Tzakhi (00:00)
Hi Stefan.
Mister Raw (00:02)
Hello, sir.
Tzakhi (00:04)
Very good to have you. We're with Stefan Abelson also known as Mr. Raw Yeah, you've exited a few companies you've had a lot of ups and downs which maybe you'll tell us a bit about and you consult companies early stage companies And we're at the meet that capital startup podcast so very happy to have you
Mister Raw (00:10)
me.
Well, I'm happy to be here.
Tzakhi (00:34)
Yeah, Stephen, can you just give us like bit of a background about yourself and how you got here? Yeah.
Mister Raw (00:40)
Yeah. How long time do I have? I'm joking. Don't worry. So I'm I'm I'm Stefan Everson. I'm forty six years old. I was born in Denmark by Polish parents. I have three kids in Denmark and I'm a serial entrepreneur and a musician and I've been that all my entire life.
Tzakhi (00:46)
You
Mister Raw (01:02)
I built 15 companies, I five exits, I have two bankruptcies and I even tried to have a unicorn although I failed with it. I tried to have a depression, I tried to have so much in life so...
Right now I have a few companies but what I spend most time on is being Mr. Raw. And Mr. Raw is a consultant that on his back has 27 plus years of ups and downs, fuck -ups, successes, you name it. And that's me.
Tzakhi (01:44)
Nice, nice. So pretty, pretty crazy story.
Mister Raw (01:45)
And I'm on a... Yeah, I have a crazy story. A month ago, I accidentally, a couple of the ghost writers approached me and asked if I could, if they could write my book. And I thought to myself, let me see how my life was. And I wrote it out. And it turns out it's not one book because I have nine falls and rises throughout my lifetime.
and realized that most people are living a life like this. However, my life has been like this. Luckily, I'm over the plus now having an enjoyable life currently in Israel and I love it.
Tzakhi (02:31)
Awesome, yeah. So where do we start? We said we'd talk a bit about traction. So give me kind of like a framework, how to think of traction. And of course, we're talking about startups, which are early stage. Most of our listeners are early stage startup founders. So can you tell us a bit about how to think of traction in the beginning when you don't have much of it?
Mister Raw (02:49)
Mmm.
Yeah, it's quite easy because now Meet Capital, for instance, you help fundraising, well knowing that if you can't present any kind of traction to all your investors, I wish you the best of luck. Because traction is everything. When you get to think of it, customers is everything. You building a product, a company.
that is supposed to have customers. I would definitely always advise to spend minimum half of your time as a co -founder on speaking with potential customers if you don't have any customers yet. Because there's also another thing I realized.
I've been helping so many founders throughout my lifetime now, is that once you've talked to a hundred customers, you will pivot.
your company to or something even better. you know, everybody's talking about product market fit. so definitely the faster you can can get to speak to a hundred customers, the faster you will understand why your customer should buy from you and why they won't buy from you. And this way you enable yourself to start selling what your customers wants to
to buy. So yeah I know it sounds it sounds really really simple but reality is that the the fewest founders are focusing a lot on the customer part but the point is if you don't have any customers you won't have any company anyway so you might as well just start talking to them you can even start talking to them before you have a product
Tzakhi (04:55)
So, okay, I think that's pretty straightforward advice, which brings to two questions in my mind. One is how does that exactly translate into traction? And second, what do you say or what do you ask your clients when you talk to them?
Mister Raw (05:14)
Okay, so here goes this is how you pitch a customer in reality First of all Please don't spam a billion people with an email hoping that you'll get any sales out of that
because at this point you have no clue what your customers actually desire and even want to talk about or even what their pains or problems are. All these pains and problems is something you have in your own mind. So the first thing is to find out are what we're doing, is it actually something worthwhile chasing?
and doing a pitch is you pick up the phone and you call your customer say hey I'm Mr. Raw. Don't say that say your own name of course but hi I'm Mr. Raw. I sell this value proposition and this value proposition is of course what you think
is your value proposition for your business. For instance, I'm a consultant helping a startup founders elevate and they're creating more traction. That's what I do. So I say, hello, I'm Mr. Rall. I sell this value proposition. Saki, is this something you want to talk to me about? And then you can say two things. You can say no, and you can say yes.
So when you say no to me, in reality only three reasons why you would say no to me. The first reason is you hate salespeople that call you, which is fine. That has nothing to do with me. The second reason they would say no is because they don't have time, because people actually pick up their phone just before they enter a meeting or need to go to toilet or whatever they need to do. they actually don't
have time but picked up the phone. The last reason is because they actually don't want to talk to you about your value proposition. So the most important thing to ask after you have said no to me is why do you say no to me? Because then you'll either learn that it's you know I don't like sales people calling me fine or you'll learn
that he doesn't have time but actually wants to talk to you and now you can reschedule the call. Okay, I'll call you tomorrow. Great. See you later. And the third reason is you get to understand why your value proposition doesn't really work in your market, in your engagement with what you are hoping to achieve.
