Welcome to Milestone Moments, the show where
we explore the journeys that lead to success.
I'm Sheila Slick, your host and founder of Five
Milestones. In every episode, we will bring you
insights from the minds of entrepreneurs, leaders
and experts who will share not just their expertise,
but the milestone moments that have reshaped
their journeys and led to significant achievements.
So if you're looking for motivation, you're in
the right place. Subscribe now and discover the
milestones that mark the path to success. Welcome
to another episode of Milestone Moments in Business
and Leadership. I'm your host, Sheila Slick,
and today my special guest is Andrew Ackerman.
Andrew has founded two startups, invested in
over... 70 early stage companies, and he has
mentored hundreds of founders through accelerators
and in the classroom. Andrew has published over
60 articles for Fortune, Forbes, PropModo, CRE
Tech, AliWatch, and more. And his latest book,
The Entrepreneur's Odyssey, turns years of founders'
advice into a story you actually want to read.
a textbook disguised as a novel about what it
really takes to launch a startup. Welcome to
the show, Andrew. Thanks for having me. That
was a great intro. Well, thank you. And I am
seeing the cover of this, The Entrepreneur's
Odyssey, and I can't wait to learn more. What's
the meaning behind the cover? And tell me all
about the book. Sure, sure. So like I'm maybe
overly fond of visual puns. So the cover of the
book is an image of a maze and there's a founder
standing in front of it and he's got a chainsaw
and he's literally hacking his way through the
maze. You know, we talk about startups, you know,
startups as hackers or cutting through problems
in a novel and unique way. That's the metaphor
I wanted for the cover. So he's with the chainsaw
creating his own maze. Just cutting a path straight
through, going as direct as possible. But if
it's straight through, we all know that entrepreneurs,
it's never that easy to go in a straight path,
right? You got to. Yeah. Listen, he can choose.
He has a chainsaw. So how is this book different?
What would make us want to read it? What is that
novel factor about it? Yeah, well, that brings
us to the second pun, right? So the subtitle
is it's a novel approach to startup success because
it's written like a novel. I have a confession
to make, right? My confession is that I really
don't like business books. Even the ones that
are actually quite good often are kind of hard
to read. So, you know, it's almost like they
have the same ghostwriter in like Indiana who
writes it, the same kind of chipper tone of voice,
bland, but chipper. And it's like anecdote, anecdote,
anecdote, name drop, name drop, name drop, you
know, chapter summary at the end. And to be honest,
most of the time, if you just ripped out that
half page chapter summary and just stapled all
30 of those together, you'd have a great 30 page
book and that would be it. But even the good
ones, like it's just hard to read. And as a result,
in addition to being hard to read, it's hard
to remember. It doesn't really connect with you.
So what I found when I first started running
accelerator programs and I'm trying to give advice
to startups, you know, I could just tell them
like, hey, Sheila, listen, you know, you got
this e -commerce company. You're probably going
to live and die based on like your click through
rate. Now, why don't you instead of like building
everything, why don't you just take some Google
AdWords campaign out, put like a mock up of the
site? Just see what happens first. And that was
okay. And some startups took that advice. But
when I say, listen, you know, I invested in this
other company a couple of years ago called whatever.
And they were in a very similar situation as
you are. Their revenue model, their entire business
model depended on being able to get people into
their site for under a certain cost per click.
They were kind of worried about it. And they
decided, you know, let's just do a mock -up of
the site, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So
same advice. But one was me just telling him
and one was me telling them about the other startup
who did it. And like the take rate on that advice
was so much higher through the story because
people could identify with it. They understood
like, oh, I see that. That's I see me in that
character. Right. That's, you know, meaningful
to me. It's memorable. So when it came time to
like, you know, let's just write it all down.
I went back to an earlier book that I had in
business school called The Goal, which was a
novel about business. And I'm like, I have to
write the book this way. So the entire book is
about a fictional startup. From the moment they
pitch their idea in like an evening event at
a law firm, to finding a mentor, to finding their
co -founder, to ultimately, ultimately raising
their first round of financing. And all the lessons
are embedded in that story. So we all know there's
different types of companies, right? We got the
brick and mortar and then we got the tech startup.
