Jason Graub With Tourial

Intro: [00:00:07] Coming to you live from Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for another episode of tech talk with your host, Joey Kline.

Joey Kline: [00:00:16] Welcome to tech talk, everyone. We have got a great local entrepreneur on today. Jason Graub, CEO and co-founder of Tourial. Jason, how you doing?

Jason Graub: [00:00:26] It is great to be here. Thank you for having me.

Joey Kline: [00:00:27] Good. Ok, so you know, we have all different types of CEOs and execs and co-founders or no founders on the show. And so today we’ve got both a CEO and a founder and a company that just raised a little bit of cash. So I think we’re going to have a lot of fun diving into what you guys are doing. So first of all, trial spelled t o tutorial for everyone out there listening so you can google them headline What do you guys do?

Jason Graub: [00:01:00] Yes, a really high level. We provide a way for software companies to build interactive product experiences of their software, really focusing top of funnel on those marketing use cases. So the first time a potential buyer ever sees your product experiences, your product interacts with your product. That’s where you can use a tutorial like experience to give them a really good feel for what they’re actually going to be going through the buying process about

Joey Kline: [00:01:23] Ok, and we’re going to try in as best as we can audibly audio to recreate that experience, right? But for anyone listening, it is actually very cool. If you go to their website, you will really get to see how it works. But just as best as you can describe it to folks who are listening, how it works?

Jason Graub: [00:01:39] Yeah, the basically I would say the way it works is you’re going to click on one of these toriola experiences and then it’s all interactive. So you’re actually clicking through the full experience of, let’s say, imagine, you know, you go to your website, you go walking through what it’s like to be actually being using the Tawil platform. So our own tour actually has a persona. So like, imagine you are a VP of marketing at Asana and you’re trying to share what Asana does as a platform to what gives you an interactive way to walk through that without ever having to log in for Asana, for example. So this is all exists outside of the platform.

Joey Kline: [00:02:10] Yeah. So OK. So as opposed to maybe a rep or we’re going to talk about how this kind of interacts with sales and marketing a second. But as opposed to a rep describing this to someone on the phone, we are basically looking at a video of someone going through the software as opposed to you trying to figure it out yourself, what it does.

Jason Graub: [00:02:31] Exactly so. Video But more interactive in the sense that the buyer, the visitor, is the one who’s actually clicking through it. Whereas a video is a bit more passive, it actually forces the person to kind of engage, and that process allows them to educate more on what the software does.

Joey Kline: [00:02:45] Ok, so this is by the time they go, assuming they’re an interested buyer, by the time they go in to actually speak with someone from sales, they’re a little bit further along in their understanding of the product than they typically would be.

Jason Graub: [00:02:57] Yeah, it allows them to do more of that evaluation. And even to the point that some of our customers say that people will buy their software without ever having to talk to a sales rep.

Joey Kline: [00:03:05] Ok, so we we went there. So let’s let’s talk about that. Ok, so I can see a use case in which this it obviously depends on sort of how complicated and complex a sale is for a certain piece of software. I can see a use case in which this augments what marketing and sales are already doing, right. It leads more qualified folks to sales right off the bat. I can also see a use case in which this sometimes circumvents sales altogether. Or is it just is one of those the right way to do it? Does it just depend on the company? What what are your buyers prefer?

Jason Graub: [00:03:43] I think it really depends on how their marketing and sales teams are set up. So I would say the in the future, maybe bypassing that sales rep. But right now, it’s really how do you augment the process of using the sales rep to have a more qualified and meaningful conversation? So imagine all the questions that a sales rep might be having during a discovery call that they don’t really need to be having because someone has already answered those questions for themselves through a tutorial experience.

Joey Kline: [00:04:07] Ok, but I imagine that this is typically a product that is purchased by marketing as a way to send leads to sales. Or are you selling? Are you? So are you selling it to a CMO or a CRO or it just depends on the company.

Jason Graub: [00:04:21] More often the CMO, VP, marketing director, marketing persona. The biggest reason is the website is definitely the core place that someone is going to be experiencing material.

