1029: Build a Sustainable B2B SaaS Companies from Startup to Scale with Serial Entrepreneur Jonah Midanik

Robert Plank 0:05 Hey, and welcome back. It's the marketer of the day podcast and Jonah Medan IK is here. He's an engineer by trade and a serial entrepreneur by choice. And Jonah knows all about founding companies getting venture capital, running SAS startups, and so much more. He is the general partner and CEO of forum ventures. So we're going to find out how to do some of these things like having a b2b SaaS company go from startup to scale, and, and just all the the headaches and the unexpected disasters in between. So Jonah, glad to be speaking with you.

Jonah Midanik 0:40 Thanks so much for the time. Appreciate it. Appreciate you, too. So

Robert Plank 0:44 we introduced you a little bit, but in your own words, what have you fired up these days? What's the elevator pitch?

Jonah Midanik 0:49 Well, what has me fired up these days is some of the things that have always had to be fired up, which is working with amazing people in building companies. And as many of us both you and your audience know, I'm a marketer, but storytelling. So those two things. Wonderful.

Robert Plank 1:07 So building that company the right way, and doing the finding the magic, finding the storytelling that way, you have a message that sticks that way people pay attention, and they're entertained. And so what sort of stories do you have to tell us today? Like, what's your company all about? What makes it unique?

Jonah Midanik 1:23 Yeah, so these days, I work for Oren ventures. And what we do is we help founders building business to business software companies go from zero to what we call sustainable and sustainable can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. But we say a founder is sustainable when the power is in their own hands, they no longer need external capital. It's a sustainable business model. So we work with them and help them with whatever they need help with which with every founder can be very different. That can be marketing. That can be technology that can be product that can be fundraising. But we support with with capital and know how. So

Robert Plank 2:03 when going from zero to sustainable, is there any one of these Sass companies that really comes to mind? Is there like a fun one that's kind of remarkable, or we're talking about today?

Jonah Midanik 2:14 I think we're really lucky, I mean, forms investing in more than 100 founders a year. So we've got a lot of really exciting companies. One of the ones, you know, someone I've been speaking to yesterday, who has private AI, which is building the privacy layer, for a lot of the artificial intelligence products we're seeing right now, I think we're seeing a lot in the news that is exciting and interesting as these products are, there's a pretty serious privacy risks with a lot of our modern technology. We see that as marketers all the time, right? It's an ongoing challenge we have, but particularly the new artificial intelligence products, making sure that that private data stays private is a huge challenge. And it private AI, they're building a platform and suite of tools to make sure that we can all build products that keep people's private information private.

Robert Plank 3:11 And that that is something that that that subjects in particular, it seems like there's an arms race, right, like you hear all the time about things like how how much just gobs of money Google and Facebook has made off of our data, or if there's some kind of data leak, or how when you put something into the AI, it sort of trains it for everyone. But then on the other side of the orange racers like HTTPS Everywhere. And so you think, Well, some things are more secure than they were. And so kind of thinking about that when you are looking into one of these companies to help. Like, is there a certain criteria as far as when you say like, Okay, this is it. This is like, something I'm really excited about is it sort of aspects like that, like, when there's a harder problem to solve, or when it's tackling a subject that's talked about a lot like how do you know when something really is it for you? Yeah,

Jonah Midanik 4:00 I think the biggest one ultimately boils down to people, right. Like, the biggest thing we look for is finding founder or founders that are incredible. So we're not experts at all of these things, right? Like, I'm a marketer. So I know a bunch of marketing, but I don't know a ton about privacy. So in the private AI example, the founders were really incredible. I think if you take really incredible people and point them at a big problem, that's where the magic happens. So most of what we're looking for is just that great people with a real problem and then it's our job to support them while they figure out the solve.

