everyone. This is still a

hefty and this is heating Shah. And today, on the startup chat, we're gonna talk about listening skills

like talking about more than your sales and market. We just want a bullshit and chat about business and life. And hopefully, while we're doing that, provide along value Teoh for people trying to get way. Don't want to give you feedback. That's bullshit. You want you to do your best.

And this applies to founders as well as team members inside, cos I think Founders have, ah problem with listening for the most part. So this is why I was really excited when you mentioned this topic. Stella.

Yeah, I think this is a really cool one. I think if you think about it just in general, like let's go back to the basics, like even growing up. Think about all the amount of time and energy that we are investing in teaching Children, teaching ourselves to speak, to communicate. And even once we've grown grown up and we're able to communicate fluently. How many books, how much energy is put into, you know, being, you know, charismatic and having a good sales pitch in presenting well in tonality and body language. There's a lot of energy. There's a lot of curriculum in the world around speaking.

But now think about how much time do we spent teaching listening almost nothing? None, if not zero. Like literally zero time. A person can be 30 years old and never spent an hour trying to understand or trying to improve their listening skills. So I think it's a really underdeveloped area, and it's an incredibly powerful and crucial area. I think a huge part of what we're talking about, especially when we talk about customer intimacy and and and customer development and get gaining insights and understanding your customers and serving them and understand the problem and all that, like a big part of everything we talk about, is listening really carefully and really openly and curiously and and I think that that's that's the biggest thing Founders are tripping over or started people in general are tripping over is that they apply the right techniques. They do surveys, they go and talk to customers. They visit them. They spent time talking to people, but they're never really listening well enough to gain the insides they need.

So they go. I had a conversation the other day. Sorry that I'm renting on this. But at a beckoned fourth email conversation with with a founder who was basically telling me, we've basically developed a smartphone, right? And and it's like the smartphone that is everything to everyone. As far as I can tell, it's like it's like this cool thing, but it it seemed very unfocused. I didn't know who was the target audience for this. And why should anybody care? It didn't seem to be that much better anyone area than what's already out there in the market. And this team was very inexperienced on, Like, how do you come up with building a smartphone?

And why that quiz, your customer and all that? And they were trying to convince me that they don't know who their customer is. That that's the problem and that they've They have done extensive customer research and have found that everybody loves this thing equally. Yes, it's exactly reaction, huh? And I was I was trying to get more data on this. I was like, Really this is very unusual. Tell me exactly what kind of service have you done? What kind of conversations have you had on what kind of feedback people give you and basically the conclusion that I that I've got from it and I might be wrong. But the impression I've got is that this team went to people and talk to them very passionately about their new smartphone and then basically did not listen carefully enough for the clues in the feedback that they were getting. And they basically convinced themselves that everybody loves this thing. And I find this not to be an unusual case, like just founders not gaining the insights and the data they need because they're so busy talking either out loud or in their head and not enough time listening.

So I don't know. I think this is a This is a big one. This is why you're excited about this. So how do you OK if this is the problem? How do founders How do people get better at listening? How did you get good at this?

I think it's when you think about listening. Ah, lot of it has to do with talking because you're your example. In your example, it's like they're saying things and the things they're saying are leading the witness if the witness is the other party they're talking to in the language I'm using. So basically they're basically showing the passion for their product. They're describing their products. They're not trying to understand where the other person is coming from anything. That's that's the big difference. In that case, what I'm reminded of is a very core lean start, a principle, which is this idea that there's a difference between your solution and their problem. So what these folks were doing is just talking about their solution. It sounds like not really pushing on understanding the problem. And so,

yeah, I know, go ahead good.