Joey Kline: [00:04:30] Ok, OK. So this is not something where and I don’t know, maybe this is in the future, right? Yes, right now, I can totally see how this works on the website and have experienced it myself. Is this something that let’s say an SDR is reaching out to prospect they embed something like this in an email for them to experience? Or does that not? Is that not a functionality right now?

Jason Graub: [00:04:52] Yes. So you get hyperlink it in an email. Ok, would it embed like a video? There’s some technical limitations with Gmail that prevent that. Yeah, but we do have a lot of companies that will really have their outbound sales team, for example, say, Hey, check out this tour and you click on that and it would open. Fall, a kind of microsite experience that that trail goes through.

Joey Kline: [00:05:09] Ok, very cool. So, you know, I imagine your pitches like we live in a very, very crowded universe of B2B software. And this is a way for people who use trial to stand out to their buyers. Yep. Ok. So I brought up B2B software, which of course, I imagine is quite a robust prospect for Toro’s own sales efforts. Are there are there specific types of software companies that work best with L’Oreal?

Jason Graub: [00:05:39] Not really. I would say we have customers that really span SMB through enterprise and really any type of software. Even some companies that have like hardware. So if you think about IoT companies like a samsara can get a lot of benefit from a tool like Turrell because you can not only show how your software works, but because you’re using just screenshots and videos of the software to build it. You could actually show your hardware in relation to that software kind of the full product value.

Joey Kline: [00:06:03] Yeah, OK. And so, so hardware or software both work. I imagine that this is typically something that applies to an inside sale, a sale that happens over the phone or the internet as opposed to, you know, I mean, I guess maybe it could be the first step of someone going to actually see a prospect in person. But I imagine most of this is applies to inside sales,

Jason Graub: [00:06:23] Especially, I think, in 2022 with the pandemic. Yet most sales are definitely inside. Yeah, we do get requests for like a downloadable tutorial feature. So if you imagine you’re at an event or you are doing door to door sales that you could have that Turrell pulled up without needing Wi-Fi. So that stuff is something that we’re considering.

Joey Kline: [00:06:38] What what is your what are folks doing now? Right? I mean, it’s actually I slight slight tangent. So I recently had Jeff Perkins, who’s, well, he’s now the CEO of Park Mobile. He was the CMO, and he wrote a book that everyone should get because it’s very good. It’s called How do not suck at marketing? And it is. He’s been a marketing guy his whole life, and it’s really just about the massive number of technological changes that people in marketing have to keep up with. It’s when I really started to think about it. It’s really unlike any other function, except I would say sales as well, which somewhat, you know, kind of go together in terms of how much you have to keep up with. So that lead in what are the folks you’re talking to doing now? Is there something that is similar tutorial? Is this a total paradigm shift in terms of how people have their prospects experience a product at the front end of the funnel?

Jason Graub: [00:07:38] So I think there is without a doubt, a paradigm shift that’s occurring right now. The biggest thing being driven by the buyer. So if you think about from a B2C side, we’re all going to Amazon and we can buy something and have it at our door, potentially the same day. That urgency that need to feel the product see the product earlier is now kind of coming into the B2B space. So you think about as a marketer, you really want to be showing the product as early as possible because there’s an impatience, I think, with humans in general in this day and age that people want to be able to experience whatever they’re buying earlier. And you know, I think there’s also that stigma of getting on the phone with the salesperson. So the less you can force a potential buyer to do that and kind of match the way they want to purchase software, you’re going to have more success. Yeah.

Joey Kline: [00:08:20] So the the first job that I ever had out of college was as an SDR. And I’m thinking, I mean, this was around 2008, 2009, and then it seemed like buyers were bombarded with so many forms of information. Now, you know, it makes that time look, you know, laughably pedestrian. And so I imagine that this is very welcomed by the folks that you work with. What are some of the different ways that people that marketing uses this tool?