Robert Plank 4:39 And so how do you know if the the founder or the group already are good people? Like is it a matter of like their story or is it like a gut feeling or about their kind of like their mindset? How do you know if you're like, Okay, I'm trying to decide if about this company, and then kind of the sub step is about deciding about the people. So what makes for good people? Yeah,

Jonah Midanik 5:04 I think, well, first of all, just for full disclosure, we've made more than our fair share of mistakes. And I've made more than my fair share of mistakes. So you don't always know. But what we're trying to figure out, or what I'm trying to figure out is how they think. Because there's so many as you well know, there's so many decisions to be made on that founder journey. And there's so many things that people need to be great at to build really big, really meaningful businesses and no one's good at everything. So we really want to see if people can think about problems in the right way so that they can a realize what they're great at and double down, be realized what they're not great at and get the help where they need to get help. And then there's, you know, a couple other questions, we always have, like, do we think the best talent in the world we'll come work for this person? Do we think this person is going to have the strength to get it out for the many, many years it takes to go from zero to something really meaningful? And those are kind of the big questions, because we think if you can double down on what you're graded on, understand what you're not get the best people in the world, and have the resilience to keep showing up. That's probably 90% of the battle.

Robert Plank 6:21 I agree. I find that really helpful. Like, my brain is kind of like decoding. I feel like I'm like a Chad GBT taking like all this and like kind of saying, like, what are the attributes? And what I'm getting from Matt is, there's some degree of like, the charisma and the emotional intelligence of this founder. So that way, it kind of attracts the right people. And then there's a matter of like the problem solving mindset, right? Like you think about, say, you're hanging out with your friend. And you think like, well, how many gas stations are in the in the whole United States? And someone who's unimaginative would say, I don't know, how can I figure that out? But someone who's a problem solver might make some educated guesses and calculations and might even arrive at the wrong answer, but at least they kind of made that journey. And then there's also the thing to think about of the sorting aspect, right of saying like, okay, there's all these problems hitting me every day, what's in my wheelhouse, what can I solve? What can I solve? It maybe takes longer? And then what can I hand off? And what is even not worth solving or not? We're solving right now, I think that that helps to break down a problem, right? Just to take the pieces apart, and get it into those separate little buckets. And so you mentioned there, that it's not all successes, right? You had some failures. And that's always fun, because we love drama, and you're Mr. storytelling and the best, the most fun part of the story is when you're like, oh, my gosh, panic mode, what will happen next? So what comes to mind as far as a failure story?

Jonah Midanik 7:44 Well, I've had more than my fair share, but I would say, one of them was I went to go join a company that had one of the best stories I've ever heard. This is, you know, about a decade ago, and they came to me and they said, video games is huge. And on the rise, it was the year that video games revenue, first eclipse the revenue of movies, and o'clock, like video games literally make more money than movies. And I was like, Whoa, I didn't know that. That's crazy. And they're like, you know, and we've built this system that makes video games even more social, you can play against your friends, and you can play against your friends for money. And I was like, well, that's brilliant. I used to like when I was in my dorm room, I play like Mario Kart for like, who does the dishes like, that was the most fun I've ever had, you know, like, that was the best of times kind of thing. And they said, and not only that, but we've got deals with most of the biggest video game manufacturers in the world to do this place like Electronic Arts and the people who made Halo. And so we're gonna make this this betting social system for video games, and it's gonna be amazing. And it was amazing, although not necessarily amazing in all the ways we first saw, because of all the mistakes we made along the way, we signed up a million users. And we just for the life of us could not figure out how to make a delightful customer experience of this thing that everyone wanted to do. So it's a really important lesson that even if the story's great, even if there's all of these people that want to do it, if the experience isn't amazing, customers aren't going to come back.

Robert Plank 9:23 That's huge. And I think about that all the time. I think like, is there some kind of process that takes three days or three hours? And can it be faster or it can be done with less clicks or with less friction? I mean, I think about how many SAS is where I sign up for a trial because it was just one click right you log in with your Google account and there you go. And so that's that's interesting to think about just how can you like remove the friction and make that experience better? And then also what kind of hit me was the kind of I guess the the pitch so to speak of what sold you I felt like I was category is guys in my mind. I mean, like for like five different kinds of like, emotional, kind of just like punches there, right? Like there was the he hits you with this fact, the video games equipping movies that's like, it blew me away. And it's like there's an there's something to that right of like if you think about when you're trying to make a good story like what are the what are the special ingredients and just like that hitting like I the other day, I heard that, that story about the when you fold the piece of paper in half, like a if you fold it in half, eight times. And then if you hold it 50 times in a row, like halfway to the sun. And then it's like if you and you can easily look that up and prove it. And it's like mind blowing m&a, kind of if you move that along and connect it to the next thing, then you can really like just hit the ground running. And then even just the psychology of that story the whole Well, this, this is an idea that like it makes total sense. And it excites you. And it ties back to the good old days, right? The the scrappy years, the college days. And so what do you think when you when you see this companies such as this one that kind of comes to you with a good idea, and they have the pitch deck and they have the story? Like what do you wish they would have in place? Or what what are the best pitches have such as what we're talking about?