So I think it's simple, like in their case, they're probably so excited about the solution. They never bother to understand whether people actually have the problems or problems that their product salt. And if they would Duggan, they'll probably realize that there's not very many problems with the phone that's worth solving today, like in terms of like the foot own itself and I mean that I mean, there's some obscure use cases, such as there are some people out there that really want a super encrypted phone right Yep. But that's not everybody. And so I I just popped that in my head, right and said, Okay, great. What's the problem with slows that I would go dig into if I had to build a phone, I'd go Goethe, go have a hypothesis that people there are certain groups of people who which I would want to identify,

who need an encrypted, a fully encrypted phone that that essentially never leaked any data. That's interesting, right? That's that's a that's, ah, potential problem on. Then I'd go talk to people, different groups that I think of not tell them. Oh, I have this idea. I want to build a secure phone instead. I'd sit there and ask them, You know, you have a phone today. What are your challenges with that phone? Like Wonder challenges communicating, using it and things like that instead of ever telling them that my idea was about very super secure, encrypted

pop? Yeah, I think I think Well, number one, I think that it starts off with your intention like you need to You need to just check yourself before you wreck yourself. Thing you need to realize I'm gonna go out there to learn versus I'm gonna go out there to prove that I'm right, cause if you are trying to prove yourself right, you're going to prove yourself right. You're gonna find proof. Well, you know what would you if you want to convince yourself that other people tell you you're right, You're gonna take almost anything that telling you as confirmation that you're right. And then the problem with that is that you're not learning anything Your intention needs to be. I'm gonna go out there and learn whatever people have to teach me. Whatever the market is ready to teach me and not I'm gonna go and learn that I'm right. That's number one. That number two,

I think, is the understanding that there's different types of questions, right? You mentioned it very early on with, like, leading questions. Think a lot of people don't understand what a lot of people have not really spend a little bit of time learning. What are the different types of questions we can ask? What? What are good versus bad questions? What are questions that are gonna serve our purpose here of learning in gaining insights versus, um, just getting us to an and goal that we've already decided on. So isn't a leading question, am I? Am I saying things like,

Am I asking them in the way? That is suggesting the answer, right? Oh, you know, would you also like to have a more secure phone? That's not a useful. Who's going to say no to that? Like, That's right. That is not how you gonna find out if people care about security. So we found out that 98% of all the people there care about security. No, you haven't. You? You You put those words in their mouth.

If you ask them a better question, which is an open ended question. Hey, today, Do you have any challenges with your phone? Is there anything that you wish was there? That isn't anything there that's really painful. Every day that's really bothering you about your phone, you would have found that none of the people that told you yes, they care about security would have brought up security is the thing that really bothers them or worries them or they care, you know, a great deal about. But you let you've put words in their mouth and they agree because it sounded good? No. Is it an open or closed questions that a yes or no? Or a question that allows them to really,

like answer based on whatever comes up in their mind? Organically. It honestly. And then the other thing is how quickly I always find that people are too quick to interpret or to fill in the blanks. Right? So So I'm asking your question. Eso Let's say I say, Hey, what's the challenge you have with your phone? What's something you don't like about it? And let's say you let's even assume that you say something along the lines of life. Yes, sometimes I'm worried with all the news, and all the stuff is like, How secure is it? Really?

Let's see that that was really something that you brought up organically. Most founders at that point will just take and run with this answer, assuming that completely understand what the person cares about. All this person really cares about security because and now people will put in words in the mouth of the other person. You're interpreting things, you're adding information that the person didn't explicitly it verbally really gave to you that well, because this person, watching a lot of news and, like people put in well at information that they didn't really receive from from the person that they were asking, Uh oh, they will interpret what security even means, right? I think this is what one thing. We're none developers, especially like marketing and sales. People can learn a great deal from developers because when you tell the developer usually a good one Hey,

I really care about security. They go. What does that mean to you? Right? Because security could mean a lot of different things. It's too big of a word. It's too big of a chunk of information to really discern what that really practically means in terms of what features which you care about. What type of security would we have to have is a security about like your Children and what kind of information they have? You know your phone. This is security in terms of like, if people, if people can steal your identity or can access your bank account or is the security in terms of like the government getting data from your phone and knowing where you are at any given time, what or something else right, that could mean a 1,000,000 different things to a 1,000,000 different people and often times when you don't have a lot of follow up questions to the top of answers people give you. That's an indication that not really listening carefully enough, because it's very rare that the first answer somebody gives you contains all the information necessary to truly under to get to true understanding of what the person meant right.