Jason Graub: [00:08:52] So the website is therefore the primary way, but you could have one tutorial on your website. You could have 10. It really depends. Are you trying to show kind of the whole product experience? Do you want to show different features, maybe how a certain integration works? So the website, I think as the core primary use case, that’s the main way when someone hears about a company, they’re going to go to their website and check it out. You want to give them that product experience on the website that will enable them to at least get some of the information that they would want as part of that initial evaluation. Outside of the website, you have outbound sales, like you mentioned, is definitely a really, really big use case with emails. So being able to say check out a Two-Year in an email really quickly and easily. Linkedin when I was actually selling toil originally a couple of years ago, a lot of what I would do is I would take a tutorial link and I would pop it into LinkedIn message and say, Hey, just check this out. All they had to do is open it up, and they were able to experience whatever that was without ever having to talk to someone.

Joey Kline: [00:09:47] Yeah. So I’m thinking about I mean, it’s really as sort of the proof is in the pudding, right? So you talked about selling. Ok, look, typically co-founders and, you know, are the chief salespeople for a period of time. So are you getting to the point where you all have a dedicated sales team who is a. Course using trial to sell trial, or does most of the onus still fall upon you and, you know, the other executives?

Jason Graub: [00:10:14] Oh yeah, so we definitely we brought our first sales higher actually about a year ago. Ok, I’m a director of sales and then we have been steadily building out our sales team over the last year. So we have about three account executives right now. It’s been really effective and we obviously use tutorials ourselves, got to practice what we preach and all of our outreach.

Joey Kline: [00:10:31] Well, and I imagine that it helps you sell. Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely, right. It’s, you know, they’re sort of. They’re buying the experience. So do you have any stats in terms of, you know, comparing what’s say after six months, what a marketing department was doing before to after using trial? You know, whatever it is, how many more qualified leads they send to sales, how many more deals close. Are there any metrics like that that exist?

Jason Graub: [00:10:58] Yes, I’d say the leading to metrics that we really focus on are the volume and the quality of those top of funnel leads. So when someone implements a trial, if they have their data tracking set up pretty well, they’ll see typically between a two to three x increase in the total volume of leads. Not only that, but it’s a little harder to quantify quality. But overall, our customers will also see that the quality of those leads is a lot higher because those buyers have evaluated the different tools already, they’ve already kind of gotten a feel for it so they can disqualify themselves earlier in the process.

Joey Kline: [00:11:30] Ok, less people who sort of fall through the cracks and proved to just not be serious buyers.

Jason Graub: [00:11:34] Yeah, it’s kind of like all of us have been on a sales call and we realize halfway through the sales call that we’re not really interested or not qualified, right? How do you avoid this?

Joey Kline: [00:11:41] Let’s take the call. Yeah. So in looking at a trial, it’s clear that there’s an art to it, right? There is a design esthetic to it to make it visually appealing, as well as intellectually appealing. So when when you are working with VP of marketing for Company X and they actually end up becoming a customer of yours, is it intuitive for them to set up trial? Do you have consultants and guides who sort of help them design it? How does that work?

Jason Graub: [00:12:10] Yeah. So there’s kind of three elements to when you actually would, you know, let’s say you sign a contract with trial to having these tours live and using them in your website. The first element is the builder, so that’s actually building the actual toilet experience. That’s all. No code, so a marketer can do that themselves. They don’t necessarily need a designer or design experience to do that. Then there’s actually putting it on the website. So that sometimes takes a little more technical experience. We do have a pretty easy embed code, so you can put it in an iframe, which most web designers or marketers are familiar with. And I think the last and most important component that we’re really starting to focus on now, which is all of the engagement activity that you can understand that where people are doing what they go through a tutorial. So imagine you want to understand what John Doe does. They actually go through a drawing your website and then they submit a lead. You’re going to want to make sure that the sales team understands that John Doe went through that tutorial and what he did because that might, you know, build a much stronger sales relationship if you know what they’re interested in before the call ever happens.

Joey Kline: [00:13:05] Sure, it’s you have to do a little bit less discovery. Exactly. Ok. And I think that you all recently released an integration with HubSpot, right? We did. Ok, so tell us a little bit more about that.

Jason Graub: [00:13:15] Yeah. So that’s right along the lines of that engagement activity. So it’s the first integration we released like this, but it basically allows anyone who uses HubSpot as their marketing automation platform to basically add toil to their website under their subdomain. And when they do that, as long as the company knows who that person is, whether it’s through a lead form tutorial or whether it’s through a lead from through their own website, they would have all of the data of what happens in that trial. So that’s the amount of time they spent. What did they click on? Did they finish it? All of that activity will actually log into their HubSpot account for their marketing and sales teams to use.