Jonah Midanik 11:15 So I think you you absolutely nailed it. And they're like a really important way. I think a lot of founders, you know, go online, they're like, how do I write a pitch deck, and it says, like, you need to have these 10 things, and they kind of mechanically slap those together. And I think to your point, really what it is, is a story. So I was telling funders, like forget about that, like, yes, there's all these great resources, you know, you can go on our website and find out like, these are some great pitch decks. But if you mechanically follow what those other pitch decks did, that's not your story. That's their story. And so a story needs to always have a couple big elements, right? And I think you you nailed it, right? Like, what's the emotional core? Like, why you? Why this? Why now? What is the story that someone's actually going to connect with? It says why this is an amazing business opportunity that's going to change the business landscape. And I think a lot of people are very mechanical, like, here's a problem, we built this. Here's the market opportunity. And those are all true things. And they're all necessary things to communicate. But they're actually not the reason someone's gonna buy your thing. In this case, a piece of your business. I think the reason people do that is like you just noted, because they authentically connected to it.

Robert Plank 12:39 Yeah, I agree. And even thinking about this kind of process here, it seems like, there's like, it seems, it seems like the way we're talking like, there's nothing wrong with starting from a template, right? Or there's nothing wrong, looking at what works in the best practices. And it seems like what you're seeing is what, what would help a lot of the startups when they're trying to see make an impression with someone like you is to maybe use what's proven and what works as a starting point. But then maybe ask some of these probing questions, like you're saying that, you know, why you why now, and just kind of like revisiting and iterating and adding in your own personal story and to, to build it into something that is kind of good. And it's like, it's maybe it's, it's painful, or it's like difficult to to think inward, right and to kind of be vulnerable and express yourself. And so as far as the, the business that you've you've grown and we talked about, like the mistakes you've made, and the kind of all these sorts of lessons, what is in the future, like what has you excited about what's coming up?

Jonah Midanik 13:44 So what's really exciting to me right now, you know, everyone's talking about AI. And obviously, a we've we've had AI for a lot longer than I think a lot of people recognize this isn't obviously a new phenomenon. But what some a lot of the new technologies have enabled is going to dramatically change the way I think a lot of us work and a lot more quickly than I think people recognize. So that has me really excited. So I tend to believe that a lot of the tedious work that people are doing that's repetitive, that's kind of human initiated is no longer going to be because the amount of friction in adopting these new tools is so low because they just work on natural language, there's no learning curve, you immediately know how to use Chechi. TV because it's, they give you a little dialog box and you can either talk to it or type at it. And you talk to it just like you would talk to a person. And so we're hardwired to use these tools. And so as those tools get more and more powerful, I think that that's a really exciting place to be because it'll take away a lot of the less natural One more mechanical aspects of our work lives, which, which I think is exciting.

Robert Plank 15:03 And I think it's exciting to like, I was thinking the other day that it must have been like 20 or 30 years ago, I remember reading something about like Bill Gates talking about how he said, Well, right now when you code something, you know, you'll pull up Visual Basic, or whatever. And you have to learn all these concepts like functions and objects. And Bill Gates said, in the future, you'll just sort of speak out what you want. And you'll just say, in plain English, like, I want it to look like this. And then it will turn your, your everyday English into what you want. And you think about like in in like, like Star Trek and things like that, right? They go to the computer, and they say, Hey, I just want you to pull this up. And like, that is what the dream is. And we finally kind of broke through and got there. And I remember the first time I saw chat, GBT, it brought me back to when I used Microsoft Word as a kid. And when you open it up, there's like a blank document already open. I'm like, what I don't have to say new document. It's just like, already there. For me. I remember, like, it's such a simple idea. But it kind of plays into what you're saying of like, if just a regular everyday person, a non techie non programmer sat down to use this thing? Is it just immediately obvious what you should do like chat, GBT, you just as if you're chatting like on like, we've all done most of our lives. And so that's a cool concept to think about, as far as just all these pieces we're putting together, right? As far as do I have my new SAS idea? Is it exciting? Is it solve this kind of tough problem? So that way? It's there's less competition? Is it kind of have the storytelling that lends itself but also the idea of well, is it? Is it easy? And is there a simple process to get started to continue that we have, it avoids that sort of video game? Betting thing. And so as we're winding down our conversation, is there sort of a missing piece here? Is there something that like you wish I'd asked you or something that just comes to mind as far as like, like one little nugget of wisdom that you want to pass on to our audience?