So this entrepreneurial odyssey, is this for
someone who has an idea for an innovation or
is it for Joe who wants to start a pressure washing
company? Yeah, you know, that's a very good point.
And I tell people that they're all startups,
but the kind of archetypical tech startup. that
you think of when you think about Facebook or
those movies. That's where I live, right? That's
the kind of stuff I invest in. That's the kind
of stuff I did. But it's actually a very small
subset of all the businesses people start. But
really, my book is written to the people running
that kind of startup. Now, it's not to say that
there aren't lessons there for you in general.
They don't all have to be software startups,
right? You could be making a new type of, I don't
know, hairbrush, right? A lot of the lessons
still apply, but it's definitely geared to the
kind of people who are either currently doing
something where they're sitting in their office,
like I'm dying here. I have a great idea. I want
to go do something new. It's definitely geared
to those kinds of entrepreneurs. Okay. Well,
that just brought me back. I had told you that
my... My youngest had just gone off to college
about two years ago. He went to entrepreneurship
summer camp. And all these kids were maybe 17.
And so in that week, they all had to, you know,
go from idea. They had to build teams and have
to, you know, have to go from idea to the presentation.
And it was so beautiful to see Generation Z.
come up with these mind -blowing ideas. And it
just came to mind when you said a brush, because
one of them, and they had access to 3D printers,
one of them actually came with a brush that you
could unscrew and put dry shampoo and then screw
it back in so that you could, I guess, brush
your hair. without having to wash it. Very cool.
So I teach entrepreneurship also. I do one course
a semester. And maybe it's because I just don't
know how to do it any other way. I only know
how to teach entrepreneurship by doing. So the
students break up into different teams, four
people per team. And I take them through the
entire process of customer discovery all the
way through to completing their deck and what
it's like to raise a round. I don't think I could
imagine doing that with them in one week. It's
just hyper accelerated. So it takes the course
of a semester. And ironically, one of the girls
in the class has a similar but not exactly the
same idea around a hairbrush. So it's interesting
how like, you know, people kind of start to think
in similar paths. Well, the only part I didn't
like now, maybe they were able to do it. because
it was eight hours. It was intensive. But they
only spent half the day together in teams because
the second half, they were actually visiting
alumni startups around town. And it was a beautiful
program. I went to the presentations. The only
heartbreaking thing for me that was an eye -opener
was the Generation Z right at 16, 17. Anyone...
that was the age of 30 or any product that came
out that was the age of 30, you know, their logos
look like Mr. Magoo. And for those that don't
know what Mr. Magoo is, right? And I was like,
wait a minute, we're not that old, right? We're
still young. I don't know about you, Sheila,
but I identify as 29. I'm telling you that if
you're teaching like this generation, it was
a great way to put in a perspective how we are
perceived. Yeah, I have three teenage girls.
They have no problem reminding me. So do you
teach them entrepreneurship? Do you sit around
the table asking them if they have ideas? Not
really. All parents, nothing that you do will
be cool to your kids, but it will be cool to
your kids' friends. So my daughter's friends
have invited me in to talk to their first high
school and college entrepreneurship classes.
And it's great, but to my kids, I'm just going
to stop being such a dork dad. Well, at least
you're appreciated somewhere in that ecosystem,
right? You know, once you send a daughter off
to college, then they start loving you again.
It's rough in high school, but it gets a lot
better after. All right. So we talked about the
cover of the book, but in your profile, you have
a chair that I must ask, what is the meaning
of the chair? Can you first describe the chair?