Joey Kline: [00:13:49] Do you think that this sort of technology could be applied to something that isn’t a piece of technology, software or hardware, maybe more of a a service or an experience provider?

Jason Graub: [00:14:02] Oh yeah. Early on, I would say we got pulled in a lot of different directions of people wanting to use tutorial for all different types of tools. I think one of the more interesting was it’s like real estate listings. So imagine being able to create a tutorial of an actual property. Yeah, and just taking pictures, and you kind of have tool tips and hot spots that kind of walk through the different elements of the property. So we definitely have people that have gotten pretty creative. But our bread and butter is definitely still focusing on technology companies.

Joey Kline: [00:14:28] Ok. That’s right. It’s look, obviously at this point in your growth, you got to you got to focus. Yeah, yeah. And of course, as a commercial real estate guy, that’s, you know, sort of was in my head. That would be very interesting, although I imagine that, you know, maybe those brokers out there who represent the landlords, you know, maybe want to be able to do that in person. Yeah. Ok. So so let’s talk a little bit about you. Ok, how did you get to Atlanta? How did you start to trail? What is your entrepreneurial journey?

Jason Graub: [00:14:58] Yeah. So I actually started my career up in Philadelphia, which is where I’m from. I spent my first four or five years in public accounting. Very different. Then software and startup world. So I’m actually was a CPA, realized pretty early on that I didn’t want to be an auditor for my whole life and started my first company actually out of that. So it was called game plan, which was kind of like a collaborative version of Yelp. But that was really the start of my startup journey, and I would say that I learned a lot from that failure and kind of going through that process of learning what not to do. And the biggest thing the biggest component of game plan was it actually introduced me to the founders of Gather Technologies, which was a software company based down here in Atlanta, Georgia. So I met those founders, and when it was time to move on from game plan, they actually created a role for me to gather to run the marketplace arm of their business. So I was actually managing partnerships with Yelp Open Table. And I was actually the GM of an internal marketplace they owned called Event Up, and that was where I met my co-founder, Andy. So Andy was on the marketing team. I was running the marketplace side of the business. So both kind of in marketing, in some form, within within gather. And that gave us the opportunity to build that friendship, build that trust. And then when Andy kind of had the light bulb moment for tutorial, he brought me along about six months later as a co-founder.

Joey Kline: [00:16:11] Ok? So yeah, it’s just, you know, we all have these moments and things where we just never know where something’s going to lead us. I’m curious about your your background, right? You go from CPA, which is typically a very predictable, rote tasks. And and look, my wife is a CPA and you know, we have a very good balance in our family. You know, she is the risk averse one and I am the risk embracing one. It works very well. So do you think that you have somewhat of a risk averse personality and you kind of pushed yourself to get past that to become an entrepreneur or had you always has always had this in you and whatever anyone wants to glean from you, being a CPA doesn’t really have anything to do with your risk profile.

Jason Graub: [00:16:59] I would say it was. I always had this in me. I think during college is when I started to really explore entrepreneurship, but by the time I got more into it, I also had that job offer from KPMG and I was ready to, you know, have a secure job offer and kind of been that risk averse side of me. But I think early on, it took me about six months to a year to realize that that wasn’t really for me. It wasn’t exciting enough and it was I wanted more of a challenge where I could really kind of build something that was my own.

Joey Kline: [00:17:23] Yeah, yeah. I think if you have that in you, it is. It’s impossible to turn off and your biggest regret in life generally becomes if you don’t scratch that itch and you wake up several decades later and you know, you wonder about what could have been. Oh yeah. Yes, it is. It is very. It is not only very helpful to know what you want to do, but I think even more helpful to realize very quickly what you don’t want to do with your life, right? Ok, so you met you met your co-founder at Gather. And did it take much convincing or the second that he kind of showed this to you were like, Yeah, that’s that’s awesome.

