From Sales Stardom to Startup Success: The Tech Entrepreneurship Transition

In this episode, CEO and co-founder Tom Lavery shares his story of building Jiminny, a conversational intelligence platform designed to help salespeople be more effective. Tom's story is interesting on many levels, not least that as a successful sales leader himself, he then turned to being a successful tech entrepreneur. While you might think that with his background in sales, Tom had an unfair advantage in winning customers. But as you're about to find out, that wasn't quite the case. From Jiminny's origin story and the importance of researching your market, this episode covers the ups and downs of building a successful business. Tom shares insights such as strategies for winning first customers, differentiating the product, and the importance of mission and values in creating a strong company culture. Tom also shares his wisdom on investment strategies that worked for Jiminny and what to look for when you're making important sales hires. Today, Jiminny has gone on to establish itself as a leader in the conversation intelligence sector, attracting hundreds of clients and significant funding to help the team build on their success. This is a truly compelling listen for anyone interested in becoming an entrepreneur and building a successful business. Join me as Tom tells us how he did it. Here are the highlights: (02:14) Jiminny's origin story(04:15) The importance of market research (06:49) Getting started and forming the co-founder team(08:20) Learning a new skill to build the product (09:18) Winning Jiminny's first customers and charging from day one(12:45) How to convince customers to buy into your unknown, unproven product(15:44) Differentiating your product and establishing an unfair advantage (17:52) Mission and Values as essential elements to hiring and building a healthy culture(21:28) How to asses if a sales hire is really capable and a good fit (24:28) What Tom would do differently when launching his next business (25:24) How working with advisors can help an entrepreneur focus on what matters most(26:55) Investment and the value of debt vs equity in the early days to grow(29:04) Behind Startup Lines founder quick-fire question(30:54) How to get in touch with Tom For more information:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philipguest/Website: https://www.revcelerate.com/Twitter:  https://twitter.com/PhilGuesty