00:08:37 · Jim Rose, Rob Zuber
[00:08:37] S5: Find that thing that that attaches that that becomes meaningful to your customer. That's the the the spark. So you wanna target markets that are big, but you wanna target opportunities that you can get to quickly so that you can better understand, Am I on the right track? Am I solving a real problem? The customers enjoy the thing that we're building and delivering to them so that you can continue to invest and reinvest and grow. [00:09:05] S7: I'm Rob Zuber, CTO of CircleCI. A co founder relationship is a very long relationship, and it's very difficult to exit. I met Jim through our third co founder at Copious. And so Jim and I went for coffee, and he sort of gave me a bunch of insights into the business as someone who had never even worked on it that were really interesting and compelling to me, like very insightful. And I thought this is someone who really understands product, really understands like the kinds of things that you face in a startup. And so I think it would be really interesting to work together. And I will say many early stage investors spend all of their time trying to understand the dynamics of the team and the relationships between the people, because that is the biggest challenge. If I was considering starting a company with someone, I would be extremely honest about who I am, what motivates me, how I work, what frustrates me, and would want to hear the same from that potential co founder to know that we're going to work together because otherwise we're going to invest years of our lives in something that's going
00:10:08 · Jim Rose, Rob Zuber
[00:10:08] S5: to collapse. Your best partnerships are going to be people that you enjoy as people. You really want to not just find people who have the skills that you believe that you need, that you find that might be complementary to what you do, but you need to find people that are socially compatible with you as a team can work well together even when things aren't working well. They may all be incredibly skilled. Know, it might be like a basketball team. You have somebody who's great at shooting three pointers, great driving to the hoop, and somebody who's really good at getting rebounds. But if the pieces don't fit well together, you're not necessarily gonna have a great team. And what you're really trying to do is you're trying [00:10:49] S7: to build a great team and not necessarily get too fixated on the independent skills of all the individual players. That I think gets lost far too often is that most founder blowups. And I think that's a real struggle for super early stage startups because you can barely find anyone that's willing to take a pay cut, take all the risk, do all these things and join you, and you're super excited to have anybody that says they're willing. But the reality is those early hires are the most important ones that you will have, and they will work with you to define and structure that culture. So it's really important that those early folks are bought in and that's what helps you amplify and build the culture that you've defined.
00:11:36 · Jim Rose
[00:11:36] S5: You should focus on getting out and talking to as many customers as you can. And inevitably, the thing that you gotta go fix, or the thing that you have to really fixate on, is what is the problem that we're actually solving for the customer? And the only way you can figure that out is by going and talking to them. Customers are great at telling you what their solution would be. They're not always so good articulating what their problem is. And be less concerned about the solution that they're telling you because their solution is inherently going to be directed at their specific instance of the problem. Oftentimes when you're getting negative feedback, those are actually the most valuable conversations. Too often, as an entrepreneur, it can be very raw when you're talking to a customer. Sometimes customers will definitely not like what you built and what you delivered. When you're an entrepreneur, the thing that you're building and putting into the hands of the customer is a representation of your time and effort. Oftentimes when when you get negative feedback, your natural reaction can be to basically lean back.
00:12:38 · S0, S1, S2
Ad[00:12:38] S0: This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses, setup required, compatibility, and availability varies 18 plus. Ad[00:13:03] S1: Who said you can't have things your way? Spin your way on DraftKings Casino, the exclusive iGaming provider of Foxwoods. Flex spins let you pick the slots exclusively on DraftKings. New casino players play $5 and get 1,000 total flex spins, including 100 lightning link spins. Unlock 50 spins a day at varying values for your first twenty days, then use your spins your way across more than a 100 top slots. Download the DraftKings Casino app now. Sign up with promo code floor and spin your way. The crown is yours. In partnership with DraftKings Casino. Help is available for problem gambling. Call (888) 789-7777 or visit ccpg.org. Must be 21 or older. Physically present in Connecticut. Eligibility restrictions apply. Nonwithdrawable spins issued as 50 spins per day for twenty days valid for select games only and expire each day after twenty four hours. Spins values vary. See terms at casino.draftkings.com/promos. Ends 11/22/2026 at 11:59PM eastern time. Ad[00:14:03] S2: This episode is brought to
00:14:03 · S2, S3, S4, Jim Rose, S6
Ad[00:14:03] S2: This episode is brought to Ad[00:14:05] S3: you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed Sponsored Jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Ad[00:14:33] S4: The secret society of semi homemade? Listen up. Sam's Club has premade dishes for a Thanksgiving feast that's ready in two hours, all while tasting suspiciously homemade. Ad[00:14:44] S5: Come join us. Sam's Club. Ad[00:14:46] S6: Individual oven times may vary.
00:14:46 · S6, Jim Rose
Ad[00:14:46] S6: Individual oven times may vary. [00:14:48] S5: Hack and recoil and sort of protect yourself. You need to be leaning in and just digging in into the why of trying to like, why are we a little bit off the mark? Why are we not actually able to solve it? When you start, you're solving the problem for the customer and whatever that problem is. And as you get bigger as an organization, as you accrue expertise, there's some point in there where you become the expert in the problem and you have to go from consuming information from the customer to being in a dialogue with the customer. Or the customer is going to keep telling you what their problem is, but what you need to start to do and what you need to be investing in in that relationship is your expertise in that particular problem. In the world of CircleCI, we've seen the customer problem probably from 18 different ways and facets more so than the customer has. The customer tells us their problem, we share with them what we've learned over time, and then we can come up with some kind of joint solution. It's a tight balance. You have to figure out how much you listen versus how much you contribute. That balance changes over time.