buckets. One bucket is I have a great handle on this. We're making great traction. And that's supported by industry metrics, not just vanity metrics, but they know that things are hitting cylinders the right way. The second bucket is the opposite end, things that are not going particularly well, but to be clear, they're not necessarily important right now. For some people, public relations has to come in early. For other people, they can wait five years and that's fine.

9:03And then the third bucket is things that we don't have a good handle on right now. And they're very important. So what are we going to do to really attack those so that we can level up to reach the category of that first bucket, things that are going well? Yeah. What is part of your, kind of like when you're potentially looking at working with a new client, what are the main things you're looking for in kind of the discovery or the learning process? What kind of questions are you asking? So I'm really interested in founders who are completely focused on the founder problem fit. This idea that whether they're at quote unquote work, they're in the shower, they're hanging out with friends, they're trying to sleep, they're waking up in the middle of the night.

9:48It all comes back to how they solve this problem. That's really important because we might not have time here, Josh, but certainly there's been a lot spoken about resilience. I think that's very important right now during time of uncertainty. And it's really important to know how you're going to bear down and get through the bad times and the good times and always come back to what's the problem you're trying to solve and how you're going to solve it. And then I think the second key criterion is, is the founder really ready to tackle these issues? Are they open to advice? Hey, listen, it's fantastic.

10:22You got to your first million, your first couple million, it's probably going to take a huge pivot in how you run this business if you want to get to the next level. And that means you have to be a little bit open to new ideas and really trying some things out. I'm not saying I'm coming at you with all the answers, but I am saying you're going to have to try things that are uncomfortable. See if that works. And after a few months, if it's not working out for you in the business, then let's recalibrate. But they have to be willing to try. Yeah. I would imagine if we're talking about the operation side of things, inevitably we're going to be talking about people.

11:00And it could mean, I think, when someone starts getting in alignment with what their goals are and what it's going to take in order to get there, it might take some attraction of new or different talent. and I've talked with enough leaders to know that right now, as of when we're recording this, sometimes that can be a little challenging. What are your observations there? Yeah, so I agree. The job market continuously fluctuates, and even if it's going one direction in general for the exact job you need might be in the exact opposite direction, right, Josh? So I think you got to look at this. Okay, what are your specific resource needs?

11:41How do you find people who are going to fill the immediate needs, but they also have transferable skills, things like intellect, motivation, flexibility, so that as the company evolves and as their responsibilities evolve, the person can grow with the business. And then the second thing I look at is how can you apply fractional resources to growing exponentially? And what I mean by that is you might not need somebody full time. You might be able to find somebody with a lot of experience or a small firm that has the expertise necessary. They're willing to work a fraction of the time at a very low fraction of the cost, and they're going to help you solve problems for the next six months to two years.

12:23That's going to really get you to where you're going. It's a lower commit. If you're working with somebody and things are working great, continue. If it's not the way you expected, fine. You can cut that off. It's a little bit different than an employee relationship. So you've got to be mindful of that. And you bring in somebody or a small firm with a lot of experience, and they're able to give you perspective about how to move forward. I think that's going to really help out small business owners a lot. Yeah. Who would be an example of a bad client for you? So I'm not going to be the worst. So I worked with one client where I came in and they identified that they wanted to get out of a slump.

13:06They had plateaued for a few years. They were actually around for a while, but they had hit this point where they were kind of stuck and they were willing to try some new strategies. and we would talk week after week about, oh, let's try this. Let's try that. And then I noticed after two or three months, hey, like we keep shifting strategies every couple of weeks without running the experiments behind that. And so I confronted the founder and I said, hey, I think I'm good value for you if you're willing to grow this company. But that's going to mean taking some risks. They're going to be mitigated risks, small risks.

13:41But you are going to have to try some new things. You are going to have to come out of your comfort zone. You are going to have to trust people, trust processes, and it's going to be a little bit hard for you. But if you're willing to do that, hey, let's go. They kept saying, yes, yes, I'm willing to try. But Josh, we always have to look at people's behavior behind their words. And the company was just not willing to make an adjustment. And after another month, we were like, hey, this isn't working out for either of us. Yeah. Is it Thomas Edison who said, vision without execution is hallucination, right?

14:13Yes. I love that quote. Absolutely. Yeah. Your website, webuildscalegrow.com. Let's say someone has stumbled upon our podcast. Maybe they're checking you out and this podcast came up. Now they've been listening. What are the next steps? Obviously, go pick up the book. It's on Amazon. It's called Scale, Reach Your Peak. I just downloaded it myself. It's on Kindle Unlimited or the paperback there as well, or you could buy the Kindle version. But aside from the book, which is a great deep dive, what else would you recommend for next steps to someone who's like, man, you know, maybe this could be something for us to help us break past the doldrums.

14:56or, you know, again, maybe they know full and well they're, you know, they're not able to be everything. You know, it's like great founders can have a great, you know, vision and, you know, great strategy charisma. Like, you know, they got that founder magic. But, you know, again, running a company is a different thing. You know, I very much, you know, I think personality wise, I'm an okay operator, but boy, do I hire great operational leaders because there ain't no way I'm going to do that work. I'm going to be frustrated. I'm going to be annoyed. Like I'm not going to do an excellent job and I need people in those positions.

15:35So I can tell you, I'm very grateful for my COO. She runs the company. She's the Roy Disney to my Walt, I guess. No, that's great. So I'd say I do my best, Josh, to put myself out there. I write weekly on LinkedIn. I have blog posts as well on the website. I run a newsletter. So I'd say, hey, if you're the kind of founder who learns by reading, you know, look over some of my posts. I really kind of put myself out there as far as how we're going to work together, because this is how I solve problems. And that's what you want to bring me in for. If you're looking at that and you go, hey, maybe I could work well with Benjamin.

16:12Then I'd say, let's set up a call. We, you know, spend 30 minutes talking about what's on your mind? How can I possibly be helpful? In some cases, it's working directly. Candidly, 60 % of the time, I'm referring out to another resource. You just don't need me yet. Maybe you need someone in finance accounting. Maybe you need a fractional sales or marketing or technology leader. Maybe you need legal help or HR help. And that's fine. If you're not ready, that's fine. But let's have that conversation and let's see how I can be helpful. And if that goes well, then we'll have a couple more conversations before we do anything else.

16:46Yeah. Benjamin Friedman, again, founder of Build, Scale, Grow, found on the web at webuildscalegrow.com. Benjamin, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Josh. I really appreciated our time.

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