Sure. So I can describe it and I can give you
the meaning in the same time. So if you're a
fan of Game of Thrones, there is the throne of
swords, right? So you're on there. It's made
of the melted swords of all their enemies. So
back in 2015, I was down in Austin for South
by Southwest. And that was like a heyday of Game
of Thrones. So they had a pop -up called South
by Southwesteros. You know, Westeros for those.
three people out there in your audience who don't
know it that's the the fictional lamb that game
of thrones is in so this pop -up and they had
like models of like this the sword needle that
one of the characters had they had a model where
you could take a photo of your face and it would
put you on the wall of faces which were like
masks of dead people in one part of the show
and then they had the game the throne so you
could get your you know your picture taking sitting
on the throne so i had it And I went back and
forth for like my Uber and Lyft profile. Do I
use the dead face on the wall or do I use the
me in the throne? The Uber drivers are a lot
more likely to pick you up if you use you in
the throne rather than the dead mask on the wall.
Okay, that clears it up. So it does have a theme
to it. I was just wondering, is that like a chair
that he has in his office or at home? Because
with all those swords, it was. It was a bit intimidating,
right, when I'm seeing the profile. Yeah. You
know, it's like one of those, like, shibboleths,
right? For the people who are fans of Game of
Thrones, they're like, oh, my God, where did
you get that photo? And for everyone else, they're
like, that's an odd profile photo. Yeah, and
I don't know what the Game of Thrones is, so
I will. Sheila, you and I have to talk after
the broadcast. I don't know. It looks like sci
-fi. More fantasy. Think more Lord of the Rings,
less Star Wars. Okay. Yeah. No. Definitely keep
on talking. Okay. So along the way in this odyssey,
in the book, with your experience, you have collected
a lot of unfiltered stories without mentioning
names or anything specific. What is that one
story that sticks out? In the book or just in
general? Whichever you choose, whether it be
in the book or in your experience, because it
must be really interesting, you know, when you're
teaching so many people. I'll tell you, honestly,
a true story, and I'll tell you the name of the
company. And it's in the book in a modified form.
And this was one of those experiences where I
realized, like, the stories are the way to get
the advice, like, actually listened to. So there
was a company that was going through the accelerator
used to work at Dreamit Ventures. And this was
a long time ago. And they had a blog discovery
service. You know, back then, early on, blogs
were super big. And, you know, finding the ones
that were a better fit for you than, you know,
your interests and others was kind of a reasonable
problem. And they had this. this thesis that
you know they could put a free version out that
would get you so far and then there was a paid
version and some people would pay for you know
help being helped to find really good blocks
to read so you know they come into the program
like here's our model this is what we're going
to do it's like so what are your plans like well
it takes us it'll take us another you know seven
eight weeks to finish building all the premium
features so that'll be about a few weeks before
demo day when we present to all the investors
So we'll have it rolled out, we'll get a little
bit of data, and boom, we're going to go try
to raise a seed round on that. And we said, well,
what happens if the numbers aren't good? If you're
rolling into demo day, you'll have nothing. Like,
well, no, we hadn't really thought about that.
And they said, well, we have a better idea for
you. You already have all the free features working,
right? I said, yeah. You already know what the
paid features are going to be, right? Oh, yeah.
You know what you're going to charge for? Yeah,
pretty much. Okay, put up the buy now page, put
up the, you know, upgrade, you know, kind of
push people to upgrade the way you would normally
show them like, you know, upgrade, you get these
features, you know, everything from before plus
these features. And it's, I don't know, $9 .99
a month and see how many people click buy now.
And, you know, once they click buy now, it's,
you know, you don't have to do anything. You
just take pop up and say, hey, coming soon, give
us your email address and we'll let you know
when it's available. But up until that last stage,
it should look absolutely real to your customer.
Because then you'll know that, you'll know what
percentage of your audience you can probably
get to convert to paid. Actually, that's awesome.
All right, so they do that. It takes them a couple
of days to put it up. They test it for about
a week. They come back totally crestfallen. What's
wrong? Well, you know, the business model we
have says we need a 2 % conversion rate to paid.
to make this business work. And we were getting
like 0 .1%. There's just no way we can optimize
this thing to get to 2%, much less any higher.
