Rudy Moore
Appearances
Living The Red Life
Company Exits The Smart Way With Ryan Daniel Moran
My name's Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast, and I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
My name is Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast, and I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. Hello and welcome back to another episode of Living the Red Life. Today we're going to dive into the world of tech and
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
Well, it's funny because I actually, yeah, now you say it because one of the first things I ask when someone hires us or comes on our group programs, I go, what are some of the biggest competitors in your space? What ads are they running? What funnels? What price plane? And half the time they say, I don't know. And I'm like, what do you mean you don't know? Yeah.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
That's like, you know, it's like I always say, I'm like, that's the breadcrumb trail that you can like follow, you know, and then you just create a new event, you know, halfway once you get down the trail somewhat.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
Well, it's common sense. They've already invested at that level. They've already invested billions of dollars or tens or hundreds of millions into that venture, right? So it's like, well, let's see what they figured out along the way and where they're at and then save us three years and a hundred million and so on.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
So but I think it's interesting because I think some entrepreneurs don't do it because they almost feel like it's copying or they shouldn't or it's unethical. But it's like that's just business. Right. Like, do you agree? That's just like, you know, and then copy someone's idea. But you should be doing market research on the industry.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
Don't start with no, it is not possible to do X, Y, and Z. I've fired tech people over that one exact thing in my life because it kills creative energy as an entrepreneur and a founder.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
Yeah, and I think also, to echo the competitor thing, I learned long ago, and I heard it from some billionaire, I think it's like people think you want to be first, but often you don't because it takes millions to educate an industry if you're first, whereas if you're second, the first person paid to educate them on the idea, right? Yeah.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
Now, obviously, it's sometimes good to be first if you're trying to be like a unicorn billion dollar brand like Uber or whatever. But for most, there's normal entrepreneurs that are trying to make a few mil to start, right? Like I say, it's probably good to know an industry that exists that you can do well in to make your first few million.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
And then maybe after that, you can go on and create a unicorn of some sort.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
Yeah. So, you know, last few questions. We're almost up to time. I do want to shift back to the tech side. I know you obviously you've worked in massive tech teams, but a lot of our entrepreneurs are hiring their first tech person on Upwork or whatever. Right. Like what are some of the just sort of key attributes and skills you want from a from your first tech hire?
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
Yeah, and I think it's interesting also because... when you first hire the tech person, you probably don't want this super high level person because what? You want someone that's like decently skilled so they know how to kind of tackle those problems. Someone that's a self-starter because even the skilled people, there's hundreds of softwares right now.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
So like even that guy, he's like, I give him a new thing. He's like, yeah, I don't know that software, but within an hour of YouTube in it, he's figured it out, right? So he... That's more important. Someone that has that fast adaptability will YouTube it, figure it out.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
And you want that like, I found my best tech people are more like me where they can holistically see a big picture on how to zap stuff together and connect it. And that's tech people have been the smartest like tech geniuses, but they only look in one lane because they're the people that say can't be done. No.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
And I'm like, well, what if you zap, you know, I don't know tech that well, but I've been doing it for 50 years. I'm like, well, what if you zap it here and do it there? And then they go, oh, well, you could do it that way. And I'm like, well, go do it then, you know?
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
Yeah, and then as you get to tens of millions, you bring in the super clean and you rebuild it all and those things. But yeah, I think that's awesome advice. So last couple of questions, just more as a successful person that you are, I ask everyone on the podcast, what's one of your biggest successes that you're proud of where you're like, wow, I did good or I feel I made it a bit at this point?
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
Was it a hire or a breakthrough of a project? Yeah.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
You know, I work at McDonald's sort of, you know, at least, right? But, you know, being as entrepreneurial people, we've never made it in our own head because we just lift the pie up. Like, I mean, you have to roll a flex and say, well, I did better than the average kid in my class, you know?
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
You can tell you have more of the soft skills, the personal skills, the right mindset. Probably let you excel through developers that were maybe more code smart, right? That's right. Yeah, which I love, which I think is how it should be. So last question. Biggest failure or challenge you had to overcome?
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
Do you still look back to that moment now? You have probably some good amount of wealth at this point. Do you ever look back and go, wow, that's cool?
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
Love it. Well, that's a great place to wrap. Awesome episode. You know, tech is often seen as boring, but this is one of my favorite episodes I've shot recently. So I really love our bigger conversations and some really great tips for the tech side and also lessons from these big brands. So where do people grab the book or find you on LinkedIn?
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
Good, good. Well, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time. Guys, go check out the book. Support every book. I mean, it's awesome. And I always say books, you know, 10, 20 years, 30 years of knowledge condensed into, you know, an hour or a few hours of reading and you can't beat it. So check out the book. Buddy, thanks so much for jumping on. Great episode.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
And guys, until next time, keep living the red life.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
Yeah, that's what I tell them, too. You know, like, you're obviously probably a smarter tech person than many that I've had to hire and fire, but every time, you know, it's probably, like, one of the biggest disruptors to me when someone says that in my team. And I always, you know, my staff know I have this ongoing kind of joke now.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
If anyone says, no, I always say, so you're telling me Elon Musk can fly to space and bring a rocket straight back, but you can't integrate and zap this data thing if...