Most of the time, people will give you a little bit of information, and you have to kind of follow up once, twice, sometimes multiple times until they've given you all the pieces of the puzzle. And you really know what they truly meant by their first statement. Does that

make sense? Totally makes sense. Yeah,

so I think that those are some of the things that are important off course. You can learn all about like asking good questions and be a bit more self aware. What kind? Of course is you ask and you can have all the best intentions in the world, but I don't know there's no substitute for carrying about like folk four. I think you have to you cannot have an inner dialogue and at the same time listen to somebody. But you can't while they're speaking, you should not be busy in your mind thinking thoughts or having an internal dialogue saying, Oh, what's my next question? What should ask them all? Oh, I need to, uh rep this real quick up. Oh, this is not going well. This person doesn't like security,

and we built a secure phone. So maybe I'm wasting my time like the moment you're talking to yourself. When you have thoughts or whatever you wanna call it, you cannot pay attention to the other person. You cannot truly listen. You can actually care. So to certain degree, being a great listener, it's about being totally unselfish in the moment and actually being like in them, if you want to call it so in a meditative state where your your mind should be somewhat blank. Other than trying to really pay attention and trying to put yourself in the in the shoes of the other person trying to have a really high level of empathy where you truly understand, what does this person need? What do they mean? Why are they saying what they're saying. What can I learn from them? You know what is the core off?

What, that What's the the root of of their problems or that challenges the things that care about? Um, I think that and all right, I'm gonna throw my my my my tip early here in the episode. Uh, and then I want I want a little bit more about your strategies around this. But one thing I think everybody that's listening to this you some people might be a little challenged and like, Oh, shit, how do I get better at listening? Even if I wanted to, Um, just ask yourself Who is the best listener? You know, we all most of us know somebody,

professionally or personally. It's just amazing person to talk to and part of why it's amazing to talk to them because they're listening really well that paying attention, they care. And it's such a powerful thing because it's so rare. Most of the time when we talk to people, we can feel that they're not listen there, just waiting for their for their turn to talk, just just to humans waiting, you know, while the other person is talking with Now is my time to talk, and then they talk. Okay.

Can I

talk now? Yes, E. Yeah. And so But we also know somebody that's just great at listening it. So it's It feels really great to talk to them because they pay attention and they care and we feel understood. So just spend more time with them. The next time you talk to them trying to figure out what kind of questions do they ask, what do they do that makes them great listeners and try to learn from another person? That's really good at that. All right, now I've talked enough, and I'm curious to listen to you how the like you're amazing. You're a really great listener. How did you improve on that skill? How did you develop that skill?

Oh, man, like it's I'm the type of person that, like, really falls victim to this. And I call it victim, cause I don't wanna be a victim of it anymore where, like, I'll say something and my timing is off and ah, and and I'm just like people don't listen. And when I like when I say things, I actually want people to hear it and react to it and have an opinion. And it helped them in most conversation that I have. And so what I learned to do is just shut the fuck up, you know? And I don't just mean verbal and I mean in my head. And that's I think,

the important thing that I learned, which is I need to stop speaking in my head while the other person's speaking instead. I should be listening and listening Doesn't mean like you're nodding your head. Yeah, but you're taught thinking about the best case, what they're saying about how to respond or worse, case some other random thing in your life, right? So instead, what I do now is when someone speaking, whether it's on the phone or in person Ah, there's two tactics for me on the phone. I'm deeply thinking about what they're saying, and what I mean by that is when they start saying things, I'm like thinking through Oh, instead of thinking through how do I respond to this?

I really think through what do they think? Why are they saying what's going on when they say this? What's going on in their heads? You know, how are the How are they? What's that? Why would they say something like this? What's the perception that they have? How does this relate to the thing they just told me a few minutes ago so that all these things like to me and like my brain works pretty rapidly? Some people process differently than that on day. Just need to sit with ideas I tend to like be very reactive. So this was my personal problem, where I would get reactive and instead think about the next thing. So I just instead try to think about what they said repeated in my head as they're speaking, and and sort of that repetition helps me synthesize it. And it slowed down.