So I think we're kind of out of luck here. And
so, okay, that's not the right approach. What
can we do differently? So they think about it
for a bit and they say like, well, the type of
blogs that we seem to get the most interest in
are the kind of blogs. that talk about sporting
and concert venues and like, you know, the tips
and tricks to get the best seats there. I think
we're going to do a pivot and we're going to
do stuff in that space. So with, I don't know,
six or seven weeks left before demo day, they
scrapped their entire business that they'd been
working on up until that point and built a whole
new business. And that business today is SeatGeek.
It was a billion dollar company. That just came
in today. That's the concert. Concerts and sport
venues. They started off as being like a place
to sell, but not just like StubHub where you
could sell your tickets, but they would search
all the different secondary markets. Like kind
of kayak was for different airlines websites.
So they would do all of that. And now you can
even list your tickets there. And now they even
have like theaters who use it to deliver tickets
that way electronically. And they even have a
stadium named after them. But all of this would
never have happened and the company would have
been stillborn if they'd gone with their initial
instinct was, let's build and see what happens,
rather than adapt one of the quintessential startup
attitudes, which is, how can I test this quickly
and cheaply? Like, how can I de -risk this as
soon as possible? Because if it's not going to
work, I want to save myself weeks, if not months
of effort going down a blind path. Wow. So that
would be the validation stage, what you were
describing, right? Yeah. You're asking them to
get a 2%. So in order to even be able to get
that data, it's very important to be able to
track that data. What's the easiest way to track
that data? Google Analytics? Well, for that kind
of stuff, Google Analytics is really pretty simple.
They're talking about the number of people who
would click a certain button and go to a certain
page. That's super easy. It's not always that
easy. Uh, you know, the, if I want to say like
how effective say my billboard ads are, it's
kind of hard. Like I've got three other different
ads running at the same time. I've got online,
I've got outgoing email. It's kind of hard to
disaggregate that, but sometimes it's just face
to face. So for instance, in the book, I talk
about a, an index card app. Have you ever heard
of an index card app? No. Okay. Not surprising
because I think I made it up, but I might not
have. It might've been something that I heard.
So let's say, I'll give you the example in the
book. So the entrepreneur in the book is named
Marcus and he has this idea for startup. He's
totally wrong. His mentor, Jason, the reason
I slipped up there is there's a lot of Easter
eggs in the book. So Jason is actually named
after. John Asin, who was one of the OG of the
New York investor scene. He passed not that many
years ago, but you know, he was, he was a super
sharp angel investor. So anyway, so his mentor,
Jason says like, we're not going to go sell the
businesses, but it, it kind of makes sense maybe
to sell this for like on the go professionals.
So Marcus has to go back and do customer discovery
again. And he's like, well, okay, I'll start
building, you know, these new features. And Jason's
like, no, here's what he ends up doing. He. gets
a pack of index cards, five bucks, takes a pen,
sketches out what the screens would look like
on the app. And he goes out and he's talking
to a woman in his network who's a real estate
agent who he thinks might be one of the target
markets for like the new focus of this app. And
he says, Julia, I remember the name because my
wife's named Julie and she's a real estate agent.
In this case, it's Julia. I'm going to give you
these index cards. I want you to just treat the
index cards as if it's an app on your phone.
I mean, literally, if you're going to press a
button, touch that part of the card, and then
I'll give you a new screen, which will be where
it takes you. Don't ask me questions, because
if you were downloading the app, I wouldn't be
here to answer questions. The one thing I'm asking
you to do differently, Marcus says, is just verbalize
what you're thinking. So if you're looking at
the card, and you're like, I don't know what
button to press, just say that out loud. Or it's
like, I want to practice this, but I'm worried
what will happen. Just say that out loud because
I can't read your mind. But other than that,
you just interact with this index card app as
if I weren't in the room. Now, the beauty of
that approach is, again, for the cost of like
$5 worth of index cards, you can talk to 20,
30, 40 people. And you can see how they interact
with your almost app. And if none of them click
on a certain set of features, Either your design
was so bad they didn't know what they were, that's
why you ask them afterwards, or nobody really
needs those features. So why build that? And
if you get to a point where they're all running
into the problems in the same place, maybe your
design is bad and you have to fix that before
you go out there. Maybe how you're offering the
product doesn't work and you need to change it.