So I would always recommend any founder team to have a hundred conversations with potential customers. Because if you call 100 customers and everybody says no, I do wish you good luck with your startup.
But of course in most cases there are some people whether it's a 5 % or 15 % or even 50 % I've heard about 50 % actually a crazy story I can tell you afterwards but what happened was you can also say yes to me that this is actually something you want to talk about and now I do something any SDR BDR sales guy in the world
doesn't do because you said yes now i ask you why you're saying yes now you will tell me why you want to talk to me about my value proposition or say it in another way now you're telling me why you potentially would like to buy from me so now you you told me why you want to buy from me thank you very much
The next thing that happens, now my pitch goes. So my product is blah, blah, blah. I do this and this and that. Whatever the pitch is, the elevator pitch of what you're presenting. Never mind what it is. After you did your pitch, you ask, what do you think of this?
And you know, if my pitch was bad, you will say, well, I think it's crap. And I will of course ask you, why do you think it's crap? Because now you enable me to improve my pitch towards my customers based on the feedback my customers are giving me.
So the point is, if you actually are talking to somebody who wants to talk to you about your value proposition and you pitch them and you ask them, what do you think of this? They can potentially say at some point, that sounds very interesting. You of course ask, why do you find it interesting? Well, that's because of this and this and this and this and that.
That sounds great. So you like my pitch? You like what I sell? Let's have a meeting. shall I send you some information so you can be capable of buying from me? Or do you want to come on a waitlist because we haven't launched yet? Or whatever it is. Now you have fetched a client. Many years ago, I was helping a young...
engineer he invented light bulbs on a golf course at the tee you know where you where you do the big swing light bulbs that would change over time during the day and he invented that because he was playing golf
Tzakhi (11:15)
Yeah.
Mister Raw (11:29)
as a child and realized that the guys who are running the golf course, what they actually spend time on apart from cutting the grass is moving two blocks around on the T range because people suck at playing golf so they destroy the lawn. So they need to move them to a place where the grass is fine.
He said, I think this is a good idea. Maybe a good idea. I don't play golf. I don't know anything about it. But I asked him, listen, I told him, listen, call 100 golf courses. It was in Denmark. Call 100 golf courses. There are 200 golf courses in Denmark. Call 100 golf courses. And said goodbye. And then he called me a couple of weeks later. He said, yeah, I called the 100.
So how did it go? Well, only 50 of them want to get a demo.
And he was disappointed that only half of all the golf courses that he was trying to sell to, but if you've been in sales and you hear about a 50 % sales hit rate, that's simply mind blowing crazy. So yes, it works.
Tzakhi (12:54)
So it's a very straightforward approach is what I was thinking the whole time. Very, very straightforward. You're just going at the target. Because there's a lot about asking around because of the assumption that people don't always give or often do not give an honest answer. Like if you ask them, is this interesting? Yes, it is. Great. It sounds great.
Mister Raw (13:00)
Let's roll.
Tzakhi (13:23)
but they don't really mean to buy or they don't really have the deeper intent or the real pain. So you try to kind of...
Mister Raw (13:28)
No, that's because most founders when they do it, they are calling out, hello, we are a startup. Can you please help us assess? And everybody wants to help, but helping isn't selling because reality is there's only one time in life where you get the truth. And that is when you try to sell. Because you have to tell me yes or you have to tell me no.
And it would be ridiculously stupid if you lie by saying, yes, I like to buy.
Tzakhi (14:09)
You
Yeah, but the question is, would people still be honest when they say, if they say yes, that's great, but most will say no, right? And then you're asking them why, and then will you get an honest answer there? Or you can even argue that sometimes people themselves don't know what is the thing that's, in some cases, not every type of sale, but in some cases, people don't really even know what would make them buy. And then...
Mister Raw (14:18)
Okay.
Tzakhi (14:43)
kind of try to ask things that would uncover their intentions, like what else did they buy or what problem did they try to solve that way.
Mister Raw (14:58)
But that comes in the conversation with the customer. And you can derive that from all the answers. Now imagine these 100 phone calls that you have written down in an Excel sheet. Why they said no and why they said yes. Then it's sure some people will do make a little white lie, but whatever.
But in reality you will see the structure what people are saying in general is because of this and it's because of that and it's because of this. Okay, so if these are the reasons then we should amend our pitch so we overcome those barriers of entry you see in your simply added to your value proposition.
For instance, which is a rare thing anyway, if customers, most of the customers say no, it's because it's too expensive. Then I would amend to the value proposition that is quite cheap because then I can't say it's too expensive. So it's all about molding what you say, but not based on what you think, but on what your customers think.
Honestly, it works 100 times better than everything else because the point is with most salespeople and this is a shout out to every salespeople out there and yes founder You are a sales guy because that's what CEOs do We sell we sell to our employees. We sell to our future employees We sell to our potential investors. We sell to our existing investors. And yes, we of course also sell to customers
So, most salespeople, they're trying to disguise what they're actually selling. Because it's all about, need to like me before I can present to you what I like to offer you. But the problem with this is, this is not selling. Selling means that you are offering a solution that solves a problem.
from a customer perspective. And if you're not solving that problem then he won't buy. The point here is you can't sell but you can make people buy from you.
