Alla Adam with Biohack.yourself

Intro: [00:00:04] Welcome back to the Startup Showdown podcast, where we discuss pitching, funding and scaling startups. Join us as we interview winners, mentors and judges of the monthly 120,000 pitch competition powered by Panoramic Ventures. We also discuss the latest updates in software Web3, Healthcare, Tech, FinTech, and more. Now sit tight as we interview this week’s guest and their journey through entrepreneurship.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:39] Lee Kantor here. Another episode of Startup Showdown podcast, and this is going to be a good one, but before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor Panoramic Ventures. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Startup Showdown, we have Alla Adam with biohack.yourself. Welcome.

Alla Adam: [00:00:59] Thank you so much, Lee. I should be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:01] I am so excited to get to know you and learn more before we get too far into things. Oh, tell me about biohack.yourself. How are you serving folks?

Alla Adam: [00:01:10] Well, I’m a lean startup and VC coach, as well as a negotiator, investor and author. And I embrace all this roles via biohack.yourself and then.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:22] But what’s your back story? How did you get how did you get to here right now? Like, what have you been doing up to this point to get to the point you are today?

Alla Adam: [00:01:30] Well, I started investing in startups in 2003. Back then, I was not so popular and I was one of the very few early bird investors, I guess I can say, in Bitcoin. And at that time I decided also to try to be a founder. So I ended up founding a search and selection business in Europe. Now we call it a chart tech, but at that time we didn’t have this fantasy worlds. So yeah, I ended up thinking how, how can I implement and use the five languages that I speak fluently on a daily basis? So it led me to the idea of coaching and mentoring and authoring three playbooks on coaching, investing and negotiations respectively. So pretty much my story in brief now.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:24] What do you enjoy most about working with startups and startup founders?

Alla Adam: [00:02:29] You know, I really enjoy and admire the courage of founders like their insatiable curiosity, their hunger for progress. I truly believe that startups are the best form of business that the humankind was able to come up with.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:50] Now, having worked with a lot of these folks, is there kind of some mistakes you see them making where you’re like, Oh, here we go again. Why do they keep doing this?

Alla Adam: [00:02:59] I think that all mistakes they’re making for most are the very first mistakes, very first startup founders mistakes. So that’s okay. And a lot of them are actually learning super fast. So in this case, mistakes become lessons. So I won’t say that the mistakes that they’re making are annoying or shall not be there. No, they shall be there. Everyone makes mistakes when hiring the team or fundraising or testing the MVP. Right? So that’s a little okay. And it’s not about the quantity of the mistakes, it’s about the quality. So the point is to make smarter mistakes every single time you make a mistake. Right. Fail better, fail often and fail better.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:55] And then maybe for your own mental health to reframe mistake as learning.

Alla Adam: [00:04:03] Mistake is a lesson. It is a lesson. Essentially, you make it you understand that it’s a mistake. It’s like you are aware that you will not repeat it and you label it as a lesson and essentially you can transform it into. The lesson not only for you but for someone else as well. You can teach somebody else. Like I am mentoring start ups, so I’m helping them not to make the same mistakes again or avoid mistakes in the future.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:36] Now, among the superpowers you have are skills and negotiation. Is there any advice you can give a startup founder or founder when it comes to negotiation, whether it’s in a sales perspective or even maybe from getting investor perspective?

Alla Adam: [00:04:55] My advice would be ask questions. Get very curious about your counterparty. Prepare like invest a lot in preparation, ask questions and be silent most of the time. Listen, really listen. It’s called active listening. Just apply the skills of active listening. Ask questions why questions? Ask what questions, ask how questions. Don’t try to be smarter than you really are. Like if you don’t know some something, say, Well, I can’t give you the answer right now. I will be able to do it tomorrow, for example, or give me some time.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:41] Now. How do you coach people up when it comes to being coachable? Because that’s a lot of this, too, right? Like someone’s not going to invest in a business that they don’t feel the founder is coaching, isn’t coachable.

Alla Adam: [00:05:55] Mm hmm. I have a strong belief that every single human is coachable. The point is to express it. We, none of us is perfect. We all lack certain skills, different skills. In one skills, we’re better one set of skills. The other set of skills, we completely suck. So. I would say the point is to establish your areas for improvement for yourself. And afterwards we open for coaching. Again. It’s. I really don’t believe that there is a human on this planet among all the 8 billion of us who is not coachable. No, I don’t believe that it’s true.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:51] So you think that everybody is coachable and it’s up to the coach to kind of find a way in to to find the way that the communicate best with them?

Alla Adam: [00:07:00] Absolutely. Everybody is coachable. It’s up for a person for a coach to be open for coaching. Say, I have no idea how this is actually going to help me, but I am open. Let’s try it. And it’s about the coach to find the ways, pinpoint the exact ways that actually are suitable for this coaching.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:30] Now in part of your journey thus far, you’ve. You’re an author. How did that come about?

Alla Adam: [00:07:39] Well. Pretty much my clients have been asking me a lot of questions about how they can become coaches, how they can become investors, and how they can become better in negotiating. And I decided to write playbooks which are very practical books with like exact guideline, pretty much. So that’s it. Demand preposition. I understood that the demand was there and I decided to write this playbooks. Actually, I’m working on my fourth playbook right now, so we’ll see.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:20] Now.