You can get all that feedback before you spend
a bunch of time and maybe a bunch of money building.
So how are you measuring that? Like you're looking,
like you're just absorbing the mind of the customer
over 20 or 30 or 40 interviews like that. And
all with hand -drawn index cards that represent
different screens and buttons. Now you can do
it with, it's called, the technical terms you
wanted to do it online is a clickable wireframe.
Think of it like a movie storyboard. but interactive.
So you could do it with an actual app. Wouldn't
take very long to build. You could do it with
a website, but you can do it with index cards.
So we know that with AI, everything is evolving
real quick. Out of the top of your head, what
opportunities do you see in these times with
this disruption? Yeah, I'd love someone to come
up with a tool that tells chat GPT to stop pretending
it can do things it can't do. Sorry, I did recently.
No, just recently, like I went down. So I've
been doing a bunch of podcasts, as you might
as you might imagine. And, you know, I get sometimes
here. Here's your 30, 50 minute podcast. If the
host or the hostess didn't chop them up and give
me highlight reels, I usually just link to it
and we're done. But I remember thinking, wouldn't
it be really cool if I could just automatically
get five or six highlights, 10 second long clips
and post those. And I'm thinking, well, I don't
have time to do all the editing. I said, oh,
so ChatGPT, here's my video. Do you think you
can like do it? It's like, sure, no problem.
Like I'll go through it. I'll identify the clips
and then we'll make the little clips. Do you
want me to add branding? Do you want me to put
like a pre -roll? I'm like, oh, that's really
cool. Here's the, here's the files for the branding,
the pre -roll. And then as we get into about
like three hours later, um, and I'm like, great,
make the clips. And it's like, okay, it'll take
me like an hour. Come back, come back. Nothing
like what's happening. It's like, oh, I didn't
know how to tell you this, but I can't really
edit videos. I don't really edit videos. Here's
other services. You know, then why the hell did
you tell me you could do it? And I said, well,
at least you, at least you identified automatically.
a bunch of different segments that i can use
you know okay that's that's half the battle and
then i i go to look at those segments that i
identified and it's absolutely nothing like what
it says those clips are the words don't align
like the breaks are like right in the middle
of a sentence and i'm like dude you know what's
with the what's with the bad clipping like your
time index is off i was like Oh, I forgot to
tell you, I can't really transcribe and understand
your video. I was just doing it on the basis
of the kinds of things you normally say. And
this is like indicative. So you did nothing.
It's like if I gave work to an intern and they
said, yeah, I'll get the spreadsheet for you
by tomorrow. And they had no idea how to use
Excel and no intention of actually doing it.
Okay, I'm done ranting. I'll answer your question
for real. Which was what exactly about AI? Oh.
Because you're so involved in entrepreneurship
and you're teaching and startups, what's one
opportunity that you see that you can develop
out of your head? It seems like when new technologies
come along and they open up a whole new array
of opportunities that were insolvable problems
before, everyone seems to start sprinkling that
word on top of their deck. So a couple of years
ago, everything was, I guess, blockchain, right?
Natural language processing, like you're sprinkling
fairy dust or seasoning on your startup. Almost
all the pitches I get now, with the exception
of the robotics one, are like, oh, we're using
AI to do X, Y, Z. A lot of the times it's like,
they're not really using AI. It's like basic
stuff. But the ones where they are really using
AI break down into basically two categories.
