Smash Notes

Back to Advice Line with Tope Awotona of Calendly, with Tope Awotona.

How Should a Small Brand Pick Which Sales Channel to Focus on?

Tope Awotona says a small brand should pick one or two sales channels and put 80% of the founder's time there, while still keeping some diversification. The chief executive should spend no time on the channels that are set aside.

Going from $5 million to $10 million in revenue will probably force trade-offs. What carried a business from zero to one differs from what carried it from one to $5 million. Awotona quotes Naval Ravikant, whom he calls a philosopher from Angel's List: a happy man has a million wishes, but a dying man has one wish, which is to live. Justin's company is not dying. It is doing well and has been around for 13 years. Treating the move from five to $10 million as that one wish is what makes the trade-off clear. The other channels do not all have to be shut down. Bet gradually on one or two of them.

Grokipedia·Naval Ravikant·Tope Awotona

Transcript

Advice Line with Tope Awotona of Calendly ·

How I Built This with Guy Raz

More from this episode

  1. What Is Calendly's AI Assistant Kali?Tope Awotona says Calendly's AI assistant is Kali. The company has repositioned from a scheduling platform to a meeting assistant platform.
  2. Can Founders Ship Software Without Much Money?Tope Awotona says founders can still launch application software without a lot of money. A frontier lab needs billions of dollars.
  3. Should a Hardware Startup Manufacture at Home or Overseas?Guy Raz tells Dominic, who makes the Newlane folding bike helmet in the United Kingdom, to pick one path: push the made-in-the-UK label as a premium, or…
  4. Who Should a Bike Helmet Brand Market to?Tope Awotona tells Dominic, who makes the Newlane folding bike helmet, to market to the person who gets the rider to wear a helmet, not only to the cyclist.
  5. Should a Founder Pause Growth for a New Baby?Guy Raz tells Ivana, founder of Playfield, that an ambitious founder may need to put the brakes on for a couple of months.
  6. Why Did Calendly's Marketer Become Customer Success?Tope Awotona's first employee at Calendly was an engineer. The next hire was a marketer, brought in to grow the top line and increase demand.
  7. What Is Builder Gel at the Nail Room?Danny, who owns The Nail Room in Greer, South Carolina, says builder gel is a clear, thick gel applied to the natural nail so the nail gets stronger.
  8. Should a Full Nail Salon Open a Second Location?Tope Awotona tells Danny, who owns The Nail Room, not to open a second location yet.
  9. Why Build Calendly Around the Customer?Tope Awotona says the lesson 13 years into Calendly is to build a business around a customer and not a product, and he calls that shift maybe the biggest…

People

More answers like this

The other side

More with Guy Raz

Related episodes

Plays from this note through the rest of the episode.

Note

Weekly highlights

One letter a week.

The notes worth hearing, with the minute they were said.