Jason Graub: [00:17:58] I would say didn’t take me as much convincing as it took my wife. I think that first failure was hard, but I learned a lot from it. So it definitely took a lot to kind of take that leap back into entrepreneurship, especially because it was right around the time that the pandemic hit. So it was definitely a big decision to move forward. But I think when I talk to customers, when I talk to people about what Tokyo was and I saw the excitement, I knew there was something there and it was something that I really wanted to explore.

Joey Kline: [00:18:24] Yeah, sometimes you just got to say, screw it and, you know, go for it. Yeah, that’s great. And so do you. You you obviously have many moments where you say to your wife, I told you so right, because that’s a totally healthy thing for a husband to do.

Jason Graub: [00:18:35] Yeah, I would say you definitely have to bite my lip on that one.

Joey Kline: [00:18:38] Yeah. Yeah, OK. So, you know, I alluded earlier as to how I think marketing and sales change so quickly. And I am. Well, look, you probably have opinions on the future of marketing, sales and Torrijos place in that world. But I’m curious if there are any, you know, besides how Toradol is going to be fantastic and make marketing and sales, you know, even more effective. What are your thoughts on where marketing is going, where sales are going and what the challenges are that lie ahead in the next five years, folks who run those verticals?

Jason Graub: [00:19:13] Yeah, I think the transition is more towards. I think product lead is a very buzzy term right now and the marketing and sales world of getting people to experience the product earlier. But I think it’s really all about the buyer. And I think the farther we go over the next five years, it’s going to become more about the buyer and what they want, what they’re looking for and understanding that as early as possible. So Tawil are many other tools that are also working on this think give have to entrust radius, which are two marketplaces that collect that social proof the reviews from customers. If you combine things like that with a total editorial, you can really kind of build a full picture of what someone cares about and better understand. Companies can better understand to be aligned with their potential buyers based off of that.

Joey Kline: [00:19:57] Was it ever not about the buyer?

Jason Graub: [00:20:00] I think the the company had the leverage. So if you think about historically, you had to. Call a number, you buy something, right, so the company you really still had all of the leverage, the more digital we’ve become, where people can buy things themselves, online companies are losing that leverage. The more they lose that, the more they’re going to have to kind of adapt to the buyer.

Joey Kline: [00:20:19] Ok. I can understand that right buyers have more information than they ever have before they go into the sale knowing more than they ever did before. And so the role of the salesperson changes. So for for people who are getting into a sales career, it’s it’s very different than if you did it. Frankly, I think even 10 years ago, let alone 20 or 30, right? So what are the skills that people who are coming up in sales have to have? They didn’t maybe a decade ago.

Jason Graub: [00:20:48] I don’t think the scales have changed all that much. I think you’re still focusing on the problems of the buyer, right? I think that is going to still be core to sales. I think the way you think about sales where you’re running this really long multi demo type of sales cycle is definitely changing. I think a sales assisted buyer process is something we’re seeing a lot more of where, you know, they may actually be in the product, they experience the product and at certain milestones, that’s when sales gets involved and says, Hey, I saw you did this in the product. Maybe it’s time to have a conversation and see how you can take advantage of our of our software more, more in depth.

Joey Kline: [00:21:23] And I would imagine. Ok, so you probably have a set of salespeople that is lower on the totem pole that doesn’t like this because their value was providing information. Ok. And now, of course, that information can be, you know, gleaned online. There’s probably another higher level of salesperson that likes this shift because they can focus their focus, their time on those higher value activities.

Jason Graub: [00:21:50] Yeah, I would say the a good salesperson doesn’t really get scared by trial because they know where their real value is, which is not just kind of walking through a vanilla demo of the of the of the product.

Joey Kline: [00:22:01] Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. That’s that’s probably not a not a path to job security. Yeah, OK. So Toriola recently raised a round of funding, which is very exciting news. And what are your plans for the next 12 to 18 months in the growth of the company?

Jason Graub: [00:22:18] Yes. We just recently raised our seed round, which was led by Bonfire Ventures. They’re actually based out in Los Angeles. They really kind of aligned with our vision for where we want to take the company, which is this is not about just being super super product led. It’s about building something that that address to this trend that we’re seeing, like we just talked about this paradigm that we’re seeing where it’s all about the buyer. And if you can address the needs of the buyer earlier in the sales process, earlier in the marketing funnel, you’re going to have more success. That’s really the hypothesis as we start to build the business and scale the team, especially yeah. And focusing on the product roadmap that is going to really build those features that our buyers are going to want.