There is vertical AI. or applied ai i'm sorry
those are two different things sorry there's
applied ai and then there's like in the foundational
ai so the the difference is when i'm doing applied
ai i'm using kind of off -the -shelf tools i
may be enriching it or customizing but i'm using
it to do stuff usually within an industry so
a super simple example is if you're a real estate
agent and you need to write uh reviews or summaries
of a property that you're listing Most realtors
are quite bad at writing that. You can point
ChatGPT at a couple of photos, not ChatGPT, it's
other service, at a couple of photos and the
structured data, and it'll write it for you.
Now, they didn't create the library or the AI
underneath it. They're applying that AI to a
specific use case. And then there's the more
foundational AI or the frontier tech where people
are coming up with entirely new AI models. That's
the super expensive, really hard stuff to do.
I don't do that second type of investing, but
I see a lot of applied AI. So my advice for anybody
who is in sort of a day job and they're trying
to decide, like, is this the right idea for me
to pursue? Is it the right time for me to leave?
Well, my number one advice is buy the book because
if anything, because it's written like a novel,
you'll actually understand what it feels like
to be an entrepreneur and if that's a good fit
for you. But the other thing to do is to just
try to use some of the other out -of -the -shelf
tools to simulate what you're trying to do to
see how easy it is to do their solutions. You
can use ChatGPT or if you want to use kind of
vibe coding tools, there's a tool called Lovable,
which will help build the entire app for you.
But you can use these tools to get a lot further
than you used to be able to get, you know, before
we had AI. Now, what you specifically do with
that, that's got to come from you. Like whatever
problem you face, if it's super painful and you're
pretty certain that a lot of people are in the
exact same boat as you, and ideally it happens
a lot, if you can solve that now using these
AI tools, now's the time to do it. I like that.
Okay. So I'm going to throw an idea out there.
I'm not going to be the one developing it, but
you're in front of a lot of brilliant minds and
you're a teacher. So just let me know when it
gets implemented. You know how we were talking
about that button and how you have to monitor
clicks, right? So a lot of people struggle with
Google Analytics, right? Because Google just
isn't simple. I mean, the only thing that's simple
at this point is our search bar. But when you're
going in a cloud and you're going into all of
these infrastructures they have, it's really
hard to navigate, you know, within that. So what
if this same screen, when they're testing the
button, and they can maybe even use AI because
sometimes by just changing the copy. perhaps
they would get different results whether or not
the person clicks or not. So what the bun could
do is, instead of having to analyze what they
clicked, is that AI says, oh, here's your customer
journey. They spent one second here and then
suggest improvements. Well, I know SeatGeek wouldn't
have been born, but I'm just saying, imagine
if you use the AI so that when you click, All
of those insights are there and it's reading
all the all the text on the page. And so you're
able to just go click and start making those
edits to see what that looks like. So it's a
good idea. Parts of it have been in the works
or even available for over a decade now. So we
talk about AI now. It's not like I just came
out of nowhere. Companies have been using it
for a long time. different about it is not only
how really good it's getting but also how easy
it is now for the casual uh you know the casual
user to to get at beforehand you know it had
to be something that you built on your own in
-house now there are um and there have been for
a while at we call them sorry we call them um
martech marketing technology startups out there
They have come up with solutions for that kind
of thing. So at the very simplest level, you
might A -B test a button. Do I put the buy button
on the right or do I put the buy button on the
left? Do I use this copy versus that copy? They
would just A -B test different pages and it would
be automated. I think it's even built into Google
Analytics. They can just do that for you. And
when Google AdWords came out, it wasn't very
long before they would let you A -B -C -D test.
four different types of ads. They would just
run four different types of ads, and the ones
that got the more click -throughs, they'd start
running more and more of until they found the
winning ads to do the most of. So that got pretty
sophisticated pretty quickly. What they didn't
do at that point is they didn't generate the
ideas that you wanted to test. That was a little
bit too much for them. But as the technology
has evolved, they can suggest different ads.