Jonah Midanik 17:07 So I don't know if it's something that I wish you asked me, but something I do get asked a lot is, you know, what are the things we often tell founders that kind of help on the journey. And I think the biggest thing I'm increasingly seeing, it's, you know, it's always really, really hard to be a founder, it's hard to build something big and meaningful. And that piece of advice that I always have is pretty simple, which is that you don't have to do it all by yourself. And no one is good at all of the things that people need to be good at to build a business. And so finding that help is actually probably the biggest part of your job.

Robert Plank 17:49 I love it that like the thing is, I think, like no one person can build a pencil, right? No one person knows the graphite and the and the wood and the metal and the rubber eraser, it's all these different skills. And it's easy to take it for granted, or let your own whatever get in the way, right ego self sabotage, limiting beliefs. And so and that kind of, for me ties back into one of your original points there of finding the good people, right, finding people that kind of be on this journey with you together. And so that way, you don't have to go it alone, because you can't go it alone, you'll literally run out of time in your life. Imagine like trying to build the Brooklyn Bridge, just by yourself by hand, you you die of old age before you even got close to finishing. So why not create a team that way you can get there faster and better. And so if someone out there has one of the SAS startups, and they want your help, like how does someone know if they're a good fit for you? And what's the problem that you and your company are solving?

Jonah Midanik 18:46 Yeah, that's a great question. So you're a good fit for us if you're trying to build a venture scale business with the business to business software products. And in terms of finding me finding, find me on LinkedIn, or we're actively writing checks, we write at least seven checks every month. And you can either like I said, Find me on LinkedIn or apply directly at forum vc.com.

Robert Plank 19:09 Wonderful forum vc.com. And that is Jonah magenic. On LinkedIn. That's first name, J, O N, A H and last name, mid a n i k. So if you are driving in the car, pull a car over and write those two things down form vc.com and join him and Danik. And as we're wrapping up our conversation here, Jonah, you've been through all these adventures, you're definitely on a rocket ship to helping these these companies get to where they want to go, and you've been through it. And so if you ever think about like, the quotes or the lessons that have helped you out just one in particular, maybe jump out in this moment, like a quote or lesson to wrap up a conversation.

Jonah Midanik 19:49 Hmm, quote or lesson. Yeah, actually, I was with one of my mentors and this is probably 15 years ago and someone in the meeting In meeting we were in asked a question that I thought was kind of silly. And yeah, I was younger. I didn't say anything, but I think he knew just from my face that I thought it was kind of a bit of a time waster question. And he pulled me aside to teach me something in hindsight, and he said, you know, hey, you might have thought that was a silly question. But if you actually dig into the why they were asking, there's actually a lot to be learned there. And I sat, and I thought I was like, oh, yeah, I get what you're saying. And here's why. And he goes, you know, you'd probably be a lot better off if you realize that most of these questions, there's something to learn from. And I thought that was, at the time, a little frivolous. And as I get older, I realized pretty deep. So I try to find the lesson and all of those questions and all the people I mean,

Robert Plank 20:49 I find that they're powerful for like conflict resolution reasons, right? If someone asks a question, maybe you're annoyed or it's too simple, but as you said, there's a reason why they ask you and they might be maybe like, they're asking this question, you might say, well, you should have asked maybe ask this question, or I can see that they're asking this question because they have this other emotional feeling. So I think that's powerful. This is don't just write off or disregard questions just because they hit you the wrong way. It it could be and probably is a valid question. So figure out a way to dive deep and make it work. And as you out there, if you're a b2b SaaS founder, and you are diving deep and you want to get to that venture level, then go to forum vc.com. We will see you there. And thank you, Jonah, for blowing our minds and helping us out and giving us some motivation and information. I really appreciate you.

Jonah Midanik 21:43 Thanks so much for time, Robert, appreciate it.

Robert Plank 21:49 Thank you for tuning in to the marketer of the day podcast. marketer of the day is managed by de FY podcast, clean your 12 podcast boosters at Def Why podcast.com/free