Joey Kline: [00:22:58] Ok, so so let’s talk about the fundraising process. I remember when I was having these conversations even just five years ago, most funds were being raised from the West Coast or the Northeast. Now, obviously, you just described a process that was led in on the West Coast, but more and more in Atlanta. There have been enough an infusion of capital, enough successful exits that I find people, you know, I feel like more than at least more than half the time, you know, someone’s got a seed round that’s led by an Atlanta based investor. So I am curious what was there a specific reason for looking outside of Atlanta? Did it just happened that way? What was that process like?

Jason Graub: [00:23:37] Yeah. So we actually raised a smaller pre-seed round about a year earlier, which was led by Nole Ventures, who is local here in Atlanta. You know, we had we really are fond of the Atlanta VC community. I think the biggest thing was we wanted to talk to as many voices as possible that would align with our vision and really understand the problem that we were solving. So we now I think I talked to about 40 different VCs over the course of a couple of months. The biggest thing with Bonfire is they got it. It wasn’t even really a pitch. It was really a conversation about the problem and understanding, like our vision for where we want to take things. The company

Joey Kline: [00:24:10] Yeah, it’s they sounds like they just felt like partners as opposed to, you know, someone who just wrote you a

Jason Graub: [00:24:15] Check. Exactly.

Joey Kline: [00:24:16] Yeah. Yeah, that’s very cool. So this is, I guess, this is your second time in the CEO seat. You know, first with your own, you know, your first venture back in Philadelphia and now with Torrio. What? And of course, in between there you you know, you work for someone else, right? You know, certainly still, you know, a growing company, but you worked for someone else. So what have you taken from all those different experiences into your leadership role now? And how does it change as you kind of go to this next phase of the company’s growth?

Jason Graub: [00:24:48] Yeah. And I would say it even starts earlier than that at KPMG. I think about the all of the things that I learned at KPMG just to be a professional and really communication skills. As I think about the startup journey, you know, game plan was really learning at the earliest stage what to be looking for in terms of how do you get to product market fit. So I think that was the failure at game plan was we never really were solving a true problem and that made it really hard to grow as a business. You know, as we moved to gather obviously a different stage of a business, it was private equity backed at about one hundred employees. So I really got to see a full software company in every different component of that business. So I could see a full engineering team. What a marketing team a sales team looked like. Get a full feel for how those teams operate, the processes that go into all of that. So that gave me a feel for OK. Pictorials. Not there just yet, but kind of where we’re moving towards. And then obviously, I think over the last couple of years editorial solving. Invalidating those biggest pain points from those previous experiences I had.

Joey Kline: [00:25:52] Yeah. Ok, so someone actually asked me this at dinner the other night, and I thought this was a great question that no one has ever asked me What is the most? What piece of your job has been the most surprising to you or would be the most surprising to someone else that you have to do on a day to day basis?

Jason Graub: [00:26:12] Yeah, I think I think it’s all about the people when you get past about 10 to 15 people, employees on the team. And I think the CEO role, you know, that’s very glamorized. But I think it’s really about thinking about how you build the right team, the right culture, and it’s easy to say that. But it’s another thing to go out and actually do that and to bring really great quality talent onto a team.

Joey Kline: [00:26:34] Yeah. Ok. So so that being said, what is the culture that you’re looking to foster? Who who are the type of people that help to realize that vision?

Jason Graub: [00:26:46] I think at this stage, the biggest thing that we look for people that are self starters, it’s really hard to train at the earliest stages of people that, you know, you know, maybe someone who’s straight out of college that doesn’t have that professional experience yet. So we really need employees that can understand what they’re doing, be self starters, kind of carry a bag and really kind of run with things. You know, we can set the vision as founders and leaders, but it’s really about empowering everyone on the team so that they know what they’re doing and they don’t have to rely on us all the time.

Joey Kline: [00:27:17] How do you try and suss that out in an interview process?