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
How to use tech to actually grow companies faster. Joining me today is one of the world's top experts on that. Behind the scenes running the tech of some of the biggest companies on the planet. Kickstarter, Kajabi, Amazon Alexa. So no one better to answer that question and talk all about the tech side of what we do in entrepreneurship and business. Mahesh, welcome to the show. Good.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
Well, I like that. And look, but I think let's talk about this for a second, because that is the difference between winners and losers in business. And I think overall life is a lot of people are looking at what can't happen or what could go wrong or why it can't happen. But the most successful people on the planet are looking at how can we make it happen? Right.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
And how do we look at the mystic setting versus a pessimistic setting?
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
Yeah. So how do you juggle? Let's you know, it's a great transition because I do think the hardest part with entrepreneur and tech is that, you know, you need to have that crossover and great teamwork. The entrepreneur has a million ideas and some of those ideas. I always joke with my team. It takes me five seconds to come up with an idea and then like 50 out of 500 hours to build. Right.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
So how should entrepreneurs work with their tech team?
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
Yeah. Or what we do and what Elon does is you build the, like a fake model of a Ferrari or a Mazda and then build it with the money that you made from pre-selling it. Right.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
And I do think, you know, tech and especially, you know, I've owned and co-owned and had equity in a few software companies, but never been like a main company. Like I've always sold products that I think are faster, you know, courses, coaching, education, communities, supplements, e-commerce, right? And I've done pretty well. I've scaled e-commerce brands to a million dollars a day.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
So big numbers, but whenever I've been part of a software company and I've done a few iterations, I've always found it's like as a marketer, I'm like, hey, we need these 10 things to sell this better hooks and unique selling points. And then the tech team, you know, and the software companies at least are like, oh, yeah, we'll put that on the two year roadmap. Right.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
So how do you balance that for software companies? Yeah.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
I think it's like everything now. We were talking with my team, Mark's team today, we went from nine copywriters to two.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
with more than ever because of AI in my design team like even me now in Photoshop it's like oh I really love this photo my video team creative team took but it needs to be portrait for Instagram well I can just drag it in Photoshop and click AI generate and it now creates the sky and the ground so I Whereas that would have been a two hour Photoshop edit from my designer before.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
So I set you up for hopefully success here. Some big boots to step into, right? Some of these big things you've done a lot. But if someone doesn't know who you are, do you mind just giving a minute overview of yourself?
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
So, you know, and this drives I always talk about Amazon. We live in a world where everyone wants stuff now. They want it. Yeah. Instacart. I get my groceries now. Uber Eats. I get my food now. Uber. I get a taxi now. Netflix. I get to watch my movies now. Killed boy. Yeah.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
I think it's going to be the same for everything that comes after that easy consumer stuff is like, well, software is out-of-the-box solutions now, and you don't have to custom code it all from ground up maybe, right? That's right.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
it's gonna get i think it's gonna get worse because it's like they're gonna have amazon drones dropping stuff off more stuff online right so it's gonna do more for you so i think it's actually gonna get way more aggressive uh next couple of decades and then it'll maybe balance out you know that you're gonna be able to i saw the other day you're gonna be able to fly from london to new york in an hour and a half
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
Right. Yeah. Yeah. I believe that. I believe that. So so back to the tech side, what are some of the biggest, you know, lessons from being part of these companies growing? Right. Like all things like if you were starting out as an entrepreneur now, you've worked in some of the best businesses on the planet with probably some of the best people on the planet.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
If you were an entrepreneur that's brand new, what would be some general tips you've seen from these companies growing?
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
Yeah, so I love that. A follow up question, which may be a question out of those three big companies, right, including Kickstarter now. What's one principle that you've seen across all of them that you would better in pretty much every big billion dollar brand or successful company?
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
But let's go down that rabbit hole a little then. So how do I start? How do I do that if I'm a new entrepreneur?
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
And great. And, you know, you work for some of the biggest companies on the planet. So I want to start there. Like, what are just some of the biggest lessons from work, not even tech lessons, just general, like from working with these like super high performing billion dollar brands?
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
Yeah, I really want to like echo that because, you know, my coaching programs and agency, we've worked with thousands of businesses and startups, you know, a lot in that zero to million and like half a mil to 10 mil range is kind of most people I work with. And the amount of them that get on a Zoom with me, right, they join my community or program. They're three years into the business.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
They're still only making a couple of hundred grand a year. They tell me what their product is. And I'm like, you know, I'm like, it just doesn't sound that great. And they kind of like, I mean, the problem is they like get an idea one way. They're kind of kind of passionate about it. And they like stumble into it.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
And they never like maybe rain check themselves and go like, could this be a 20 million dollar company? Right. Like. And I think I've, as an entrepreneur, I've created lots of companies to a few million, some to 10 million, and I'm constantly jumping to the next big thing.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
And you have to evolve because I think the first thing you start on isn't going to be the thing that makes all your money, but a lot of them just stick to it, right? They just get, they don't actually take a step back and go, is this the right thing I should be doing? Yeah. That's right. That's right. That's right.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
Yeah, and I think, you know, the entrepreneurs, they're like the master, right? I always say they're the all-star. So they can easily go start a new product or launch something new if they're great. And sometimes they should self-evaluate. And then I think second time around, do what you say, right? Like now you've got the soft skills of marketing and business and hiring and all those things.
Living The Red Life
Inside the Mind of Tech Leader Mahesh Guruswamy
Actually look, does this fit the criteria of a good company and a product? Does it have big demand? Is it somewhat of a blue ocean and unique? What's the addressable market size? How saturated is the market? What other companies have done similar?