Alla Adam: [00:08:20] See the world later on in November.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:24] What is your writing process like? Because, you know, a lot of people say they want to be an author, but it’s it’s to have written several books like you have is pretty impressive. What is your process for writing a book?

Alla Adam: [00:08:38] So my secret formula is. Sit down. Silence your phone. Put it on airplane mode and write until the little blood drops appear on your forehead. Pretty much. I write my books very fast. Like I can invest up to 10 hours per day with some breaks for eating, using the restroom, whatever, walking my dog. And afterwards I write. I write them fast. And then I check, fact check, do all kinds of additional research, do some types of interviews, search for some additional information. So the part of writing does not take me so long. And it’s not. It’s not exhausting at all. It’s like a game. It’s actually very interesting to see how the words are forming in sentences on the paper. I tend to actually use the paper to write, write it down, not type it on the computer.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:50] So the first step is you just get it all out of your head as quickly as possible, and then you go back.

Alla Adam: [00:09:55] In.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:56] And then just edit it.

Alla Adam: [00:09:57] And anything to disturb you. Any type of business meetings? Nothing. I block specific time slots for my writing and nobody. Not my partner, not my dog. Nobody can disturb me and disturb me during this time. So yeah. And get it all out and then shape it like, you know, Michelangelo, I think, was the one who actually said that. It’s the it’s the rock, right? That contains the sculpture. I just help it to get out. So I have the same attitude towards writing books. Like I already wrote it in my mind. I just need to get out. Get it out on paper.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:44] Now, how did you hear about Startup Showdown and Panoramic Ventures? How’d they get on your radar?

Alla Adam: [00:10:50] Well, one of my business connections, a fellow investor actually suggested that this might be an interesting new mentoring opportunity for me. For me. And I heard about startups show down when they were doing their very first competition. Which competition? So yeah, one of the very first mentors. So I decided to give it a try and so far I really enjoyed this experience.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:20] Now, what advice would you give a startup going through a startup shutdown to get the most out of the experiences or anything that you would recommend in terms of preparation or you know, how they should attack it or get the most out or learn from it.

Alla Adam: [00:11:37] I would recommend to shorten that the pitch to pretty much a one pager and not go through the slides with the mentors, but just give that general overview. Use maximum 3 minutes for it, be fast, be energetic, and afterwards ask a bunch of questions like we usually have a list of 100 questions for your mentors because per day you get four mentors. That’s the maximum for startup founders. And make sure that all of your mentors answer all of your questions because you are not there for getting the feedback regarding your pitch deck, because your pitch deck is going to suck anyways. It’s going to be imperfect no matter what you do. So. It actually doesn’t matter that much. A lot of most successful founders probably that I know, they just did the pitch deck during the pitch and they say, okay, let’s stop it here. Let’s just talk. So this is why we created this startup. This is what we need right now. This is how we plan to grow. And then they get the investment. So don’t get fixated on PowerPoint, make it short and make sure to ask a lot of questions.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:04] Now in your practice, part of what you do is coaching for startup founders. Is there a niche that you specialize in or are you kind of industry agnostic when it comes to startup coaching and mentoring?

Alla Adam: [00:13:18] I specialized mostly in. Coaching regarding that topic of investments. So how to raise. The Fund, no matter if it’s Pre-seed or A or Series B or post IPO or actually how to do the IPO or SPARK or MBAs. So everything. All topics about money. Let’s put it this way. How to get it. How to manage it. How to make sure to get more and multiply it. But as well as everything else, including building the team, including negotiations with investors, negotiations with co-founders, negotiations with key team members. Yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:12] Now, is there any one piece of advice you would give a startup founder when it comes to negotiating, when it comes to specifically to take a deal or not take a deal? There are certain red flags or green lights that you can let people know to either pay attention to and they’ll be on the lookout for.

Alla Adam: [00:14:34] I would say ask investor why they want to give you money. That’s a very unusual question, because investors are. Kinda came through here, something like, okay, well we need money. Just give us money and we will be happy. No ask. Be curious about why they want to give you this specific sum of money or in case they want to become the lead investor. Ask them. Make sure of what what exactly is behind it, what kinds of goals they actually assign you. Consciously or unconsciously, that’s probably the most important negotiation tip. As for red flags, there are I mean, you will uncover the red flags with the question why? Because if the investor plans to get the return on investment in, let’s say six months, that’s probably not doable. So this case, you just don’t accept the offer.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:45] Right? By asking why, then you can’t really get to the heart of what they need and what they want and what they see and the opportunity.

Alla Adam: [00:15:52] Yeah, yeah. And start at the founders, they really ask this question like, why is it important for you? Why do you actually want to give money to me, to us, to our startup, not 20 billion startups that are in the world. Right.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:12] So if somebody wants to learn more and have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on your team, what is the best way to find you or get a of you?

Alla Adam: [00:16:20] Linkedin. I’m waiting. Anybody can send me the direct message or shoot a connection. We had a request and. I always answer. I read all my messages and I always answered.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:37] Well, congratulations on all your success, and thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Alla Adam: [00:16:45] My pleasure. Thank you very much.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:47] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Startup Showdown.

Intro: [00:16:53] As always, thanks for joining us. And don’t forget to follow and subscribe to the Startup Showdown podcast. So you get the latest episode as it drops wherever you listen to podcasts to learn more and apply to our next startup showdown pitch competition visit showdown vs that’s showdown dot DC. All right. That’s all for this week. Goodbye for now.