Jason Graub: [00:27:21] Yeah, it’s really about asking the right questions that get at not necessarily technical skills. So I think when you think about a typical interview, it’s really focusing on hard skills that they may have, but it’s asking questions about, you know, an experience they had where they kind of went above and beyond, or they helped out someone else who wasn’t necessarily on their team questions that get at the really the grit and their personality and how they think about working as part of a team, especially at this early stage when things are changing and evolving really, really rapidly.

Joey Kline: [00:27:49] Ok. Are there any interesting books that you’ve read recently that you think have been helpful in your journey, either as an executive or as a co-founder?

Jason Graub: [00:27:59] I just read death to meetings, which is very was very, very helpful. I think, you know, as a company, you start to realize after you’re at, you know, you kind of pass that five to eight person stage where everyone is really aligned and you can kind of just talk generally, you know, whether it’s through slack or email and you get to a certain point where you start to rely on meetings too much. So reading that book really allowed me to understand, where do we need meetings? But really, where can you also then rely on a certain asynchronous communication to keep everyone aligned on the team?

Joey Kline: [00:28:28] Ok, so so is most of your time right now. Spend on hiring? Is it spent on strategy? What are you doing with your day?

Jason Graub: [00:28:35] All the above. Yeah, yeah. We’re growing pretty quickly. So hiring is definitely a top priority strategy and understanding with the product talking with our customers. So I’m still pretty involved in the day to day of the business as we bring more leaders on the team that’s getting less and less so. So it’s also more important that I work with our leaders, coach them up so they can also understand what you know, what’s going to be expected and understand that

Joey Kline: [00:28:57] Vision and how have you found the the talent atmosphere right now? I feel like most of the technology companies I talk to, they’re having a hard time with technical talent. Maybe not so much sales and marketing talent, but it just seems like it’s extremely competitive out there.

Jason Graub: [00:29:15] Yeah, I would say it’s really hard across the board. Yeah, technical talent and marketing and sales. It’s really challenging to find really competent individuals and especially you have prior experience in software. I think that’s the biggest thing. Software companies definitely operate a little different and a more traditional company, so it’s hiring people that can understand that coming in makes it a lot easier for them to ramp really quickly.

Joey Kline: [00:29:40] Is this an issue of because unemployment is so low, right? So is it just that, OK, you hear about people who are quitting their jobs and moving on? But is it that at the level of employee you’re looking for that they have moved on to someone who’s made them, you know, just a large company that’s made them an incredible salary offer that cannot be matched by early stage company? What what is the reason that it’s so hard to find people right now, especially in a place like Atlanta?

Jason Graub: [00:30:06] Yeah, I think there’s there’s a lot of money out there for one. So there’s a lot of investments being made in the software space. So a lot of companies that have a lot of capital that they can invest in employees, that’s what’s one part of it. But the technology sector is also growing so quickly that the employment base can’t catch up to it. So if you think about experienced individuals that you know, Salesforce are desired by all 50 other companies that may be local here that are going after that same talent. So the the the the movement, this entire industry is growing so quickly that you can’t build the experience behind it. And I think that’s

Joey Kline: [00:30:41] Making it harder. Right. It’s like you can’t graduate them from Georgia Tech quick enough. Exactly. Yeah, no. Look, it is amazing. It’s like, you know, I got. Term sheet in my inbox every morning, and you just look at not only the volume of companies every day that are announced, they’re being funded, but the sum of money they’re getting. And yeah, you wonder, who do all these companies really have something amazing to offer to the marketplace? And then to your point, where all the people who are going to work at this company come from? That that is a good point. So if someone is listening to this and this has sparked their interest, how do they get in touch with you? How do they get in touch with toil to find out more about what you do see?

Jason Graub: [00:31:23] Go to TerraCom. It’s definitely the easiest way to take that tour right on our website. You can sign up for our call with our sales team if you want. So it’s we make it super easy. It usually takes. You could take one sales call and you could be on board on editorial this week.

Joey Kline: [00:31:36] Very cool. Ok, everyone. And again it is spelled t o u r i jl. Jason, thanks a lot for coming on.

Jason Graub: [00:31:43] Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Joey Kline: [00:31:44] Sure thing.