They can suggest... different copy. They can
suggest different placement of those buttons
based on what they've seen elsewhere and what
works. So that stuff's already in the works,
already available to a large degree. The next
step and the stuff that's getting kind of really
interesting, and one of the teams in my current
class is using this as their student project,
is Google Analytics shows you a whole bunch of
numbers. It doesn't really tell you. Sheila,
you should try this next because. So they wanted
to come up with an e -commerce companion, they
called it, which would sit on top of Spotify's
analytics, for example, and translate that into,
okay, Sheila, it's Monday morning. Here are the
one or two things we think we should do differently
this week. If you're losing sales on this or
we think you'll get more sales on that. And in
most cases, you can say. Yes, let's try that
and be able to do it for you. So changing it
from being an analytics platform that you look
at and decide what to do to basically being that
analyst that looks at it for you and then gives
you like, hey, three recommendations. What do
you want to do? You're a call boss. Exactly.
Because it's not that easy to interpret the analytics,
right? The data's there and then you're like,
okay, great. Even going back to that one example
you did, that it was 2 % and they were 0 .1,
and it didn't work. So if you could just have
it tell you, based on what people were doing,
what you should do. Yeah, and that's kind of
the next frontier for AI, is turning data into
some fairly simple, appropriate recommendations.
Do them. All right. So how are you going to wrap
this up? What is one lesson that you'd like to
leave us with? Okay. If you're a founder and
you're looking to raise money, the number one
thing you should never, never, never, never,
never, never, never, never, never do is send
a cold email to a VC. The best thing I can say
that'll happen is we won't even notice it. We'll
just delete it. So if you've done it already,
relax. It's okay. No harm done. But the best
by far way to get an investor who might actually
invest is to get a warm introduction to them.
Somebody that you know in common who can say,
hey, I've known Sheila a bunch of years now.
She's sharp. She's got a really great idea. Andrew,
you should talk to her. That is the way to reach
a VC. And if you don't have that connection,
here's the hack. You ready? I'm ready. You can
cold email one of the investors' portfolio companies,
preferably one that has something to do with
what you're doing. Because they're going through
the same journey you are. They're not overwhelmed
with tons of like rando founders. Some of them
are clearly cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. They're not
overrun by that. Like they're running their business.
They don't get as many of these like crazy, like,
hey, I'm another startup. They're likely to sympathize.
If you're in the same space, you meet, you may
even have an opportunity to do business together.
And after you've met, if you guys hit it off,
they may turn around and say, I really love what
you're doing, Sheila. Would you like to talk
to my investors? You would phrase it as like,
hey. Andrew, I'm thinking about approaching,
I don't know, Vertical Ventures. I see they've
invested in you. I just want to know what kind
of people they are. Are they good investors or
not? Can we talk for a little bit? And then that
conversation blooms into an actual relationship
between you and their portfolio company. And
then you get what's perhaps the best warm intro
ever, which is from one of their portfolio companies
that they're making money on or looks like they're
going to make money on. So it's hard to say I
know you now. So to all my listeners out there,
if you want to get a hold of Andrew. They have
to email you. But it works better if you actually
know them, right? So a warm intro is like, hey,
this is one of my listeners. I just met her like
three days ago. Not really sure what she does,
but Andrew, would you talk to her? That's not
really the super vote of confidence. But if it's
like, hey, this is my assistant producer. I've
been working with him for five years now. He's
got this great idea. Super sharp guy. I think
the idea is good. Andrew, do you want to take
a listen? Like, no, that's a good intro. Well,
that was a second tip, too. So where can we find
you or how can we purchase The Entrepreneur's
Odyssey? We can find me. It's usually the Upper
West Side of Manhattan. But if you're looking
for the book, best place to look is on Amazon.
If you're interested in just a little bit more
background on me and, of course, a link to the
book, my personal website is andrew, the letter
B as in boy, ackerman .com. So you can go there,
find out a little bit more about me. And, oh,
yes, you can buy the book through there also.
Well, thank you so much for joining me today.
Thanks for having me. And thank you all for tuning
in to another episode of Milestone Moments in
Business and Leadership. Until next time.