So actually when those people I help, when they call out to their audience using this method, alongside a lot of great feedback, a lot of people actually say, it was so nice you actually told me in the beginning of the conversation, why the fuck you are calling me.
Because that's the whole point now. Most salespeople, telesalespeople, they're saying, you know, they're having a two, three, four, five minute long conversation before even saying why I'm calling. And I believe that is wrong. And the customers also believe that is wrong because they hate that. They just want to know why are you here? And if I'm capable of saying why I am here.
then I can assess whether I want to talk to you or not. If you don't want to talk to me about what I'm selling, there's no point in talking to you, you know. So you might as well find out immediately. Also, the point here is, especially as a founder,
because your product and your startup is close to your heart and you don't want to be rejected as a person, as a founder. But what you actually do here using my way of selling is they won't say no to you. They will say no to the value proposition.
which makes a big difference.
Tzakhi (19:15)
How does this convert also to selling shares in your company, raising capital?
Mister Raw (19:24)
What's the saying?
It's literally the same. If I was to call an angel in regards to my startup, the first thing I would say, hey, Zaki, how are you doing? I'm out raising our angel around. Is this something you want to talk to me about? If you say no, function has spent time on you.
Tzakhi (19:54)
Yeah, yeah, I once did a post on LinkedIn about people are saying don't pitch slap. said, it's better than a shit slap. A shit slap is what I call it is when you.
try to bullshit your way in and basically are signaling to the other person that your time is worthless, that their time is worthless, talking about anything but the one thing that you really want to talk about. And that could be in a call, like the situation you're describing, it could also be in a message. The first message you send someone if you want to raise money from them, shouldn't be about anything except, this is my company.
we're raising now, are you interested? And if not, that's end of the conversation. If yes, that's the beginning of a conversation.
Mister Raw (20:47)
Exactly. by the way, if you're an active investor, you have to remember that most angels are actually not actively investing. Although they state on their LinkedIn profile that they're angel investors, the fewest angels actually invest. I usually say it's like 80 -20, 80 % of the group are not actively investing. So it's also quite...
important to assess in the beginning that I'm looking for an investment because I only have one fifth chance of actually reaching out to a guy who actually is actively investing.
you
Tzakhi (21:34)
I don't know about the statistics, but definitely a lot of people that are, even if they're active angel investors and they invest, at a specific time, they might be investing and they might not. For instance, if they just completed a deal and they're out of cash till the next quarter or till the next year or whatever, it doesn't matter what you're gonna tell them. So yeah, it's important to assess that. Stefan, this was very interesting and very useful.
But before we end, I would like to ask you, like I ask all my guests, please give us five tips for startups. And yeah, please.
Mister Raw (22:18)
I'll give you the first tip. The first tip is talk to customers.
Tzakhi (22:20)
OK.
Mister Raw (22:26)
The second tip is talk to customers. And if you didn't get it the two first times, number three, please talk to customers because you will pivot your business. It's only one in thousand businesses, startups that doesn't pivot. And you have to pivot because no one, almost no one at least creates something perfect in the first.
attempt and the only way I see, of course there are many other ways of going by it, but why run around when you can dig directly into what really matters to you? And what matters to you is that you are selling a product that solves a real problem. Because if you solve a real problem, you will get real customers to pay.
Because failing, let's just call it trying. The more you try, the more you learn.
more you fail the more luck you gain. It's all about numbers gain and I will assure you in your startup you will fail. You will fail tremendously a lot of times. whether you want it or don't want it there's a guy called Murphy he created a law
something about everything that happens will go wrong and stuff like that and it's true so you might as well just take it on you and push the failure forward meaning try more don't be afraid to try because there's a 99 % chance you will fail anyway but that's why you need to try a hundred times so you find that one that actually goes lucky for you
So don't give up, just keep trying!
Tzakhi (24:33)
Awesome, Stefan. Awesome. All right. Who should reach out to you?
Mister Raw (24:42)
Say again?
Tzakhi (24:44)
Who should reach out to you and how should people reach out to you?
Mister Raw (24:48)
Well, they can jump on my LinkedIn profile and send me a message. They can also check out my stories and how I see things in life before they reach out to me. I really want to help good people go in a much better direction. And that's what I help people with. Most people have a lot of directions. Most people do what they love doing.
instead of doing what they're supposed to do. So I'm the guy who helps you achieve what you actually want by conversating and talking about...
how you can achieve it because it's not only about how it's also why and all these things and you have to have your heart with it and you have to have somebody next to you who understands that you're going through I'm sorry to say founder pain it hurts to be a founder
But it is rewarding.
Tzakhi (25:56)
100%. 100%, but all right, we ended up on a kind of sad note, but Stefan, thanks so much. We'll speak soon and all the best.
Mister Raw (26:08)
All the best.