So I'm a very speedy. So I tend to slow down by just repeating what they said in my head so that I can understand it and listen instead of so I can react to it, because when they're done, I can react to it. You know, a switch times I need. I don't need to be reacting to it as they're speaking, and I noticed this with some of the smartest people I know. Even some of the folks who like our junior on our teams under and they're like, really learning fast, right? They just tend to, like, run over you in their heads and you can almost see it happen to them because you could watch their movements. So for me, like I'm actually looking at the person a lot when they're speaking,

that helps me not get distracted. And then when I'm speaking, I might not look at them as directly because then that allows me to think without having their, uh, you know, without being so focused on what they just said. So that's been my approach usually used to the opposite is when they were speaking, I'd be looking elsewhere, which is just something I did. And now I realize that I would look at that and look at their expressions and really understand their emotion. And then on the phone, I'm actually not just listening for their words. I'm listening for their inflection points and like where they get passionate when they don't and then I'm looking. I am looking for opportunity where I can insert my opinion. But I'm not like I'm not so excited about responding anymore, which I used to be,

um, and that that relaxation, that being relaxed about it, has been so useful to me to just listen. And a lot of it has to to do it. These, like meditation concepts like Be in the moment. And so you can't be in the moment if you're constantly thinking about the next moment. And the next moment is when you're thinking about responding instead, I want to hear you. So I just try to do my best to, like here, you and listen to what you're saying and empathize with what you're saying here, the motion around it, and that's really been helpful to me with anything else. But I will give the caveat.

People are different. I'm just quick to react and can react really quickly on anything that someone brings me. Like even if something really, really crazy happened in front of me, I'm not one to sit there for too long and say, Oh, what just happened? Instead, I'm there to act and do something about it, right? And so that response system is a detriment to listen. And so these are the kind of tactics that I've used and a lot of this. I learned from advising founders and realizing that they didn't listen to me, you know? And they weren't hearing me and they weren't understanding I was going too fast. So now I would say that 10 or 20% of what I actually would have said before ends up being said now. And it's more impactful that 10 20%. So I'm looking for that 10 20% out of 100%

of when I could say

that's been really helpful to me. And also keeping the threat of a conversation is really important, not jumping around with most people. There are some people were jumping around is like just the way they are, and I enjoy doing that. But there's more people who are more, you know, need more, uh, and and it's helpful to stay more like on message and focus.

Yeah, I love that. I remember. I remember this very vividly where in the very early days, I think we're just like 20 episodes in and and also 20 episodes deep in our relationship. But it was like how were we knew each other and remember complaining about some kind of type of person that I'm giving advice and email. They're not taking it or something along those lines. I don't remember the details and remember you telling me? Yeah, that's how I thought as well. And then I realized it sucks to think this way. I want to give advice. They take. So if it a big chunk of people don't take the advice I give them, then it means I have to learn to give advice differently. And that was the moment I fell in love with you. But it was also the moment that fucked me.

He's so right. But this is, you know, it's always that you could really anything you have to take full responsibility for whole results. In my view, don't blame others for so but everything, then even more so than before, I've seen even challenging exchanges with people that are that are not necessarily. And this includes the team with the new smartphone to some degree FCF. And I'm not perfect at this. I fall back and will be here very times. But more often than not when I have an exchange, I used to get frustrated really quickly and just lose patience and be like all right. I don't have time for this, right? This person's not like paying attention or not learning what I'm trying to convey.

So let's just move on, have other things to do. And now I'm just seeing it as a more often than not. I'm looking at it as a challenge to improve my communication. I'm like, All right, how can I communicate? How can I be more flexible, my communication so that person can hear me? Or am I not really listening well enough to hear them in a way where I can give helpful advice will be useful to them, And that's been super inspiring to see how you handle this, and it definitely affected me. All right, man, like listening skills, right?

This is something I think. There's a lifelong journey on lifelong task. I don't think anybody's ever a perfect listener, but I think it's it's so worth it to keep investing in this and try to get better and better embedded it. All right. I think that's it from us for this episode.

Yeah, yeah.

Good luck.